The Household of God
Volume 1
The early history of mankind
- Chapter 84 -
ADAM'S WISE WORD TO SETH
When Seth and all the others had heard Enoch's speech, Seth once more rose and began to speak, as follows:
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"Oh how true it is, how very true, what the Lord has proclaimed through you, dear Enoch, especially to me who most of all needs such a reproof.
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"O father Adam and all you children, do thank the Lord on my behalf, for I am too bad to dare offer impure thanks to the Lord of all life and all love with the tongue which has defiled the Lord's holy Word.
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"Let now Asmahael preach to me, for I am no longer worthy of hearing Enoch's word.
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"Even Asmahael's word is too holy for a dead one. Let the beast preach to me so that through its terrible voice I might be awakened from death to life.
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"O father Adam, do not call me your son any longer; for you are out of God, whereas I am out of the fullness of recalcitrance. Behold, I want to be just your servant, a servant to all of you and serve you like a slave from the lowlands, mute as a stone, in order thereby to make amends to the Lord for having thrown myself into the darkness whilst the Lord has poured out so much light around me in word and deed.
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"You worthy ones, thank the Lord on my behalf, on behalf of the poor, weak and dead Seth! Amen."
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Then Adam rose and spoke a brief wise word to Seth, and this word healed the sick man so that he once more became full of love and trust towards Me and kept praising My name.
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And these were Adam's words: "Seth, Seth, you are taking too much upon yourself which you were not bidden by the Lord! Behold, when the Lord tempts you and you become even weaker than you are now and fall in your weakness, tell me, who will then help you up again?
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"Maybe God, to Whom you foolishly wanted to make amends, when He is so infinitely and exceedingly holy whereas you are only finite dust of the earth before Him?
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"Who can ever make amends to God? Who can, pure and without fault, pray to Him and spinelessly thank, glorify and praise Him and with an unblemished soul call Him Father, like a child?
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"What do we possess that we have not first received from Him? What can we give Him that He has not first given us, and what can we do that He has not done already long ago?
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"Therefore, do not make an unnecessary commandment for yourself, but observe only the one, namely, that you love Him more and more in all humility of your spirit, and all the brothers and me ten times more than yourself. Everything else leave to the Lord. He knows best what burden you are capable of bearing.
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"If you find it already difficult to fulfill the one commandment in practice, how will you then manage with so many?
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"Do you not know that on every law hang a curse, sin, judgment and death?
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Therefore, beware of all such commandments if you want to live. It is easier to give laws than to obey them.
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'What is actually more: To be free in the love through love, or under the hard yoke of obedience to pine for the freedom of love, which is difficult to attain, and will forever be so, where the longing heart will have to bleed under the hard blows of temptation?
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"Behold the children of the evening, how they have been ruined through only an easy commandment, and how difficult it will be to help them if maybe their hearts are hardened by the too long-lasting pressure!
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"But we will always thank the Lord and praise His name for giving us a free heart for a free love. And we will also keep praying to Him to save us from any commandment so that we might as free children live wholly for His eternal love.
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O Seth, the time will come when our later children will be living under mountains of laws and long for freedom in vain, like a heated stone deep in the earth. And their brothers will confine those who find it hard to obey in holes of stone and deprive them of all freedom. Then there will be as many sins as there is sand in the sea and grass on the earth.
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"So desist from your folly and do whatever you can and what is pleasing to the Lord. Everything else leave to the Lord, and you shall live! Amen.
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"Receive my blessing and walk once more free and righteous before God, before me and all our children! Amen."