Preface.

abhorrence change; namely, just as God is joy and delight itself: So also has He placed man, created in His own image, into the Garden of Eden—that is, into pleasureoriginal Greek: ἡδονὴν (hedonēn); meaning delight or enjoyment or delight—which he might enjoy through the right use and administrationoriginal: Administrirung; the management or stewardship of resources of His gifts. In contrast, however, He also ordained for him a vexation, which should be awakened upon the unlawful use of the bestowed gifts. Thus, he might be enticed toward good use through delight, and conversely, deterred from evil through vexation.

To set this more clearly before your eyes, kind reader, know this: God created two kinds of things; namely, those that delight man on the one hand, and on the other, those that may grieve or burden him. The former were immediately set into the light—that is, into their operationoriginal: Würckung; the active force or effect of a substance or spirit—but the latter were ordained into the abyssoriginal Latin: abyssum; the deep, the void, or the hidden depths or beneath the former, and do not emerge, except only