Reflections on Esaias Stiefel's Booklet: On the Threefold State of Man and His New Birth

spoke: He who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs in elsewhere, is a thief and a murderer, and has only come to rob and steal, and the sheep do not follow him, for they do not know his voice; he is only a hireling to whom the sheep do not belong. He seeks only the wool.

99. If one wants to be a shepherd of Christ's sheep, he must not be a stranger, but must be born out of Christ; he must be in Christ so that he has Christ's voice within him; otherwise, he cannot graze Christ's sheep on green pastures. What use is a wolf metaphor for a false teacher or predator in the sheepfold who only intends to rob? He only devastates the sheepfold. Why then does a stranger push himself in as a shepherd, who is not called by the arch-shepherd Christ? What then does he teach but the spirit of this world in man, which is already in him?

100. If he wants to ring the inner bell enclosed in death, he must have the very same clapper that breaks death so that the dead bell may ring. For the Divine sound was enclosed in death in Adam the primal man. If one now wants to awaken the same, he must have the same sound living within himself; he must speak out of Christ's spirit and voice, or his teaching is only shadow-boxing original: "Spiegel-fechten" before a dead thing, and he is only a belly-servant original: "Bauch-diener"; one who serves for gain/sustenance out of habit, and of no use to the temple of Christ, for he is not within it himself. How then will he lead others inside?

101. The Holy Spirit does not mix with the voice of the godless; the word of the godless is not the word of God. Therefore, preaching from art is a vain deception. Art is born from the stars referring to astrological influences in alchemical/mystical thought and awakens no one who lies enclosed in death; it must be a true hammer that wishes to ring the dead bell.

102. And it is deeply to be lamented that people thus boast with mouth-apes a German idiom for those who mimic words without understanding and honor them as gods, also want to be good Christians, and name themselves after a wolf, still fight and quarrel over him, and often devastate their land and people and ruin their body and soul for the sake of a wolf.

103. O you worthy Christendom, in blindness, be seeing; how are you blinded! You let yourself be rung to with bells before your ears so that you may only fall asleep nicely and safely in the evil flesh, in the sleep of Adam primal humanity, in the world of sin, with the devil.