initial commit of ebook 16306HEADmain

1 files changed, 1401 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/16306.txt b/16306.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3963124
--- /dev/null
+++ b/16306.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,1401 @@
+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Jacob Behmen, by Alexander Whyte
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Jacob Behmen
+       an appreciation
+
+
+Author: Alexander Whyte
+
+
+
+Release Date: July 16, 2005  [eBook #16306]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JACOB BEHMEN***
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcribed from the 1895 Oliphant Anderson & Ferrier edition by David
+Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
+
+
+
+
+
+Jacob Behmen
+an Appreciation
+by Alexander Whyte
+
+
+author of 'Characters and Characteristics of William Law' etc.
+
+Oliphant Anderson & Ferrier
+30 St. Mary Street, Edinburgh, and
+24 Old Bailey, London
+1895
+
+This lecture was delivered at the opening of my Classes for the study of
+the pre-Reformation, Reformation, and post-Reformation Mystics during
+Session 1894-5.  A Lecture on WILLIAM LAW was delivered at the opening of
+a former Session as an Introduction to the whole subject of Mysticism.
+
+A. W.
+
+ST. GEORGE'S FREE CHURCH,
+5_th November_ 1894.
+
+
+
+
+Jacob Behmen
+
+
+Jacob Behmen, the greatest of the mystics, and the father of German
+philosophy, was all his life nothing better than a working shoemaker.  He
+was born at Old Seidenberg, a village near Goerlitz in Silesia, in the
+year 1575, and he died at Goerlitz in the year 1624.  Jacob Behmen has no
+biography.  Jacob Behmen's books are his best biography.  While working
+with his hands, Jacob Behmen's whole life was spent in the deepest and
+the most original thought; in piercing visions of GOD and of nature; in
+prayer, in praise, and in love to GOD and man.  Of Jacob Behmen it may be
+said with the utmost truth and soberness that he lived and moved and had
+his being in GOD.  Jacob Behmen has no biography because his whole life
+was hid with CHRIST in GOD.
+
+* * * * *
+
+While we have nothing that can properly be called a biography of Jacob
+Behmen, we have ample amends made to us in those priceless morsels of
+autobiography that lie scattered so plentifully up and down all his
+books.  And nothing could be more charming than just those incidental and
+unstudied utterances of Behmen about himself.  Into the very depths of a
+passage of the profoundest speculation Behmen will all of a sudden throw
+a few verses of the most childlike and heart-winning confidences about
+his own mental history and his own spiritual experience.  And thus it is
+that, without at all intending it, Behmen has left behind him a complete
+history of his great mind and his holy heart in those outbursts of
+diffidence, deprecation, explanation, and self-defence, of which his
+philosophical and theological, as well as his apologetic and
+experimental, books are all so full.  It were an immense service done to
+our best literature if some of Behmen's students would go through all
+Behmen's books, so as to make a complete collection and composition of
+the best of those autobiographic passages.  Such a book, if it were well
+done, would at once take rank with _The Confessions_ of ST. AUGUSTINE,
+_The Divine Comedy_ of DANTE, and the _Grace Abounding_ of JOHN BUNYAN.
+It would then be seen by all, what few, till then, will believe, that
+Jacob Behmen's mind and heart and spiritual experience all combine to
+give him a foremost place among the most classical masters in that great
+field.
+
+In the nineteenth chapter of the _Aurora_ there occurs a very important
+passage of this autobiographic nature.  In that famous passage Behmen
+tells his readers that when his eyes first began to be opened, the sight
+of this world completely overwhelmed him.  ASAPH'S experiences, so
+powerfully set before us in the seventy-third Psalm, will best convey, to
+those who do not know Behmen, what Behmen also passed through before he
+drew near to GOD.  Like that so thoughtful Psalmist, Behmen's steps had
+well-nigh slipped when he saw the prosperity of the wicked, and when he
+saw how waters of a full cup were so often wrung out to the people of
+GOD.  The mystery of life, the sin and misery of life, cast Behmen into a
+deep and inconsolable melancholy.  No Scripture could comfort him.  His
+thoughts of GOD were such that he will not allow himself, even after they
+are long past, to put them down on paper.  In this terrible trouble he
+lifted up his heart to GOD, little knowing, as yet, what GOD was, or what
+his own heart was.  Only, he wrapped up his whole heart, and mind, and
+will, and desire in the love and the mercy of GOD: determined not to give
+over till GOD had heard him and had helped him.  'And then, when I had
+wholly hazarded my life upon what I was doing, my whole spirit seemed to
+me suddenly to break through the gates of hell, and to be taken up into
+the arms and the heart of GOD.  I can compare it to nothing else but the
+resurrection at the last day.  For then, with all reverence I say it,
+with the eyes of my spirit I saw GOD.  I saw both what GOD is, and I saw
+how GOD is what He is.  And with that there came a mighty and an
+incontrollable impulse to set it down, so as to preserve what I had seen.
+Some men will mock me, and will tell me to stick to my proper trade, and
+not trouble my mind with philosophy and theology.  Let these high matters
+alone.  Leave them to those who have both the time and the talent for
+them, they will say.  So I have often said to myself, but the truth of
+GOD did burn in my bones till I took pen and ink and began to set down
+what I had seen.  All this time do not mistake me for a saint or an
+angel.  My heart also is full of all evil.  In malice, and in hatred, and
+in lack of brotherly love, after all I have seen and experienced, I am
+like all other men.  I am surely the fullest of all men of all manner of
+infirmity and malignity.'  Behmen protests in every book of his that what
+he has written he has received immediately from GOD.  'Let it never be
+imagined that I am any greater or any better than other men.  When the
+Spirit of GOD is taken away from me I cannot even read so as to
+understand what I have myself written.  I have every day to wrestle with
+the devil and with my own heart, no man in all the world more.  Oh no!
+thou must not for one moment think of me as if I had by my own power or
+holiness climbed up into heaven or descended into the abyss.  Oh no! hear
+me.  I am as thou art.  I have no more light than thou hast.  Let no man
+think of me what I am not.  But what I am all men may be who will truly
+believe, and will truly wrestle for truth and goodness under JESUS
+CHRIST.  I marvel every day that GOD should reveal both the Divine Nature
+and Temporal and Eternal Nature for the first time to such a simple and
+unlearned man as I am.  But what am I to resist what GOD will do?  What
+am I to say but, Behold the son of thine handmaiden!  I have often
+besought Him to take these too high and too deep matters away from off
+me, and to commit them to men of more learning and of a better style of
+speech.  But He always put my prayer away from Him and continued to
+kindle His fire in my bones.  And with all my striving to quench GOD'S
+spirit of revelation, I found that I had only by that gathered the more
+stones for the house that He had ordained me to build for Him and for His
+children in this world.'
+
+Jacob Behmen's first book, his _Aurora_, was not a book at all, but a
+bundle of loose leaves.  Nothing was further from Behmen's mind, when he
+took up his pen of an evening, than to make a book.  He took up his pen
+after his day's work was over in order to preserve for his own memory and
+use in after days the revelations that had been made to him, and the
+experiences and exercises through which GOD had passed him.  And,
+besides, Jacob Behmen could not have written a book even if he had tried
+it.  He was a total stranger to the world of books; and then, over and
+above that, he had been taken up into a world of things into which no
+book ever written as yet had dared to enter.  Again, and again, and
+again, till it came to fill his whole life, Behmen would be sitting over
+his work, or walking abroad under the stars, or worshipping in his pew in
+the parish church, when, like the captive prophet by the river of Chebar,
+he would be caught up by the hair of the head and carried away into the
+visions of GOD to behold the glory of GOD.  And then, when he came to
+himself, there would arise within him a 'fiery instigation' to set down
+for a 'memorial' what he had again seen and heard.  'The gate of the
+Divine Mystery was sometimes so opened to me that in one quarter of an
+hour I saw and knew more than if I had been many years together at a
+university.  At which I did exceedingly admire, and, though it passed my
+understanding how it happened, I thereupon turned my heart to GOD to
+praise Him for it.  For I saw and knew the Being of all Beings; the Byss
+and the Abyss; as, also, the Generation of the Son and the Procession of
+the Spirit.  I saw the descent and original of this world also, and of
+all its creatures.  I saw in their order and outcome the Divine world,
+the angelical world, paradise, and then this fallen and dark world of our
+own.  I saw the beginning of the good and the evil, and the true origin
+and existence of each of them.  All of which did not only cause me great
+wonder but also a great joy and a great fear.  And then it came with
+commanding power into my mind that I must set down the same in pen and
+ink for a memorial to myself; albeit, I could hardly contain or express
+what I had seen.  For twelve years this went on in me.  Sometimes the
+truth would hit me like a sudden smiting storm of rain; and then there
+would be the clear sunshine after the rain.  All which was to teach me
+that GOD will manifest Himself in the soul of man after what manner and
+what measure it pleases Him and as it seems good in His sight.'
+
+No human being knew all this time what Jacob Behmen was passing through,
+and he never intended that any human being should know.  But, with all
+his humility, and all his love of obscurity, he could not remain hidden.
+Just how it came about we are not fully told; but, long before his book
+was finished, a nobleman in the neighbourhood, who was deeply interested
+in the philosophy and the theology of that day, somehow got hold of
+Behmen's papers and had them copied out and spread abroad, to Behmen's
+great surprise and great distress.  Copy after copy was stealthily made
+of Behmen's manuscript, till, most unfortunately for both of them, a copy
+came into the hands of Behmen's parish minister.  But for that accident,
+so to call it, we would never have heard the name of GREGORY RICHTER,
+First Minister of Goerlitz, nor could we have believed that any minister
+of JESUS CHRIST could have gone so absolutely mad with ignorance and envy
+and anger and ill-will.  The libel is still preserved that Behmen's
+minister drew out against the author of _Aurora_, and the only thing it
+proves to us is this, that its author must have been a dull-headed,
+coarse-hearted, foul-mouthed man.  Richter's persecution of poor Behmen
+caused Behmen lifelong trouble; but, at the same time, it served to
+advertise his genius to his generation, and to manifest to all men the
+meekness, the humility, the docility, and the love of peace of the
+persecuted man.  'Pastor-Primarius Richter,' says a bishop of his own
+communion, 'was a man full of hierarchical arrogance and pride.  He had
+only the most outward apprehension of the dogmatics of his day, and he
+was totally incapable of understanding Jacob Behmen.'  But it is not for
+the limitations of his understanding that Pastor Richter stands before us
+so laden with blame.  The school is a small one still that, after two
+centuries of study and prayer and a holy life, can pretend to understand
+the whole of the _Aurora_.  WILLIAM LAW, a man of the best understanding,
+and of the humblest heart, tells us that his first reading of Behmen put
+him into a 'perfect sweat' of astonishment and awe.  No wonder, then,
+that a man of Gregory Richter's narrow mind and hard heart was thrown
+into such a sweat of prejudice and anger and ill-will.
+
+I do not propose to take you down into the deep places where Jacob Behmen
+dwells and works.  And that for a very good reason.  For I have found no
+firm footing in those deep places for my own feet.  I wade in and in to
+the utmost of my ability, and still there rise up above me, and stretch
+out around me, and sink down beneath me, vast reaches of revelation and
+speculation, attainment and experience, before which I can only wonder
+and worship.  See Jacob Behmen working with his hands in his solitary
+stall, when he is suddenly caught up into heaven till he beholds in
+enraptured vision The Most High Himself.  And then, after that, see him
+swept down to hell, down to sin, and down into the bottomless pit of the
+human heart.  Jacob Behmen, almost more than any other man whatsoever, is
+carried up till he moves like a holy angel or a glorified saint among
+things unseen and eternal.  Jacob Behmen is of the race of the seers, and
+he stands out a very prince among them.  He is full of eyes, and all his
+eyes are full of light.  It does not stagger me to hear his disciples
+calling him, as HEGEL does, 'a man of a mighty mind,' or, as LAW does,
+'the illuminated Behmen,' and 'the blessed Behmen.'  'In speculative
+power,' says dry DR. KURTZ, 'and in poetic wealth, exhibited with epic
+and dramatic effect, Behmen's system surpasses everything of the kind
+ever written.'  Some of his disciples have the hardihood to affirm indeed
+that even ISAAC NEWTON ploughed with Behmen's heifer, but had not the
+boldness to acknowledge the debt.  I entirely accept it when his
+disciples assert it of their master that he had a privilege and a
+passport permitted him such as no mortal man has had the like since
+JOHN'S eyes closed upon his completed Apocalypse.  After repeated and
+prolonged reading of Behmen's amazing books, nothing that has been said
+by his most ecstatic disciples about their adored master either
+astonishes or offends me.  Dante himself does not beat such a soaring
+wing as Behmen's; and all the trumpets that sound in _Paradise Lost_ do
+not swell my heart and chase its blood like Jacob Behmen's broken
+syllables about the Fall.  I would not wonder to have it pointed out to
+me in the world to come that all that Gichtel, and St. Martin, and Hegel,
+and Law, and Walton, and Martensen, and Hartmann have said about Jacob
+Behmen and his visions of GOD and Nature and Man were all but literally
+true.  No doubt,--nay, the thing is certain,--that if you open Jacob
+Behmen anywhere as Gregory Richter opened the _Aurora_; if a new idea is
+a pain and a provocation to you; if you have any prejudice in your heart
+for any reason against Behmen; if you dislike the sound of his name
+because some one you dislike has discovered him and praised him, or
+because you do not yourself already know him and love him, then, no
+doubt, you will find plenty in Behmen at which to stumble, and which will
+amply justify you in anything you wish to say against him.  But if you
+are a true student and a good man; if you are an open-minded and a humble-
+minded man; if you are prepared to sit at any man's feet who will engage
+to lead you a single step out of your ignorance and your evil; if you
+open Behmen with a predisposition to believe in him, and with the
+expectation and the determination to get good out of him,--then, in the
+measure of all that; in the measure of your capacity of mind and your
+hospitality of heart; in the measure of your humility, seriousness,
+patience, teachableness, hunger for truth, hunger for righteousness,--in
+that measure you will find Jacob Behmen to be what MAURICE tells us he
+found him to be, 'a generative thinker.'  Out of much you cannot
+understand,--wherever the blame for that may lie,--out of much slag and
+much dross, I am mistaken if you will not lay up some of your finest
+gold; and out of much straw and chaff some of the finest of the wheat.
+The Divine Nature, human nature, time, space, matter, life, love, sin,
+death, holiness, heaven, hell,--Behmen's reader must have lived and moved
+all his days among such things as these: he must be at home, as far as
+the mind of man can be at home, among such things as these, and then he
+will begin to understand Behmen, and will still strive better and better
+to understand him; and, where he does not as yet understand him, he will
+set that down to his own inattention, incapacity, want of due
+preparation, and want of the proper ripeness for such a study.
+
+At the same time let all intending students of Jacob Behmen take warning
+that they will have to learn an absolutely new and an unheard-of language
+if they would speak with Behmen and have Behmen speak with them.  For
+Behmen's books are written neither in German nor in English of any age or
+idiom, but in the most original and uncouth Behmenese.  Like John Bunyan,
+but never with John Bunyan's literary grace, Behmen will borrow, now a
+Latin word or phrase from his reading of learned authors, or, more often,
+from the conversations of his learned friends; and then he will take some
+astrological or alchemical expression of AGRIPPA, or PARACELSUS, or some
+such outlaw, and will, as with his awl and rosin-end, sew together a
+sentence, and hammer together a page of the most incongruous and unheard-
+of phraseology, till, as we read Behmen's earlier work especially, we
+continually exclaim, O for a chapter of John Bunyan's clear, and sweet,
+and classical English!  The _Aurora_ was written in a language, if
+writing and a language it can be called, that had never been seen written
+or heard spoken before, or has since, on the face of the earth.  And as
+our students learn Greek in order to read Homer and Plato and Paul and
+John, and Latin in order to read Virgil and Tacitus, and Italian to read
+Dante, and German to read Goethe, so William Law tells us that he learned
+Behmen's Behmenite High Dutch, and that too after he was an old man, in
+order that he might completely master the _Aurora_ and its kindred books.
+And as our schoolboys laugh and jeer at the outlandish sounds of Greek
+and Latin and German, till they have learned to read and love the great
+authors who have written in those languages, so WESLEY, and SOUTHEY, and
+even HALLAM himself, jest and flout and call names at Jacob Behmen,
+because they have not taken the trouble to learn his language, to master
+his mind, and to drink in his spirit.  At the same time, and after all
+that has been said about Behmen's barbarous style, Bishop Martensen tells
+us how the readers of SCHELLING were surprised and enraptured by a wealth
+of new expressions and new turns of speech in their mother tongue.  But
+all these belonged to Behmen, or were fashioned on the model of his
+symbolical language.  As it is, with all his astrology, and all his
+alchemy, and all his barbarities of form and expression, I for one will
+always take sides with the author of _The Serious Call_, and _The Spirit
+of Prayer_, and _The Spirit of Love_, and _The Way to Divine Knowledge_,
+in the disputed matter of Jacob Behmen's sanity and sanctity; and I will
+continue to believe that if I had only had the scholarship, and the
+intellect, and the patience, and the enterprise, to have mastered,
+through all their intricacies, the Behmenite grammar and the Behmenite
+vocabulary, I also would have found in Behmen all that Freher and Pordage
+and Law and Walton found.  Even in the short way into this great man that
+I have gone, I have come upon such rare and rich mines of divine and
+eternal truth that I can easily believe that they who have dug deeper
+have come upon uncounted riches.  'Next to the Scriptures,' writes
+William Law, 'my only book is the illuminated Behmen.  For the whole
+kingdom of grace and nature was opened in him.  In reading Behmen I am
+always at home, and kept close to the kingdom of GOD that is within me.'
+'I am not young,' said CLAUDE DE ST. MARTIN, 'being now near my fiftieth
+year, nevertheless I have begun to learn German, in order that I may read
+this incomparable author in his own tongue.  I have written some not
+unacceptable books myself, but I am not worthy to unloose the shoestrings
+of this wonderful man.  I advise you to throw yourself into the depths of
+Jacob Behmen.  There is such a profundity and exaltation of truth in
+them, and such a simple and delicious nutriment.'
+
+The Town Council of Goerlitz, hounded on by their Minister, sentenced
+Behmen to be banished, and interdicted him from ever writing any more.
+But in sheer shame at what they had done they immediately recalled Behmen
+from banishment; only, they insisted that he should confine himself to
+his shop, and leave all writing of books alone.  Behmen had no ambition
+to write any more, and, as a matter of fact, he kept silence even to
+himself for seven whole years.  But as those years went on it came to be
+with him, to use his own words, as with so much grain that has been
+buried in the earth, and which, in spite of storms and tempests, will,
+out of its own life, spring up, and that even when reason says it is now
+winter, and that all hope and all power is gone.  And thus it was that,
+under the same instigation which had produced the _Aurora_, Behmen at a
+rush wrote his very fine if very difficult book, _The Three Principles of
+the Divine Essence_.  He calls _The Three Principles_ his A B C, and the
+easiest of all his books.  And William Law recommends all beginners in
+Behmen to read alone for some sufficient time the tenth and twelfth
+chapters of _The Three Principles_.  I shall let Behmen describe the
+contents of his easiest book in his own words.  'In this second book,' he
+says, 'there is declared what GOD is, what Nature is, what the creatures
+are, what the love and meekness of GOD are, what GOD'S will is, what the
+wrath of GOD is, and what joy and sorrow are.  As also, how all things
+took their beginning: with the true difference between eternal and
+transitory creatures.  Specially of man and his soul, what the soul is,
+and how it is an eternal creature.  Also what heaven is, wherein GOD and
+the holy angels and holy men dwell, and hell wherein the devils dwell:
+and how all things were originally created and had their being.  In sum,
+what the Essence of all Essences is.  And thus I commit my reader to the
+sweet love of GOD.'  _The Three Principles_, according to CHRISTOPHER
+WALTON, was the first book of Behmen's that William Law ever held in his
+hand.  That, then, was the title-page, and those were the contents, that
+threw that princely and saintly mind into such a sweat.  It was a great
+day for William Law, and through him it was, and will yet be acknowledged
+to have been, a great day for English theology when he chanced, at an old
+bookstall, upon _The Three Principles_, Englished by a Barrister of the
+Inner Temple.  The picture of that bookstall that day is engraven in
+lines of light and love on the heart of every grateful reader of Jacob
+Behmen and of William Law's later and richer and riper writings.
+
+In three months after he had finished _The Three Principles_, Behmen had
+composed a companion treatise, entitled _The Threefold Life of Man_.
+Modest about himself as Behmen always was, he could not be wholly blind
+about his own incomparable books.  And he but spoke the simple truth
+about his third book when he said of it--as, indeed, he was constantly
+saying about all his books--that it will serve every reader just
+according to his constellation, his inclination, his disposition, his
+complexion, his profession, and his whole condition.  'You will be soon
+weary of all contentious books,' he wrote to CASPER LINDERN, 'if you
+entertain and get _The Threefold Life of Man_ into your mind and heart.'
+'The subject of regeneration,' says Christopher Walton, 'is the pith and
+drift of all Behmen's writings, and the student may here be directed to
+begin his course of study by mastering the first eight chapters of _The
+Threefold Life_, which appear to have been in great favour with Mr. Law.'
+
+Behmen's next book was a very extraordinary piece of work, and it had a
+very extraordinary origin.  A certain BALTHAZAR WALTER, who seems to have
+been a second Paracelsus in his love of knowledge and in his lifelong
+pursuit of knowledge, had, like Paracelsus, travelled east, and west, and
+north, and south in search of that ancient and occult wisdom of which so
+many men in that day dreamed.  But Walter, like his predecessor
+Paracelsus, had come home from his travels a humbler man, a wiser man,
+and a man more ready to learn and lay to heart the truth that some of his
+own countrymen could all the time have taught him.  On his return from
+the east, Walter found the name of Jacob Behmen in everybody's mouth;
+and, on introducing himself to that little shop in Goerlitz out of which
+the _Aurora_ and _The Threefold Life_ had come, Walter was wise enough to
+see and bold enough to confess that he had found a teacher and a friend
+there such as neither Egypt nor India had provided him with.  After many
+immensely interested visits to Jacob Behmen's workshop, Walter was more
+than satisfied that Behmen was all, and more than all, that his most
+devoted admirers had said he was.  And, accordingly, Walter laid a plan
+so as to draw upon Behmen's profound and original mind for a solution of
+some of the philosophical and theological problems that were agitating
+and dividing the learned men of that day.  With that view Walter made a
+round of the leading universities of Germany, conversed with the
+professors and students, collected a long list of the questions that were
+being debated in that day in those seats of learning, and sent the list
+to Behmen, asking him to give his mind to them and try to answer them.
+'Beloved sir,' wrote Behmen, after three months' meditation and prayer,
+'and my good friend: it is impossible for the mind and reason of man to
+answer all the questions you have put to me.  All those things are known
+to GOD alone.  But, that no man may boast, He sometimes makes use of very
+mean men to make known His truth, that it may be seen and acknowledged to
+come from His own hand alone.'  It is told that when Charles the First
+read the English translation of Behmen's answers to the _Forty
+Questions_, he wrote to the publisher that if Jacob Behmen was no
+scholar, then the Holy Ghost was still with men; and, if he was a learned
+man, then his book was one of the best inventions that had ever been
+written.  The _Forty Questions_ ran through many editions both on the
+Continent and in England, and it was this book that gained for Jacob
+Behmen the denomination of the Teutonic Philosopher, a name by which he
+is distinguished among authors to this day.  The following are some of
+the university questions that Balthazar Walter took down and sent to
+Jacob Behmen for his answer: 'What is the soul of man in its innermost
+essence, and how is it created, soul by soul, in the image of GOD?  Is
+the soul propagated from father to son like the body? or is it every time
+new created and breathed in from GOD?  How comes original sin into each
+several soul?  How does the soul of the saint feed and grow upon the word
+of GOD?  Whence comes the deadly contrariety between the flesh and the
+spirit?  Whither goes the soul when it at death departs from the body?  In
+what does its rest, its awakening, and its glorification consist?  What
+kind of body shall the glorified body be?  The soul and spirit of CHRIST,
+what are they? and are they the same as ours?  What and where is
+Paradise?'  Through a hundred and fourteen large quarto pages Behmen's
+astonishing answers to the forty questions run; after which he adds this:
+'Thus, my beloved friend, we have set down, according to our gifts, a
+round answer to your questions, and we exhort you as a brother not to
+despise us.  For we are not born of art, but of simplicity.  We
+acknowledge all who love such knowledge as our brethren in CHRIST, with
+whom we hope to rejoice eternally in the heavenly school.  For our best
+knowledge here is but in part, but when we shall attain to perfection,
+then we shall see what GOD is, and what He can do.  Amen.'
+
+_A Treatise of the Incarnation of the Son of God_ comes next, and then we
+have three smaller works written to clear up and to establish several
+difficult and disputed matters in it and in some of his former works.  To
+write on the Incarnation of the Son of GOD would need, says Behmen, an
+angel's pen; but his defence is that his is better than any angel's pen,
+because it is the pen of a sinner's love.  The year 1621 saw one of
+Behmen's most original and most powerful books finished,--the _Signatura
+Rerum_.  In this remarkable book Behmen teaches us that all things have
+two worlds in which they live,--an inward world and an outward.  All
+created things have an inner and an invisible essence, and an outer and a
+visible form.  And the outward form is always more or less the key to the
+inward character.  This whole world that we see around us, and of which
+we ourselves are the soul,--it is all a symbol, a 'signature,' of an
+invisible world.   This deep principle runs through the whole of
+creation.  The Creator went upon this principle in all His work; and the
+thoughtful mind can see that principle coming out in all His work,--in
+plants, and trees, and beasts.
+
+   As German Boehme never cared for plants
+   Until it happed, a-walking in the fields,
+   He noticed all at once that plants could speak,
+   Nay, turned with loosened tongue to talk with him.
+   That day the daisy had an eye indeed--
+   Colloquized with the cowslips on such themes!
+   We find them extant yet in Jacob's prose.
+
+But, best of all, this principle comes out clearest in the speech,
+behaviour, features, and face of a man.  Every day men are signing
+themselves from within.  Every act they perform, every word they speak,
+every wish they entertain,--it all comes out and is fixed for ever in
+their character, and even in their appearance.  'Therefore,' says Behmen
+in the beginning of his book, 'the greatest understanding lies in the
+signature.  For by the external form of all creatures; by their voice and
+action, as well as by their instigation, inclination, and desire, their
+hidden spirit is made known.  For Nature has given to everything its own
+language according to its innermost essence.  And this is the language of
+Nature, in which everything continually speaks, manifests, and declares
+itself for what it is,--so much so, that all that is spoken or written
+even about GOD, however true, if the writer or speaker has not the Divine
+Nature within himself, then all he says is dumb to me; he has not got the
+hammer in his hand that can strike my bell.'
+
+_The Way to Christ_ was Behmen's next book, and in the four precious
+treatises that compose that book our author takes an altogether new
+departure.  In his _Aurora_, in _The Three Principles_, in the _Forty
+Questions_, and in the _Signatura Rerum_, Jacob Behmen has been writing
+for philosophers and theologians.  Or, if in all these works he has been
+writing for a memorial to himself in the first place,--even then, it has
+been for himself on the philosophical and theological side of his own
+mind.  But in _The Way to Christ_ he writes for himself under that
+character which, once taken up by Jacob Behmen, is never for one day laid
+down.  Behmen's favourite Scripture, after our Lord's promise of the Holy
+Spirit to them that ask for Him, was the parable of the Prodigal Son.  In
+all his books Behmen is that son, covered with wounds and bruises and
+putrefying sores, but at last beginning to come to himself and to return
+to his Father.  _The Way to Christ_ is a production of the very greatest
+depth and strength, but it is the depth and the strength of the heart and
+the conscience rather than the depth and the strength of the
+understanding and the imagination.  This nobly evangelical book is made
+up of four tracts, entitled respectively, _Of True Repentance_, _Of True
+Resignation_, _Of Regeneration_, and _Of the Supersensual Life_.  And a
+deep vein of autobiographic life and interest runs through the four
+tracts and binds them into a quick unity.  'A soldier,' says Behmen, 'who
+has been in the wars can best tell another soldier how to fight.'  And
+neither Augustine nor Luther nor Bunyan carries deeper wounds, or broader
+scars, nor tells a nobler story in any of their autobiographic and
+soldierly books than Behmen does in his _Way to Christ_.  At the
+commencement of _The True Repentance_ he promises us that he will write
+of a process or way on which he himself has gone.  'The author herewith
+giveth thee the best jewel that he hath.'  And a true jewel it is, as the
+present speaker will testify.  If _The True Repentance_ has a fault at
+all it is the fault of Rutherford's _Letters_.  For the taste of some of
+his readers Behmen, like Rutherford, draws rather too much on the
+language and the figures of the married life in setting forth the love of
+CHRIST to the espoused soul, and the love of the espoused soul to CHRIST.
+But with that, and all its other drawbacks, _The True Repentance_ is such
+a treatise that, once discovered by the proper reader, it will be the
+happy discoverer's constant companion all his earthly and penitential
+days.  As the English reader is carried on through the fourth tract, _The
+Supersensual Life_, he experiences a new and an increasing sense of ease
+and pleasure, combined with a mystic height and depth and inwardness all
+but new to him even in Behmen's books.  The new height and depth and
+inwardness are all Jacob Behmen's own; but the freedom and the ease and
+the movement and the melody are all William Law's.  In his preparations
+for a new edition of Behmen in English, William Law had re-translated and
+paraphrased _The Supersensual Life_, and the editor of the 1781 edition
+of Behmen's works has incorporated Law's beautiful rendering of that
+tract in room of JOHN SPARROW'S excellent but rather too antique
+rendering.  We are in John Sparrow's everlasting debt for the immense
+labour he laid out on Behmen, as well as for his own deep piety and
+personal worth.  But it was service enough and honour enough for Sparrow
+to have Englished Jacob Behmen at all for his fellow-countrymen, even if
+he was not able to English him as William Law would have done.  But take
+Behmen and Law together, as they meet together in _The Supersensual
+Life_, and not A Kempis himself comes near them even in his own proper
+field, or in his immense service in that field.  There is all the
+reality, inwardness, and spirituality of _The Imitation_ in _The
+Supersensual Life_, together with a sweep of imagination, and a grasp of
+understanding, as well as with both a sweetness and a bitterness of heart
+that even A Kempis never comes near.  _The Supersensual Life_ of Jacob
+Behmen, in the English of William Law, is a superb piece of spiritual
+work, and a treasure-house of masculine English.  (If Christopher Walton
+is right, we must read 'Lee' for 'Law' in this passage.  If Walton is
+right, then there was a master of English in those days we had not before
+been told of.)
+
+_A Treatise of the Four Complexions_, or _A Consolatory Instruction for a
+Sad and Assaulted Heart_, was Behmen's next book.  The four complexions
+are the four temperaments--the choleric, the sanguine, the phlegmatic,
+and the melancholy.  Behmen's treatise has been well described by Walton
+as containing the philosophy of temptation; and by Martensen as
+displaying a most profound knowledge of the human heart.  Behmen sets
+about his task as a _ductor dubitantium_ in a masterly manner.  He takes
+in hand the comfort and direction of sin-distressed souls in a
+characteristically deep, inward, and thorough-going way.  The book is
+full of Behmen's observation of men.  It is the outcome of a close and
+long-continued study of character and conduct.  Every page of _The Four
+Complexions_ gleams with a keen but tender and wistful insight into our
+poor human nature.  As his customers came and gave their orders in his
+shop; as his neighbours collected, and gossiped, and debated, and
+quarrelled around his shop window; as his minister fumed and raged
+against him in the pulpit; as the Council of Goerlitz sat and swayed,
+passed sentence upon him, retracted their sentence, and again gave way
+under the pressure of their minister, and pronounced another
+sentence,--all this time Behmen was having poor human nature, to all its
+joints and marrow, and to all the thoughts and instincts of its heart,
+laid naked and open before him, both in other men and in himself.  And
+then, as always with Behmen, all this observation of men, all this
+discovery and self-discovery, ran up into philosophy, into theology, into
+personal and evangelical religion.  In all that Behmen better and better
+saw the original plan, constitution, and operation of human nature; its
+aboriginal catastrophe; its weakness and openness to all evil; and its
+need of constant care, protection, instruction, watchfulness, and Divine
+help.  Behmen writes on all the four temperaments with the profoundest
+insight, and with the fullest sympathy; but over the last of the four he
+exclaims: 'O hear me! for I know well myself what melancholy is! I also
+have lodged all my days in the melancholy inn!'  As I read that light and
+elastic book published the other day, _The Life and Letters of Erasmus_,
+I came on this sentence, 'Erasmus, like all men of real genius, had a
+light and elastic nature.'  When I read that, I could not believe my
+eyes.  I had been used to think of light and elastic natures as being the
+antipodes of natures of real genius.  And as I stopped my reading for a
+little, a procession of men of real and indisputable genius passed before
+me, who had all lodged with Behmen in the melancholy inn.  Till I
+remembered that far deeper and far truer saying, that 'simply to say man
+at all is to say melancholy.'  No: with all respect, the real fact is
+surely as near as possible the exact opposite.  A light, elastic, Erasmus-
+like nature, is the exception among men of real genius.  At any rate,
+Jacob Behmen was the exact opposite of Erasmus, and of all such light and
+elastic men.  Melancholy was Jacob Behmen's special temperament and
+peculiar complexion.  He had long studied, and watched, and wrestled
+with, and prayed over that complexion at home.  And thus it is, no doubt,
+that he is so full, and so clear, and so sure-footed, and so impressive,
+and so full of fellow-feeling in his treatment of this special
+complexion.  Behmen's greatest disciple has assimilated his master's
+teaching in this matter of complexion also, and has given it out again in
+his own clear, plain, powerful, classical manner, especially in his
+treatise on _Christian Regeneration_.  Let all preachers and pastors who
+would master the _rationale_ of temptation, and who would ground their
+directions and their comforts to their people in the nature of things, as
+well as in the word of GOD, make Jacob Behmen and William Law and
+Prebendary Clark their constant study.  'I write for no other purpose,'
+says Behmen, 'than that men may learn how to know themselves.  Seek the
+noble knowledge of thyself.  Seek it and you will find a heavenly
+treasure which will not be eaten by moths, and which no thief shall ever
+take away.'
+
+I shall not attempt to enter on the thorny thicket of Jacob Behmen's
+polemical and apologetical works.  I shall not even load your mind with
+their unhappy titles.  His five apologies occupy in bulk somewhere about
+a tenth part of his five quarto volumes.  And full as his apologies and
+defences are of autobiographic material, as well as of valuable
+expansions and explanations of his other books, yet at their best they
+are all controversial and combative in their cast and complexion; and,
+nobly as Behmen has written on the subject of controversy, it was not
+given even to him, amid all the misunderstandings, misrepresentations,
+injuries, and insults he suffered from, always to write what we are glad
+and proud and the better to read.
+
+About his next book Behmen thus writes: 'Upon the desire of some high
+persons with whom I did converse in the Christmas holidays, I have
+written a pretty large treatise upon Election, in which I have done my
+best to determine that subject upon the deepest grounds.  And I hope that
+the same may put an end to many contentions and controversies, especially
+of some points betwixt the Lutherans and Calvinists, for I have taken the
+texts of Holy Scripture which speak of GOD'S will to harden sinners, and
+then, again, of His unwillingness to harden, and have so tuned and
+harmonised them that the right understanding and meaning of the same may
+be seen.'  'This author,' says John Sparrow, 'disputes not at all.  He
+desires only to confer and offer his understanding of the Scriptures on
+both sides, answering reason's objections, and manifesting the truth for
+the conjoining, uniting, and reconciling of all parties in love.'  And
+that he has not been wholly unsuccessful we may believe when we hear one
+of Behmen's ablest commentators writing of his _Election_ as 'a
+superlatively helpful book,' and again, as a 'profoundly instructive
+treatise.'  The workman-like way in which Behmen sets about his treatment
+of the _Election of Grace, commonly called Predestination_, will be seen
+from the titles of some of his chapters.  Chap. i.  What the One Only GOD
+is.  Chap. ii.  Concerning GOD'S Eternal Speaking Word.  Chap. v.  Of the
+Origin of Man; Chap. vi.  Of the Fall of Man.  Chap. viii.  Of the
+sayings of Scripture, and how they oppose one another.  Chap. ix.
+Clearing the Right Understanding of such Scriptures.  Chap. xiii.  A
+Conclusion upon all those Questions.  And then, true to his constant
+manner, as if wholly dissatisfied with the result of all his labour in
+things and in places too deep both for writer and reader, he gave all the
+next day after he had finished his _Election_ to an _Appendix on
+Repentance_, in order to making his own and his reader's calling and
+election sure.  And it may safely be said that, than that day's work,
+than those four quarto pages, not Augustine, not Luther, not Bunyan, not
+Baxter, not Shepard has ever written anything of more evangelical depth,
+and strength, and passion, and pathos.  It is truly a splendid day's
+work!  But it might not have been possible even for Behmen to perform
+that day's work had he not for months beforehand been dealing day and
+night with the deepest and the most heart-searching things both of GOD
+and man.  What a man was Jacob Behmen, and chosen to what a service!  At
+work all that day in his solitary stall, and then all the night after
+over his rush-light writing for a memorial to himself and to us his
+incomparable _Compendium of Repentance_.
+
+In a letter addressed to one of the nobility in Silesia, and dated
+February 19, 1623, Behmen says: 'When you have leisure to study I shall
+send you something still more deep, for I have written this whole autumn
+and winter without ceasing.'  And if he had written nothing else but his
+great book entitled _Mysterium Magnum_ that autumn and winter, he must
+have written night and day and done nothing else.  Even in size the
+_Mysterium_ is an immense piece of work.  In the English edition it
+occupies the whole of the third quarto volume of 507 pages; and then for
+its matter it is a still more amazing production.  To say that the
+_Mysterium Magnum_ is a mystical and allegorical commentary upon the Book
+of Genesis is to say nothing.  Philo himself is a tyro and a timid
+interpreter beside Jacob Behmen.  'Which things are an allegory,' says
+the Apostle, after a passing reference to Sarah and Hagar and Isaac and
+Ishmael; but if you would see actually every syllable of Genesis
+allegorised, spiritualised, interpreted of CHRIST, and of the New
+Testament, from the first verse of its first chapter to the last verse of
+its last chapter, like the nobleman of Silesia, when you have leisure,
+read Behmen's deep _Mysterium Magnum_.  I would recommend the
+enterprising and unconquerable student to make leisure so as to master
+Behmen's Preface to the _Mysterium Magnum_ at the very least.  And if he
+does that, and is not drawn on from that to be a student of Behmen for
+the rest of his days, then, whatever else his proper field in life may
+be, it is not mystical or philosophical theology.  It is a long step both
+in time and in thought from Behmen to SCHOPENHAUER; but, speaking of one
+of Schelling's books, Schopenhauer says that it is all taken from Jacob
+Behmen's _Mysterium Magnum_; every thought and almost every word of
+Schelling's work leads Schopenhauer to think of Behmen.  'When I read
+Behmen's book,' says Schopenhauer, 'I cannot withhold either admiration
+or emotion.'   At his far too early death Behmen left four treatises
+behind him in an unfinished condition.  The _Theoscopia_, or _Divine
+Vision_, is but a fragment; but, even so, the study of that fragment
+leads us to believe that, had Behmen lived to the ordinary limit of human
+life, and had his mind continued to grow as it was now fast growing in
+clearness, in concentration, and in simplicity, Behmen would have left to
+us not a few books as classical in their form as all his books are
+classical in their substance; in their originality, in their truth, in
+their depth, and in their strength.  As it is, the unfinished, the
+scarcely-begun, _Theoscopia_ only serves to show the student of what a
+treasure he has been bereft by Behmen's too early death.  As I read and
+re-read the _Theoscopia_ I felt the full truth and force of Hegel's
+generous words, that German philosophy began with Behmen.  This is both
+German and Christian philosophy, I said to myself as I revelled in the
+_Theoscopia_.  Let the serious student listen to the titles of some of
+the chapters of the _Theoscopia_, and then let him say what he would not
+have given to have got such a book from such a pen in its completed
+shape:  'What GOD is, and how we men shall know the Divine Substance by
+the Divine Revelation.  Why it sometimes seems as if there were no GOD,
+and as if all things went in the world by chance.  Why GOD, who is Love
+itself, permits an evil will contrary to His own.  The reason and the
+profit, why evil should be found along with good.  Of the mind of man,
+and how it is the image of GOD, and how it can still be filled with God.
+Why this Temporal Universe is created; to what it is profitable; and how
+God is so near unto all things': and so on.  'But no amount of
+quotation,' says Mrs. Penney, that very able student of Behmen, lately
+deceased, 'can give an adequate glimpse of the light which streams from
+the _Theoscopia_ when long and patiently studied.'
+
+Another unfinished fragment that Behmen's readers seek for and treasure
+up like very sand of gold is his _Holy Week_.  This little work, its
+author tells us, was undertaken upon the entreaty and desire of some
+loving and good friends of his for the daily exercise of true religion in
+their hearts and in the little church of their families.  The following
+is Behmen's method of prayer for Monday, which is the only day's prayer
+he got finished before his death:  'A short prayer when we awake early
+and before we rise.  A prayer and thanksgiving after we are risen.  A
+prayer while we wash and dress.  A prayer when we begin to work at our
+calling.  A prayer at noon.  A prayer toward evening.  A prayer when we
+undress.  A prayer of thanks for the bitter passion and dying of JESUS
+CHRIST.'  What does the man mean? many of his contemporaries who came
+upon his _Holy Week_ would say, What does the madman mean?  Would he have
+us pray all day?  Would he have us pray and do nothing else?  Yes; it
+would almost seem so.  For in his _Supersensual Life_ the Master says to
+the disciple who has asked, 'How shall I be able to live aright amid all
+the anxiety and tribulation of this world?': 'If thou dost once every
+hour throw thyself by faith beyond all creatures into the abysmal mercy
+of GOD, into the sufferings of CHRIST, and into the fellowship of His
+intercession, then thou shalt receive power from above to rule over the
+world, and death, and the devil, and hell itself.'  And again, 'O thou of
+little courage, if thy will could but break itself off every half-hour
+from all creatures, and plunge itself into that where no creature is or
+can be, presently it would be penetrated with the splendour of the Divine
+glory, and would taste a sweetness no tongue can express.  Then thou
+wouldst love thy cross more than all the glory and all the goods of this
+world.'  The author had begun a series of reflections and meditations on
+the Ten Commandments for devotional use on Tuesday, but got no further
+than the Fifth.  Behmen is so deep and so original in his purely
+philosophical, theological, and speculative books, that in many places we
+can only stand back and wonder at the man.  But in his _Holy Week_ Behmen
+kneels down beside us.  Not but that his characteristic depth is present
+in his prayers also; but we all know something of the nature, the manner,
+and the blessedness of prayer, and thus it is that we are so much more at
+home with Behmen, the prodigal son, than we are with Behmen, the
+theosophical theologian.  When Behmen begins to teach us to pray, and
+when the lesson comes to us out of his own closet, then we are able to
+see in a nearer light something of the originality, the greatness, the
+strength, and the true and genuine piety of the philosopher and the
+theologian.  When Behmen's philosophy and theology become penitence,
+prayer, and praise, then by their fruits we know how good his philosophy
+and his theology must be, away down in their deepest and most hidden
+nature.  I agree with Walton that those prayers are full of unction and
+instruction, and that some of them are of the 'highest magnetical power';
+and that, as rendered into modern phraseology, they are most beautiful
+devotional compositions, and very models of all that a divinely
+illuminated mind would address to GOD and CHRIST.  For myself,
+immediately after the Psalms of David I put Jacob Behmen's _Holy Week_
+and the prayers scattered up and down through his _True Repentance_, and
+beside Behmen I put Bishop Andrewes' _Private Devotions_.  I have
+discovered no helps to my own devotional life for a moment to set beside
+Behmen and Andrewes.
+
+_A Treatise on Baptism and the Lord's Supper_; _A Key to the Principal
+Points and Expressions in the Author's Writings_; and then a most
+valuable volume of letters--_Epistolae Theosophicae_--complete the
+extraordinarily rich bibliography of the illuminated and blessed Jacob
+Behmen.
+
+Though there is a great deal of needless and wearisome repetition in
+Jacob Behmen's writings, at the same time there is scarcely a single
+subject in the whole range of theology on which he does not throw a new,
+an intense, and a brilliant light.  In his absolutely original and
+magnificent doctrine of GOD, while all the time loyally true to it,
+Behmen has confessedly transcended the theology of both the Latin and the
+Reformed Churches; and, absolutely unlettered man though he is, has taken
+his stand at the very head of the great Greek theologians.  The Reformers
+concentrated their criticism upon the anthropology and soteriology of the
+Church of Rome, and especially upon the discipline and worship connected
+therewith.  They saw no need for recasting any of the more fundamental
+positions of pure theology.  And while Jacob Behmen, broadly speaking,
+accepts as his own confession of faith all that Luther and Calvin and
+their colleagues taught on sin and salvation, on the corruption and guilt
+of sinners, and on the redeeming work of our LORD, he rises far above the
+greatest and best of his teachers in his doctrine of the GODHEAD.  Not
+only does he rise far higher in that doctrine than either Rome or Geneva,
+he rises far higher and sounds far deeper than either Antioch, or
+Alexandria, or Nicomedia, or Nice.  On this profound point Bishop
+Martensen has an excellent appreciation of Behmen.  After what I have
+taken upon me to say about Behmen, the learned Bishop's authoritative
+passage must be quoted:--'If we compare Behmen's doctrine of the
+Trinity,' says the learned and evangelical Bishop, 'with that which is
+contained in the otherwise so admirable Athanasian Creed, the latter but
+displays to us a most abstruse metaphysic; a GOD for mere thought, and in
+whom there is nothing sympathetic for the heart of man.  Behmen, on the
+contrary, reveals to us the LIVING GOD, the GOD of Goodness, the Eternal
+Love, of which there is absolutely no hint whatever in the hard
+Athanasian symbol.  By this attitude of his to the affections of the
+human heart, Behmen's doctrine of the Trinity is in close coherence with
+the Reformation, and with its evangelical churches. . . . Behmen is
+anxious to state a conception of GOD that will fill the hiatus between
+the theological and anthropological sides of the dogmatical development
+which was bequeathed by the Reformation; he seeks to unite the
+theological and the anthropological. . . . From careful study of Behmen's
+theology,' continues Bishop Martensen, 'one gains a prevailing impression
+that Behmen's GOD is, in His inmost Being, most kindred to man, even as
+man in his inmost being is still kindred to GOD.  And, besides, we
+recognise in Behmen throughout the pulse-beat of a believing man, who is
+in all his books supremely anxious about his own salvation and that of
+his fellow-men.'  Now, it is just this super-confessional element in
+Behmen, both on his speculative and on his practical side, taken along
+with the immediate and intensely practical bearing of all his
+speculations, it is just this that is Behmen's true and genuine
+distinction, his shining and unshared glory.  And it is out of that
+supreme, solitary, and wholly untrodden field of Behmen's
+super-confessional theology that all that is essential, characteristic,
+distinctive, and fruitful in Behmen really and originally springs.  The
+distinctions he takes within, and around, and immediately beneath the
+Godhead, are of themselves full of the noblest light.  The Divine Nature,
+Eternal Nature, Temporal Nature, Human Nature, when evolved out of one
+another, and when related to one another, as Behmen sees them evolved and
+related, are categories of the clearest, surest, most necessary, and most
+intensely instructive kind.  And if the height and the depth, the
+massiveness, the stupendousness, and the grandeur, as well as the
+sweetness, and the beauty, and the warmth, and the fruitfulness of a
+doctrine of GOD is any argument or evidence of its truth, then Behmen's
+magnificent doctrine of the GODHEAD is surely proved to demonstration and
+delight.  GOD is the Essence of all Essences to Behmen.  GOD is the
+deepest Ground, the living and the life-giving Root of all existence.  At
+the same time, the Divine Nature is so Divine; It is so high and so deep;
+It is so unlike all that is not Itself; It is so beyond and above all
+language, and all thought, and all imagination of man or angel, that
+universe after universe have had to come into existence, and have had to
+be filled, each successive universe after its own kind, with all the
+fulness of GOD, before that universe of which we form a part, and to
+which our utmost imagination is confined, could have come into existence,
+and into recognition of itself.  Behmen's Eternal Nature must never be
+taken for the Eternal GOD.  The Divine Nature, the Eternal Godhead,
+exists in the Father, in the Son, and in the Holy Ghost; and then, after
+the Eternal Generation of the Son, and the Eternal Procession of the Holy
+Ghost, there comes up in order of existence Eternal Nature.  Eternal
+Nature is not the Divine Nature, but it is as near to the Divine Nature
+in its qualities and in its powers as any created thing can ever by any
+possibility be.  Now, if we are still to follow Behmen, we must not let
+ourselves indolently think of the production of Eternal Nature as a
+divine act done and completed in any past either of time or of eternity.
+There is neither past nor future where we are now walking with Behmen.
+There is only an everlasting present where he is now leading us.  For, as
+GOD the Father generates the Son eternally and continually; and as the
+Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son eternally and
+continually, so GOD the Word eternally and continually says, 'Let this
+Beginning of all things be, and let it continue to be.'  And, as He
+speaks, His Word awakens the ever-dawning morning of the ever new-created
+day.  And He beholds Eternal Nature continually rising up before Him, and
+He pronounces it very good.  The Creator so transcends the creation, and,
+especially, that late and remote creation of which we are a part, that,
+as the Creator's first step out of Himself, and as a step towards our
+creation, is His creation, generation, or other production of a nature or
+universe that shall be capable of receiving immediately into itself all
+that of the Creator that He has purposed to reveal and to communicate to
+creatures,--a nature or universe which shall at the same time be itself
+the beginning of creation, and the source, spring, and quarry out of
+which all that shall afterwards come can be constructed.  Eternal Nature
+is thus the great storehouse and workshop in which all the created
+essences, elements, principles, and potentialities of all possible worlds
+are laid up.  Here is the great treasury and laboratory into which the
+Filial Word enters, when by Him GOD creates, sustains, and perfects the
+worlds, universe after universe.  Here, says Behmen, is the great and
+universal treasury of that heavenly clay of which all things, even to
+angels and men, are made; and here is the eternal turning-wheel with
+which they are all framed and fashioned.  Eternal Nature is an invisible
+essence, and it is the essential ground out of which all the visible and
+invisible worlds are made.  For the things which are seen were not made
+of things which do appear.  In that radiant original universe also all
+the thoughts of GOD which were to usward from everlasting, all the Divine
+ideas, patterns, and plans of things, are laid open, displayed, copied
+out and sealed up for future worlds to see carried out.  'Through this
+Kingdom of Heaven, or Eternal Nature,' says William Law, in his _Appeal
+to all that Doubt_, 'is the invisible GOD eternally breaking forth and
+manifesting Himself in a boundless height and depth of blissful wonders,
+opening and displaying Himself to all His heavenly creatures in an
+infinite variety and an endless multiplicity of His powers, beauties,
+joys, and glories.  So that all the inhabitants of heaven are for ever
+knowing, seeing, hearing, feeling, and variously enjoying all that is
+great, amiable, infinite, and gracious in the Divine Nature.'  And again,
+in his _Way to Divine Knowledge_: 'Out of this transcendent Eternal
+Nature, which is as universal and immense as the Godhead itself, do all
+the highest beings, cherubims and seraphims, all the hosts of angels, and
+all intelligent spirits, receive their birth, existence, substance, and
+form.  And they are one and united in one, GOD in them, and they in GOD,
+according to the prayer of CHRIST for His disciples, that they, and He,
+and His Holy Father might be united in one.'  A little philosophy,
+especially when the philosopher does not yet know the plague of his own
+heart, tends, indeed, to doubt and unbelief in the word of GOD and in the
+work of CHRIST.  But the philosophy of Behmen and Law will deepen the
+mind and subdue the heart of the student till he is made a prodigal son,
+a humble believer, and a profound philosopher, both in nature and in
+grace, like his profound masters.
+
+Behmen's teaching on human nature, his doctrine of the heart of man, and
+of the image of GOD in the heart of man, has a greatness about it that
+marks it off as being peculiarly Behmen's own doctrine.  He agrees with
+the catechisms and the creeds in their teaching that the heart of man was
+at first like the heart of GOD in knowledge, righteousness, and true
+holiness.  But Behmen is above and beyond the catechisms in this also, in
+the way that he sees the heart of man still opening in upon the Divine
+Nature, as also upon Eternal and Temporal Nature, somewhat as the heart
+of GOD opens on all that He has made.  On every page of his, wherever you
+happen to open him, Behmen is found teaching that GOD and CHRIST, heaven
+and hell, life and death, are in every several human heart.  Heaven and
+all that it contains is every day either being quenched and killed in
+every human heart, or it is being anew generated, rekindled, and accepted
+there; and in like manner hell.  'Yea,' he is bold to exclaim, 'GOD
+Himself is so near thee that the geniture of the Holy Trinity is
+continually being wrought in thy heart.  Yea, all the Three Persons are
+generated for thee in thy heart.'  And, again: 'GOD is in thy dark heart.
+Knock, and He shall come out within thee into the light.  The Holy Ghost
+holds the key of thy dark heart.  Ask, and He shall be given to thee
+within thee.  Do not let any sophister teach thee that thy GOD is far
+aloft from thee as the stars are.  Only offer at this moment to GOD thine
+heart, and CHRIST, the Son of GOD, will be born and formed within thee.
+And then thou art His brother, His flesh, and His spirit.  Thou also art
+a child of His Father.  GOD is in thee.  Power, might, majesty, heaven,
+paradise, elements, stars, the whole earth--all is thine.  Thou art in
+CHRIST over hell, and all that it contains.'  'Behmen's speculation,'
+Martensen is always reminding us, 'streams forth from the deepest
+practical inspiration.  His speculations are all saturated with a
+constant reference to salvation.  His whole metaphysic is pervaded by
+practical applications.'  And conspicuously so, we may here point out, is
+his metaphysic of GOD and of the heart of man.  The immanence of GOD, as
+theologians and philosophers call it; the indwelling of GOD, as the
+psalmists and the apostles and the saints call it; the Divine Word
+lightening every man that comes into the world, as John has it,--of the
+practical and personal bearings of all that Behmen's every book is full.
+Dost thou not see it and feel it? he continually calls to his readers.
+Heaven, be sure, is in every holy man, and hell in every bad man.  When
+thou dost work together with GOD then thou art in heaven, and thy soul
+dwells in GOD.  In like manner, also, thou art in hell and among the
+devils when thou art in any envy, malice, anger, or ill-will.  Thou
+needest not to ask where is heaven or where is hell.  Both are within
+thee, even in thy heart.  Now, then, when thou prayest, pray in that
+heaven that is within thee, and there the Holy Ghost shall meet with thee
+and will help thee, and thy soul shall be the whole of heaven within
+thee.  It is a fundamental doctrine of Behmen's that the fall would have
+been immediate and eternal death to Adam and Eve had not the Divine Word,
+the Seed of the woman, entered their hearts, and kept a footing in their
+hearts, and in the hearts of all their children, against the fulness of
+time when He would take our flesh and work out our redemption.  And thus
+it is that Behmen appeals to all his readers, that if they will only go
+down deep enough into their own hearts--then, there, down there, deeper
+than indwelling sin, deeper than original sin, deep down and seated in
+the very substance and centre of their souls--they will come upon secret
+and unexpected seeds of the Divine Life.  Seeds, blades, buddings, and
+new beginnings of the very life of GOD the Son, in their deepest souls.
+Secret and small, Behmen exclaims, as those seeds of Eden are, despise
+them not; destroy them not, for a blessing for thee is in them.  Water
+those secret seeds, sun them, dig about them, and they will grow up in
+you also.  The Divine Life is in you, quench it not, for it is of GOD.
+Nay, it is GOD Himself in you.  It depends upon yourself whether or no
+that which is at this moment the smallest of all seeds is yet to become
+in you the greatest and the most fruitful of all trees.
+
+'Man never knows how anthropomorphic he is,' is a characteristic saying
+of a fellow-countryman of Behmen's.  And Behmen's super-confessional and
+almost super-scriptural treatment of that frequent scriptural
+anthropomorphism,--'unavoidable and yet intolerable,'--the wrath of GOD,
+must be left by me in Behmen's own bold pages.  Strong meat belongeth to
+them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their
+senses exercised to discern both good and evil.  Behmen's philosophical,
+theological, and experimental doctrine of sin also, with one example,
+must be wholly passed by.  'If all trees were clerks,' he exclaims in one
+place, 'and all their branches pens, and all the hills books, and all the
+water ink, yet all would not sufficiently declare the evil that sin hath
+done.  For sin has made this house of heavenly light to be a den of
+darkness; this house of joy to be a house of mourning, lamentation, and
+woe; this house of all refreshment to be full of hunger and thirst; this
+abode of love to be a prison of enmity and ill-will; this seat of
+meekness to be the haunt of pride and rage and malice.  For laughter sin
+has brought horror; for munificence, beggary; and for heaven, hell.  Oh,
+thou miserable man, turn convert.  For the Father stretches out both His
+hands to thee.  Do but turn to Him and He will receive and embrace thee
+in His love.'  It was the sin and misery of this world that first made
+Jacob Behmen a philosopher, and it was the sinfulness of his own heart
+that at last made him a saint.  Behmen's full doctrine and practice of
+prayer also; his fine and fruitful treatment of what he always calls 'the
+process of CHRIST'; and, intimately connected with that, his still super-
+confessional treatment of imputation,--of all that, and much more like
+that, I cannot now attempt to speak.  Nor yet of his superb teaching on
+love.  'Throw out thy heart upon all men,' he now commands and now
+beseeches us.  'Throw open and throw out thy heart.  For unless thou dost
+exercise thy heart, and the love of thy heart, upon every man in the
+world, thy self-love, thy pride, thy contempt, thy envy, thy distaste,
+thy dislike will still have dominion over thee.  The Divine Nature will
+be quenched and extinguished in thee, till nothing but self and hell is
+left to thee.  In the name, and in the strength of GOD, love all men.
+Love thy neighbour as thyself, and do to thy neighbour as thou doest to
+thyself.  And do it now.  For now is the accepted time; and now is the
+day of salvation!'
+
+Jacob Behmen died in his fiftieth year.  He was libelled and maligned,
+harassed and hunted to death by a world that was not worthy of such a
+gift of GOD.  A sudden and severe sickness came upon Behmen till he sank
+in death with his _Aurora_ and his _Holy Week_ and his _Divine Vision_
+all lying still unfinished at his bedside.  'Open the door and let in
+more of that music,' the dying man said to his weeping son.  Behmen was
+already hearing the harpers harping with their harps.  He was already
+taking his part in the song they sing in heaven to Him who loved them,
+and washed them from their sins in His own blood.  'And now,' said the
+prodigal son, the blessed Behmen, 'I go to-day to be with my Redeemer and
+my King in Paradise,' and so died.
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JACOB BEHMEN***
+
+
+******* This file should be named 16306.txt or 16306.zip *******
+
+
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/6/3/0/16306
+
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+https://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at https://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at https://www.gutenberg.org/about/contact
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit https://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit:
+https://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+