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diff --git a/16306-h/16306-h.htm b/16306-h/16306-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d065c5b --- /dev/null +++ b/16306-h/16306-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1533 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>Jacob Behmen</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4 { + text-align: left; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + color: gray;} + + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<h2> +<a href="#startoftext">Jacob Behmen, by Alexander Whyte</a> +</h2> +<pre> +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*** +</pre> +<p><a name="startoftext"></a></p> +<p>Transcribed from the 1895 Oliphant Anderson & Ferrier edition +by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk</p> +<h1>Jacob Behmen<br /> +an Appreciation<br /> +by Alexander Whyte</h1> +<p>author of ‘Characters and Characteristics of William Law’ +etc.</p> +<p>Oliphant Anderson & Ferrier<br /> +30 St. Mary Street, Edinburgh, and<br /> +24 Old Bailey, London<br /> +1895</p> +<p>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 <span class="smcap">William Law</span> +was delivered at the opening of a former Session as an Introduction +to the whole subject of Mysticism.</p> +<p>A. W.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">St. George’s Free Church</span>,<br /> +5<i>th November</i> 1894. <!-- page 7--><span class="pagenum">p. 7</span></p> +<h2>Jacob Behmen</h2> +<p>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 <span class="smcap">God</span> and of nature; in +prayer, in praise, and in love to <span class="smcap">God</span> <!-- page 8--><span class="pagenum">p. 8</span>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 <span class="smcap">God</span>. +Jacob Behmen has no biography because his whole life was hid with <span class="smcap">Christ</span> +in <span class="smcap">God</span>.</p> +<p>* * * * *</p> +<p>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. +<!-- page 9--><span class="pagenum">p. 9</span> 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 <i>The Confessions</i> of <span class="smcap">St. +Augustine</span>, <i>The Divine Comedy</i> of <span class="smcap">Dante</span>, +and the <i>Grace Abounding</i> of <span class="smcap">John Bunyan</span>. +It would then be seen by all, what few, till then, will believe, that +Jacob Behmen’s mind and heart <!-- page 10--><span class="pagenum">p. 10</span>and +spiritual experience all combine to give him a foremost place among +the most classical masters in that great field.</p> +<p>In the nineteenth chapter of the <i>Aurora</i> 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. <span class="smcap">Asaph’s</span> +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 <span class="smcap">God</span>. +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 <span class="smcap">God</span>. +The <!-- page 11--><span class="pagenum">p. 11</span>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 <span class="smcap">God</span> 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 <span class="smcap">God</span>, +little knowing, as yet, what <span class="smcap">God</span> 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 <span class="smcap">God</span>: +determined not to give over till <span class="smcap">God</span> 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 <span class="smcap">God</span>. I can +compare it to nothing else but the resurrection at the last day. <!-- page 12--><span class="pagenum">p. 12</span> +For then, with all reverence I say it, with the eyes of my spirit I +saw <span class="smcap">God</span>. I saw both what <span class="smcap">God</span> +is, and I saw how <span class="smcap">God</span> 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 +<span class="smcap">God</span> 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, <!-- page 13--><span class="pagenum">p. 13</span>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 +<span class="smcap">God</span>. ‘Let it never be imagined +that I am any greater or any better than other men. When the Spirit +of <span class="smcap">God</span> 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, +<!-- page 14--><span class="pagenum">p. 14</span>and will truly wrestle +for truth and goodness under <span class="smcap">Jesus Christ</span>. +I marvel every day that <span class="smcap">God</span> 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 <span class="smcap">God</span> 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 +<span class="smcap">God’s</span> 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.’ +<!-- page 15--><span class="pagenum">p. 15</span></p> +<p>Jacob Behmen’s first book, his <i>Aurora</i>, 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 <span class="smcap">God</span> 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 <!-- page 16--><span class="pagenum">p. 16</span>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 <span class="smcap">God</span> to behold the glory of <span class="smcap">God</span>. +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 <span class="smcap">God</span> +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, <!-- page 17--><span class="pagenum">p. 17</span>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 <span class="smcap">God</span> +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.’ <!-- page 18--><span class="pagenum">p. 18</span></p> +<p>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 <span class="smcap">Gregory Richter</span>, +First Minister of Goerlitz, nor could we have believed <!-- page 19--><span class="pagenum">p. 19</span>that +any minister of <span class="smcap">Jesus Christ</span> 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 <i>Aurora</i>, 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 <!-- page 20--><span class="pagenum">p. 20</span>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 <i>Aurora</i>. <span class="smcap">William Law</span>, +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.</p> +<p>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 <!-- page 21--><span class="pagenum">p. 21</span>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 <span class="smcap">Hegel</span> +does, ‘a man of a mighty mind,’ or, as LAW does, ‘the +<!-- page 22--><span class="pagenum">p. 22</span>illuminated Behmen,’ +and ‘the blessed Behmen.’ ‘In speculative power,’ +says dry <span class="smcap">Dr. Kurtz</span>, ‘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 <span class="smcap">Isaac +Newton</span> 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 <span class="smcap">John’s</span> +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; <!-- page 23--><span class="pagenum">p. 23</span>and +all the trumpets that sound in <i>Paradise Lost</i> 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 <span class="smcap">God</span> 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 <i>Aurora</i>; 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 +<!-- page 24--><span class="pagenum">p. 24</span>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 <span class="smcap">Maurice</span> tells +us he found him to be, ‘a generative thinker.’ Out +of much you cannot understand,—wherever the blame <!-- page 25--><span class="pagenum">p. 25</span>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.</p> +<p>At the same time let all intending students of Jacob Behmen take +warning that they will have to learn an <!-- page 26--><span class="pagenum">p. 26</span>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 <span class="smcap">Agrippa</span>, or <span class="smcap">Paracelsus</span>, +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 <!-- page 27--><span class="pagenum">p. 27</span>clear, +and sweet, and classical English! The <i>Aurora</i> 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 <i>Aurora</i> 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 <span class="smcap">Wesley</span>, and <span class="smcap">Southey</span>, +and even <span class="smcap">Hallam</span> himself, <!-- page 28--><span class="pagenum">p. 28</span>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 <span class="smcap">Schelling</span> 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 +<i>The Serious Call</i>, and <i>The Spirit of Prayer</i>, and <i>The +Spirit of Love</i>, and <i>The Way to Divine Knowledge</i>, in the disputed +matter of Jacob Behmen’s sanity and sanctity; and I <!-- page 29--><span class="pagenum">p. 29</span>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 +<span class="smcap">God</span> that is within me.’ ‘I +am not young,’ said <span class="smcap">Claude</span> <!-- page 30--><span class="pagenum">p. 30</span><span class="smcap">De +St. Martin</span>, ‘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.’</p> +<p>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 <!-- page 31--><span class="pagenum">p. 31</span>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 <i>Aurora</i>, +Behmen at a rush wrote his very fine if very difficult book, <i>The +Three Principles of the Divine Essence</i>. He calls <i>The Three +Principles</i> 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 <i>The Three Principles</i>. +I shall let Behmen describe <!-- page 32--><span class="pagenum">p. 32</span>the +contents of his easiest book in his own words. ‘In this +second book,’ he says, ‘there is declared what <span class="smcap">God</span> +is, what Nature is, what the creatures are, what the love and meekness +of <span class="smcap">God</span> are, what <span class="smcap">God’s</span> +will is, what the wrath of <span class="smcap">God</span> 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 <span class="smcap">God</span> +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 <span class="smcap">God</span>.’ +<i>The Three Principles</i>, according to <span class="smcap">Christopher +Walton</span>, was the first book of Behmen’s <!-- page 33--><span class="pagenum">p. 33</span>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 <i>The Three +Principles</i>, 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.</p> +<p>In three months after he had finished <i>The Three Principles</i>, +Behmen had composed a companion treatise, entitled <i>The Threefold +Life of Man</i>. Modest about himself as Behmen always was, he +could not be wholly blind about <!-- page 34--><span class="pagenum">p. 34</span>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 <span class="smcap">Casper +Lindern</span>, ‘if you entertain and get <i>The Threefold Life +of Man</i> 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 <i>The Threefold Life</i>, which appear to have been in great favour +with Mr. Law.’</p> +<p>Behmen’s next book was a very extraordinary piece of work, +and it had a <!-- page 35--><span class="pagenum">p. 35</span>very extraordinary +origin. A certain <span class="smcap">Balthazar Walter</span>, +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 <i>Aurora</i> and <i>The Threefold +Life</i> had come, Walter was wise enough to see and bold enough to +confess that he had found a teacher <!-- page 36--><span class="pagenum">p. 36</span>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’ <!-- page 37--><span class="pagenum">p. 37</span>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 <span class="smcap">God</span> 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 +<i>Forty Questions</i>, 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 <i>Forty Questions</i> ran through many +editions both on the Continent and in England, and it was this book +that gained for Jacob Behmen the denomination <!-- page 38--><span class="pagenum">p. 38</span>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 <span class="smcap">God</span>? +Is the soul propagated from father to son like the body? or is it every +time new created and breathed in from <span class="smcap">God</span>? +How comes original sin into each several soul? How does the soul +of the saint feed and grow upon the word of <span class="smcap">God</span>? +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 <!-- page 39--><span class="pagenum">p. 39</span>spirit +of <span class="smcap">Christ</span>, 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 <span class="smcap">Christ</span>, +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 <span class="smcap">God</span> +is, and what He can do. Amen.’</p> +<p><i>A Treatise of the Incarnation of the Son of God</i> comes next, +and then we have three smaller works written to clear up <!-- page 40--><span class="pagenum">p. 40</span>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 +<span class="smcap">God</span> 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 +<i>Signatura Rerum</i>. 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. <!-- page 41--><span class="pagenum">p. 41</span> 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.</p> +<blockquote><p>As German Boehme never cared for plants<br /> +Until it happed, a-walking in the fields,<br /> +He noticed all at once that plants could speak,<br /> +Nay, turned with loosened tongue to talk with him.<br /> +That day the daisy had an eye indeed—<br /> +Colloquized with the cowslips on such themes!<br /> +We find them extant yet in Jacob’s prose.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>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 <!-- page 42--><span class="pagenum">p. 42</span>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 <span class="smcap">God</span>, +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.’</p> +<p><i>The Way to Christ</i> was Behmen’s next book, and in the +four precious treatises that compose that book our author takes an altogether +new departure. In <!-- page 43--><span class="pagenum">p. 43</span>his +<i>Aurora</i>, in <i>The Three Principles</i>, in the <i>Forty Questions</i>, +and in the <i>Signatura Rerum</i>, 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 <i>The Way to Christ</i> 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. +<i>The Way to Christ</i> is a production of the very greatest depth +<!-- page 44--><span class="pagenum">p. 44</span>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, +<i>Of True Repentance</i>, <i>Of True Resignation</i>, <i>Of Regeneration</i>, +and <i>Of the Supersensual Life</i>. 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 <i>Way to Christ</i>. +At the commencement of <i>The True Repentance</i> he promises us that +he will write of a process <!-- page 45--><span class="pagenum">p. 45</span>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 <i>The True Repentance</i> +has a fault at all it is the fault of Rutherford’s <i>Letters</i>. +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 <span class="smcap">Christ</span> to the +espoused soul, and the love of the espoused soul to <span class="smcap">Christ</span>. +But with that, and all its other drawbacks, <i>The True Repentance</i> +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, <i>The Supersensual Life</i>, he experiences a new +and an increasing sense of ease and pleasure, combined <!-- page 46--><span class="pagenum">p. 46</span>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 <i>The Supersensual Life</i>, and the editor of the +1781 edition of Behmen’s works has incorporated Law’s beautiful +rendering of that tract in room of <span class="smcap">John Sparrow’s</span> +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 <!-- page 47--><span class="pagenum">p. 47</span>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 <i>The Supersensual +Life</i>, 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 <i>The Imitation</i> in <i>The +Supersensual Life</i>, 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. <i>The Supersensual +Life</i> 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 <!-- page 48--><span class="pagenum">p. 48</span>master of English +in those days we had not before been told of.)</p> +<p><i>A Treatise of the Four Complexions</i>, or <i>A Consolatory Instruction +for a Sad and Assaulted Heart</i>, 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 <i>ductor dubitantium</i> +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. <!-- page 49--><span class="pagenum">p. 49</span> Every page +of <i>The Four Complexions</i> 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, <!-- page 50--><span class="pagenum">p. 50</span>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, <i>The Life and Letters of Erasmus</i>, +I came on this sentence, ‘Erasmus, like all men of real genius, +had a light and elastic nature.’ When I read that, <!-- page 51--><span class="pagenum">p. 51</span>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 <!-- page 52--><span class="pagenum">p. 52</span>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 <i>Christian +Regeneration</i>. Let all preachers and pastors who would master +the <i>rationale</i> 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 <span class="smcap">God</span>, 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 <!-- page 53--><span class="pagenum">p. 53</span>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.’</p> +<p>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 <!-- page 54--><span class="pagenum">p. 54</span>we +are glad and proud and the better to read.</p> +<p>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 <span class="smcap">God’s</span> +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 <!-- page 55--><span class="pagenum">p. 55</span>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 <i>Election</i> 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 +<i>Election of Grace, commonly called Predestination</i>, will be seen +from the titles of some of his chapters. Chap. i. What the +One Only <span class="smcap">God</span> is. Chap. ii. Concerning +<span class="smcap">God’s</span> 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 +<!-- page 56--><span class="pagenum">p. 56</span>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 <i>Election</i> +to an <i>Appendix on Repentance</i>, 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 <!-- page 57--><span class="pagenum">p. 57</span>things +both of <span class="smcap">God</span> 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 <i>Compendium +of Repentance</i>.</p> +<p>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 <i>Mysterium Magnum</i> +that autumn and winter, he must have written night and day and done +nothing else. Even in size the <i>Mysterium</i> 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 <!-- page 58--><span class="pagenum">p. 58</span>matter +it is a still more amazing production. To say that the <i>Mysterium +Magnum</i> 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 <span class="smcap">Christ</span>, +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 <i>Mysterium Magnum</i>. +I would recommend the enterprising and unconquerable student to make +leisure so as to master Behmen’s Preface to the <i>Mysterium Magnum</i> +at the very least. And if he does that, <!-- page 59--><span class="pagenum">p. 59</span>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 <span class="smcap">Schopenhauer</span>; +but, speaking of one of Schelling’s books, Schopenhauer says that +it is all taken from Jacob Behmen’s <i>Mysterium Magnum</i>; 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 <i>Theoscopia</i>, or <i>Divine Vision</i>, +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 <!-- page 60--><span class="pagenum">p. 60</span>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, +<i>Theoscopia</i> 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 <i>Theoscopia</i> 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 <i>Theoscopia</i>. Let the serious student listen +to the titles of some of the chapters of the <i>Theoscopia</i>, and +then let him say what he would not have given to have <!-- page 61--><span class="pagenum">p. 61</span>got +such a book from such a pen in its completed shape: ‘What +<span class="smcap">God</span> is, and how we men shall know the Divine +Substance by the Divine Revelation. Why it sometimes seems as +if there were no <span class="smcap">God</span>, and as if all things +went in the world by chance. Why <span class="smcap">God</span>, +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 <span class="smcap">God</span>, +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 <i>Theoscopia</i> when long and patiently studied.’ <!-- page 62--><span class="pagenum">p. 62</span></p> +<p>Another unfinished fragment that Behmen’s readers seek for +and treasure up like very sand of gold is his <i>Holy Week</i>. +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 <span class="smcap">Jesus Christ</span>.’ What does the +man mean? many of <!-- page 63--><span class="pagenum">p. 63</span>his +contemporaries who came upon his <i>Holy Week</i> 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 <i>Supersensual Life</i> 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 <span class="smcap">God</span>, into the sufferings of <span class="smcap">Christ</span>, +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 <!-- page 64--><span class="pagenum">p. 64</span>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 <i>Holy Week</i> 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 <!-- page 65--><span class="pagenum">p. 65</span>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 <!-- page 66--><span class="pagenum">p. 66</span>to +<span class="smcap">God</span> and <span class="smcap">Christ</span>. +For myself, immediately after the Psalms of David I put Jacob Behmen’s +<i>Holy Week</i> and the prayers scattered up and down through his <i>True +Repentance</i>, and beside Behmen I put Bishop Andrewes’ <i>Private +Devotions</i>. I have discovered no helps to my own devotional +life for a moment to set beside Behmen and Andrewes.</p> +<p><i>A Treatise on Baptism and the Lord’s Supper</i>; <i>A Key +to the Principal Points and Expressions in the Author’s Writings</i>; +and then a most valuable volume of letters—<i>Epistolae Theosophicae</i>—complete +the extraordinarily rich bibliography of the illuminated and blessed +Jacob Behmen.</p> +<p>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 <!-- page 67--><span class="pagenum">p. 67</span>intense, +and a brilliant light. In his absolutely original and magnificent +doctrine of <span class="smcap">God</span>, 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 <!-- page 68--><span class="pagenum">p. 68</span>our <span class="smcap">Lord</span>, +he rises far above the greatest and best of his teachers in his doctrine +of the <span class="smcap">Godhead</span>. 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 <span class="smcap">God</span> +for mere thought, and in whom there is nothing sympathetic for the heart +of man. Behmen, on the <!-- page 69--><span class="pagenum">p. 69</span>contrary, +reveals to us the <span class="smcap">Living God</span>, the <span class="smcap">God</span> +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 <span class="smcap">God</span> +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 <span class="smcap">God</span> +is, in His inmost Being, most kindred to man, even as man in his inmost +being is still kindred to <span class="smcap">God</span>. And, +besides, we recognise in Behmen <!-- page 70--><span class="pagenum">p. 70</span>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, <!-- page 71--><span class="pagenum">p. 71</span>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 <span class="smcap">God</span> +is any argument or evidence of its truth, then Behmen’s magnificent +doctrine of the <span class="smcap">Godhead</span> is surely proved +to demonstration and delight. <span class="smcap">God</span> is +the Essence of all Essences to Behmen. <span class="smcap">God</span> +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 <!-- page 72--><span class="pagenum">p. 72</span>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 <span class="smcap">God</span>, +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 <span class="smcap">God</span>. 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 <!-- page 73--><span class="pagenum">p. 73</span>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 <span class="smcap">God</span> +the Father generates the Son eternally and continually; and as the Holy +Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son eternally and continually, +so <span class="smcap">God</span> 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 <!-- page 74--><span class="pagenum">p. 74</span>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 <!-- page 75--><span class="pagenum">p. 75</span>by Him <span class="smcap">God</span> +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 <span class="smcap">God</span> +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 <i>Appeal +<!-- page 76--><span class="pagenum">p. 76</span>to all that Doubt</i>, +‘is the invisible <span class="smcap">God</span> 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 <i>Way to Divine Knowledge</i>: ‘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, <span class="smcap">God</span> in them, and they in <span class="smcap">God</span>, +according to <!-- page 77--><span class="pagenum">p. 77</span>the prayer +of <span class="smcap">Christ</span> 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 +<span class="smcap">God</span> and in the work of <span class="smcap">Christ</span>. +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.</p> +<p>Behmen’s teaching on human nature, his doctrine of the heart +of man, and of the image of <span class="smcap">God</span> 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 <!-- page 78--><span class="pagenum">p. 78</span>like +the heart of <span class="smcap">God</span> 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 <span class="smcap">God</span> opens on all +that He has made. On every page of his, wherever you happen to +open him, Behmen is found teaching that <span class="smcap">God</span> +and <span class="smcap">Christ</span>, 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, ‘<span class="smcap">God</span> +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 <!-- page 79--><span class="pagenum">p. 79</span>generated +for thee in thy heart.’ And, again: ‘<span class="smcap">God</span> +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 <span class="smcap">God</span> is far +aloft from thee as the stars are. Only offer at this moment to +<span class="smcap">God</span> thine heart, and <span class="smcap">Christ</span>, +the Son of <span class="smcap">God</span>, 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. <span class="smcap">God</span> +is in thee. Power, might, majesty, heaven, paradise, elements, +stars, the whole earth—all is thine. Thou art in <span class="smcap">Christ</span> +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 <!-- page 80--><span class="pagenum">p. 80</span>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 <span class="smcap">God</span> +and of the heart of man. The immanence of <span class="smcap">God</span>, +as theologians and philosophers call it; the indwelling of <span class="smcap">God</span>, +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 <span class="smcap">God</span> +then thou art in heaven, and thy soul dwells in <span class="smcap">God</span>. +In like manner, also, thou art in hell and among the devils when thou +art in any envy, malice, <!-- page 81--><span class="pagenum">p. 81</span>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 <!-- page 82--><span class="pagenum">p. 82</span>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 <span class="smcap">God</span> 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 <span class="smcap">God</span>. +Nay, it is <span class="smcap">God</span> 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.</p> +<p>‘Man never knows how anthropomorphic he is,’ is a characteristic +saying <!-- page 83--><span class="pagenum">p. 83</span>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 <span class="smcap">God</span>, +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, <!-- page 84--><span class="pagenum">p. 84</span>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 <span class="smcap">Christ</span>’; +and, intimately connected with that, his still super-confessional treatment +of imputation,—of all <!-- page 85--><span class="pagenum">p. 85</span>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 <span class="smcap">God</span>, +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!’</p> +<p>Jacob Behmen died in his fiftieth year. He was libelled and +maligned, <!-- page 86--><span class="pagenum">p. 86</span>harassed +and hunted to death by a world that was not worthy of such a gift of +<span class="smcap">God</span>. A sudden and severe sickness came +upon Behmen till he sank in death with his <i>Aurora</i> and his <i>Holy +Week</i> and his <i>Divine Vision</i> 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.</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JACOB BEHMEN***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 16306-h.htm or 16306-h.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. 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