Jacob Behmenan Appreciationby Alexander Whyte

author of 'Characters and Characteristics of William Law' etc. 

Oliphant Anderson & Ferrier30 St. Mary Street, Edinburgh, and24 Old Bailey, London1895

This lecture was delivered at the opening of my Classes for the study ofthe pre-Reformation, Reformation, and post-Reformation Mystics duringSession 1894-5. A Lecture on WILLIAM LAW was delivered at the opening ofa 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 Germanphilosophy, was all his life nothing better than a working shoemaker. Hewas born at Old Seidenberg, a village near Goerlitz in Silesia, in theyear 1575, and he died at Goerlitz in the year 1624. Jacob Behmen has nobiography. Jacob Behmen's books are his best biography. While workingwith his hands, Jacob Behmen's whole life was spent in the deepest andthe most original thought; in piercing visions of GOD and of nature; inprayer, in praise, and in love to GOD and man. Of Jacob Behmen it may besaid with the utmost truth and soberness that he lived and moved and hadhis being in GOD. Jacob Behmen has no biography because his whole lifewas hid with CHRIST in GOD. 

* * * * *

While we have nothing that can properly be called a biography of JacobBehmen, we have ample amends made to us in those priceless morsels ofautobiography that lie scattered so plentifully up and down all hisbooks. And nothing could be more charming than just those incidental andunstudied utterances of Behmen about himself. Into the very depths of apassage of the profoundest speculation Behmen will all of a sudden throwa few verses of the most childlike and heart-winning confidences abouthis own mental history and his own spiritual experience. And thus it isthat, without at all intending it, Behmen has left behind him a completehistory of his great mind and his holy heart in those outbursts ofdiffidence, deprecation, explanation, and self-defence, of which hisphilosophical and theological, as well as his apologetic andexperimental, books are all so full. It were an immense service done toour best literature if some of Behmen's students would go through allBehmen's books, so as to make a complete collection and composition ofthe best of those autobiographic passages. Such a book, if it were welldone, 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, thatJacob Behmen's mind and heart and spiritual experience all combine togive him a foremost place among the most classical masters in that greatfield. 

In the nineteenth chapter of the _Aurora_ there occurs a very importantpassage of this autobiographic nature. In that famous passage Behmentells his readers that when his eyes first began to be opened, the sightof this world completely overwhelmed him. ASAPH'S experiences, sopowerfully set before us in the seventy-third Psalm, will best convey, tothose who do not know Behmen, what Behmen also passed through before hedrew near to GOD. Like that so thoughtful Psalmist, Behmen's steps hadwell-nigh slipped when he saw the prosperity of the wicked, and when hesaw how waters of a full cup were so often wrung out to the people ofGOD. The mystery of life, the sin and misery of life, cast Behmen into adeep and inconsolable melancholy. No Scripture could comfort him. Histhoughts of GOD were such that he will not allow himself, even after theyare long past, to put them down on paper. In this terrible trouble helifted up his heart to GOD, little knowing, as yet, what GOD was, or whathis own heart was. Only, he wrapped up his whole heart, and mind, andwill, and desire in the love and the mercy of GOD: determined not to giveover till GOD had heard him and had helped him. 'And then, when I hadwholly hazarded my life upon what I was doing, my whole spirit seemed tome suddenly to break through the gates of hell, and to be taken up intothe arms and the heart of GOD. I can compare it to nothing else but theresurrection 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 sawhow GOD is what He is. And with that there came a mighty and anincontrollable 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, andnot trouble my mind with philosophy and theology. Let these high mattersalone. Leave them to those who have both the time and the talent forthem, they will say. So I have often said to myself, but the truth ofGOD did burn in my bones till I took pen and ink and began to set downwhat I had seen. All this time do not mistake me for a saint or anangel. My heart also is full of all evil. In malice, and in hatred, andin lack of brotherly love, after all I have seen and experienced, I amlike all other men. I am surely the fullest of all men of all manner ofinfirmity and malignity. ' Behmen protests in every book of his that whathe has written he has received immediately from GOD. 'Let it never beimagined that I am any greater or any better than other men. When theSpirit of GOD is taken away from me I cannot even read so as tounderstand what I have myself written. I have every day to wrestle withthe 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 orholiness climbed up into heaven or descended into the abyss. Oh no! hearme. I am as thou art. I have no more light than thou hast. Let no manthink of me what I am not. But what I am all men may be who will trulybelieve, and will truly wrestle for truth and goodness under JESUSCHRIST. I marvel every day that GOD should reveal both the Divine Natureand Temporal and Eternal Nature for the first time to such a simple andunlearned man as I am. But what am I to resist what GOD will do? Whatam I to say but, Behold the son of thine handmaiden! I have oftenbesought Him to take these too high and too deep matters away from offme, and to commit them to men of more learning and of a better style ofspeech. But He always put my prayer away from Him and continued tokindle His fire in my bones. And with all my striving to quench GOD'Sspirit of revelation, I found that I had only by that gathered the morestones for the house that He had ordained me to build for Him and for Hischildren in this world. '

Jacob Behmen's first book, his _Aurora_, was not a book at all, but abundle of loose leaves. Nothing was further from Behmen's mind, when hetook up his pen of an evening, than to make a book. He took up his penafter his day's work was over in order to preserve for his own memory anduse in after days the revelations that had been made to him, and theexperiences and exercises through which GOD had passed him. And, besides, Jacob Behmen could not have written a book even if he had triedit. He was a total stranger to the world of books; and then, over andabove that, he had been taken up into a world of things into which nobook ever written as yet had dared to enter. Again, and again, andagain, till it came to fill his whole life, Behmen would be sitting overhis work, or walking abroad under the stars, or worshipping in his pew inthe 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 thevisions of GOD to behold the glory of GOD. And then, when he came tohimself, there would arise within him a 'fiery instigation' to set downfor a 'memorial' what he had again seen and heard. 'The gate of theDivine Mystery was sometimes so opened to me that in one quarter of anhour I saw and knew more than if I had been many years together at auniversity. At which I did exceedingly admire, and, though it passed myunderstanding how it happened, I thereupon turned my heart to GOD topraise Him for it. For I saw and knew the Being of all Beings; the Byssand the Abyss; as, also, the Generation of the Son and the Procession ofthe Spirit. I saw the descent and original of this world also, and ofall its creatures. I saw in their order and outcome the Divine world, the angelical world, paradise, and then this fallen and dark world of ourown. I saw the beginning of the good and the evil, and the true originand existence of each of them. All of which did not only cause me greatwonder but also a great joy and a great fear. And then it came withcommanding power into my mind that I must set down the same in pen andink for a memorial to myself; albeit, I could hardly contain or expresswhat I had seen. For twelve years this went on in me. Sometimes thetruth would hit me like a sudden smiting storm of rain; and then therewould be the clear sunshine after the rain. All which was to teach methat GOD will manifest Himself in the soul of man after what manner andwhat 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 allhis 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 bookwas finished, a nobleman in the neighbourhood, who was deeply interestedin the philosophy and the theology of that day, somehow got hold ofBehmen's papers and had them copied out and spread abroad, to Behmen'sgreat surprise and great distress. Copy after copy was stealthily madeof Behmen's manuscript, till, most unfortunately for both of them, a copycame 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 ministerof JESUS CHRIST could have gone so absolutely mad with ignorance and envyand anger and ill-will. The libel is still preserved that Behmen'sminister drew out against the author of _Aurora_, and the only thing itproves to us is this, that its author must have been a dull-headed, coarse-hearted, foul-mouthed man. Richter's persecution of poor Behmencaused Behmen lifelong trouble; but, at the same time, it served toadvertise his genius to his generation, and to manifest to all men themeekness, the humility, the docility, and the love of peace of thepersecuted man. 'Pastor-Primarius Richter, ' says a bishop of his owncommunion, 'was a man full of hierarchical arrogance and pride. He hadonly the most outward apprehension of the dogmatics of his day, and hewas totally incapable of understanding Jacob Behmen. ' But it is not forthe limitations of his understanding that Pastor Richter stands before usso laden with blame. The school is a small one still that, after twocenturies of study and prayer and a holy life, can pretend to understandthe 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 puthim into a 'perfect sweat' of astonishment and awe. No wonder, then, that a man of Gregory Richter's narrow mind and hard heart was throwninto such a sweat of prejudice and anger and ill-will. 

I do not propose to take you down into the deep places where Jacob Behmendwells and works. And that for a very good reason. For I have found nofirm footing in those deep places for my own feet. I wade in and in tothe utmost of my ability, and still there rise up above me, and stretchout around me, and sink down beneath me, vast reaches of revelation andspeculation, attainment and experience, before which I can only wonderand worship. See Jacob Behmen working with his hands in his solitarystall, when he is suddenly caught up into heaven till he beholds inenraptured vision The Most High Himself. And then, after that, see himswept down to hell, down to sin, and down into the bottomless pit of thehuman heart. Jacob Behmen, almost more than any other man whatsoever, iscarried up till he moves like a holy angel or a glorified saint amongthings unseen and eternal. Jacob Behmen is of the race of the seers, andhe stands out a very prince among them. He is full of eyes, and all hiseyes are full of light. It does not stagger me to hear his disciplescalling him, as HEGEL does, 'a man of a mighty mind, ' or, as LAW does, 'the illuminated Behmen, ' and 'the blessed Behmen. ' 'In speculativepower, ' says dry DR. KURTZ, 'and in poetic wealth, exhibited with epicand dramatic effect, Behmen's system surpasses everything of the kindever written. ' Some of his disciples have the hardihood to affirm indeedthat even ISAAC NEWTON ploughed with Behmen's heifer, but had not theboldness to acknowledge the debt. I entirely accept it when hisdisciples assert it of their master that he had a privilege and apassport permitted him such as no mortal man has had the like sinceJOHN'S eyes closed upon his completed Apocalypse. After repeated andprolonged reading of Behmen's amazing books, nothing that has been saidby his most ecstatic disciples about their adored master eitherastonishes or offends me. Dante himself does not beat such a soaringwing as Behmen's; and all the trumpets that sound in _Paradise Lost_ donot swell my heart and chase its blood like Jacob Behmen's brokensyllables about the Fall. I would not wonder to have it pointed out tome 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 JacobBehmen and his visions of GOD and Nature and Man were all but literallytrue. No doubt, --nay, the thing is certain, --that if you open JacobBehmen anywhere as Gregory Richter opened the _Aurora_; if a new idea isa pain and a provocation to you; if you have any prejudice in your heartfor any reason against Behmen; if you dislike the sound of his namebecause some one you dislike has discovered him and praised him, orbecause you do not yourself already know him and love him, then, nodoubt, you will find plenty in Behmen at which to stumble, and which willamply justify you in anything you wish to say against him. But if youare 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 engageto lead you a single step out of your ignorance and your evil; if youopen Behmen with a predisposition to believe in him, and with theexpectation and the determination to get good out of him, --then, in themeasure of all that; in the measure of your capacity of mind and yourhospitality of heart; in the measure of your humility, seriousness, patience, teachableness, hunger for truth, hunger for righteousness, --inthat measure you will find Jacob Behmen to be what MAURICE tells us hefound him to be, 'a generative thinker. ' Out of much you cannotunderstand, --wherever the blame for that may lie, --out of much slag andmuch dross, I am mistaken if you will not lay up some of your finestgold; 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 movedall his days among such things as these: he must be at home, as far asthe mind of man can be at home, among such things as these, and then hewill begin to understand Behmen, and will still strive better and betterto understand him; and, where he does not as yet understand him, he willset that down to his own inattention, incapacity, want of duepreparation, and want of the proper ripeness for such a study. 

At the same time let all intending students of Jacob Behmen take warningthat they will have to learn an absolutely new and an unheard-of languageif they would speak with Behmen and have Behmen speak with them. ForBehmen's books are written neither in German nor in English of any age oridiom, but in the most original and uncouth Behmenese. Like John Bunyan, but never with John Bunyan's literary grace, Behmen will borrow, now aLatin word or phrase from his reading of learned authors, or, more often, from the conversations of his learned friends; and then he will take someastrological or alchemical expression of AGRIPPA, or PARACELSUS, or somesuch outlaw, and will, as with his awl and rosin-end, sew together asentence, and hammer together a page of the most incongruous and unheard-of phraseology, till, as we read Behmen's earlier work especially, wecontinually exclaim, O for a chapter of John Bunyan's clear, and sweet, and classical English! The _Aurora_ was written in a language, ifwriting and a language it can be called, that had never been seen writtenor heard spoken before, or has since, on the face of the earth. And asour students learn Greek in order to read Homer and Plato and Paul andJohn, and Latin in order to read Virgil and Tacitus, and Italian to readDante, and German to read Goethe, so William Law tells us that he learnedBehmen's Behmenite High Dutch, and that too after he was an old man, inorder that he might completely master the _Aurora_ and its kindred books. And as our schoolboys laugh and jeer at the outlandish sounds of Greekand Latin and German, till they have learned to read and love the greatauthors who have written in those languages, so WESLEY, and SOUTHEY, andeven HALLAM himself, jest and flout and call names at Jacob Behmen, because they have not taken the trouble to learn his language, to masterhis mind, and to drink in his spirit. At the same time, and after allthat has been said about Behmen's barbarous style, Bishop Martensen tellsus how the readers of SCHELLING were surprised and enraptured by a wealthof new expressions and new turns of speech in their mother tongue. Butall these belonged to Behmen, or were fashioned on the model of hissymbolical language. As it is, with all his astrology, and all hisalchemy, and all his barbarities of form and expression, I for one willalways take sides with the author of _The Serious Call_, and _The Spiritof 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 willcontinue to believe that if I had only had the scholarship, and theintellect, and the patience, and the enterprise, to have mastered, through all their intricacies, the Behmenite grammar and the Behmenitevocabulary, I also would have found in Behmen all that Freher and Pordageand Law and Walton found. Even in the short way into this great man thatI have gone, I have come upon such rare and rich mines of divine andeternal truth that I can easily believe that they who have dug deeperhave come upon uncounted riches. 'Next to the Scriptures, ' writesWilliam Law, 'my only book is the illuminated Behmen. For the wholekingdom of grace and nature was opened in him. In reading Behmen I amalways 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 fiftiethyear, nevertheless I have begun to learn German, in order that I may readthis incomparable author in his own tongue. I have written some notunacceptable books myself, but I am not worthy to unloose the shoestringsof this wonderful man. I advise you to throw yourself into the depths ofJacob Behmen. There is such a profundity and exaltation of truth inthem, and such a simple and delicious nutriment. '

The Town Council of Goerlitz, hounded on by their Minister, sentencedBehmen to be banished, and interdicted him from ever writing any more. But in sheer shame at what they had done they immediately recalled Behmenfrom banishment; only, they insisted that he should confine himself tohis shop, and leave all writing of books alone. Behmen had no ambitionto write any more, and, as a matter of fact, he kept silence even tohimself for seven whole years. But as those years went on it came to bewith him, to use his own words, as with so much grain that has beenburied 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 nowwinter, 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 arush wrote his very fine if very difficult book, _The Three Principles ofthe Divine Essence_. He calls _The Three Principles_ his A B C, and theeasiest of all his books. And William Law recommends all beginners inBehmen to read alone for some sufficient time the tenth and twelfthchapters of _The Three Principles_. I shall let Behmen describe thecontents of his easiest book in his own words. 'In this second book, ' hesays, 'there is declared what GOD is, what Nature is, what the creaturesare, what the love and meekness of GOD are, what GOD'S will is, what thewrath of GOD is, and what joy and sorrow are. As also, how all thingstook their beginning: with the true difference between eternal andtransitory creatures. Specially of man and his soul, what the soul is, and how it is an eternal creature. Also what heaven is, wherein GOD andthe 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 thesweet love of GOD. ' _The Three Principles_, according to CHRISTOPHERWALTON, was the first book of Behmen's that William Law ever held in hishand. That, then, was the title-page, and those were the contents, thatthrew that princely and saintly mind into such a sweat. It was a greatday for William Law, and through him it was, and will yet be acknowledgedto have been, a great day for English theology when he chanced, at an oldbookstall, upon _The Three Principles_, Englished by a Barrister of theInner Temple. The picture of that bookstall that day is engraven inlines of light and love on the heart of every grateful reader of JacobBehmen and of William Law's later and richer and riper writings. 

In three months after he had finished _The Three Principles_, Behmen hadcomposed a companion treatise, entitled _The Threefold Life of Man_. Modest about himself as Behmen always was, he could not be wholly blindabout his own incomparable books. And he but spoke the simple truthabout his third book when he said of it--as, indeed, he was constantlysaying about all his books--that it will serve every reader justaccording to his constellation, his inclination, his disposition, hiscomplexion, his profession, and his whole condition. 'You will be soonweary of all contentious books, ' he wrote to CASPER LINDERN, 'if youentertain and get _The Threefold Life of Man_ into your mind and heart. ''The subject of regeneration, ' says Christopher Walton, 'is the pith anddrift of all Behmen's writings, and the student may here be directed tobegin his course of study by mastering the first eight chapters of _TheThreefold 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 avery extraordinary origin. A certain BALTHAZAR WALTER, who seems to havebeen a second Paracelsus in his love of knowledge and in his lifelongpursuit of knowledge, had, like Paracelsus, travelled east, and west, andnorth, and south in search of that ancient and occult wisdom of which somany men in that day dreamed. But Walter, like his predecessorParacelsus, 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 hisown countrymen could all the time have taught him. On his return fromthe east, Walter found the name of Jacob Behmen in everybody's mouth;and, on introducing himself to that little shop in Goerlitz out of whichthe _Aurora_ and _The Threefold Life_ had come, Walter was wise enough tosee and bold enough to confess that he had found a teacher and a friendthere such as neither Egypt nor India had provided him with. After manyimmensely interested visits to Jacob Behmen's workshop, Walter was morethan satisfied that Behmen was all, and more than all, that his mostdevoted admirers had said he was. And, accordingly, Walter laid a planso as to draw upon Behmen's profound and original mind for a solution ofsome of the philosophical and theological problems that were agitatingand dividing the learned men of that day. With that view Walter made around of the leading universities of Germany, conversed with theprofessors and students, collected a long list of the questions that werebeing debated in that day in those seats of learning, and sent the listto 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 toanswer all the questions you have put to me. All those things are knownto GOD alone. But, that no man may boast, He sometimes makes use of verymean men to make known His truth, that it may be seen and acknowledged tocome from His own hand alone. ' It is told that when Charles the Firstread the English translation of Behmen's answers to the _FortyQuestions_, he wrote to the publisher that if Jacob Behmen was noscholar, then the Holy Ghost was still with men; and, if he was a learnedman, then his book was one of the best inventions that had ever beenwritten. The _Forty Questions_ ran through many editions both on theContinent and in England, and it was this book that gained for JacobBehmen the denomination of the Teutonic Philosopher, a name by which heis distinguished among authors to this day. The following are some ofthe university questions that Balthazar Walter took down and sent toJacob Behmen for his answer: 'What is the soul of man in its innermostessence, and how is it created, soul by soul, in the image of GOD? Isthe soul propagated from father to son like the body? or is it every timenew created and breathed in from GOD? How comes original sin into eachseveral soul? How does the soul of the saint feed and grow upon the wordof GOD? Whence comes the deadly contrariety between the flesh and thespirit? Whither goes the soul when it at death departs from the body? Inwhat does its rest, its awakening, and its glorification consist? Whatkind 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 isParadise?' Through a hundred and fourteen large quarto pages Behmen'sastonishing answers to the forty questions run; after which he adds this:'Thus, my beloved friend, we have set down, according to our gifts, around answer to your questions, and we exhort you as a brother not todespise us. For we are not born of art, but of simplicity. Weacknowledge all who love such knowledge as our brethren in CHRIST, withwhom we hope to rejoice eternally in the heavenly school. For our bestknowledge 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 wehave three smaller works written to clear up and to establish severaldifficult and disputed matters in it and in some of his former works. Towrite on the Incarnation of the Son of GOD would need, says Behmen, anangel'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 ofBehmen's most original and most powerful books finished, --the _SignaturaRerum_. In this remarkable book Behmen teaches us that all things havetwo worlds in which they live, --an inward world and an outward. Allcreated things have an inner and an invisible essence, and an outer and avisible form. And the outward form is always more or less the key to theinward character. This whole world that we see around us, and of whichwe ourselves are the soul, --it is all a symbol, a 'signature, ' of aninvisible world. This deep principle runs through the whole ofcreation. The Creator went upon this principle in all His work; and thethoughtful mind can see that principle coming out in all His work, --inplants, 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 signingthemselves from within. Every act they perform, every word they speak, every wish they entertain, --it all comes out and is fixed for ever intheir character, and even in their appearance. 'Therefore, ' says Behmenin the beginning of his book, 'the greatest understanding lies in thesignature. For by the external form of all creatures; by their voice andaction, as well as by their instigation, inclination, and desire, theirhidden spirit is made known. For Nature has given to everything its ownlanguage according to its innermost essence. And this is the language ofNature, in which everything continually speaks, manifests, and declaresitself for what it is, --so much so, that all that is spoken or writteneven about GOD, however true, if the writer or speaker has not the DivineNature within himself, then all he says is dumb to me; he has not got thehammer in his hand that can strike my bell. '

_The Way to Christ_ was Behmen's next book, and in the four precioustreatises that compose that book our author takes an altogether newdeparture. In his _Aurora_, in _The Three Principles_, in the _FortyQuestions_, and in the _Signatura Rerum_, Jacob Behmen has been writingfor philosophers and theologians. Or, if in all these works he has beenwriting for a memorial to himself in the first place, --even then, it hasbeen for himself on the philosophical and theological side of his ownmind. But in _The Way to Christ_ he writes for himself under thatcharacter which, once taken up by Jacob Behmen, is never for one day laiddown. Behmen's favourite Scripture, after our Lord's promise of the HolySpirit to them that ask for Him, was the parable of the Prodigal Son. Inall his books Behmen is that son, covered with wounds and bruises andputrefying sores, but at last beginning to come to himself and to returnto his Father. _The Way to Christ_ is a production of the very greatestdepth and strength, but it is the depth and the strength of the heart andthe conscience rather than the depth and the strength of theunderstanding and the imagination. This nobly evangelical book is madeup of four tracts, entitled respectively, _Of True Repentance_, _Of TrueResignation_, _Of Regeneration_, and _Of the Supersensual Life_. And adeep vein of autobiographic life and interest runs through the fourtracts and binds them into a quick unity. 'A soldier, ' says Behmen, 'whohas been in the wars can best tell another soldier how to fight. ' Andneither Augustine nor Luther nor Bunyan carries deeper wounds, or broaderscars, nor tells a nobler story in any of their autobiographic andsoldierly books than Behmen does in his _Way to Christ_. At thecommencement of _The True Repentance_ he promises us that he will writeof a process or way on which he himself has gone. 'The author herewithgiveth thee the best jewel that he hath. ' And a true jewel it is, as thepresent speaker will testify. If _The True Repentance_ has a fault atall it is the fault of Rutherford's _Letters_. For the taste of some ofhis readers Behmen, like Rutherford, draws rather too much on thelanguage and the figures of the married life in setting forth the love ofCHRIST 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 sucha treatise that, once discovered by the proper reader, it will be thehappy discoverer's constant companion all his earthly and penitentialdays. As the English reader is carried on through the fourth tract, _TheSupersensual Life_, he experiences a new and an increasing sense of easeand pleasure, combined with a mystic height and depth and inwardness allbut new to him even in Behmen's books. The new height and depth andinwardness are all Jacob Behmen's own; but the freedom and the ease andthe movement and the melody are all William Law's. In his preparationsfor a new edition of Behmen in English, William Law had re-translated andparaphrased _The Supersensual Life_, and the editor of the 1781 editionof Behmen's works has incorporated Law's beautiful rendering of thattract in room of JOHN SPARROW'S excellent but rather too antiquerendering. We are in John Sparrow's everlasting debt for the immenselabour he laid out on Behmen, as well as for his own deep piety andpersonal worth. But it was service enough and honour enough for Sparrowto have Englished Jacob Behmen at all for his fellow-countrymen, even ifhe was not able to English him as William Law would have done. But takeBehmen and Law together, as they meet together in _The SupersensualLife_, and not A Kempis himself comes near them even in his own properfield, or in his immense service in that field. There is all thereality, inwardness, and spirituality of _The Imitation_ in _TheSupersensual Life_, together with a sweep of imagination, and a grasp ofunderstanding, as well as with both a sweetness and a bitterness of heartthat even A Kempis never comes near. _The Supersensual Life_ of JacobBehmen, in the English of William Law, is a superb piece of spiritualwork, and a treasure-house of masculine English. (If Christopher Waltonis right, we must read 'Lee' for 'Law' in this passage. If Walton isright, then there was a master of English in those days we had not beforebeen told of. )

_A Treatise of the Four Complexions_, or _A Consolatory Instruction for aSad and Assaulted Heart_, was Behmen's next book. The four complexionsare the four temperaments--the choleric, the sanguine, the phlegmatic, and the melancholy. Behmen's treatise has been well described by Waltonas containing the philosophy of temptation; and by Martensen asdisplaying a most profound knowledge of the human heart. Behmen setsabout his task as a _ductor dubitantium_ in a masterly manner. He takesin hand the comfort and direction of sin-distressed souls in acharacteristically deep, inward, and thorough-going way. The book isfull of Behmen's observation of men. It is the outcome of a close andlong-continued study of character and conduct. Every page of _The FourComplexions_ gleams with a keen but tender and wistful insight into ourpoor human nature. As his customers came and gave their orders in hisshop; as his neighbours collected, and gossiped, and debated, andquarrelled around his shop window; as his minister fumed and ragedagainst him in the pulpit; as the Council of Goerlitz sat and swayed, passed sentence upon him, retracted their sentence, and again gave wayunder the pressure of their minister, and pronounced anothersentence, --all this time Behmen was having poor human nature, to all itsjoints 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. Andthen, as always with Behmen, all this observation of men, all thisdiscovery and self-discovery, ran up into philosophy, into theology, intopersonal and evangelical religion. In all that Behmen better and bettersaw the original plan, constitution, and operation of human nature; itsaboriginal catastrophe; its weakness and openness to all evil; and itsneed of constant care, protection, instruction, watchfulness, and Divinehelp. Behmen writes on all the four temperaments with the profoundestinsight, and with the fullest sympathy; but over the last of the four heexclaims: 'O hear me! for I know well myself what melancholy is! I alsohave lodged all my days in the melancholy inn!' As I read that light andelastic book published the other day, _The Life and Letters of Erasmus_, I came on this sentence, 'Erasmus, like all men of real genius, had alight and elastic nature. ' When I read that, I could not believe myeyes. I had been used to think of light and elastic natures as being theantipodes of natures of real genius. And as I stopped my reading for alittle, a procession of men of real and indisputable genius passed beforeme, who had all lodged with Behmen in the melancholy inn. Till Iremembered that far deeper and far truer saying, that 'simply to say manat all is to say melancholy. ' No: with all respect, the real fact issurely 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 andelastic men. Melancholy was Jacob Behmen's special temperament andpeculiar complexion. He had long studied, and watched, and wrestledwith, 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 specialcomplexion. Behmen's greatest disciple has assimilated his master'steaching in this matter of complexion also, and has given it out again inhis own clear, plain, powerful, classical manner, especially in histreatise on _Christian Regeneration_. Let all preachers and pastors whowould master the _rationale_ of temptation, and who would ground theirdirections and their comforts to their people in the nature of things, aswell as in the word of GOD, make Jacob Behmen and William Law andPrebendary Clark their constant study. 'I write for no other purpose, 'says Behmen, 'than that men may learn how to know themselves. Seek thenoble knowledge of thyself. Seek it and you will find a heavenlytreasure which will not be eaten by moths, and which no thief shall evertake away. '

I shall not attempt to enter on the thorny thicket of Jacob Behmen'spolemical and apologetical works. I shall not even load your mind withtheir unhappy titles. His five apologies occupy in bulk somewhere abouta tenth part of his five quarto volumes. And full as his apologies anddefences are of autobiographic material, as well as of valuableexpansions and explanations of his other books, yet at their best theyare all controversial and combative in their cast and complexion; and, nobly as Behmen has written on the subject of controversy, it was notgiven even to him, amid all the misunderstandings, misrepresentations, injuries, and insults he suffered from, always to write what we are gladand proud and the better to read. 

About his next book Behmen thus writes: 'Upon the desire of some highpersons with whom I did converse in the Christmas holidays, I havewritten a pretty large treatise upon Election, in which I have done mybest to determine that subject upon the deepest grounds. And I hope thatthe same may put an end to many contentions and controversies, especiallyof some points betwixt the Lutherans and Calvinists, for I have taken thetexts of Holy Scripture which speak of GOD'S will to harden sinners, andthen, again, of His unwillingness to harden, and have so tuned andharmonised them that the right understanding and meaning of the same maybe seen. ' 'This author, ' says John Sparrow, 'disputes not at all. Hedesires only to confer and offer his understanding of the Scriptures onboth sides, answering reason's objections, and manifesting the truth forthe conjoining, uniting, and reconciling of all parties in love. ' Andthat he has not been wholly unsuccessful we may believe when we hear oneof Behmen's ablest commentators writing of his _Election_ as 'asuperlatively helpful book, ' and again, as a 'profoundly instructivetreatise. ' The workman-like way in which Behmen sets about his treatmentof the _Election of Grace, commonly called Predestination_, will be seenfrom the titles of some of his chapters. Chap. I. What the One Only GODis. Chap. Ii. Concerning GOD'S Eternal Speaking Word. Chap. V. Of theOrigin of Man; Chap. Vi. Of the Fall of Man. Chap. Viii. Of thesayings of Scripture, and how they oppose one another. Chap. Ix. Clearing the Right Understanding of such Scriptures. Chap. Xiii. AConclusion upon all those Questions. And then, true to his constantmanner, as if wholly dissatisfied with the result of all his labour inthings and in places too deep both for writer and reader, he gave all thenext day after he had finished his _Election_ to an _Appendix onRepentance_, in order to making his own and his reader's calling andelection sure. And it may safely be said that, than that day's work, than those four quarto pages, not Augustine, not Luther, not Bunyan, notBaxter, not Shepard has ever written anything of more evangelical depth, and strength, and passion, and pathos. It is truly a splendid day'swork! But it might not have been possible even for Behmen to performthat day's work had he not for months beforehand been dealing day andnight with the deepest and the most heart-searching things both of GODand man. What a man was Jacob Behmen, and chosen to what a service! Atwork all that day in his solitary stall, and then all the night afterover his rush-light writing for a memorial to himself and to us hisincomparable _Compendium of Repentance_. 

In a letter addressed to one of the nobility in Silesia, and datedFebruary 19, 1623, Behmen says: 'When you have leisure to study I shallsend you something still more deep, for I have written this whole autumnand winter without ceasing. ' And if he had written nothing else but hisgreat book entitled _Mysterium Magnum_ that autumn and winter, he musthave written night and day and done nothing else. Even in size the_Mysterium_ is an immense piece of work. In the English edition itoccupies the whole of the third quarto volume of 507 pages; and then forits matter it is a still more amazing production. To say that the_Mysterium Magnum_ is a mystical and allegorical commentary upon the Bookof Genesis is to say nothing. Philo himself is a tyro and a timidinterpreter beside Jacob Behmen. 'Which things are an allegory, ' saysthe Apostle, after a passing reference to Sarah and Hagar and Isaac andIshmael; but if you would see actually every syllable of Genesisallegorised, spiritualised, interpreted of CHRIST, and of the NewTestament, from the first verse of its first chapter to the last verse ofits last chapter, like the nobleman of Silesia, when you have leisure, read Behmen's deep _Mysterium Magnum_. I would recommend theenterprising and unconquerable student to make leisure so as to masterBehmen's Preface to the _Mysterium Magnum_ at the very least. And if hedoes that, and is not drawn on from that to be a student of Behmen forthe rest of his days, then, whatever else his proper field in life maybe, it is not mystical or philosophical theology. It is a long step bothin time and in thought from Behmen to SCHOPENHAUER; but, speaking of oneof Schelling's books, Schopenhauer says that it is all taken from JacobBehmen's _Mysterium Magnum_; every thought and almost every word ofSchelling's work leads Schopenhauer to think of Behmen. 'When I readBehmen's book, ' says Schopenhauer, 'I cannot withhold either admirationor emotion. ' At his far too early death Behmen left four treatisesbehind him in an unfinished condition. The _Theoscopia_, or _DivineVision_, is but a fragment; but, even so, the study of that fragmentleads us to believe that, had Behmen lived to the ordinary limit of humanlife, and had his mind continued to grow as it was now fast growing inclearness, in concentration, and in simplicity, Behmen would have left tous not a few books as classical in their form as all his books areclassical in their substance; in their originality, in their truth, intheir depth, and in their strength. As it is, the unfinished, thescarcely-begun, _Theoscopia_ only serves to show the student of what atreasure he has been bereft by Behmen's too early death. As I read andre-read the _Theoscopia_ I felt the full truth and force of Hegel'sgenerous words, that German philosophy began with Behmen. This is bothGerman and Christian philosophy, I said to myself as I revelled in the_Theoscopia_. Let the serious student listen to the titles of some ofthe chapters of the _Theoscopia_, and then let him say what he would nothave given to have got such a book from such a pen in its completedshape: 'What GOD is, and how we men shall know the Divine Substance bythe 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 Loveitself, permits an evil will contrary to His own. The reason and theprofit, 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 howGod is so near unto all things': and so on. 'But no amount ofquotation, ' says Mrs. Penney, that very able student of Behmen, latelydeceased, 'can give an adequate glimpse of the light which streams fromthe _Theoscopia_ when long and patiently studied. '

Another unfinished fragment that Behmen's readers seek for and treasureup like very sand of gold is his _Holy Week_. This little work, itsauthor tells us, was undertaken upon the entreaty and desire of someloving and good friends of his for the daily exercise of true religion intheir hearts and in the little church of their families. The followingis Behmen's method of prayer for Monday, which is the only day's prayerhe got finished before his death: 'A short prayer when we awake earlyand before we rise. A prayer and thanksgiving after we are risen. Aprayer while we wash and dress. A prayer when we begin to work at ourcalling. A prayer at noon. A prayer toward evening. A prayer when weundress. A prayer of thanks for the bitter passion and dying of JESUSCHRIST. ' What does the man mean? many of his contemporaries who cameupon his _Holy Week_ would say, What does the madman mean? Would he haveus pray all day? Would he have us pray and do nothing else? Yes; itwould almost seem so. For in his _Supersensual Life_ the Master says tothe disciple who has asked, 'How shall I be able to live aright amid allthe anxiety and tribulation of this world?': 'If thou dost once everyhour throw thyself by faith beyond all creatures into the abysmal mercyof GOD, into the sufferings of CHRIST, and into the fellowship of Hisintercession, then thou shalt receive power from above to rule over theworld, and death, and the devil, and hell itself. ' And again, 'O thou oflittle courage, if thy will could but break itself off every half-hourfrom all creatures, and plunge itself into that where no creature is orcan be, presently it would be penetrated with the splendour of the Divineglory, and would taste a sweetness no tongue can express. Then thouwouldst love thy cross more than all the glory and all the goods of thisworld. ' The author had begun a series of reflections and meditations onthe Ten Commandments for devotional use on Tuesday, but got no furtherthan the Fifth. Behmen is so deep and so original in his purelyphilosophical, theological, and speculative books, that in many places wecan only stand back and wonder at the man. But in his _Holy Week_ Behmenkneels down beside us. Not but that his characteristic depth is presentin 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 athome with Behmen, the prodigal son, than we are with Behmen, thetheosophical theologian. When Behmen begins to teach us to pray, andwhen the lesson comes to us out of his own closet, then we are able tosee in a nearer light something of the originality, the greatness, thestrength, and the true and genuine piety of the philosopher and thetheologian. When Behmen's philosophy and theology become penitence, prayer, and praise, then by their fruits we know how good his philosophyand his theology must be, away down in their deepest and most hiddennature. I agree with Walton that those prayers are full of unction andinstruction, and that some of them are of the 'highest magnetical power';and that, as rendered into modern phraseology, they are most beautifuldevotional compositions, and very models of all that a divinelyilluminated 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_, andbeside Behmen I put Bishop Andrewes' _Private Devotions_. I havediscovered no helps to my own devotional life for a moment to set besideBehmen and Andrewes. 

_A Treatise on Baptism and the Lord's Supper_; _A Key to the PrincipalPoints and Expressions in the Author's Writings_; and then a mostvaluable volume of letters--_Epistolae Theosophicae_--complete theextraordinarily rich bibliography of the illuminated and blessed JacobBehmen. 

Though there is a great deal of needless and wearisome repetition inJacob Behmen's writings, at the same time there is scarcely a singlesubject in the whole range of theology on which he does not throw a new, an intense, and a brilliant light. In his absolutely original andmagnificent doctrine of GOD, while all the time loyally true to it, Behmen has confessedly transcended the theology of both the Latin and theReformed Churches; and, absolutely unlettered man though he is, has takenhis stand at the very head of the great Greek theologians. The Reformersconcentrated their criticism upon the anthropology and soteriology of theChurch of Rome, and especially upon the discipline and worship connectedtherewith. They saw no need for recasting any of the more fundamentalpositions of pure theology. And while Jacob Behmen, broadly speaking, accepts as his own confession of faith all that Luther and Calvin andtheir colleagues taught on sin and salvation, on the corruption and guiltof sinners, and on the redeeming work of our LORD, he rises far above thegreatest and best of his teachers in his doctrine of the GODHEAD. Notonly does he rise far higher in that doctrine than either Rome or Geneva, he rises far higher and sounds far deeper than either Antioch, orAlexandria, or Nicomedia, or Nice. On this profound point BishopMartensen has an excellent appreciation of Behmen. After what I havetaken upon me to say about Behmen, the learned Bishop's authoritativepassage must be quoted:--'If we compare Behmen's doctrine of theTrinity, ' says the learned and evangelical Bishop, 'with that which iscontained in the otherwise so admirable Athanasian Creed, the latter butdisplays to us a most abstruse metaphysic; a GOD for mere thought, and inwhom there is nothing sympathetic for the heart of man. Behmen, on thecontrary, reveals to us the LIVING GOD, the GOD of Goodness, the EternalLove, of which there is absolutely no hint whatever in the hardAthanasian symbol. By this attitude of his to the affections of thehuman heart, Behmen's doctrine of the Trinity is in close coherence withthe Reformation, and with its evangelical churches. . . . Behmen isanxious to state a conception of GOD that will fill the hiatus betweenthe theological and anthropological sides of the dogmatical developmentwhich was bequeathed by the Reformation; he seeks to unite thetheological and the anthropological. . . . From careful study of Behmen'stheology, ' continues Bishop Martensen, 'one gains a prevailing impressionthat Behmen's GOD is, in His inmost Being, most kindred to man, even asman in his inmost being is still kindred to GOD. And, besides, werecognise in Behmen throughout the pulse-beat of a believing man, who isin all his books supremely anxious about his own salvation and that ofhis fellow-men. ' Now, it is just this super-confessional element inBehmen, both on his speculative and on his practical side, taken alongwith the immediate and intensely practical bearing of all hisspeculations, it is just this that is Behmen's true and genuinedistinction, his shining and unshared glory. And it is out of thatsupreme, solitary, and wholly untrodden field of Behmen'ssuper-confessional theology that all that is essential, characteristic, distinctive, and fruitful in Behmen really and originally springs. Thedistinctions he takes within, and around, and immediately beneath theGodhead, are of themselves full of the noblest light. The Divine Nature, Eternal Nature, Temporal Nature, Human Nature, when evolved out of oneanother, and when related to one another, as Behmen sees them evolved andrelated, are categories of the clearest, surest, most necessary, and mostintensely instructive kind. And if the height and the depth, themassiveness, the stupendousness, and the grandeur, as well as thesweetness, and the beauty, and the warmth, and the fruitfulness of adoctrine of GOD is any argument or evidence of its truth, then Behmen'smagnificent doctrine of the GODHEAD is surely proved to demonstration anddelight. GOD is the Essence of all Essences to Behmen. GOD is thedeepest Ground, the living and the life-giving Root of all existence. Atthe 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 alllanguage, and all thought, and all imagination of man or angel, thatuniverse after universe have had to come into existence, and have had tobe filled, each successive universe after its own kind, with all thefulness of GOD, before that universe of which we form a part, and towhich our utmost imagination is confined, could have come into existence, and into recognition of itself. Behmen's Eternal Nature must never betaken for the Eternal GOD. The Divine Nature, the Eternal Godhead, exists in the Father, in the Son, and in the Holy Ghost; and then, afterthe Eternal Generation of the Son, and the Eternal Procession of the HolyGhost, there comes up in order of existence Eternal Nature. EternalNature is not the Divine Nature, but it is as near to the Divine Naturein its qualities and in its powers as any created thing can ever by anypossibility be. Now, if we are still to follow Behmen, we must not letourselves indolently think of the production of Eternal Nature as adivine 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, asGOD the Father generates the Son eternally and continually; and as theHoly Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son eternally andcontinually, so GOD the Word eternally and continually says, 'Let thisBeginning of all things be, and let it continue to be. ' And, as Hespeaks, His Word awakens the ever-dawning morning of the ever new-createdday. And He beholds Eternal Nature continually rising up before Him, andHe 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 ourcreation, is His creation, generation, or other production of a nature oruniverse that shall be capable of receiving immediately into itself allthat of the Creator that He has purposed to reveal and to communicate tocreatures, --a nature or universe which shall at the same time be itselfthe beginning of creation, and the source, spring, and quarry out ofwhich all that shall afterwards come can be constructed. Eternal Natureis thus the great storehouse and workshop in which all the createdessences, elements, principles, and potentialities of all possible worldsare laid up. Here is the great treasury and laboratory into which theFilial Word enters, when by Him GOD creates, sustains, and perfects theworlds, universe after universe. Here, says Behmen, is the great anduniversal treasury of that heavenly clay of which all things, even toangels and men, are made; and here is the eternal turning-wheel withwhich they are all framed and fashioned. Eternal Nature is an invisibleessence, and it is the essential ground out of which all the visible andinvisible worlds are made. For the things which are seen were not madeof things which do appear. In that radiant original universe also allthe thoughts of GOD which were to usward from everlasting, all the Divineideas, patterns, and plans of things, are laid open, displayed, copiedout and sealed up for future worlds to see carried out. 'Through thisKingdom of Heaven, or Eternal Nature, ' says William Law, in his _Appealto all that Doubt_, 'is the invisible GOD eternally breaking forth andmanifesting Himself in a boundless height and depth of blissful wonders, opening and displaying Himself to all His heavenly creatures in aninfinite variety and an endless multiplicity of His powers, beauties, joys, and glories. So that all the inhabitants of heaven are for everknowing, seeing, hearing, feeling, and variously enjoying all that isgreat, amiable, infinite, and gracious in the Divine Nature. ' And again, in his _Way to Divine Knowledge_: 'Out of this transcendent EternalNature, which is as universal and immense as the Godhead itself, do allthe highest beings, cherubims and seraphims, all the hosts of angels, andall intelligent spirits, receive their birth, existence, substance, andform. 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 ownheart, tends, indeed, to doubt and unbelief in the word of GOD and in thework of CHRIST. But the philosophy of Behmen and Law will deepen themind 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 ingrace, like his profound masters. 

Behmen's teaching on human nature, his doctrine of the heart of man, andof the image of GOD in the heart of man, has a greatness about it thatmarks it off as being peculiarly Behmen's own doctrine. He agrees withthe catechisms and the creeds in their teaching that the heart of man wasat first like the heart of GOD in knowledge, righteousness, and trueholiness. But Behmen is above and beyond the catechisms in this also, inthe way that he sees the heart of man still opening in upon the DivineNature, as also upon Eternal and Temporal Nature, somewhat as the heartof GOD opens on all that He has made. On every page of his, wherever youhappen to open him, Behmen is found teaching that GOD and CHRIST, heavenand hell, life and death, are in every several human heart. Heaven andall that it contains is every day either being quenched and killed inevery human heart, or it is being anew generated, rekindled, and acceptedthere; and in like manner hell. 'Yea, ' he is bold to exclaim, 'GODHimself is so near thee that the geniture of the Holy Trinity iscontinually being wrought in thy heart. Yea, all the Three Persons aregenerated 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 Ghostholds the key of thy dark heart. Ask, and He shall be given to theewithin thee. Do not let any sophister teach thee that thy GOD is faraloft from thee as the stars are. Only offer at this moment to GOD thineheart, 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 arta child of His Father. GOD is in thee. Power, might, majesty, heaven, paradise, elements, stars, the whole earth--all is thine. Thou art inCHRIST over hell, and all that it contains. ' 'Behmen's speculation, 'Martensen is always reminding us, 'streams forth from the deepestpractical inspiration. His speculations are all saturated with aconstant reference to salvation. His whole metaphysic is pervaded bypractical applications. ' And conspicuously so, we may here point out, ishis metaphysic of GOD and of the heart of man. The immanence of GOD, astheologians and philosophers call it; the indwelling of GOD, as thepsalmists and the apostles and the saints call it; the Divine Wordlightening every man that comes into the world, as John has it, --of thepractical 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. Whenthou dost work together with GOD then thou art in heaven, and thy souldwells in GOD. In like manner, also, thou art in hell and among thedevils when thou art in any envy, malice, anger, or ill-will. Thouneedest not to ask where is heaven or where is hell. Both are withinthee, even in thy heart. Now, then, when thou prayest, pray in thatheaven that is within thee, and there the Holy Ghost shall meet with theeand will help thee, and thy soul shall be the whole of heaven withinthee. It is a fundamental doctrine of Behmen's that the fall would havebeen 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 theirhearts, and in the hearts of all their children, against the fulness oftime when He would take our flesh and work out our redemption. And thusit is that Behmen appeals to all his readers, that if they will only godown deep enough into their own hearts--then, there, down there, deeperthan indwelling sin, deeper than original sin, deep down and seated inthe very substance and centre of their souls--they will come upon secretand unexpected seeds of the Divine Life. Seeds, blades, buddings, andnew beginnings of the very life of GOD the Son, in their deepest souls. Secret and small, Behmen exclaims, as those seeds of Eden are, despisethem not; destroy them not, for a blessing for thee is in them. Waterthose secret seeds, sun them, dig about them, and they will grow up inyou 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 nothat which is at this moment the smallest of all seeds is yet to becomein you the greatest and the most fruitful of all trees. 

'Man never knows how anthropomorphic he is, ' is a characteristic sayingof a fellow-countryman of Behmen's. And Behmen's super-confessional andalmost super-scriptural treatment of that frequent scripturalanthropomorphism, --'unavoidable and yet intolerable, '--the wrath of GOD, must be left by me in Behmen's own bold pages. Strong meat belongeth tothem that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have theirsenses 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 oneplace, 'and all their branches pens, and all the hills books, and all thewater ink, yet all would not sufficiently declare the evil that sin hathdone. For sin has made this house of heavenly light to be a den ofdarkness; this house of joy to be a house of mourning, lamentation, andwoe; this house of all refreshment to be full of hunger and thirst; thisabode of love to be a prison of enmity and ill-will; this seat ofmeekness to be the haunt of pride and rage and malice. For laughter sinhas brought horror; for munificence, beggary; and for heaven, hell. Oh, thou miserable man, turn convert. For the Father stretches out both Hishands to thee. Do but turn to Him and He will receive and embrace theein His love. ' It was the sin and misery of this world that first madeJacob Behmen a philosopher, and it was the sinfulness of his own heartthat at last made him a saint. Behmen's full doctrine and practice ofprayer also; his fine and fruitful treatment of what he always calls 'theprocess of CHRIST'; and, intimately connected with that, his still super-confessional treatment of imputation, --of all that, and much more likethat, I cannot now attempt to speak. Nor yet of his superb teaching onlove. 'Throw out thy heart upon all men, ' he now commands and nowbeseeches us. 'Throw open and throw out thy heart. For unless thou dostexercise thy heart, and the love of thy heart, upon every man in theworld, thy self-love, thy pride, thy contempt, thy envy, thy distaste, thy dislike will still have dominion over thee. The Divine Nature willbe quenched and extinguished in thee, till nothing but self and hell isleft 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 tothyself. And do it now. For now is the accepted time; and now is theday 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 agift of GOD. A sudden and severe sickness came upon Behmen till he sankin death with his _Aurora_ and his _Holy Week_ and his _Divine Vision_all lying still unfinished at his bedside. 'Open the door and let inmore of that music, ' the dying man said to his weeping son. Behmen wasalready hearing the harpers harping with their harps. He was alreadytaking 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 theprodigal son, the blessed Behmen, 'I go to-day to be with my Redeemer andmy King in Paradise, ' and so died.