Transcriber's note:

 Page numbers in this book are indicated by numbers enclosed in curly braces, e. G. {99}. They have been located where page breaks occurred in the original book. 

SPIRITUAL REFORMERS IN THE 16TH & 17TH CENTURIES

by

RUFUS M. JONES, M. A. , D. Litt. 

Professor Of Philosophy, Haverford College, U. S. A. 

MacMillan and Co. , LimitedSt. Martin's Street, London1914

Copyright

_OTHER VOLUMES IN THIS SERIES_

_EDITED By RUFUS M. JONES_

STUDIES IN MYSTICAL RELIGION. (1908. ) By Rufus M. Jones. 

THE QUAKERS IN THE AMERICAN COLONIES. (1911). By Rufus M. Jones, assisted by Isaac Sharpless and Amelia M. Gummere. 

THE BEGINNINGS OF QUAKERISM. (1912. ) By William Charles Braithwaite. 

THE SECOND PERIOD OF QUAKERISM. (_In preparation. _) By William Charles Braithwaite. 

THE LATER PERIODS OF QUAKERISM. (_In preparation. _) By Rufus M. Jones. 

{v}

PREFACE

In my _Quakers in the American Colonies_ I announced the preparation ofa volume to be devoted mainly to Jacob Boehme and his influence. Isoon found, however, as my work of research proceeded, that Boehme wasno isolated prophet who discovered in solitude a fresh way of approachto the supreme problems of the soul. I came upon very clear evidencethat he was an organic part of a far-reaching and significanthistorical movement--a movement which consciously aimed, throughout itslong period of travail, to carry the Reformation to its legitimateterminus, the restoration of apostolic Christianity. The men whooriginated the movement, so far as anything historical can be said tobe "originated, " were often scornfully called "Spirituals" by theiropponents, while they thought of themselves as divinely commissionedand Spirit-guided "Reformers, " so that I have with good right namedthem "Spiritual Reformers. "

I have had two purposes in view in these studies. One purpose was thetracing of a religious movement, profoundly interesting in itself, as agreat side current of the Reformation. The other purpose was thediscovery of the background and environment of seventeenth centuryQuakerism. There can be little doubt, I think, that I have here foundat least one of the great historical sources of the Quaker movement. This volume, together with my _Studies in Mystical Religion_, will atany rate {vi} furnish convincing evidence that the ideas, aims, experiences, practices, and aspirations of the early Quakers were thefruit of long spiritual preparation. This movement, as a whole, hasnever been studied before, and my work has been beset withdifficulties. I have been aided by helpful monographs on individual"Reformers, " written mainly by German and French scholars, who havebeen duly credited at the proper places, but for the most part mymaterial has been drawn from original sources. I am under muchobligation to my friend, Theodor Sippell of Schweinsberg, Germany. Iam glad to announce that he is preparing a critical historical study onJohn Everard and the Ranters, which will throw important light on thereligious ideas of the English Commonwealth. He has read my proofs, and has, throughout my period of research, given me the benefit of hisextensive knowledge of this historical field. I wish to express myappreciation of the courtesy and kindness which I have received fromthe officials of the University Library at Marburg. William CharlesBraithwaite of Banbury, England, has given me valuable help. My wifehas assisted me in all my work of research. She has read and re-readthe proofs, made the Index, and given me an immense amount of patienthelp. I cannot close this Preface without again referring to theinspiration of my invisible friend, John Wilhelm Rowntree, in whosememory this series was undertaken. 

HAVERFORD, PENNSYLVANIA, _January_ 1914. 

{vii}

CONTENTS

 PAGE

INTRODUCTION

WHAT IS "SPIRITUAL RELIGION" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Xi

CHAPTER I

THE MAIN CURRENT OF THE REFORMATION . . . . . . . . . . . 1

CHAPTER II

HANS DENCK AND THE INWARD WORD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

CHAPTER III

TWO PROPHETS OF THE INWARD WORD: BÜNDERLIN AND ENTFELDER 31

CHAPTER IV

SEBASTIAN FRANCK: AN APOSTLE OF INWARD RELIGION . . . . . 46

CHAPTER V

CASPAR SCHWENCKFELD AND THE REFORMATION OF THE "MIDDLE WAY" 64

CHAPTER VI

SEBASTIAN CASTELLIO: A FORGOTTEN PROPHET . . . . . . . . . 88

{viii}

CHAPTER VII

COORNHERT AND THE COLLEGIANTS--A MOVEMENT FOR SPIRITUAL RELIGION IN HOLLAND . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104

CHAPTER VIII

VALENTINE WEIGEL AND NATURE MYSTICISM . . . . . . . . . . 133

CHAPTER IX

JACOB BOEHME: HIS LIFE AND SPIRIT . . . . . . . . . . . . 151

CHAPTER X

BOEHME'S UNIVERSE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172

CHAPTER XI

JACOB BOEHME'S "WAY OF SALVATION" . . . . . . . . . . . . 190

CHAPTER XII

JACOB BOEHME'S INFLUENCE IN ENGLAND . . . . . . . . . . . 208

CHAPTER XIII

EARLY ENGLISH INTERPRETERS OF SPIRITUAL RELIGION: JOHN EVERARD, GILES RANDALL, AND OTHERS . . . . . . . . 235

CHAPTER XIV

SPIRITUAL RELIGION IN HIGH PLACES--ROUS, VANE, AND STERRY 266

{ix}

CHAPTER XV

BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE, THE FIRST OF THE "LATITUDE-MEN" . . . 288

CHAPTER XVI

JOHN SMITH, PLATONIST--"AN INTERPRETER OF THE SPIRIT" . . 305

CHAPTER XVII

THOMAS TRAHERNE AND THE SPIRITUAL POETS OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320

CHAPTER XVIII

CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336

INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 351

{x}

 Within thy sheltering darkness spin the spheres; Within the shaded hollow of thy wings. The life of things, The changeless pivot of the passing years-- These in thy bosom lie. Restless we seek thy being; to and fro Upon our little twisting earth we go: We cry, "Lo, there!" When some new avatar thy glory does declare, When some new prophet of thy friendship sings, And in his tracks we run Like an enchanted child, that hastes to catch the sun. 

 And shall the soul thereby Unto the All draw nigh? Shall it avail to plumb the mystic deeps Of flowery beauty, scale the icy steeps Of perilous thought, thy hidden Face to find, Or tread the starry paths to the utmost verge of the sky? Nay, groping dull and blind Within the sheltering dimness of thy wings-- Shade that their splendour flings Athwart Eternity-- We, out of age-long wandering, but come Back to our Father's heart, where now we are at home. 

 EVELYN UNDERHILL in _Immanence_, p. 82. 

{xi}

INTRODUCTION

WHAT IS "SPIRITUAL RELIGION"

I

There is no magic in words, though, it must be confessed, they oftenexercise a psychological influence so profound and far-reaching thatthey seem to possess a miracle-working efficacy. Some persons live alltheir lives under the suggestive spell of certain words, and itsometimes happens that an entire epoch is more or less dominated by themysterious fascination of a sacred word, which needs only to be spokenon the house-top to set hearts beating and legs marching. 

"Spiritual" has always been one of these wonder-working words. St. Paul, in Christian circles, was the first to give the word its uniquevalue. For him it named a new order of life and a new level of being. In his thought, a deep cleavage runs through the human race and dividesit into two sharply-sundered classes, "psychical men" and "pneumaticalmen"--men who live according to nature, and men who live by the life ofthe Spirit. The former class, that is psychical men, are of the earthearthy; they are, as we should say to-day, _empirical_, parts of a vastnature-system, doomed, as is the entire system, to constant flux andmutability and eventually to irretrievable wreck and ruin; the natural, psychical, corruptible man cannot inherit incorruption. [1] On theother hand, the pneumatical or spiritual man {xii} "puts on"incorruption and immortality. He is a member of a new order; he is"heavenly, " a creation "not made with hands, " but wrought out of thesubstance of the spiritual world, and furnished with the inherentcapacity of eternal duration, so that "mortality is swallowed up oflife. "[2]

This word, thus made sacred by St. Paul's great use of it to designatethe new race of the saved, was made the bearer in the Johanninewritings of a no less exalted message, which has become a living andindissoluble part of the religious consciousness of the Christianworld. "Eternal life"--or, what in these writings is the same thing, "life"--comes through the reception of the Spirit, in a birth fromabove. "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which isborn of the Spirit is Spirit. "[3] When the Spirit comes as theinitiator of this abundant life, then we "know that we abide in Him andHe in us, because He hath given us of His Spirit, " and it becomespossible for the Spirit-led person to be guided "into all the truth, "to "love even as He loved, " and to "overcome the world. "[4] Here, again, the human race is divided into those who have "received of theSpirit, " and those who have not so received; those who are "born fromabove" and those who have had only a natural birth; the twice-born andthe once-born; those who are "of the Spirit, " _i. E. _ spiritual, andthose who are "of this world, " _i. E. _ empirical. 

The Gnostic Sects of the second century had one common link and badge;they all proposed a "way, " often bizarre and strange-sounding to modernears, by which the soul, astray, lost, encumbered, or imprisoned inmatter, might attain its freedom and become _spiritual_. Most of theGnostic teachers, who in their flourishing time were as thick asthistle-downs in summer, conceived of man as consisting of two "halves"which corresponded with two totally different world-orders. There wasin man, or there belonged to man (1) a visible body, which {xiii} wasagain dichotomized, and believed to be composed, according to many ofthe Gnostics, of a subtle element like that of which they supposed Adamin his unfallen state was made, which they named the _hylic_ body, anda sheath of gross earthly matter which they called the _choical_body. [5] There was also (2) another, invisible, "half, " generallydivided into lower and higher stories. The lower story, the psychical, was created or furnished by the Demiurge, or sub-divine creator of thenatural system, while the top-story, or pneumatical self, was a_spiritual seed_ derived from the supreme spiritual Origin, the DivinePleroma, the Fulness of the Godhead. Those who possessed thisspiritual seed were "the elect, " "the saved, " who eventually, strippedof their sheath of matter and their psychical dwelling, would be ableto pass all "the keepers of the way, " and rise to the pure spirituallife. 

The Montanists launched in the second century a movement, borne alongon a mountain-wave of enthusiasm, for a "spiritual" Church composedonly of "spiritual" persons. They called themselves "the Spirituals, "and they insisted that the age or dispensation of the Spirit had nowcome. The Church, rigidly organized with its ordained officials, itsexternal machinery, and its accumulated traditions, was to them part ofan old and outworn system to be left behind. In the place of it was tocome a new order of "spiritual people" of whom the Montanist prophetswere the "first fruits, "--a new and peculiar people, born from above, recipients of a divine energizing power, partakers in the life of theSpirit and capable of being guided on by progressive revelations intoall the truth. To be "spiritual" in their vocabulary meant to be aparticipator in the Life of God, and to be a living member of a groupthat was led and guided by a continuously self-revealing Spirit. ThisSpirit was conceived, however, not as immanent and resident, not as the{xiv} indwelling and permeative Life of the human spirit, but asforeign and remote, and He was thought of as "coming" in sporadicvisitations to whom He would, His coming being indicated inextraordinary and charismatic manifestations. 

This type of "spiritual religion, " though eventually stamped out in theparticular form of Montanism, reappeared again and again, with peculiarlocal and temporal variations, in the history of Christianity. [6] Tothe bearers of it, the historic Church, with its crystallized systemand its vast machinery, always seemed "unspiritual" and traditional. They believed, each time the movement appeared, that _they_ had foundthe way to more abundant life, that the Spirit had come upon them in aspecial manner, and was through them inaugurating a higher order ofChristianity, and they always felt that their religion of directexperience, of invading energy, of inspirational insights, ofcharismatic bestowals, and of profound emotional fervour was distinctly"spiritual, " as contrasted with the historic Church which claimedindeed a divine origin and divine "deposits, " but which, as theybelieved, lacked the continuous and progressive leadership of theSpirit. They were always very certain that their religion wascharacteristically "spiritual, " and all other forms seemed to themcold, formal, or dead. In their estimates, men were still divided intospiritual persons and psychical persons--those who lived by the "heart"and those who lived by the "head. "

Parallel with the main current of the Protestant Reformation, a newtype of "spiritual religion" appeared and continued to manifest itselfwith mutations and developments, throughout the entire Reformation era, with a wealth of results which are still operative in the life of themodern world. The period of this new birth was a time of profoundtransition and ferment, and a bewildering variety of roads was tried tospiritual Canaans and new Jerusalems, then fondly believed to {xv} benear at hand. It is a long-standing tragedy of history that the rightwing of a revolutionary or transforming movement must always suffer forthe unwisdom and lack of balance of those who constitute the left, orextreme radical, wing of the movement. So it happened here. Thenobler leaders and the saner spirits were taken in the mass with thoseof an opposite character, and were grouped under comprehensive labelsof reproach and scorn, such as "Antinomians, " "Enthusiasts, " or"Anabaptists, " and in consequence still remain largely neglected andforgotten. 

The men who initiated and guided this significant undertaking--theexhibition in the world of what they persistently called "spiritualreligion"--were influenced by three great historic tendencies, allthree of which were harmoniously united in their type of Christianity. They were the Mystical tendency, the Humanistic or Rational tendency, and the distinctive Faith-tendency of the Reformation. These threestrands are indissolubly woven together in this type of so-calledspiritual Religion. It was an impressive attempt, whether completelysuccessful or not, to widen the sphere and scope of religion, to carryit into _the whole of life_, to ground it in the very nature of thehuman spirit, and to demonstrate that to be a man, possessed of fulllife and complete health, is to be religious, to be spiritual. Ipropose, as a preliminary preparation for differentiating this specialtype of "spiritual religion, " to undertake a study, as brief aspossible, of these three underlying and fundamental strands ortendencies in religion which will, of course, involve someconsideration of the inherent nature of religion itself. 

For my present purpose it is not necessary to study the twilighthistory of religion in primitive races nor to trace its origins in thecradle-stage of human life. Anthropologists are rendering a valuableservice in their attempts to explore the baffling region of primitiveman's mind, and they have hit upon some very suggestive clues, thoughso far only tentative ones, to the psychological experiences andattitudes which set man's feet on the {xvi} momentous religious trail. At every stage of its long and devious history, religion has been _somesort of life-adjustment to realities which were felt to be of supremeimportance either to the individual or to the race_, and it becomesthus possible for the scientific observer to note a developmentalprocess and to discover a principle which links it in with a universalscheme of evolution. 

But religion can never be adequately treated either in terms of racialorigins or of biological history, though there can be no doubt whateverthat there are genetic and biological factors to be considered. Nor, again, can religion be adequately and exhaustively dealt with by thepsychological method of investigation. The psychological studies ofreligion in recent years have greatly enriched our knowledge of therange and scope and power of man's psychic nature and functions, of hisinstincts, desires, valuations, needs, yearnings, beliefs, and modes ofactivity and behaviour, and particularly of the important influencewhich the social group has exercised and still exercises in thefurtherance of religious attitudes and ideals. But the psychologicalmethod has obvious and inherent limitations. Like any other naturalscience, psychology is limited to description and causal explanation ofthe phenomena of its special field, which in this case is states ofconsciousness. It does not pretend, or even aspire, to pronounce uponthe ultimate nature of consciousness, nor upon the moral significanceof personality. Psychology is as empirical as any other science. Itmodestly confines its scope of research to what _appears_ in finite anddescribable forms. It possesses no ladder by which it can transcendthe empirical order, the fact-level. The religion which thepsychologist reports upon is necessarily stripped of all transcendentaland objective reference. Its wings are severely clipped. It is onlyone of man's multitudinous _reactions_ in the presence of the facts ofhis time and space world. It is nakedly subjective and _works_, notbecause there is Something or Some One beyond, which answers it, andcorresponds with its up-reach, but only {xvii} because undividedfaith-attitudes always liberate within the field of consciousnessenergy for life-activity. 

We need not blame the psychologist for this radical reduction of theage-long pretensions of religion. If he is to bring religion over intothe purview of the scientific field, he can do nothing else but reduceit. Science can admit into its world nothing that successfully defiesdescriptive treatment. The poet may know of flowers which "can givethoughts that do often lie too deep for tears, " but science discoversno such flowers in its field. Its flowers are amazingly complex, butthey call for no handkerchief. They are merely aggregations ofdescribable parts, each of which has well-defined functions. The "man"whom science studies is complicated almost beyond belief. He is anaggregation of trillions of cells. He is such a centre of vibrationsthat a cyclone is almost a calm compared to the constant cyclic stormswithin the area of man's corporeal system. His "mental states" havetheir entries and exits before "the foot-lights of consciousness" andexhibit a drama more intricate than any which human genius hasconceived. But each "state" is a definite, more or less describable, _fact_ or _phenomenon_. For science, "man's" inner life, as well ashis corporeal bulk, is an aggregate of empirical items. No loophole isleft for freedom--that is for any novel undetermined event. Noshekinah remains within for a mysterious "conscience" to inject intothis fact-world insights drawn from a higher world of noumenal, orabsolute, reality. "Man" is merely a part of the naturalistic order, and has no way of getting out of the vast net in which science catchesand holds "all that is. "

There is, I repeat, no ground for blaming the psychologist for makingthese reductions. His science can deal only with an order of factswhich will conform to the scientific method, for wherever scienceinvades a field, it ignores or eliminates every aspect of novelty ormystery or wonder, every aspect of reality which cannot be broughtunder scientific categories, _i. E. _ every aspect which cannot betreated quantitatively and causally and {xviii} arranged in a congeriesof interrelated facts occurring according to natural laws. The onlycogent criticism is that any psychologist should suppose that hisscientific account is the "last word" to be spoken, that his reportscontain all the returns that can be expected, or that this method isthe only way of approach to truth and reality. Such claims to therights of eminent domain and such dogmatic assertions of exclusivefinality always reveal the blind spot in the scientist's vision. Hesees steadily but he does not see wholes. He is of necessity dealingwith a reduced and simplified "nature" which he constantly tends tosubstitute for the vastly richer whole of reality that boils over andinundates the fragment which submits to his categories. We do well togather in every available fact which biology or anthropology orpsychology can give us that throws light on human behaviour, or onprimitive cults, or on the richer subjective and social religiousfunctions of full-grown men. But the interior insight got fromreligion itself, the rich wholeness of religious experience, thediscovery within us of an inner nature which defies description andbaffles all plumb-lines, and which _can draw out of itself more than itcontains_, indicate that we here have dealings with a type of realitywhich demands for adequate treatment other methods of comprehensionthan those available to science. 

In the old Norse stories, Thor tried to empty the famous drinking-hornin the games of Utgard, but to his surprise he found that, though thehorn looked small, he could not empty it, for it turned out that thehorn was immersed in the limitless and bottomless ocean. Again hetried to lift a small and insignificant-looking animal, but, labour ashe might, he could not lift it, for it was grown into, and was organicwith, the whole world, and could not be raised without raising the veryground on which the lifter stood! Somewhat so, the reality of religionis so completely bound up with the whole personal life of man and withhis conjunct life in the social group and in the world of nature; itis, in short, so much an {xix} affair of man's whole of experience, ofhis spirit in its undivided and synthetic aspects, that it can never beadequately dealt with by the analytic and descriptive method of thiswonderful new god of science, however big with results that method maybe. 

The interior insight, the appreciation of religion, the rich andconcrete whole of religious consciousness, is, and will always remain, the primary way to the _secret_ of religion--religion in its "firstintention"--as the experience of time-duration is the only possible wayto the elemental meaning of time. It has in recent years in manyquarters become the fashion to call this "interior insight, " thisappreciation of religion from within, "mysticism"; and to assume thathere in mysticism we come upon the very essence of religion. Thisconclusion, however, is as narrow and as unwarranted as is thetruncation of religion at the hands of science. The mystical elementin religion is only one element in a vastly richer complex, and it mustnot be given undue emphasis and imperial sway in the appreciation ofthe complete whole of "spiritual religion. " We must, too, carefullydiscriminate _mystical experience_ from the elaborate body of doctrinesand theories, historically known as "mysticism, " which is as much an_ism_ as are the other typical, partial, and more or less abstractformulations of religion. 

Mysticism for the mystic himself is characterized by a personalexperience through which the ordinary limitations of life and thepassionate pursuits of the soul are transcended, and a self-evidentconviction is attained that he is in communion, or even in union, withsome self-transcending Reality that absolutely satisfies and is what hehas always sought. "This is He, this is He, " the mystic exclaims:"There is no other: This is He whom I have waited for and sought afterfrom my childhood!"[7]

The experience is further characterized by the inrush {xx} of newenergies as though a mysterious door had been pushed open--either outor in--admitting the human spirit to wider sources of life. "Freshbubblings from the eternal streams of Life flowing into the soul" isthe way the recipient often describes it. All the deep-lying powers ofthe inward self, usually so divergent and conflicting--the foregroundpurposes defeated by background inhibitions, and by doubts on theborder, --become liberated and unified into one conscious life which isnot merely intellectual, nor merely volitional, nor solely emotional, but an undivided whole of experience, intensely joyous, enriched withinsight and pregnant with deeds of action. As in lofty experiences ofappreciation of beauty, or of music, or when the chords of life areswept by a great love, or by a momentous moral issue, the spirit risesin mystical experience to a form of consciousness which no longer marksclock-time and succession of events, whether outward or inward. It mayafterwards take hours or days or weeks or even years to spread out andreview and apprehend and adjust to the experience--"the opening, " touse George Fox's impressive word--but while it is _there_ it is held inone unbroken synthetic time-span. It is, to revive a scholasticphrase, a _totum simul_, an all-at-once experience, in which parts, however many, make one integral whole, as in a melody or in a work ofart; so that the mystic has a real experience of what we try to expressby the word Eternity. It feels as though the usual insulations of ourown narrow personal life were suddenly broken through and we were inactual contact with an enfolding presence, life-giving, joy-bringing, and light-supplying. 

In instances where the intensity is great, unusual psychologicalphenomena appear. Sometimes voices are heard, or sounds "like a mightyrushing wind"; sometimes there are automatic visions of light, or offorms or figures, as, for instance, of Christ, or of a cross; sometimesautomatic writing or speaking attends the experience; sometimes thereare profound body-changes of a temporary, or even permanent character;sometimes there {xxi} is a state of swoon or ecstacy, lasting from afew seconds to entire days. These physical phenomena, however, are asspiritually unimportant and as devoid of religious significance as arethe normal bodily resonances and reverberations which accompany, inmilder degrees, all our psychic processes. They indicate no high rankof sainthood and they prove no miracle-working power. The significantfeatures of the experience are the consciousness of fresh springs oflife, the release of new energies, the inner integration andunification of personality, the inauguration of a sense of mission, theflooding of the life with hope and gladness, and the conviction, amounting in the mind of the recipient to certainty, that God is foundas an environing and vitalizing presence--as the recipient alreadyquoted reports his conviction: "I have met with my God; I have met withmy Saviour. I have felt the healings drop upon my soul from under Hiswings. "[8]

If _everybody_ had experiences of that sort there would be no moredoubt of the existence of an actual spiritual environment in vitalizingcontact with the human spirit than there now is of an external worldwith which we correspond. There is _a priori_ no reason against thereality of such an inner spiritual universe. It is precisely asconceivable that constructive and illuminating influences should streaminto our inner selves from that central Light with which our inmostself is allied, as that objects in space and time should bombard uswith messages adapted to our senses. The difference is that we allexperience the outer environment and only a few of us experience theinner. The mystic himself has no doubt--_he sees_, but he cannot givequite his certainty of vision to any one else. He cannot, like "theweird sisters" of Greek story, lend out his eye for others to see with. He can only talk about, or write about, what he has seen, and his wordsare often words of little meaning to those who lack the vision. 

{xxii}

II

But the very characteristics of mystical religion which give it itsself-evidence and power at the same time mark limits to its scope andrange. It is and must be primarily and essentially first-handexperience, and yet it is an experience that is by no means universal. It is not, so far as we can see from the facts at hand, an experiencewhich attaches to the very nature of consciousness as such, or indeedone which is bound to occur even when the human subject strains forwardall the energies of his will for the adventure, or when by strictobedience to the highest laws of life known to him he _waits_ for thehigh visitation. Some aspect is involved over which the will has nocontrol. Some other factor is implied besides the passion and thepurity of the seeking soul. The experience "comes, " as an inrush, asan emergence from the deeper levels of the inner life, but the gladrecipient does not know how he secured the prize or how to repeat theexperience, or how to tell his friend the way to these "master moments"of blessedness. 

There are numerous persons who are as serious and earnest andpassionate as the loftiest mystical saint, and who, in spite of alltheir listening for the inner flow of things, discover no inrushes, feel no invasions, are aware of no environing Companion, do not evenfeel a "More of Consciousness conterminous and continuous with theirown. " Their inner life appears impervious to divine bubblings. Theonly visitants that pass over the threshold of their consciousness aretheir own mental states, now bright and clear, now dim and strange, butall bearing the brand and mark of temporal origin. This type ofexperience must not, therefore, be insisted on as the only way to Godor to the soul's homeland. Spiritual religion must not be put to thehazard of conditions that limit its universality and restrict it to achosen few. To insist on mystical experience as the only path toreligion would involve an "election" no less inscrutable and {xxiii}pitiless than that of the Calvinistic system--an "election" settled foreach person by the peculiar psychic structure of his inner self. [9]

There is another limitation which must always attach to religion of thepurely mystical type. In so far as it is an _experience_ of the inwardtype, it is indescribable and incommunicable. That does not mean orimply any lessened value in the experience itself, it only means thatit is very difficult to mint it into the universal coinage of theworld. The recovery of faith, after some catastrophic bankruptcy ofspiritual values, as with Job or Dante or Faust, cannot be described inanalytic steps. The loss of faith in the rationality of the universe, the collapse of the "beautiful world" within, can be told step by step;the process of integration and reconstruction, on the other hand, always remains somewhat of a mystery, though it is plain enough that anew and richer inner world has been found. So, too, with Mysticism. The experience itself may, and often does, bring to the recipient anindubitable certainty of spiritual realities, revealing themselveswithin his own spirit, and, furthermore, it is often productive ofpermanent life-results, such as augmented conviction, heightened toneof joy, increased unification of personality, intense moral passion andlarger conquering power, but he, nevertheless, finds it a bafflingmatter to draw from his mystical experience concrete information aboutthe nature and character of God, or to supply, from the experiencealone, definite contributions that can become part of the commonspiritual inheritance of the race. 

 The soul Remembering how she felt, but _what_ she felt Remembering not, retains an obscure sense Of possible sublimity. [10]

{xxiv}

There can be, I think, no doubt that the persons whom we call mysticshave enormously added to the richness of our conception of God, or thatthey have made impressive contributions to the capital stock of ourreligious knowledge. But I question whether these increments ofknowledge can be fairly traced to "information" which has entered theworld through the secret door of mystical "openings. " The conceptionof God by which we live, and our knowledge of eternal life, are in themain not formed of the material which has mysteriously dropped into theworld by means of "sudden incursions, " or "oracular communications"through persons of extraordinary psychical disposition. What we getfrom the mystic, or from the prophet, is not his "experience" but hisinterpretation, and as soon as he begins to _interpret_, he does so bymeans of the group-material which the race has gathered in itscorporate experience through the ages. The valuable _content_ of hismessage, so far as he succeeds in delivering one, the ideas with whichhis words are freighted, bear the marks of the slow accumulations ofspiritual experience, and they reveal the rich and penetrativeinfluence of the social group in which the mystic's inner life formedand ripened. They have a history as all ideas do. 

The real fact of the matter is, that the great mystics are religiousgeniuses. They make their contribution to religion in ways similar tothose in which the geniuses in other fields raise the level of humanattainments and achievements. They swiftly seize upon and appreciatethe specific achievements of the race behind them; they are profoundlysensitive to the aspirations of their time and to the deep-lyingcurrents of their age; they are suggestible in an acute degree, throughheightened interest, to certain ideas or truths or principles whichthey synthesise by such leaps of insight that slow-footed logic seemsto be transcended. Then these unifying and intensifying experiences towhich they are subject give them irresistible conviction, "a surge ofcertainty, " a faith of the mountain-moving order, and an increasing{xxv} dynamic of life which, in the best cases, is manifest in thoughtsand words and deeds. Their mystical experience seldom supplies themwith a new intellectual content which they communicate, but theirexperience enables them rather to _see_ what they know, to getpossession of themselves, and to fuse their truth with the heat ofconviction. The mystical experience is thus a way of heightening lifeand of increasing its dynamic quality rather than a way to newknowledge. 

The _negative way_, which has been such a prominent and prevailingcharacteristic of historical mysticism that many writers have made itthe distinct and sufficient differentia of mysticism, has oftenproduced intensity and depth, but it is, nevertheless, a mark of thelimitation of this type of religion. The indescribable andundifferentiated character of mystical experience is no doubt partlyresponsible for the emphatic place which negation has held inmysticism. The experience itself, which seems like "a flight of thealone to the Alone, " can be told in no words except those of negation. "The mortal limit of the self" seems loosed, and the soul seems mergedinto that which it forever seeks but which having found it cannotutter. But the type of metaphysics through which most of the greatmystics of history have done their thinking and have made theirformulations is still further responsible for the excessive negativityof their systems. 

There is, of course, a negative element or aspect in all genuinereligion. No person can grow rich in spiritual experience or can gainan intimate acquaintance with a God of purity and truth withoutnegating the easy ways of instinct, the low pursuits of life which endin self, the habits of thought and action which limit and hamper therealization of the diviner possibilities of the whole nature. Sometimes the eye that hinders must be plucked out or the right handcut off and thrust away for the sake of a freer pursuit of the soul'skingdom. There is, too, a still deeper principle of negativityinvolved in the very fibre of personal life itself. No one can advancewithout {xxvi} surrender, no one can have gains without losses, no onecan reach great goals without giving up many things in themselvesdesirable. There is "a rivalry of me's" which no person can everescape, for in order to choose and achieve one typical self anotherpossible self must be sternly sacrificed. In a very real sense itremains forever true that we must die to live, we must die to thenarrow self in order to be raised to the wider and richer self. 

But the _negative way_ of mysticism is more rigorous and more thoroughin its negation than that. Its negations "wind up the hill all the wayto the very top. " Even the _self_ must be absolutely negated. "Theself, the I, the me and the like, all belong to the evil spirit. Thewhole matter can be set forth in these words: Be simply and whollybereft of self. " "The I, the me, and the mine, nature, selfhood, theDevil, sin, are all one and the same thing. "[11] Not only so, but all_desire_ for any particular thing, or any particular experience must beutterly extirpated. "Whatever Good the creature as creature canconceive of and understand is something this or that, " and thereforenot the One Real Good. [12] "So long as thy soul has an image, it iswithout simplicity, and so long as it is without simplicity it doth notrightly love God. "[13] "Divine love can brook no rival. " He who seeksGod must "rid himself of all that pertains to the creature. " He thatwould find the absolute Good must withdraw not only beyond all hissenses, but beyond all desires, into an inner "solitude where no wordis spoken, where is neither creature nor image nor fancy. " "Everythingdepends, " Tauler counsels us, "upon a fathomless sinking into afathomless nothingness. . . . God has really no place to work in butthe ground where all has been annihilated. . . . Then when all formshave ceased, in the twinkling of an eye, the man is transformed. . . . Thou must sink into the unknown and unnamed abyss, and above all ways, images, forms, and above all powers, {xxvii} lose thyself, denythyself, and even unform thyself. "[14] The moment the will focussesupon any concrete aim as its goal, it must thereby miss that Good whichis above and beyond all particular "things" that can be conceived ornamed. 

But the _negative way_ winds up farther still. It ends in theabsolutely negative Silent Desert of Godhead "where no one is at home. "Its way up is the way of abstraction and withdrawal from everythingfinite. He whom the soul seeks cannot be found in anything "here" or"now"; He must be "yonder. " "It is by no means permitted, " says one ofthe great experts in negation, "to speak or even to think anythingconcerning the super-essential and hidden Deity. . . . It is a Unityabove mind, a One above conception and inconceivable to allconceptions, a Good unutterable by word. "[15] "Thou must love God, "Eckhart says, "as not-God, not-Spirit, not-person, not-image, but as Heis, a sheer, pure, absolute One, sundered from all two-ness and in whomwe must eternally sink from nothingness to nothingness. "[16] God, theGodhead, is thus the absolute "Dark, " "the nameless Nothing, " an emptyGod, a characterless Infinite. "Why dost thou prate of God, " Eckhartsays, "whatever thou sayest of Him is untrue!" The rapt soul at theend of his road, at the top of the hill, only knows that every finiteaccount is false and that the only adequate word is an everlasting Nay. 

 Whatever idea your mind comes at, I tell you flat God is _not_ that. [17]

The great mystics have always saved themselves by neglecting to beconsistent with this rigorous negation and abstraction. In theirpractice they have cut through their theory and gone on living the richconcrete life. {xxviii} But the theory itself is a false theory oflife, and it leads only to a God of abstraction, not to the God ofspiritual religion. The false trail, however, is to be charged, as Ihave said, not so much to mystical experience as to the metaphysicsthrough which the mystics, not only of Christian communions, but ofother faiths, were compelled to do their thinking. There was no otherway of thinking known to them except this way of negation. TheInfinite was the not-finite; the Absolute was precisely what thecontingent was _not_. The perfect was free of every mark ofimperfection. Behind all manifestations was the essential Substancewhich made the manifestations. The completely Real was above allmutation and process. "For one to assign, " therefore, "to God anyhuman attributes, " as Spinoza, the supreme apostle of this negative wayhas said, "is to reveal that he has no true idea of God. " It has takenall the philosophical and spiritual travail of the centuries todiscover that there may be a concrete Infinite, an organic Absolute, animmanent Reality, and that the way to share in this comprehending Lifeis at least as much a way of affirmation as of negation, a way thatleads not into "the Dark" but into the Light, and not into a"fathomless nothing, " but into an abundant and radiant life. 

Mysticism, as a type of religion, has further staked its preciousrealities too exclusively upon the functions of what to-day we call thesub-conscious. Impressed with the divine significance of "inwardbubblings, " the mystic has made too slight an account of the testimonyof Reason and the contribution of history. The subconscious functionsare very real and very important aspects of personal life, and cannever again be ignored in any full account of personality. Theyinfluence every thought, feeling, attitude, volition, opinion, mood, and insight, and are thus operative in all the higher as well as in allthe lower phases of human life and character. Metaphorically, but onlymetaphorically, we speak of the sub-conscious as a vast zone, anindefinable margin, surrounding the narrow focus of attention, and wemay {xxix} figuratively, but only figuratively, call it the subliminal"region" where all our life-gains, and often the gains of the race, aregarnered. The contributions from this mental underworld areinestimable--we could not be men without them--but this subconsciouszone is a source of things bad as well as good, things silly as well asthings wise, of rubbish as well as of treasures, and it is diabolicalas well as divine. It seems in rare moments to connect, as though itwere a hidden inland stream, with the "immortal sea which brought ushither, " and we feel at times, through its incomes, as though we wereaware of _tides_ from beyond our own margin. And, in fact, I believewe are. 

But obviously we cannot assume that whatever comes spontaneously out ofthe subconscious is divinely given. It mothers strangeoffspring--Esaus as well as Jacobs; its openings, its inrushes, itsbubblings must be severely tested. Impulses of many sorts feelcategorically imperative, but some call to deeds of light and some todeeds of darkness. They cannot be taken at their face value; they mustbe judged in some Court which is less capricious and which is guided bya more universal principle--something _semper et ubique_. A spiritualreligion of the full and complete type will, I believe, have inward, mystical depth, it will keep vitalized and intensified with itsexperiences of divine supplies, and of union and unification with anenvironing Spirit, but it must at the same time soundly supplement itsmore or less capricious and subjective, and always fragmentary, mystical insights with the steady and unwavering testimony of Reason, and no less with the immense objective illumination of History. 

III

The men whom I am here calling Spiritual Reformers are examples of thiswider synthesis. They all read and loved the mystics and theythemselves enjoyed times of direct refreshment from an inward Source ofLife, but {xxx} they were, most of them, at the same time, devotedHumanists. They shared with enthusiasm the rediscovery of thosetreasures which human Reason had produced, and they rose to a morevirile confidence in the sphere and capacity of Reason than hadprevailed in Christian circles since the days of the early GreekFathers. They took a variety of roads to their conclusion, but in oneway or another they all proclaimed that deep in the central nature ofman--an inalienable part of Reason--there was a Light, a Word, an Imageof God, something permanent, reliable, universal, and unsundered fromGod himself. They all knew that man is vastly more than "mere man. "Hans Denck, one of the earliest of this group of Spiritual Reformers, declared that there is a _witness to God_ in the soul of every man, andthat without this inward Word it would be as impossible to bring men toGod by outward means as it would be to show sunlight to eyeless men. He anticipated the great saying of Pascal in these words, "Apart fromGod no one can either seek or find God, for he who seeks God already intruth has Him. "[18] "We are, " says Jacob Boehme, who belongs in thisline of Spiritual Reformers, "of God's substance: we have heaven andhell in ourselves. "[19] There is in us, Peter Sterry says, a _unity ofspirit_ which holds all things together in an _at-once_ experience, "aspire-top of spirit where all things meet and sit recollected andconcentred in an unfathomed Depth of Life. "[20] Most of these men werein revolt against scholasticism and all its works. They speak oftenvery slightingly of "Reasoning, " the attempt to find a way to ultimateRealities by logical syllogisms, but they, nevertheless, believed greatthings of man's rational and moral nature. They are often confused andcloudy in their explicit accounts of this ultimate moral and rationalnature. They everywhere indicate the conceptual limitations {xxxi}under which even those who were the most emancipated from traditionwere compelled to do their thinking in that age. They could not breakthe age-long spell and mighty fascination with which the Adam story andthe Garden of Eden picture had held the Christian world. They wereconvinced, however, that the Augustinian interpretation of the fall, with its entail of an indelible taint upon the race forever, was aninadequate, if not an untrue account, though they could not quitearrive at an insight which enabled them to speak with authority on thefundamental nature of man. But with an instinct that pointed right, they took Adam as a type of the unspoiled man, and they saw writ largein him the possibilities and potentialities of man. What had beenoriginally possible in Adam became, according to their thought, actualrealization in Jesus Christ--the form and type of man, the true Head ofthe race--and in spite of the havoc and spoiling, which sin hadwrought, that original possibility, that divine potentiality, stillreappears in every child, who comes now, as Adam did, made in the imageof God, with the breath of God in him, and with creative freedom ofwill to settle his own destiny. Some of the Reformers whom I am herestudying centre this image of God, this immense divine potentiality, inthe ideal man, in man as God conceives him in his perfect state, or asGod by His Grace intends him to be, and they do not go the whole boldway of asserting that this man we know, this man who lives in time andspace, who loves and sins and suffers, has and always has, in the verystructure of his inmost moral and rational being, a divine, unlost, inalienable, soul-centre which is unsundered from God, and bearseternal witness to our origin from Him, our potential likeness to Him, and our capacity to receive illumination from Him. [21] But this latter{xxxii} bolder view of the inherent greatness of man's essential natureis the prevailing tendency of these men. They are thus the forerunnersof the Quaker faith that there is something of God in man, and theycontinue the direct line, which goes back for ancestry to the Socraticmovement in philosophy of those who find God involved and implicated inthe nature of normal self-consciousness and in the idea of the Goodtoward which we live. [22]

Mystics and prophets, as Seely well says in _Ecce Homo_, seem tothemselves to "discover truth not so much by a process of reasoning asby _an intense gaze_, and they announce their conclusions with thevoice of a herald, using the name of God and giving no reasons. " Therational way of approach is different. It seeks to draw out by aprocess of rational argument what is involved in the outer or innerfacts that are present to consciousness. It does not claim the powerto make bricks without clay, to construct its conclusions out ofnothing. Its only legitimate field is that of interpreting experience. There have always been men who were religious because they could nothelp being religious, because a Universe without God seemed to themutterly irrational and unthinkable. Schleiermacher is only one witnessin a long and impressive succession of thinkers that have insisted that"consciousness of God and self-consciousness are inseparable. "[23] Itis obvious even to the unmetaphysical person that self-consciousnessalways presupposes and involves something prior to one's own existenceand some reality transcending the reality of one's own self. Thefinite is intelligible only through the infinite, the temporal onlythrough the eternal. We cannot think at all without appealing to some_permanent more of reality_ than is just now given in our particularfinite experience, and no matter how far one travels on the road ofknowledge one always finds it still necessary to make reference to _atranscending more_. "All consciousness is, " as Hegel {xxxiii} showedin 1807, in his philosophical Pilgrim's Progress, the _Phenomenology ofSpirit_, "an appeal to more consciousness, " and there is no rationalhalting-place short of a self-consistent and self-explanatory spiritualReality, which explains the origin and furnishes the goal of all thatis real. 

On the other hand, there have always been men who have not granted anysuch compelling implications to self-consciousness. They havemaintained that "finites" are forever "finites, " and that there are nobridges that carry us from our finite "nows" and "heres" to an infiniteReality. The infinite Reality, they all admit, is conceivable; it is"an idea" to which any mind can rise by normal processes of thought, "but, " so they say, "an _idea_ of an infinite Reality, an Infinitemerely conceived in the mind, is different, by the whole width of thesky, from an actual objective infinite Reality that is _there_, andthat contains inherently all that our hearts seek in God. "

It is quite true, of course, that the presence of "an idea" in our minddoes not of itself prove the existence of a corresponding objectivereality _out there_ in a world independent of our mind. There is mostassuredly no way of bridging "the chasm" between mind and an objectiveworld beyond and outside of mind, when once the "chasm" is assumed. But the fundamental error lies in the assumption of any such "chasm. "The "chasm" which yawns between the inner and outer world is of our ownmaking. Whenever we know anything, wherever there is knowledge at all, there is a synthetic indivisible whole of experience in which a subjectknows an object. Subject and object cannot be really sundered withoutputting an instant end to knowledge--leaving "a bare grin without aface!" The only way we know anything is that we know we know it inexperience. We do not ever succeed in proving that objects exist _outthere_ in the world beyond us exactly correspondent to these ideas inour minds. That is a feat of mental gymnastics quite parallel to thatof "finding" {xxxiv} the self with which we do the seeking. Thecrucial problem of knowledge is not to discover a bridge to leap thechasm between the mind within and the world beyond. It is rather theproblem of finding a basis of verifying and testing what we know, andof making knowledge a consistent rational whole. 

The method of testing and verifying any fact of truth which we have onour hands, is always to organize it and link it into a larger whole ofknowledge which we ourselves, or the wider group of persons in which weare organic members, have verified, and to see that it fits inconsistently into this larger whole, and in this rational process wealways assume, and are bound to assume, some sort of Reality thattranscends the fleeting and temporal, the caprice of the moment, thewill of the subject, the here and the now. The mind that knows andknows that it knows must, as Plato centuries ago declared, rise fromthe welter and flux of momentary seemings to true Being, to theeternally Real, [24] and the knowledge process of binding fragments ofexperience into larger wholes and of getting articulate insight intothe significance of many facts grasped in synthetic unity--in the"spire-top of spirit, " as Sterry puts it--carries the mind steadily andirresistibly on to an infinitely-inclusive and self-explanatoryspiritual Whole, which is always implied in knowledge. Some referenceto the _permanent_ is necessary in judging even the fleetingness of the"now, " some confidence in the eternally true is essential for anypronouncement upon the false, some assurance of the infinite ispresupposed in the endless dissatisfaction with the finite, some appealto a total whole of Reality is implicated in any assertion that _thisfact here and now_ is known as real. Any one who feels the fullsignificance of what is involved in knowing the _truth_ has a coercivefeeling that Eternity has been set within us, that our finite life isdeeply rooted in the all-pervading Infinite. 

The great thinkers of the first rank who have undertaken to sound thesignificance of rational knowledge, {xxxv} and who have appreciated themeaning of the synthetic unity of the knowing mind and the world ofobjects that submit to its forms of thought, have recognized that theremust be some deep-lying fundamental relation between the mind thatknows and the world that is known, some Reality common to both outerand inner realms. They have, almost without exception, foundthemselves carried along irresistibly to an ultimate Reality that isthe ground and explanation of all the fragmentary facts of experience, and without which nothing can be held to be permanent or rational--

 Something far more deeply interfused, Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, And the round ocean and the living air, And the blue sky, and in the mind of man; A motion and a Spirit, that impels All thinking things, all objects of all thought, And rolls through all things. [25]

The technical logical formulation of arguments to _prove_ the existenceof God as objectively real--arguments from causality, ontologicalarguments, and arguments from design--all of which assume a "chasm"between the knower and the object known, seem to us perhaps on criticalanalysis thin and insufficient. The bridge of formal logic seems tooweak to carry us safely over from a finite here to an infinite yonder, from a contingent fact to an Absolute Reality, from something given_in_ consciousness to Something existent outside and beyond it; but itis an impressive and significant fact that all finite experience, bothof inner and outer events, involves a More yet, that we cannot thinkfinite and contingent things without rational appeal to Somethinginfinite and necessary, that human experience cannot be rationallyconceived except as a fragment of a vastly more inclusive Experience, always recognized within the finite spirit, that unifies and bindstogether into one self-explanatory whole all that is absolutely Realand True, and this is Reason's conviction of God. 

{xxxvi}

When once the conviction is _felt_ and the rational postulate of God ismade, it immediately verifies its practical value in the solution ofour deepest problems. A happy illustration of the practical value andverifying evidence of the rational postulate of God has been given byJames Ward: "Suppose, " he says, "that the earth were wrapt in cloudsall day while the sky was clear at night, so that we were able to seethe planets and observe their movements as we do now, though the sunitself was invisible. The best account we could give of the planetarymotions would still be to refer them to what for us, in accordance withour supposition, would only be an imaginary focus [or centre ofphysical energy], but one to which was assigned a position identicalwith the sun's [present] position. "[26] This assumption would at onceunlock the mystery and account for the varying movements of thesevisible bodies and the more rigorously the hypothesis were applied, themore exactly it would verify itself. So, too, with Reason's sublimeventure of faith. The nature of self-consciousness demands thepostulate, and once it is made it _works_. 

The same result follows any attempt adequately to account for the moralimperative--the will to live the truly good life. The moral will turnsout always to be imbedded in a deeper, richer, more inclusive Life thanthat of the fragmentary finite individual. There is a creative andautonomous central self in us which puts before us ideals of truth andbeauty and goodness that are nowhere to be "found" in this world ofsense-facts, and that yet are more real and august than any things oureyes see or our hands handle. Our main moral problem is not to adjustour inner ideals to our environment, but rather to compel theenvironment to level up to our ideals. The world that ought to bemakes us forever dissatisfied with the world that is, and sets us witha fixity of purpose at the task of realizing the Kingdom which mightpossibly be, which we know ought to be, and which, therefore, has ourloyal endeavour that it {xxxvii} shall be, regardless of the cost inpain and sacrifice. Man, as William Wallace has put it, "projects hisown self-to-be into the nature he seeks to conquer. Like an assailantwho should succeed in throwing his standard into the strong centralkeep of the enemy's fortress, and fight his way thereto with assuredvictory in his eyes of hope, so man with the vision of his soulprognosticates his final triumph. "[27] But if the life of moralendeavour is to be essentially consistent and reasonable there must bea world of Reality that transcends this realm of empirical, causal, andutilitarian happenings. Struggle for ends of goodness must be at leastas significant in function as struggle for existence; our passion forwhat ought to be must have had birth in an inner eternal environment atleast as real as that which produced our instincts and appetite for thethings by which we live in time. If the universe is through andthrough rational, there must be some personal Heart that _cares_; somemoral Will that guarantees and backs our painful strivings--ourgroaning and travailing--to make what ought to be come into play herein the world which is. This postulate is Reason's faith in God, andagain it _works_. 

The evolution of life--if it is evolving as we believe it is, and if it is to be viewed with rational insight as an upwardprocess--irresistibly involves and implies some sort of fundamentalintelligence and conscious purpose, some Logos steering the mightymovement. We have outgrown crude arguments from "design, " and wecannot think of God as a foreign and external Creator, working as aPotter on his clay; but it is irrational to "explain" a steadilyunfolding movement, an ever-heightening procession of life, by"fortuitous variations, " by "accidental" shifts of level, or even by ablind _élan vital_. If there is an increasing purpose and a clearlyculminating drama unfolding in this moving flood of life, then there issome Mind that sees the way, and some Will that directs the march ofLife. And this confidence of ours in some divine Event to which thewhole creation moves, {xxxviii} this insight that there must be asignificant and adequate explanation for the immanent teleology andbeauty with which our universe is crammed, is, once more, Reason'spostulate of God. There is something in us, indissoluble from Reasonitself--a Light, a Word, a Witness as these Spiritual Reformersinsisted--which links us in all the deeper processes ofself-consciousness with _That Which Is_ and without which "knowledge"would be a mere flux of seemings, a flight of _seriatim_ items. 

IV

 When this world's pleasures for my soul sufficed, Ere my heart's plummet sounded depths of pain, I called on reason to control my brain, And scoffed at that old story of the Christ. 

 But when o'er burning wastes my feet had trod, And all my life was desolate with loss, With bleeding hands I clung about the cross, And cried aloud, "Man needs a suffering God. "[28]

There can be no doubt that the compulsions and implications of rationalinsight have brought multitudes of men to God, have given them anunescapable conviction of His reality, and have swayed their wills tolive in conformity to His perfect Goodness; and it is also true thatwhen for any cause this clue of rationality is missed or lost, menflounder about in the fog and pass through periods of inward tragedyamounting often to despair. But the approach of Reason still leavesmuch to be desired. It points to something deeper than the transitoryflux of things, it raises our minds to some sort of ultimate andself-explanatory Reality, it compels the conviction that there is anall-inclusive Logos--Mind or Spirit--that explains what is and whatought to be, and what in the unfolding course of things is to be; butit does not bring us to a personal God who is our loving Friend and the{xxxix} intimate Companion of our souls, it does not help us solve themystery of human suffering that lies heavily upon our lives, and itdoes not bring to our spirits _the saving reinforcement of personalLove_ that must be a central feature of a spiritual and adequatereligion. 

There is still another way of approach to a Religion for mature mindswhich has been no less universally operative and no less dynamic in itstransforming effects upon human lives than either of the two tendenciesso far considered--I refer to the way of Faith. By Faith I mean thesoul's moral or appreciative apprehension of God as _historicallyrevealed_, particularly as revealed in the personal life of JesusChrist. This Faith-way to God cannot be wholly separated--except by anartificial abstraction--from the inward way of mysticism, or from theimplications of Reason. It is no blind acceptance of traditionalopinions, no uncritical reliance on "authority, " or on some mysteriousinfallible oracle. It is the spiritual response--or "assent, " asClement of Alexandria called it--the moral swing of our inmost self, aswe catch insights of a loving Heart and holy Will revealed through thewords and lives and sufferings of saints and prophets, who have livedby their vision of God, and supremely revealed in the Life and Love, the Passion and the Triumphs of that Person whose experience andcharacter and incarnation of life's possibilities seem at last adequatefor all the needs--the heights and the depths--of this complex life ofours. 

It was Luther's living word which first brought the momentoussignificance of Faith to clear consciousness in the sixteenth century. But the new way of Faith meant many and discordant things, according tothe preparation of the ears of those who heard. It spoke, as allPentecosts do, to each man in his own tongue. To those who came to theLutheran insight with a deep hunger of spirit for reality and withminds liberated by Humanistic studies, the Faith-message meant newheavens and a new earth. It was a new discovery of God, and a newestimate of man. They suddenly caught {xl} a vision of life as it wascapable of becoming, and they committed their fortunes to the task ofmaking that possible world real. By a shift of view, as revolutionaryas that from Ptolemaic astronomy to the verifiable insight ofCopernicus, they passed over from the dogma of a Christ who came toappease an angry God, and to found a Church as an ark of safety in adoomed world, to the living apprehension of a Christ--verifiable inexperience--who revealed to them, in terms of His own nature, aneternally tender, loving, suffering, self-giving God, and who made themsee, with the enlightened eyes of their heart, the divine possibilitiesof human life. Through this insight, they were the beginners of a newtype of Christianity, which has become wide-spread and impressive inthe modern world, a type that finds the supreme significance ofChrist's Life in His double revelation of the inherent nature of God, and the immense value and potentiality of man, and that changes theemphasis from schemes of salvation to interpretations of life, from themagic significance of doctrine to the incalculable worth of the moralwill. 

These men were weak in historical sense, and, like everybody else intheir generation, they used Scripture without much critical insight. But they hit upon a principle which saved them from slavery to texts, and which gave them a working faith in the steady moral and spiritualdevelopment of man. I mean the principle that this Christ whom theyhad discovered anew was an eternal manifestation of God, an immanentWord of God, a Spirit brooding over the world of men, as in thebeginning over the face of the waters, present in the unfolding eventsof history as well as in the far-away "dispensations of Grace. " As aresult, they grew less interested in the problem that had fascinated somany mystics, the problem of the super-empirical evolution of thedivine Consciousness; the super-temporal differentiation of the unityof the Godhead into a Father and Son and self-revealing Holy Ghost; andthey tried rather to appreciate and to declare the concrete revelationthrough Christ, and {xli} the import of His visible and invisiblepresence in the world. [29]

This approach of Faith, this appreciation of the nature of God as Hehas been unveiled in the ethical processes of history, especially inthe Person of Christ, and in His expanding conquest of the world, mustalways be one of the great factors of spiritual religion. The profoundresults of higher criticism, with its stern winnowings, have brought usface to face with problems unknown to the sixteenth and seventeenthcenturies. So much of what seemed the solid continent of historicaltruth has weathered and crumbled away that some have wondered whetherany irreducible nucleus would remain firm and permanent above the floodof the years, and whether the religion of the future must not dispensewith the historical element, and the Faith-aspect that goes with it, and rest wholly upon present inward experience. 

There are, however, I believe, no indications worth considering, of thedisappearance of Jesus Christ from human history. On the contrary, Heholds, as never before, the commanding place in history. He stilldominates conscience, by the moral sway of His Life of Goodness, asdoes no other Person who has ever lived; and by the attractive power ofHis life and love He still sets men to living counter to the strongthrust of instinct and impulse as does no one else who has ever touchedthe springs of conduct. The Faith-aspect is still a very live elementin religion, and it is, as it has been so often before, precisely theaspect which supplies concrete body and filling and objective ethicaldirection to our deep sub-conscious yearnings and strivings andexperiences. 

Once at least there shone through the thin veil of matter a personalLife which brought another kind of world than this world of natural lawand utilitarian aims full into light. There broke through here in theface of Jesus {xlii} Christ a revelation of Purpose in the universe sofar beyond the vague trend of purpose dimly felt in slowly evolvinglife that it is possible here to catch an illuminating vision of whatthe goal of the long drama may be--the unveiling of sons of God. Herethe discovery can be made that the deepest Reality toward which Reasonpoints, and which the mystical experience _feels_, is no vagueSomething Beyond, but a living, loving Some One, dealing with us asPerson with person. In Him there comes to focus in a Life that we canlove and appreciate a personal character which impresses us as beingabsolutely good, and as being in its inexhaustible depth of Love andGrace worthy to be taken as the revelation of the true nature of theGod whom all human hearts long for. And finally through this personalrevelation of God in Christ there has come to us a clear insight thatpain and suffering and tragedy can be taken up into a self-chosen Lifeand absorbed without spoiling its immense joy, and that preciselythrough suffering-love, joyously accepted, a Person expressing in theworld the heart of God may become the moral and spiritual Saviour ofothers. As von Hugel has finely said: "A Person came and lived andloved, and did and taught, and died and rose again, and lives on by Hispower and His Spirit forever within us and amongst us, so unspeakablyrich and yet so simple, so sublime and yet so homely, so divinely aboveus precisely in being so divinely near that His character and teachingrequire, for an ever fuller yet never complete understanding, thevarying study, and different experiments and applications, embodimentsand unrollings of all the races and civilizations, of all theindividual and corporate, the simultaneous and successive experiencesof the human race to the end of time. "[30]

The only salvation worth talking about is that which consists of aninner process of moral transformation, through which one passes over"the great divide" from a life that is self-centred and dominated byimpulse and sin to a life that is assured of divine forgiveness, thathas {xliii} conceived a passion for a redeemed inward nature, that isconscious of help from beyond its own resources, and that is dedicatedto the task of making moral goodness triumph over the evil of theworld. Any experience which brings to the soul a clear vision of themoral significance of human life, and that engenders in us a practicalcertainty that God is working with us in all our deepest undertakings, tends to have saving efficacy and to bring about this inwardtransformation. But nowhere else in the universe--above us or withinus--has the moral significance of life come so full into sight, or thereality of actual divine fellowship, whether in our aspirations or inour failures, been raised to such a pitch of practical certainty as inthe personal life and death and resurrection and steady historicaltriumph of Jesus Christ. He exhibits in living fulness, withtransforming power, a Life which consciously felt itself one with theheart and will of God. He reveals the inherent blessedness ofLove--even though it may involve suffering and pain and death. Heshows the moral supremacy, even in this imperfect empirical world, ofthe perfectly good will, and He impresses those who _see_ Him--see Him, I mean, with eyes that can penetrate through the temporal to theeternal and find His real nature--as being the supreme personalunveiling of God, as worthy to be our Leader, our Ideal Life, ourtypical personal Character, and strong enough in His infinite Grace anddivine self-giving to convince us of the eternal co-operation of Godwith our struggling humanity, and to settle our Faith in the essentialSaviourhood of God. 

He who sees _that_ in Christ has found a real way to God and hasdiscovered a genuine way of salvation. It is the way of Faith, butFaith is no airy and unsubstantial road, no capricious leap. There isno kind of aimful living conceivable that does not involve faith insomething trans-subjective--faith in something not given in presentempirical experience. Even in our most elementary life-adjustmentsthere is something operative in us which far underlies our consciousperceiving and {xliv} the logic of our conclusions. We are moved, notalone by what we clearly picture and coldly analyse, but by deep-lyinginstincts which defy analysis, by background and foreground fringes ofconsciousness, by immanent and penetrative intelligence which cannot bebrought to definite focus, by the vast reservoirs of accumulated wisdomthrough which we _feel_ the way to go, though we can pictoriallyenvisage no "spotted trees" that mark the trail. 

This religious and saving Faith, through which the soul discovers Godand makes the supreme life-adjustment to Him, is profoundly moral and, in the best sense of the word, rational. It does not begin with anassumption, blind or otherwise, as to Christ's metaphysical nature, itdoes not depend upon the adoption of systematically formulateddoctrines; it becomes operative through the discovery of a personalLife, historically lived--and continued through the centuries as atransforming Spirit--rich enough in its experience to exhibit theinfinite significance of life, inwardly deep enough in its spiritualresources to reveal the character of God, and strong enough insympathy, in tenderness, in patience, and in self-giving love to begetforever trust and confidence and love on the part of all who thus findHim. 

The God whom we learn to know in Christ--the God historicallyrevealed--is no vague first Cause, no abstract Reality, no all-negatingAbsolute. He is a concrete Person, whose traits of character areintensely moral and spiritual. His will is no fateful swing ofmechanical law; it is a morally good will which works patiently andforever toward a harmonized world, a Kingdom of God. The central traitof His character is Love. He does not become Father, He is notreconciled to us by persuasive offerings and sacrifices. He isinherently and by essential disposition Father and the God of allGrace. He is not remote and absentee--making a world "in thebeginning, " and leaving it to run by law, or only occasionallyinterrupting its normal processes--He is immanent Spirit, workingalways, the God of beauty and organizing purpose. He {xlv} is Life andLight and Truth, an Immanuel God who can and does show Himself in apersonal Incarnation, and so exhibits the course and goal of the race. The way of Faith is a way to God, and the religion of this type is asproperly _a first-hand religion_ as that of any other type. 

I have, of course, by no means exhausted the types of mature religion. There are other ways of approach to God, other roads by which the soulfinds the way home--"On the East three gates; on the North three gates;on the South three gates; and on the West three gates"--and they willcontinue to be sacred ways--_viae sacrae_--for those who travel themand thus find their heart's desire. What we should learn from thisbrief study is that religion is too rich and complex an experience tobe squeezed down to some one isolated aspect of life or ofconsciousness. There are many ways to God and any way that actuallybrings the soul to Him is a good way, but the best way is that onewhich produces upon the imperfect personal life the profoundest savingeffects, the most dynamic moral reinforcement, and which brings intosway over the will the goal of life most adequate for men like us in asocial world like ours. 

For most of us no one way of approach--no single type of religion--isquite sufficient for all the needs of our life. Most of us arefortunate enough to have at least moments when we feel in warm andintimate _contact_ with a divine, enwrapping environment more real tous than things of sense and of arithmetic, and when the infinite andeternal is no less, but immeasurably more, sure than the finite andtemporal. Most of us, again, succeed, at least on happy occasions ofmental health, in finding rational clues which carry us through themaze of contingency and clock-time happenings, through theimperfections of our slow successive events, to the One Great Now ofperfect Reality which explains the process, and we attain to anintellectual love of God. And in spite of the literary difficulties ofprimitive narratives and of false trails which the historical Churchhas again and again taken, almost any serious, earnest soul to-day{xlvi} may find that divine Face, that infinitely deep and luminousPersonality who spoke as no man ever spake, who loved as none otherever loved, who saw more in humanity than anybody else has ever seen, and who felt as no other person ever has that He was one in heart andmind and will with God; and having found Him, by a morally responsiveFaith which dominates and transforms the inward self, one has found Godas Companion, Friend, and Saviour. Where all these ways converge, anda soul enjoys the privilege of mystical contact, the compulsion ofrational insight, and the moral reinforcement of personal Faith inChrist, religion comes to its consummate flower, and may with someright be called "spiritual Religion. "

V

The most radical step which these spiritual Reformers took--the stepwhich put them most strikingly out of line with the main course of theReformation--was their break with Protestant Theology. They were notsatisfied with a programme which limited itself to a correction ofabuses, an abolition of mediaeval superstitions, and a shift ofexternal authority. They were determined to go the whole way to aReligion of inward life and power, to a Christianity whose onlyauthority should be its dynamic and spiritual authority. They placedas low an estimate on the saving value of orthodox systems oftheological formulation as the Protestant Reformers did on the savingvalue of "works. " To the former, salvation was an affair neither of"works" nor of what they called "notions, " _i. E. _ views, beliefs, orcreeds. They are never weary of insisting that a person may go onendless pilgrimages to holy places, he may repeat unnumbered"paternosters, " he may mortify his body to the verge ofself-destruction, and still be unsaved and unspiritual; so, too, he may"believe" all the dogma of the most orthodox system of faith, he maytake on his lips the most sacred words of sound doctrine, and yet beutterly alien {xlvii} to the kingdom of God, a stranger and a foreignerto the spirit of Christ. They were determined, therefore, to gothrough to a deeper centre and to make only those things pivotal whichare absolutely essential to life and salvation. 

They began their reconstruction of the meaning of salvation with (1) anew and fresh interpretation of God, and (2) with a transformedeschatology. As I have already said, they re-discovered God throughChrist, and in terms of His revelation; and coming to God _this way_, they saw at once that the prevailing interpretations of the atonementwere inadequate and unworthy. God, they declared, is not a Suzerain, treating men as his vassals, reckoning their sins up against them asinfinite debts to be paid off at last in a vast commercial transactiononly by the immeasurable price of a divine Life, given to pay the debtwhich had involved the entire race in hopeless bankruptcy. Nor, again, in their thought is He a mighty Sovereign, meting out to the worldstrict justice and holding all sin as flagrant disloyalty and appallingviolation of law, never to be forgiven until the full requirements ofsovereign justice are met and balanced and satisfied. All this seemedto them artificial and false. Salvation, as they understand it, cannotbe conceived as escape from debt nor as the satisfaction of justice, since it is a personal life-relationship with a personal God who is andalways was eternal Love. God's universe, both outer and inner, isloaded with moral significance, is meant for discipline, and thereforeit has its stern aspects and drives its lessons home with theunswerving hammer of _consequences_. But in the personal Heart of theuniverse, Love and Tenderness and Sympathy and Forgiveness are supreme, and every process and every instrument of salvation, in the divinepurpose, is vital, ethical, spiritual. 

God has shown Himself as Father. He has revealed the immeasurablesuffering which sin inflicts on love. To find the Father-Heart; to cry"Abba" in filial joy; to die to sin and to be born to love, is to besaved. Jacob Boehme gave this new conception of God, and its bearing{xlviii} on the way of salvation, the most adequate expression that wasgiven by any of this group, but all these so-called spiritual Reformersherein studied had reached the same insight at different levels ofadequacy. Their return to a more vital conception of salvation, withits emphasis on the value of personality, brought with it, too, a newhumanitarian spirit and a truer estimate of the worth of man. As theyre-discovered the love of God, they also found again the gospel of loveand brotherhood which is woven into the very tissue of the originalgospel of divine Fatherhood. 

Their revised eschatology was due, at least partly, to this alteredaccount of the character of God, but it was also partly due to theirprofound tendency to deal with all matters of the soul in terms of lifeand vital processes. Heaven and Hell were no longer thought of asterminal places, where the saved were everlastingly rewarded and thelost forever punished. Heaven and Hell were for them inwardconditions, states of the soul, the normal gravitation of the Spirittoward its chosen centre. Heaven and Hell cease, therefore, to beeschatological in the true sense of the word; they become presentrealities, tendencies of life, ways of reacting toward the things ofdeepest import. Heaven, whether here or in any other world, is thecondition of complete adjustment to the holy will of God; it is joy inthe prevalence of His goodness; peace through harmonious correspondencewith His purposes; the formation of a spirit of love, the creation ofan inward nature that loves what God loves and enjoys what He enjoys. 

Hell, here or elsewhere, is a disordered life, out of adjustment withthe universal will of God; it is concentration upon self and self-ends;the contraction of love; the shrinking of inward resources; theformation of a spirit of hate, the creation of an inward nature thathates what God loves. Hell is the inner condition inherently attachingto the kind of life that displays and exhibits the spirit and attitudewhich must be overcome before God with His purposes of goodness can be{xlix} ultimately triumphant and all in all. Salvation, therefore, cannot be thought of in terms of escape from a place that is dreaded toa place that is desired as a haven. It is through and through aspiritual process--escape from a wrongly fashioned will to a willrightly fashioned. It is complete spiritual health and wholeness oflife, brought into operation and function by the soul's recovery of Godand by joyous correspondence with Him. 

Here is the genuine beginning in modern times of what has come to bethe deepest note of present-day Christianity, _the appreciation ofpersonality as the highest thing in earth or heaven_, and theinitiation of a movement to find the vital sources and resources forthe inner kindling of the spirit, and for raising the whole personallife to higher functions and to higher powers. 

Putting the emphasis, as they did, on personal religion, _i. E. _ onexperience, instead of on theology, they naturally became exponents offree-will, and that, too, in a period when fore-ordination was acentral dogma of theology. This problem of freedom, which is as deepas personality itself, always has its answer "determined" by the pointof approach. For those who _begin_ with an absolute and omnipotentGod, and work down from above, the necessarian position is determined. Their answer is: "All events are infallibly connected with God'sdisposal. " For those who start, however, from actual experience andfrom the testimony of consciousness, freedom feels as certain as lifeitself. Their answer is: "Human will is a real factor in the directionof events and man shapes his own destiny toward good or evil. "Calvin's logic is irresistible if his assumptions are once granted. These spiritual Reformers, however, were untouched by it, because theybegan from the interior life, with its dramatic movements, as theirbasal fact, and man as they knew him was free. 

This spiritual movement involved, as a natural development, an entireshift from the historical idea of the Church as an authoritative andsupernatural instrument of salvation, to a Church whose authority wasentirely vital, {l} ethical, spiritual, dynamic. The Church of thesespiritual Reformers was a Fellowship, a Society, a Family, rather thana mysterious and supernatural entity. They felt once again, aspowerfully perhaps as it was possible in their centuries to feel it, the immense significance of the Pauline conception of the Church as thecontinued embodiment and revelation of Christ, the communion of saintspast and present who live or have lived by the Spirit. Through thisspiritual group, part of whom are visible and part invisible, they heldthat the divine revelation is continued and the eternal Word of God isbeing uttered to the race. "The true religion of Christ, " as one ofthese spiritual teachers well puts it, "is written in the soul andspirit of man by the Spirit of God; and the believer is the only bookin which God now writes His New Testament. "[31] This Church of theSpirit is always being built. Its power is proportional to thespiritual vitality of the membership, to the measure of apprehension ofdivine resources, to the depth of insight and grasp of truth, to theprevalence of love and brotherhood, to the character of service, whichthe members exhibit. It possesses no other kind of power or authoritythan the power and authority of personal lives formed into a communityby living correspondence with God, and acting as human channels andorgans of His Life and Spirit. Such a Church can meet new formulationsof science and history and social ideals with no authoritative andconclusive word of God which automatically settles the issue. Its onlyweapons are truth and light, and these have to be continuallyre-discovered and re-fashioned to fit the facts which the age has foundand verified. Its mission is _prophetic_. It does not dogmaticallydecide what facts must be believed, but it sees and announces thespiritual significance of the facts that are discovered and verified. It was, thus, in their thought a growing, changing, ever-adjustingbody--the living body of Christ in the world. To the ProtestantReformers this spiritual ideal presented "a Church" so shorn andemasculated as to be {li} absolutely worthless. It seemed to them apropaganda which threatened and endangered the mighty work ofreformation to which they felt themselves called, and they used all theforces available to suppress and annihilate those of this other "way. "

Nearly four hundred wonderful years have passed since the issue wasfirst drawn, since the first of these spiritual prophets uttered hismodest challenge. There can be no question that the current ofChristian thought has been strongly setting in the direction whichthese brave and sincere innovators took. I feel confident that manypersons to-day will be interested in these lonely men and will followwith sympathy their valiant struggles to discover the road to a genuinespiritual religion, and their efforts to live by the eternal Word ofGod as it was freely revealed as the Day Star to their souls. 

[1] 1 Cor. Xv. 50. 

[2] 2 Cor. V. 1-4. 

[3] John iii. 6. 

[4] 1 John iv. 13; John xiii. 34 and xvi. 13; 1 John iv. 4. 

[5] They found their authority for this outer sheath of body in thetext which says: "The Lord God made for Adam and for his wife coats ofskins, and clothed them. "--Gen. Iii. 21. 

[6] Many of these historical reappearances are considered in my_Studies in Mystical Religion_. 

[7] Isaac Penington, "A True and Faithful Relation of my SpiritualTravails, " _Works_ (edition of 1761), i. Pp. Xxxvii. -xxxviii. 

[8] Isaac Penington's _Works_, i. Pp. Xxxvii. -xxxviii. 

[9] The exact and sharply-defined "ladders" of mystic ascent which forma large part of the descriptive material in books on Mystical Religionare far from being universal ladders. Like creeds, or like religiousinstitutions, they powerfully assist certain minds to find the wayhome, but they seem unreal and artificial to many other persons, andthey must be considered only as symbolisms which speak to the conditionof a limited number of spiritual pilgrims. 

[10] Wordsworth's "Prelude, " Bk. Ii. 

[11] _Theologia Germanica_, chaps. Xxii. And xliii. 

[12] _Ibid. _ chap. Liii. 

[13] _Meister Eckhart_, Pfeiffer, p. 320. 20. 

[14] Tauler's Sermons. See especially Sermons IV. And XXIII. InHutton's _Inner Way_. 

[15] _The Divine Names_ of Dionysius the Areopagite, chap. I. Sec. I. 

[16] _Meister Eckhart_, Pfeiffer, p. 320. 25-30. 

[17] Quoted in W. H. J. Gairdner's _The Reproach of Islam_, p. 151. 

[19] Denck's _Was geredet sey, dass die Schrift_, B. 2. Pascal'ssaying is: "Comfort thyself; thou wouldst not be seeking Me hadst thounot already found Me. "--Le Mystère de Jésus, sec. 2. 

[19] _The Threefold Life of Man_, xiv. 72. 

[20] Sterry's _Rise, Race, and Royalty of the Kingdom of God in theSoul of Man_, p. 24. 

[21] "The finite individual soul seems naturally to present a doubleaspect. It looks like, on the one hand, a climax or concentration ofthe nature beneath it and the community around it, and, on the otherhand, a spark or fragment from what is above and beyond it. It iscrystallized out of the collective soul of nature or society, or itfalls down from the transcendental soul of heaven or what is abovehumanity. In both cases alike it has its share of divinity. "--BernardBosanquet, _The Value and Destiny of the Individual_ (London, 1913), p. 1. 

[22] The way to the world of Perfect Reality, Socrates says in the_Theaetetus_, consists in likeness to God, nor is there, he adds, anything more like God than is a good man. --_Theaetetus_ 176 A and B. 

[23] Schleiermacher's _Glaubenslehre_. 

[24] _Republic_ vii. 518 B. 

[25] Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey. "

[26] _Realm of Ends_, p. 230. 

[27] _Lectures and Addresses_, p. 193. 

[28] Ella Wheeler Wilcox, _Poems of Life and Moments_. 

[29] Jacob Boehme, however, shows this fascination for thesuper-empirical at its height and culmination. It was an attempt, though a bungling attempt, to pass from an abstract God to a God of_character_, and it was a circuitous way of getting round the problemof evil. 

[30] _Mystical Elements of Religion_, i. P. 26. 

[31] William Dell's sermon on "The Trial of Spirits, " _Works_, p. 438. 

{1}

CHAPTER I

THE MAIN CURRENT OF THE REFORMATION

I

One of the greatest tragedies in Christian history is the division offorces which occurred in the Reformation movements of the sixteenthcentury. Division of forces in the supreme spiritual undertakings ofthe race is of course confined to no one century and to no onemovement; it is a very ancient tragedy. But the tragedy of division isoften relieved by the fact that through the differentiation of opposingparties a vigorous emphasis is placed upon aspects of truth which mightotherwise have been allowed to drop out of focus. Thissixteenth-century division is peculiarly tragic, because through thesplit in the lines the very aspects of truth which were most needed togive the movement a steady increment of insight and power were lost inthe din and confusion of party warfare. 

There was a short but glorious period--the years from 1517 to1523--during which it seemed as though the spiritual and intellectualtravail of the three preceding centuries was to consummate in the birthof a movement that would draw together and unify all the liberatingforces which had slowly become available. The Humanists of theRenaissance, no less than Columbus, were finding a new world. [1] Theyhad boldly travelled out beyond the {2} boundaries which the medievalmind had set to human interests, and had discovered that man was morethan the abstract being whose "soul" had alone concerned ecclesiasticsand schoolmen. Man, the Humanists saw, is possessed in his own rightof great powers of reason. He is a creative and autonomous being, hehas vast capacities for life and enjoyment to which the Church hadfailed to minister. They stood amazed at the artistic and literaryculture, the political and intellectual freedom and the great richnessof life which the newly discovered classical literature revealed ashaving existed in the pre-Christian world, and at the wonderfulcomprehension of life revealed in the Gospels. With commendablepassion they proposed to refresh and reshape the world through the newmodels, the new ideals, and the new spirit which they had discovered. First of all they would wipe out the old Augustinian cleavage which hadcarried its sharp dualism wherever it ran. They would no longerrecognize the double world scheme--a divine realm set over against anundivine realm, the "sacred" set over against the "secular, " thespiritual set over against the natural, the Church set against theworld, faith set in contrast to reason, the spirit pitted against theflesh, "the other world" put in such light that "this world" bycontrast lay dull in the shadow. Those who were broadened andliberated by the new learning found not only a new world in classicalliterature, but they also found a new gospel in the Gospel. As theystudied the New Testament documents themselves and became freed fromthe bondage of tradition they discovered that the primitive messagedealt with life and action rather than with theology. They found thekey to the Gospel in the Sermon on the Mount, and in the Parables ofJesus, and they shifted the emphasis from doctrine to ethics. Thischange of emphasis quite naturally involved another change. It broughtman into greater prominence, and the Church as an ecclesiastical systeminto less prominence; for life, they discovered, was settled in theteaching of Christ by the {3} attitude of the will and by the formationof character, rather than by the mediation of a priesthood external toman. "I wish, " Erasmus wrote to Capito in 1518, "that there could bean end of scholastic subtleties, or, if not an end, that they could bethrust into a second place and Christ be taught plainly and simply. The reading of the Bible and the early Fathers will have this effect. Doctrines are taught now which have no affinity with Christ, and onlydarken our eyes. "[2] Again in 1521 he wrote to a friend, words whichappear again and again in his letters: "It would be well for us if wethought less about our dogmas and more about the gospel, "[3] or, as heoften puts it, "if we made less of dogmatic subtleties and more ofScripture. " So far as Humanism was a religious force it was pushingtoward a religion of the lay-type, with man himself--man with hismomentous will--as the centre of interest. 

Another important influence was slowly but pervasively filtering downinto the life of the people and preparing the way for a religion ofgreater personal vitality and spiritual inwardness; I mean thetestimony of the great mystics. One has only to study the life andwritings of such a scholar as Nicolaus Chrypffs--generally calledCusanus, or Nicholas of Cusa--who died shortly before Luther wasborn, [4] to see what a live force the mystical teaching was even inthis period of Renaissance. God is for him, as for his great masters, Plotinus, Erigena, Eckhart, and Tauler, the infinite and indescribablesubsoil of the universe, in whose Reality all the roots of life and allthe reality of things are grounded. The soul, by nature spiritual andimmortal, at its apex rises above the contradictions which lowerknowledge everywhere meets and comes into possession, by a "learnedignorance, " of Truth itself and into an unspeakable union with God. But it was not merely among scholars like Nicholas that mysticismformed the elemental basis of life and thought; it had, through thecircles of the {4} "Brothers of the Common Life, "[5] and through suchmasterpieces as the _Imitation of Christ_, the _Theologia Germanica_, and the Sermons of Eckhart and of John Tauler, become a part of thespiritual atmosphere which serious-minded men breathed. Every one ofthe men who belong in my list of "Spiritual Reformers" read and loved"the golden book of German Theology, " and most of them knew the otherwritings of the great fourteenth-century mystics. There areunmistakable evidences of a subtle formative influence from these richsources, which explains the simultaneous sporadic outbreak of similarviews in widely sundered places. 

There was, thus, abroad at the opening of the Reformation a deepyearning among serious people for a religion of inward experience, areligion based not on proof-texts nor on external authority of anykind, but on the native capacity of the soul to seek, to find and toenjoy the living God who is the Root and Sap of every twig and branchof the great tree of life. The general trend of this mysticaltendency, as also of the Humanistic movement, was in the direction oflay-religion, and both movements alike emphasized the inherent andnative capacity of man, whose destiny by his free choice is in his ownhands. 

There were, too, at work many other deep-lying tendencies away from thebondage and traditions of the past; aspiration for economic and socialreforms to liberate the common people and give them some real chance tobe persons--tendencies which all the Reformers treated in this bookdeeply felt and shared. 

All these movements toward intellectual, spiritual, and social freedomseemed at first to find their champion in the dynamic hero, whoseninety-five theses on the door at Wittenberg shook the world awake in1517. He was by birth and spirit a child of the people--"ein Kind desVolkes"--and he seemed to be a prophet, divinely called to voice theirdumb aspirations. He possessed, {5} like all great prophets, astraightforward moral honesty and sincerity, an absolute fearlessness, a magnetic and commanding personality, an unusual mastery of thevernacular speech, and an abundant power of pathos, humour, and satire. All the world loves a hero who can say in the face of real danger, "Iwould go forward to Worms if there were as many devils there as thereare tiles on the roof!" or again, "I would go to Leipzig if it rainedDuke Georges for nine days running!"[6]

He had, too, unusual religious depth and power which sprang, as in thecase of the great mystics, from a profound inward experience. Luther, like St. Paul and St. Augustine, and many another spiritual guide ofthe race, came upon his supreme insights in sudden epoch-makingrevelations or illuminations by which he found himself on a new level, with the line of march shifted and all values altered. His conversionand dedication to religion was an instance of this type. So, too, washis discovery of the way of Faith. Legend has very likely coloured ouraccounts of this experience, but for purposes of valuation it is oflittle moment to us whether the dynamic flash came to him in his cellat Wittenberg as he was studying the Epistle to the Romans, or whetherit came while he was climbing the penitential stairway in Rome. [7] Whenall legendary coverings are stripped away we have left an inner eventof the first importance, a _live idea_ bursting into consciousness likea new star on the field of vision. By processes much deeper and richerthan those of logical argument, his mind leaped to the certainty ofinfinite grace and forgiving love in God as revealed in Christ. In aword, this baffled and despairing monk, striving in vain to heap upmerits enough to win {6} divine favour, suddenly discovered a new Godwho filled his whole world with a new light and freedom and joy. Hisname for this discovery was Faith ["Glaube"], but Faith in its firstintention for Luther meant a personal experience or discovery of God, brought into full view and clear apprehension in Christ. "No one canunderstand God or God's Word, " Luther once wrote, "unless he has itrevealed immediately ["on Mittel"] by the Holy Ghost, but nobody canreceive anything from the Holy Ghost unless he experiences it. Inexperience the Holy Ghost teaches as in His own school, outside ofwhich nothing of value can be learned. "[8]

Not only was Faith for Luther thus possessed of a mystical character asan inward discovery and as a personal experience which laid hold on Godimmediately, but it also owed its illuminating birth in hisconsciousness largely to the influence of the writings and the lives ofthe mystics. However suddenly the "revelation" seemed to burst intohis mind, there had nevertheless been a long period of psychologicalgestation and preparation for it before the epoch-making moment finallycame. He had already in his early convent days come under the spell ofSt. Augustine, St. Bernard, Gerson, and many another guide into thedeep regions of inward personal religion, and his intimate friend, theVicar-general Staupitz, had been to him in some sense a personalembodiment of this type of religion. But the German mystics of thefourteenth century, with their mighty experience and theirextraordinary depth, carried him still farther in this direction. Hewas so enthusiastic over that beautiful anonymous classic of mysticalreligion, the _Theologia Germanica_, that he twice edited and publishedit, declaring in his Preface that he had learned from it "more of whatGod and Christ and man and all things are" than from any other bookexcept the Bible and St. Augustine. John Tauler, the great Dominicanpreacher of Strasbourg, impressed him no less profoundly. "Neither inthe Latin nor the German language, " he {7} wrote to Spalatin in 1516, "have I ever found purer or more wholesome teaching, nor any that soagrees with the Gospel. " Both these great teachers of spiritualreligion helped him to see that complete confidence in and surrender tothe will of God is salvation--"Put off thy own will and there will beno hell. "

In Luther's earlier writings we come frequently upon passages whichreveal the way in which experience still saturates Faith for him, andwhich exhibit the mystical depth of his Christianity at this period. Commenting on the phrase, "Christ liveth in me" (Gal. Ii. 20), in his_Commentary on Galatians_[9] he says, "He [Christ] is my form, myfurniture, and perfection, adorning and beautifying my faith as thecolour, the clear light, the whiteness, do garnish and beautify thewall. Thus are we constrained grossly to set forth this matter. Forwe cannot _conceive_ that Christ is so nearly joined and united unto usas the colour or whiteness is unto the wall. But Christ thus joinedand united unto me and abiding in me, liveth this life in me which nowI live; yea, Christ Himself is this life which now I live. WhereforeChrist and I in this behalf are both one. "[10] And in a famous passagein the tract "On Christian Liberty, " he declares that "Faith has theincomparable grace of uniting the soul to Christ as bride to husband, so that the soul possesses whatever Christ Himself possesses. "

Not only was this Luther of the early period the hero of the people andthe prophet of a deep and inward religion, he seemed also to havefound, even more emphatically than had the Humanists, a far-reachingprinciple of individualism which took the key from the Church and putit into the hands of the Christian man himself. Salvation in itsessence, he sees, is conferred upon no one from without. The soul isdependent for it upon no organization, no traditions, no dogma, nosacred performances. It is a transaction between the {8} individualsoul and God, and the person who lays hold on God in living faiththereby has salvation, assurance, and joy. With this principle ofindividualism there came naturally to Luther a new conception of theChurch altogether. [11] It was for him, in ideal at least, a communityor congregation ["Gemeinde"] of believers, each member a spiritualpriest, ministering to the spiritual and social life of all: "I believethat there is on earth, wide as the world is, not more than one holyuniversal Christian Church, which is nothing else than the community orassembly of the saints. . . . I believe that in this community orChristendom, all things are common, and each one shares the goods ofthe others and none calls anything his own. Therefore all the prayersand good works of the entire community help me and every believer, andsupport and strengthen us at every time in life and in death. "[12]

This ideal of a priesthood of believers, ministering to each other inmutual service and practising neighbourly love in daily life, would, ifit had been actually carried into effect, have marked a great step inthe direction in which the Humanists were going, namely, the transferof the emphasis from dogma to life, from doctrine to ethics, fromecclesiasticism to personality. Luther's great discovery that personalfaith is the only thing which counts toward God, and that love andservice are the only things in the human sphere which have religioussignificance would have introduced, if it had been put full into play, a new era of personal freedom and a new stage in the progress of theKingdom of God as a world-wide brotherhood of men engaged in mutualservice. 

{9}

II

But the young Luther of these glowing ideals is not the actual Lutherof the Protestant Reformation, any more than the Augustine of themighty spiritual experiences portrayed in the _Confessions_ is the St. Augustine of history. The historical Luther had the hero-spirit in himin high degree; he had mystical depth and inward experience as we haveseen, and he possessed the prophetic power of vision and forereachwhich makes him often seem far in advance of his time; but thesedynamic traits were more than overbalanced by his fundamentallyconservative disposition and by his determination not to go faster orfarther than he could carry Germany, especially the nobility, with him. He was, in a very real sense, a child of his time, a product ofmedieval Europe, and he never succeeded in liberating himself from thetight swaddling-bands in which his youth was wrapped. He could notcomprehend, as we shall see, the bold spirits who were dedicated to thetask of reinterpreting Christianity in terms of the new age; he lovedthe old, in so far as it seemed to him unspoiled by apostacy andcorruption, and he naturally kept reverting to the ancient dogma andthe accepted theology of the old Church instead of leading the way intoa fresh, vital, spiritual form of Christianity adapted to the socialaspiration of the time. 

In spite of the fact that Luther knew and loved the German mystics andhad himself received a powerful inward experience of Christ as thebridegroom of his soul--an experience which quickened all the forces ofhis will and raised him to the rank of a world-hero--nevertheless hisnormal tendency was toward a non-mystical type of Christianity, towarda Christianity thoroughly based on Scripture, logically constructed outof concepts of the nature of God and Man, so ancient, sacred, andorthodox, that they seemed to him axioms of theology and capable ofbeing formulated into a saving {10} system of truth, as universal andas unalterable as the multiplication table. 

However unconscious Luther himself may have been of the shift ofemphasis that was taking place in him as the movement progressed, thehistorical observer has no difficulty in noting the change from theLuther who is endeavouring to sound the deeps of life itself, and whosereligion is the creation of the inward stream of life within him; andthe Luther who wanders far afield from experience, draws curiousconclusions from unverified concepts, piles text on text as thoughheaven could be scaled by another Pelion on Ossa, and once more turnsreligion back to the cooled lava-beds of theology. He never couldsucceed in getting the God of his heart's glowing faith into thetheologies which he laboriously builded. As soon as he startedconstructing he invariably fell back upon the building-material whichhad already been quarried, and which lay at hand. His experimentalFaith discovered a God of all Grace, but his inherited _concept_ ofGod, the God of the Old Testament and of theology, was vastlydifferent, and remained to the end unrevolutionized by his heart'sinsight. This background conception of God comes to extreme expressionin his _De servo arbitrio_ ["The Unfree Will"] of 1525: "This is theacme of faith, to believe that God who saves so few and condemns somany is merciful; that He is just who at His own pleasure has made usnecessarily doomed to damnation, so that . . . He seems to delight inthe tortures of the wretched and to be more deserving of hatred than oflove. _If by any effort of reason I could conceive how God, who showsso much anger and harshness, could be merciful and just, there would beno need of faith. _" There could, in his thought, be no salvation forman, no hope, and no joy, until some way of escape was found from thestern judgments of this angry and wrathful God. This way of escape isfound in what Luther calls "the Word of God, " by which he means "theGospel of God concerning His Son, incarnate, suffering, risen, andglorified. "[13] {11} This Word of God is for him the sum total of "thepromises that God is _for us_": "the pure Gospel" of a pardoning, forgiving God; the revelation in the Cross of Christ that no self-meritcounts or is needed, but that on Christ's account God forgives thesinner and bestows His Grace upon him. 

Speaking theologically, Faith consists in believing in the God whomChrist has historically revealed--believing without any doubt that Hewill be and will do to us according to the things which are said of Himin "the Word of God. " It must be said that for Luther himself, Faithwas an "active, powerful thing, " "a deliberate confidence in the graceof God, " which made him "joyous and intrepid" and "for which he coulddie a thousand deaths";[14] but there was always an irresistibletendency in the Lutheran teaching for faith to drop to the lower levelof doctrine, and to consist in the acceptance of a scheme ofjustification. 

This tendency was, I say, easy and irresistible just because Luther didnot normally and naturally think of God as being inherently andessentially loving, gracious, tender, and forgiving, that is to say, _fundamentally a Father_ and in his deepest nature like the self-givingChrist. For him, as for so many other theologians, God _becomes_forgiving and gracious on account of Christ's merit and righteousnessand thus no longer imputes sin to us. Because of what Christ did, Godnow beholds us with an attitude of mercy, grace, and forgiveness, and, on condition of our faith, imputes to us the righteousness of Christ. Salvation is, thus, a plan by which we escape from the God of justiceand wrath and have our dealings with a God who has become mercifulbecause our sin has been balanced off by somebody else's merit andrighteousness. 

Not only did Luther continue this medieval fiction of God's nature andcharacter, he had also always in mind a fictitious and constructed"man. " Man for him is a being devoid of "merit, " a creature whosepersonal {12} goodness in and of itself is of no value. Even Faithitself, by which salvation is received, is not an attitude or functionof man's own will or reason. It is, like everything else connectedwith salvation, something divinely given, supernaturally initiated, awork of God, an _opus operatum_--"Mit unserer Macht ist nichtsgethan"--and therefore "faith" and "reason" belong in totally differentcompartments of the human being. Nor, furthermore, when he is absorbedwith his system, is salvation ever synonymous for him with aninwardly-transformed and spiritually-renewed self. Salvation means forhim _certainty of divine favour_. It does not inherently carry with itand involve in its intrinsic meaning a new life, a joyous adjustment ofwill to the Will of God. If man is to attain to a moral transformationof life, he must receive an added gift of supernatural grace, that is, the power of sanctification through the Holy Spirit. This conceptionmade it impossible for him to look for the coming of a divine kingdomby slow processes now at work in the world. 

Luther did not intend to make the "Word of God" synonymous with theScriptures, and in his great Prefaces to St. Paul's _Epistles_ he doesnot identify the two. The Word of God is, as we have seen, therevelation, the message, the gospel, of Grace through Christ Jesus, wherever expressed, enunciated, or preached. But the pledged Word ofGod found in the Scriptures seemed to him the main miracle of the ages, and as, in his contests with Zwickau "Prophets, " "Anabaptists, " and"Spiritualists, " he found himself forced to produce a fixed touchstoneof faith and a solid authority to take the place left vacant by the OldChurch, he swung naturally toward the dogma of the absolute authorityof Scripture, and he laid, without wishing to do so, the foundation forthe view of the second generation of Protestantism, that the infallibleScripture is God's final communication to helpless man, and is theultimate and only basis of authority in religion. 

His conception of the sacraments in like manner, {13} because of hiscrude supernaturalism and his inadequate intellectual and spiritualpenetration, drifted to a semi-medieval view. He intended to transformthese ceremonies and to have them fit "the pure Word of God. " In hisprimary _intention_ they were to be no longer objective works of grace, but were to have a subjective value only, a faith-significance. Theywere to be conceived as pictorial, symbolic ways of learning the oneimportant truth of salvation--God's grace and forgiveness; for Goddeigns, he said, to speak to his immature creatures by signs andpictures. But the imperial sway of the past powerfully moved him; hisown conservative disposition carried him along paths which anenlightened reason would not have taken, and the heat of thecontroversy often blinded him to some of the precious truths that hadseemed clear to him in the creative period of Faith. In the bittercontroversy with the "spiritual prophets" on the question ofsacraments, he wrote words which seem strangely out of harmony with hisearlier views and with his own experience: "External things in religionmust precede internal experiences which come through [_i. E. _ aremediated by] external things, for God has resolved to give nobody theinternal gifts except through the external things. He will give nobodythe Spirit and Faith without the use of external word and sign. "[15]Without meaning to surrender the precious jewel of a religionspiritually grounded, he once more introduced "the awful mystery" ofthe sacraments, and opened the door for the conception of the rite asan _opus operatum_--a grace of God objectively real. He retainedinfant baptism as _an efficacious act_, and, obsessed as he was by theliteral words, _Hoc est corpus_--"this is my body"--he went back intothe abandoned path of scholasticism, [16] and restored the mysteriousand miraculous real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. [17] It istrue, as Loofs has said, that {14} "Luther re-discovered Christianityas religion, " but it is also unfortunately true as well that he lackedthe insight, faith, and boldness of spirit to trust the people of hisage and of the future with "Christianity as religion, " and instead gavethem a Christianity theologically constructed, deeply marred withresidual superstitions and mysteries, and heavily laden with theinheritances of dark and medieval ages. 

III

There are two types of religious genius, both of which play great rolesin history. There is first the genius who, inspired by the ideal ofsome earlier prophet, or made wise because he has himself discoveredthe trend of celestial currents, sees through the complex and tangle ofhis time, and forecasts a truth which all men in a happier coming agewill recognize. When he has once seen it, this vision transforms allhis ideas and aims, and spoils forever for him all meaner gains, allhalf truths, all goods which must be won through surrender of apossible better. He will be obedient to that vision regardless of allcost. He will bear witness to the full light which he has seen eventhough he can compel nobody else in the heedless world of hisgeneration to see it. He may only cry in the wilderness, but at allevents he will _cry_, and he will cry of that highest thing his heartknows. 

There is, on the other hand, the genius who understands his own agelike an open book. He is almost hypersensitive to the movings of histime. He feels the silent yearnings and strivings of the dumbmultitudes about him; he anticipates in his thought what the rest areincipiently thinking--he is the clear voice and oracle of the spirit ofhis age. He knows to a nicety how far his contemporaries will allowthemselves to be carried. {15} He will not over-hurry, he will notoutrun their possible speed, and he will sacrifice everything to carryhis epoch with him toward the goal which he sees. He is contented tokeep his roots deep in the past, and he tempers all his creativeinsights with a judicious mixture of the experience of the past and theideas which time has made sacred. He will not satisfy the idealist whowants leaps, and he will not please the radical in any period; but ifhe is brave, wise, and sincere, and, withal, possessed of rare gifts ofinterpretation and unusual powers of leadership, he may be able toshape the course of history no less effectively, perhaps more surely, than the genius who insists upon an immediate march straight acrosscountry to Canaan the moment he glimpses it from his Pisgah. 

Luther was a reformer of this second type. He was beset by very reallimitations. Dr. McGiffert does not overstate the facts when he says:"He cared little for clearness and consistency of thought. Asatisfactory and adequate world-view was not of his concern. Ofintellectual curiosity he had scarcely any; of interest in truth fortruth's sake none at all. . . . He remained entirely withoutintellectual difficulties, finding no trouble with the most extremesupernaturalism. "[18] In many respects, as Harnack has insisted, hisChristianity was a "medieval phenomenon. "[19] Only in one thing was hesupremely the master of his age and the hero of a new time--in hisdiscovery of a way of Faith which makes a man "intrepid" even in thewreck of worlds and "in a thousand deaths. " On the lower levels oflife, where most of his work was done, he was strangely under the swayof the past, a distruster of reason, a restorer of ancient doctrine, aconservative in thought and action, a friend of rulers, a guardian, asfar as he could be, of the _status quo_--a leader who anathematizedradicals and enthusiasts and who staved off and postponed for nearlyfour hundred years the truly liberating and thoroughly {16} adequatereformation. He was determined to be the repairer of the "Old Church, "not the builder of a "New Church, " and he was resolved not to travelfarther nor faster than the substantial men of his time considered safeand wise. 

But less was perhaps more. There will at least always be those whothink that the sinuous way of progress is the most certain way ofadvance. The slow incline, the gradual spiral, each wind of the curve"ever not quite" the old level--that is the most approved method ofleaving an outworn past and of moving forward into a new stage ofhistory. It may be so. It certainly is true that through Luther's_insight_ new reliance upon God came to men, new energy of faith waswon, and by his work of repair, conservative and cautious though itwas, in the long sweep of time a liberated Christianity has come, avital social gospel has become effective, and great vistas of progressare opening out before the Church of Christ. But it is impossible toforget that other group--those men of the other type--who even inLuther's day saw the way straight across into Canaan, the men who sawtheir vision fade away unrealized, and who failed to behold the fruitof their spiritual travail largely because Luther misunderstood them, refused to give them aid and comfort, and finally helped to marshal theforces which submerged them and postponed their victory. We may notblame him, but it is not fair to these heroic souls that they shouldlonger lie submerged in the oblivion of their defeat. I shall try inthese pages to bring up into the light the principles and ideas whichthey proclaimed to Europe, perhaps ahead of their time. 

[1] In the South the movement showed a tendency to drift back into arefined paganism. In the North, however, it was deeply Christian ininterest, in feeling, and in its moral aspirations. Erasmus was by farthe greatest figure and the most influential person in the group ofHumanists of this latter type. 

[2] Epistle CCVII. 

[3] Epistle DLXXXVII. 

[4] 1401-1464. 

[5] Nicholas belonged to one of these circles. "The Brethren of theCommon Life" are treated in my _Studies in Mystical Religion_, chap. Xiv. 

[6] Letter to the Elector Frederick, March 5, 1522. 

[7] The story that Luther, climbing the _Scala Santa_ in 1510, suddenlywas impressed by the words, "The just shall live by faith, " is based ona reminiscence of Luther's son Paul. Luther's own reference to theascent of the _Scala Santa_ makes no allusion to any such experience. He merely says that when he reached the top of the stairs, which heclimbed in the hope of getting the soul of an ancestor out ofPurgatory, he thought to himself, "Who knows whether this prayer willavail?" Luther began his lectures on _Romans_ in 1515, and his dynamicexperience probably belongs near this date. 

[8] Preface to the _Magnificat_ written in 1521. 

[9] First given as Lectures in 1516-17, and published in 1519. 

[10] A _Commentary on St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians_. 

[11] Dilthey says in _Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie_, Bd. V. Heft 3, p. 358: "The Justification of which the medieval man had inwardexperience was the descending stream of objective forces upon thebeliever from the transcendental world, through the Incarnation, in thechannels of the ecclesiastical institutions, priestly consecration, sacraments, confession, and works. It was something which took placein connection with a super-sensible regime. The Justification by faithof which Luther was inwardly aware was the personal experience of thebeliever standing in the continuous line of Christian fellowship, bywhom assurance of the Grace of God is experienced in response topersonal faith, an experience derived from the appropriation of thework of Christ. "

[12] _Sämmtliche Werke_ (Erlangen edition), xxii. P. 20. 

[13] On Christian Liberty, _Primary Works_, p. 106. 

[14] See his Preface to _The Epistle to the Romans_. 

[15] _Wider die himlichen Propheten vom Sacrament_, ii. Anno 1525. 

[16] See P. Loofs, _Dogmengeschichte_ (Vierte Auflage, 1906), pp. 752-755. 

[17] In his instructions to Melanchthon for the Cassel Conference withButzer in 1534, Luther said, "In and with the bread, the body of Christis truly partaken of, accordingly all that takes place actively andpassively in the bread takes place actively and passively in the bodyof Christ and the latter is distributed, eaten and masticated with theteeth. "

[18] McGiffert, _Protestant Thought before Kant_ (1911), p. 20. Seealso the same view in Troeltsch, _Protestantisches Christentum undKirche in der Neuzeit_ (2nd Auflage), p. 481. 

[19] _History of Dogma_, vii. P. 169. 

{17}

CHAPTER II

HANS DENCK AND THE INWARD WORD[1]

Hans Denck has generally been enrolled among the Anabaptists, and it ispossible to use that name of scorn with such a latitude and loosenessthat it includes not only Denck but all the sixteenth-century exponentsof a free, inward religion. Anabaptism has often been treated as asort of broad banyan-tree which flourished exuberantly and shot outfar-reaching branches of very varied characters, but which held in oneorganic unity all the branches that found soil and took root. A nameof such looseness and covering capacity is, however, of little worth, and it would promote historical accuracy if we should confine the termto those who opposed infant baptism and who insisted instead upon adultbaptism, not as a means of Grace, but as a visible sign of the covenantof man with God. The further characteristic marks which may beselected to differentiate Anabaptism from other movements of the periodare:

1. The treatment of the Gospel as a new law to be literally followedand obeyed by all who are to have the right to be called "saints. "

2. The true Church is a _visible_ Church, the community of the saints, founded by covenant, with adult baptism as its sign, formed exactly onthe pattern of the apostolic {18} Church and preserved in strict purityby rigorous church discipline; and

3. The denial to magistrates of all power to persecute men for theirfaith and doctrine on the ground that the Gospel gives them no suchauthority--its great commandment being love. [2]

Hans Denck, though in his early period of activity closely identifiedwith this movement and regarded as one of its chief leaders in Germany, does not properly belong, however, to the banyan-tree of Anabaptism. His writings reveal ideas and tendencies of such enlarged scope that itappears clear that he had discovered and was teaching another type ofChristianity altogether. [3] He is the earliest exponent in thesixteenth century of a fresh and unique type of religion, deeplyinfluenced by the mystics of a former time, but even more profoundlymoulded by the new humanistic conceptions of man's real nature. 

There are few biographical details of Denck's life available. He was, most probably, a native of Bavaria, [4] and he was born about the year1495. He studied in the University of Ingolstadt, where he wasadmitted among the baccalaureates in 1517. [5] In the year 1520 wecatch a glimpse of him in close association with the Humanists ofAugsburg. [6] In 1522 he was at work in Basle as proof-reader for thefamous publisher, Valentin Curio, and was living in intimate fellowshipwith the great scholar OEcolampadius, whose lectures on the ProphetIsaiah he heard. [7] In the autumn of the same year, on therecommendation of OEcolampadius, he was appointed Director of St. Sebald's School in Nuremberg, which was then the foremost seat oflearning in that city, {19} a great centre of classical humanisticstudies. During the first period of his life in Nuremberg he wasclosely identified with the Lutheran movement, but he soon shifted hissympathies, and aligned himself with the radical tendencies which atthis period were championed in Nuremberg by Thomas Münzer, who, inspite of his misguided leadership and fanatical traits, had discovereda genuine religious principle that was destined to become significantin safer hands. [8] Münzer read Tauler's sermons from his youth up; inhis own copy of these sermons, preserved in the library at Gera, amarginal note says that he read them almost continually, and that herehe learned of a divine interior Teaching. It was Münzer's teaching ofthe living Voice of God in the soul, his testimony to the reality ofthe inner heavenly Word, which God Himself speaks in the deeps of man'sheart, that won the Humanist and teacher of St. Sebald's School to thenew and perilous cause. He also formed a close friendship with LudwigHetzer, who, like Münzer, taught that the saving Word of God must beinward, and that the Scriptures can be understood only by those whobelong to the School of Christ. Having once caught the _idea_ fromthese impassioned leaders, Denck proceeded directly to work it out andto develop its implications in his own fashion. He was himself sane, clear-minded, modest, sincere, far-removed from fanaticism, and eageronly to find a form of religion which would fit the eternal nature ofthings on the one hand, and the true nature of man on the other--man, Imean, as the Humanist conceived him. [9]

Already in this Nuremberg period, Denck became fully convinced thatLuther's doctrine of sin and justification was an artificialconstruction--_Einbildung_--and that his conception of Scripture andthe Sacraments was destined to clamp the new-found faith in iron bonds, tie it to outworn tradition, and make it incapable of a progressive{20} and vital unfolding. He declared in his testimony or "confession"to the city council of Nuremberg in 1524, that although he had not yeta full experience of the inward, powerful Word of God, he distinctlyfelt its life as an inner witness which God had planted within him, aspark of the Divine Light breaking into his own soul, and in thestrength of this direct experience he denied the value of externalceremonies, and declared that even the Bible itself cannot bring men toGod without the assistance of this inner Light and Spirit. [10]

As a result of this change of attitude, the schoolmaster of St. Sebald's was banished from the city of Nuremberg, January 21, 1525, andfrom this time until his early death he was homeless and a wanderer. He spent some months--between September 1525 and October 1526--inAugsburg endeavouring to organize and direct the rapidly expandingforces of the liberal movement. He was during these months, andespecially during the period of the great Anabaptist synod which washeld at this time in Augsburg, endeavouring to give the chaoticmovement of Anabaptism a definite direction, with the main emphasis onthe mystical aspect of religion. He hoped to call a halt to the vaguesocialistic dreams and the fanatical tendencies that put the movementin constant jeopardy and peril, and he was striving to call hisbrotherhood to an inner religion, grounded on the inherent nature ofthe soul, and guided by the inner Word rather than on "a new law" setforth in the written word. There were, however, too many eddies andcurrents to be mastered by one mind, too many varieties of faith to beunified under one principle, and Denck's own view was too intangible, inward, and spiritual, to satisfy the enthusiasm either of the seethingmasses or of {21} the leaders who saw a new Jerusalem just ready tocome down out of heaven from God. [11]

After the Augsburg period, Denck spent some time in Strasbourg, wherehe gained many followers. Capito bears testimony at this time to thepurity of Denck's life, to his moderation and goodwill, and to theimpressive effect of his preaching and teaching upon the people of thecity. [12] Vadian, the Humanist and reformer of St. Gall, too, in spiteof his disapproval of some of Denck's ideas, speaking of him inretrospect after his death, called him "a most gifted youth, possessedof all excellencies. " But his teaching was too strange and unusual tobe allowed currency even in free Strasbourg. After being granted apublic discussion he was ordered to leave the city forthwith. During ashort stay in Worms, following the Strasbourg period, in collaborationwith Ludwig Hetzer, they brought to a successful conclusion a Germantranslation of the Prophets from the Hebrew, a work which Hetzer hadbegun. This important piece of scholarly work was published under thetitle, _Alle Propheten nach hebräischer Sprache verteutscht_, in Worms, April 3, 1527, and had a wide circulation and use, its main demeritbeing that it had been done by "Anabaptists. "

Pursued on every hand, hunted from place to place, he finally soughtpeace and shelter with his old friend, the teacher who had firstinspired him in his youth, OEcolampadius, and here in Basle in a quietretreat, he died of the plague in November 1527, hardly more thanthirty-two years of age. [13]

We must now turn to the little books of this persecuted and homelessHumanist to see what his religious teaching really was, and to discoverthe foundation principle which lay at the root of all the endeavours ofthis period to launch a Christianity grounded primarily on the {22}fundamental nature of man. [14] Denck writes like a man with amessage--straight to the mark, lucid, vivid, and intense. He believeswhat he says and he wants others to see it and believe it. Hiswritings are entirely free from the controversial temper, and theybreathe throughout the spirit of tolerance and charity. He knows whento stop, and brings his books to an end as soon as he has made hispoints clear. The fundamental fact of man's nature for Denck ispersonal _freedom_. Starting with no theological presuppositions he isunder no obligation to make the primary assumption common to allAugustinian systems that man is devoid of any native capacities whichhave to do with spiritual salvation. He begins instead with man as heknows him--a sadly marred and hampered being, but still possessed of apotentially Divine nature, and capable of co-operating, by inwardchoices and decisions, with the ceaseless effort of God to win himcompletely to Himself. His little book, _What does it mean when theScripture says God does and works Good and Evil_, is throughout aprotest against the idea of "election, " which, he says, involves "alimitation of the Love of God, " and it is a penetrating account of theway in which man by his free choices makes his eternal destiny. [15]"God compels nobody, for He will have no one saved by compulsion. "[16]"God has given freewill to men that they may choose for themselves, either the good or the bad. Christ said to His disciples, 'Will ye{23} go away?' as though He would say, 'You are under nocompulsion. '"[17] "God, " he says again in the _Widerruf_, "forces noone, for love cannot compel, and God's service is, therefore, a thingof complete freedom. "[18]

It is freedom, too, which explains the fact of sin. God is in no waythe author of sin; He is wholly good; He can do nothing but what isgood; He ordains no one to sin; He is the instigator of no evil at all. All the sin and moral evil of the world have come from our own evilchoices and purposes. "The thing which hinders and has always hinderedis that our wills are different from God's will. God never seeksHimself in His willing--we do. There is no other way to blessednessthan to lose one's self-will. "[19] "He who surrenders hisselfishness, " he says in another treatise, "and uses the freedom whichGod has given him, and fights the spiritual battle as God wills thatsuch battles are to be fought and as Christ fought His, can in hismeasure be like Christ. "[20] The whole problem of salvation for himis, as we shall see, to bring about such a transformation in man thatsin ceases, and the least thing thought, said, or done out of harmonywith the will of God becomes bitter and painful to the soul. [21] "Tobe a Christian, " he once wrote, "is to be in measure like Christ, andto be ready to be offered as He gave Himself to be offered. I do notsay that we _are_ perfect as Christ was, but I say rather that we areto seek the perfection which Christ never lost. Christ calls Himselfthe Light of the world, but He also tells His disciples that _they_ tooare the light of the world. All Christians in whom the Holy Ghostlives--that is all real Christians--are one with Christ in God and arelike Christ. They will therefore have similar experiences, and whatChrist did they will also do. "[22]

Not only is there a power of free choice in the soul; there is as wellan elemental hunger in man which pushes him Godward. "God, " he oftensays, "can give only {24} to those who hunger. " In a very greatpassage which reminds one of Pascal he says: "The kingdom of God is inyou and he who searches for it outside himself will never find it, for_apart from God no one can either seek or find God, for he who seeksGod, already in truth has Him_. "[23] He says nearly the same thingagain in the little book, _Vom Gesetz Gottes_: "He who does not knowGod from God Himself does not ever know Him. " This central insight ofDenck's religious faith that God and man are not completely sundered, but meet, as he says, [24] in the deeps of ourselves, is grounded uponthe fact of experience that there is within us a supra-individualReality which becomes revealed to us sometimes as a Light, sometimes asa Word, sometimes as a Presence or environing Spirit. This testimonyis Denck's main contribution, and we must next see how he sets itforth. There is, he says, a witness in every man. He who does notlisten to it blinds himself, although God has given him originally agood inward eyesight. If a man will keep still and listen he will hearwhat the Spirit witnesses within him. Not only in _us_ but in theheathen and in Jews this witness is given, and men might be preached tooutwardly forever without perceiving, if they did not have this witnessin their own hearts. [25] The Light shines, the invisible Word of Godis uttered in the hearts of all men who come into the world, and thisLight gives all men freedom and power to become children of God. [26]There is both an inward principle of revelation which he calls _dasinnere Wort_, and a principle of active power which he calls _die Kraftdes Allerhöchsten_ (the power of the Highest), not two things, but onereality under two aspects and two names, and he insists that he whoturns to this Divine, spiritual reality, which is one with God, andobeys it and loves its leading has already found God and has come tohimself. "Oh, who will give me a voice, " he writes, "that I may cryaloud to the whole world that God, the all highest, is in the deepestabyss {25} within us and is waiting for us to return to Him. Oh, myGod, how does it happen in this poor old world, that Thou art so greatand yet nobody finds Thee, that Thou callest so loudly and nobody hearsThee, that Thou art so near and nobody feels Thee, that Thou givestThyself to everybody and nobody knows Thy name! Men flee from Thee andsay they cannot find Thee; they turn their backs and say they cannotsee Thee; they stop their ears and say they cannot hear Thee!"[27]

This self-giving nature of God is everywhere taken for granted--it isjust _that_ which he feels that Christ has once for all made sun-clear, and it is because He is essentially self-giving that God pours out Hislife and love upon us as He does His sunshine upon the grass andflowers. "The Word of God is with thee before thou seekest; He givesbefore thou hast asked; He opens to thee before thou hast knocked. " Godlike a Father deals with His wayward children. "Oh, blessed is theman, " he writes, "who in his need finds the love of God and comes toHim for forgiveness!"[28] No one of us who has been washed from hissins, he beautifully says, ought to eat a piece of bread withoutconsidering how God loves him and how he ought to love God, who inJesus Christ His Son laid aside His right to Divinity that His lovemight appear complete. [29] "It has pleased the eternal Love, " hewrites, "that that Person in whom Love was shown in the highest degreeshould be called the Saviour of His people. Not that it would bepossible for human nature to make anybody saved, but God was socompletely identified in Love with Him that all the Will of God was thewill of this Person, and the sufferings of this Person were and countedas the sufferings of God Himself. "[30]

Christ is for him the complete manifestation of life and the perfectexhibition or unveiling of God's love, and he who appreciates thislove, feels its attraction, and lives a life which corresponds to hissoul's insight, becomes {26} himself Christlike, forsakes sin and self, and enters upon a life of salvation. "All who are saved, " he says, "are of one spirit with God, and he who is the foremost in love is theforemost of those who are saved. "[31] "He who gets weary of God hasnever found Him, " while the person who has found Him in this love-waywill be ready and willing to give up even his own salvation and acceptdamnation for the love of God, since he knows in his heart that "God isso wholly good that He can give to such a man only what is highest andbest, and that is Himself!"[32] That is to say, he who is willing tobe damned for the love of God never will be damned!

But salvation must never be conceived as something which is the resultof a transaction. It is from beginning to end a life-process and canin no way be separated from character and personal attitude of will. "He who depends on the merit of Christ, " he says, "and yet continues ina fleshly, wicked life, regards Christ precisely as in former times theheathen held their gods. He who really believes that Christ has savedhim can no longer be a servant of sin, for no one believes rightlyuntil he leaves his old life. "[33] "It is not enough, " he elsewherewrites, "that God is in thee; thou must also be in God, that is, partake of the life of God. It does not help to have God if thou dostnot honour Him. It is no avail to call thyself His child _if thou dostnot behave thyself like a child_!"[34] He insists that no one can be"called righteous" or be "counted righteous" until he actually _is_righteous. Nothing can be "imputed" to a man which is not ethicallyand morally present as a living feature of his character and conduct. No one, he truly says, can know _Christ as a means of salvation_ unlesshe follows Him in his life. He who does not witness to Christ in hisdaily walk grows into a different person from the one he is called tobe. [35] The person who lives on in sin does not really know God, and, {27} to use his fine figure; is like a man who has lost his home andgone astray, and does not even know that he is _at home_, when hisFather has found him and has welcomed him back, but still goes onhunting for home and for Father, since he does not recognize his homeor his Father when he has found them![36]

Salvation, then, for Hans Denck is wholly an inward process, initiatedfrom above through the Divine Word, the Christ, whom we know outwardlyas the historical Person of the Gospel, and whom we know inwardly asthe Revealer of Light and Love, the Witness in us against sin, theVoice of the Father to our hearts, calling us home, the Goal of ourspiritual quest, the Alpha and the Omega of all religious truth and allspiritual experience. The Way to God, he says, is Christ inwardly andspiritually known. [37] But however audible the inner Word may be;however vivid the illumination; however drawing the Love, there isnever compulsion. The soul itself must hear and see and feel; must sayyes to the appeal of Love, and must co-operate by a continuousadjustment of the personal will to the Will of God and "learn to behaveas a child of God. "

Having reached the insight that salvation is entirely an affair of thespirit, an inward matter, Denck loosened his hold upon the externalthings which had through long centuries of history come to beconsidered essential to Christianity. Sacraments and ceremoniesdropped to a lower level for him as things of no importance. With hischaracteristic breadth and sweetness, he does not smite them as aniconoclast would have done; he does not cry out against those whocontinue to use them. He merely considered them of no spiritualsignificance. "Ceremonies, " he writes in his dying confession, "inthemselves are not sin, but whoever supposes that he can attain to lifeeither by baptism or by partaking of bread, is still insuperstition. "[38] "If all ceremonies, " he adds, "were lost, littleharm would come of it. "[39] {28} He appeals to Christians to stopquarrelling over these outward and secondary matters, and to makereligion consist in love to neighbour rather than in zeal for outwardceremonies. He laid down this great principle: "All externals mustyield to love, for they are for the sake of love, and not love fortheir sake. "[40]

He was, consistently with his fundamental ideas, profoundly opposed toevery tendency to make Christianity a legal religion. His friends, theAnabaptists, were inclined to turn the Gospel of Christ into "a newlaw, " and to make religion consist largely in scrupulous obedience tothis perfect law of life. To all this he was radically alien, for itwas, he thought, only another road back to a religion of the letter, while Christ came to call us to a religion of the spirit. "He who hasnot the Spirit, " he wrote, "and who fails to find Him in theScriptures, seeks life and finds death; seeks light and finds darkness, whether it be in the Old or in the New Testament. "[41] "He who thinksthat he can be _made truly righteous_ by means of a Book is ascribingto the dead letter what belongs to the Spirit. "[42] He does notbelittle or undervalue the Scriptures--he knew them almost by heart andtook the precious time out of his brief life to help to translate theProphets into German--but he wants to make the fact forever plain thatmen are saved or lost as they say _yes_ or _no_ to a Light and Wordwithin themselves. "The Holy Scriptures, " he writes in his dyingtestimony, "I consider above every human treasure, but not so high asthe Word of God which is living, powerful, and eternal, for it is GodHimself, Spirit and no letter, written without pen or paper so that itcan never be destroyed. For that reason, salvation is not bound upwith the Scriptures, however necessary and good they may be for theirpurpose, because it is impossible for the Scriptures to make good a badheart, even though it may be a learned one. A good heart, however, with a Divine Spark in it is improved by everything, and to such theScriptures will bring blessedness {29} and goodness. "[43] TheScriptures--the external Word--as he many times, in fact somewhattediously, declares, are witnesses and pointers to the real andmomentous thing, the Word which is very near to all souls and iswritten in the heart, and which increases in clearness and power as thewill swings into parallelism with the will of God, and as the lifegrows in likeness to the Divine image revealed in Christ. This inwardlife and spiritual appreciation do not give any ground for relaxing themoral obligations of life. No fulfilling of the law by Christ, novanishing of the outward and temporal, furnish any excuse to us forslacking a jot or tittle of anything which belongs to the inherentnature of moral goodness. "Christ, " he says, "fulfilled the law, notto relieve us of it, but to show us how to keep it in truth. Themember must partake of what the Head partakes. "[44] _To love God aloneand to hate everything that hinders love_ is a principle which, Denckbelieves, will fulfil all law, ancient or modern. [45]

Such were the ideas which this young radical reformer, dreamer perhaps, tried to teach his age. The time was not ripe for him, and there wasno environment ready for his message. He spoke to minds busy withtheological systems, and to men whose battles were over the meaning ofinherited medieval dogma. He thought and spoke as a child of anotherworld, and he talked in a language which he had learned from his heartand not from books or from the schools. It is "the key of David, " hesays, that is, an inward experience, which unlocks all the solid doorsof truth, but there were so few about him who really had this "key"!His task, which was destined to be hard and painful, which was in hislifetime doomed to failure, was not self-chosen. "I opened my mouth, "he says, "against my will and I am speaking to the world because Godimpels me so that I cannot keep silent. God has called me out andstationed me at my post, and He knows whether good will come of it ornot. "[46]

{30}

It is not often that a man living in the atmosphere of seethingenthusiasm, pitilessly pricked and goaded by brutal and unfeelingpersecutors, compelled to hear his precious truth persistently callederror and pestilent heresy, keeps so calm and sane and sure that allwill be well with him and with his truth as does Denck. "I am heartilywell content, " is his dying testimony, "that all shame and disgraceshould fall on my face, if it is for the truth. It was when I began tolove God that I got the disfavour of men. "[47] He confesses that hehas found it difficult to "keep a gentle and a humble heart" throughall his work among men, to "temper his zeal with understanding, " and to"make his lips say always what his heart meant, "[48] but he did, atleast, succeed in loving God and in hating everything that hinderedlove. In an epoch in which the doctrine was new and revolutionary, hesucceeded in presenting the principle of the Inward Word as the basisof religion without giving any encouragement to libertinism or morallaxity, for he found the way of freedom to be a life of growinglikeness to Christ, he held the fulfilling of the law to be possibleonly for those who accept the burdens and sacrifices of love, and heinsisted that the privileges of blessedness belong only to those who_behave like sons_. 

[1] The best studies on Denck are Heberle's articles in _Theol. Studienund Kritiken_ (1851), Erstes Heft, and (1855) Viertes Heft. GustaveRoehrich's _Essai sur la vie, les écrits et la doctrine de Jean Denk_(Strasbourg, 1853). Ludwig Keller's _Ein Apostel der Wiedertäufer_(Leipzig, 1882). The last two books must, however, be followed withmuch caution. 

[2] One branch of the Anabaptists held that the "saints" may, however, rightly use the sword to execute the purposes of God upon the godless, and to hasten the coming of the Thousand Years' Reign of the Kingdom. 

[3] I have included him, in my _Studies in Mystical Religion_ (1908), among the Anabaptists, but he can be called one only by such a looseuse of the word that it ceases to have any _definite_ significance. 

[4] See J. Kessler's _Sabbata_ (1902), p. 150. 

[5] L. Keller, _Johann von Staupitz_, p. 207. 

[6] _Ibid. _ p. 208. 

[7] OEcolampadius' Letter to Pirkheimer, April 25, 1525. 

[8] Georg Theodor Strobel, _Leben, Schriften und Lehren Münzers_(Nürnberg, 1795); J. R. Seidemann, _Thomas Münzer_ (Dresden, 1842). 

[9] A contemporary chronicle calls Denck a scholar, eloquent, modestand, withal, learned in Hebrew. --Kessler's _Sabbata_, p. 150. 

[10] This "Confession" is in the archives of Nuremberg, and has beenextensively used in Keller's _Ein Apostel der Wiedertäufer_, seeespecially pp. 49-62. See also Th. Kolde, _KirchengeschichtlicheStudien_ (1888), p. 231 f. In this connection much interest attachesto a passage in a letter which Luther wrote to Johann Brismann, February 4, 1525. He says: "Satan has carried it so far that inNuremberg some persons are denying that Christ is anything, that theWord of God is anything, that the Eucharist is anything, thatMagistracy is anything. They say that only God is. "

[11] See Nicoladoni's _Johannes Bünderlin von Linz_ (Berlin, 1893), p. 114. 

[12] Letter of Capita to Zwingli, December 26, 1526. 

[13] Kessler says that OEcolampadius in a Christian spirit was with himat his death. _Op. Cit. _ p. 151. 

[14] The little books of Denck from which I shall extract his teachingare: (1) _Vom Gesetz Gottes_ ("On the Law of God"), printed withoutplace or date, but probably published in 1526. I have used the copy inthe Königliche Bibliothek in Berlin, sig. Co. 2152. (2) _Was geredetsey doss die Schrift sagt Gott thue und mache guts und böses_ ("Whatdoes it mean when the Scripture says God does and works Good andEvil"), 1526. Copies of this are to be found in the University Libraryof Marburg, also in the Königliche Bibliothek of Dresden. (3)_Widerruf_ ("Confession "), 1527. I have used the copy in theKönigliche Bibliothek in Dresden sig. Theol. Cathol. 817 (4) _OrdnungGottes und der Creaturen Werck_ ("The Divine Plan and the Work of theCreature"), 1527, in the above library in Dresden. (5) _Wer dieWarheif warlich lieb hat_, etc. , no date ("Whoever really loves theTruth, " etc. ), and (6) _Von der wahren Liebe_ ("On the True Love"), 1527. This last tract has been republished in America by theMennonitische Verlagshandlung, Elkhart, Indiana, 1888. 

[15] "To hear the Word of God, " he elsewhere says, "means life; to hearit not means death. "--_Ordnung Gottes_, p. 17. 

[16] _Was geredet sey_, p. C. (The paging is by letters. )

[17] _Was geredet sey_, B. 3. 

[18] _Widerruf_, sec. Iv. 

[19] _Was geredet sey_, B. 

[20] _Ibid. _ B. 5. 

[21] _Venn Gesetz Gottes_, p. 15. 

[22] _Was geredet sey_, B. 6. 

[23] _Was geredet sey_, B. 2. 

[24] _Ibid. _ B. 5. 

[25] _Ibid. _ B. 1 and 2. 

[26] _Ordnung Gottes_, p. 7. 

[27] _Vom Gesetz Gottes_, p. 27. 

[28] _Was geredet sey_, D. 1 and 2. 

[29] _Vom Gesetz Gottes_, p. 33. 

[30] _Van der wahren Liebe_ (Elkhart reprint), p. 7. 

[31] _Van der wahren Liebe_ (Elkhart reprint), p. 8. 

[32] _Vom Gesetz Gottes_, p. 19. 

[33] _Widerruf_, ii. 

[34] _Was geredet sey_, B. 1. 

[35] _Ibid. _ D. 

[36] _Was geredet sey_, A. 4 and 5. 

[37] _Ibid_. B. 3. 

[38] _Widerruf_, vii. 

[39] _Ibid. _ vii. 

[40] _Vom Gesetz Gottes_, p. 33. 

[41] _Ibid. _ p. 22. 

[42] _Ibid. _ p. 21. 

[43] _Widerruf_, i. 

[44] _Vom Gesetz Gottes_, p. 9. 

[45] _Ibid. _ p. 12. 

[46] _Was geredet sey_, Preface. 

[47] _Widerruf_, Preface. 

[48] _Ibid. _, Preface. 

{31}

CHAPTER III

TWO PROPHETS OF THE INWARD WORD: BUNDERLIN AND ENTFELDER

I

The study of Denck in the previous chapter has furnished the mainoutlines of the type of Christianity which a little group of men, sometimes called "Enthusiasts, " and sometimes called "Spirituals, " butin reality sixteenth-century Quakers, proclaimed and faithfullypractised in the opening period of the Reformation. They differedfundamentally from Luther in their conception of salvation and in theirbasis of authority, although they owed their first awakening to him;and they were not truly Anabaptists, though they allied themselves atfirst with this movement, and earnestly laboured to check the ominoussigns of Ranterism and Fanaticism, and the misguided "return" tomillennial hopes and expectations, to which many of the Anabaptistleaders were prone. 

The inner circle of "Spirituals" which we are now engaged ininvestigating was never numerically large or impressive, nor was it inthe public mind well differentiated within the larger circle ofseething ideas and revolutionary propaganda. The men themselves, however, who composed it had a very sure grasp of a few definite, central truths to which they were dedicated, and they never lost sight, in the hurly-burly of contention and in the storm of persecution, ofthe goal toward which they were bending their steps. They did notendeavour {32} to found a Church, to organize a sect, or to gain apersonal following, because it was a deeply settled idea with them allthat the true Church is invisible. It is a communion of saints, including those of all centuries, past and present, who have heard andobeyed the divine inner Word, and through co-operation with God'sinward revelation and transforming Presence have risen to a mysticalunion of heart and life with Him. Their apostolic mission--for theyfully believed that they were "called" and "sent"--was to bear witnessto this eternal Word within the soul, to extend the fellowship of thisinvisible Zion, and to gather out of all lands and peoples and visiblefolds of the Church those who were ready for membership in the onefamily and brotherhood of the Spirit of God. They made the mistake, which has been very often made before and since, of undervaluingexternal helps and of failing to appreciate how important is thevisible fellowship, the social group, working at common tasks andproblems, the temporal Church witnessing to its tested faith andproclaiming its message to the ears of the world; but they didnevertheless perform a very great service in their generation, and theyare the unrecognized forerunners of much which we highly prize in thespiritual heritage of the modern world. 

The two men whose spiritual views we are about to study are, I amafraid, hardly even "names" to the world of to-day. They were not onthe popular and winning side and they have fallen into oblivion, andthe busy world has gone on and left them and their little books to lieburied in a forgotten past. They are surely worthy of a resurrection, and those who take the pains will discover that the ideas which theypromulgated never really died, but were quick and powerful in theformation of the inner life of the religious societies of the EnglishCommonwealth, and so of many things which have touched our inner worldto-day. 

Johann Bünderlin, like his inspirer Denck, was a scholar of no meanrank. He understood Hebrew; he knew the Church Fathers both in Greekand Latin; he {33} makes frequent reference to Greek literature forillustration, and he was well versed in the dialectic of the schools, though he disapproved of it as a religious method. [1] He was enrolledas a student in the University of Vienna in 1515, under the name ofJohann Wunderl aus Linz, Linz being a town of Upper Austria. Afterfour years of study he left the University in 1519, being compelled toforgo his Bachelor's degree because he was too poor to pay the requiredfee. [2] The next five years of his life are submerged beyond recovery, but we hear of him in 1526 as a preacher in the service of Bartholomäusvon Starhemberg, a prominent nobleman of Upper Austria, and he was atthis time a devout adherent of the Lutheran faith. He was in Augsburgthis same year, 1526, at the time of the great gathering ofAnabaptists, and here he probably met Hans Denck, at any rate hetestified in 1529 before the investigating Judge in Strasbourg that hereceived adult baptism in Augsburg three years before. He seems tohave gone from Augsburg to Nikolsburg, where he was present at a publicDiscussion in which a definite differentiation appeared between themoderate and the radical, the right and left, wings of the Anabaptists. Bünderlin took part in this Discussion on the "moderate" side. Heremained for some time--perhaps two years--in Nikolsburg and faced thepersecution which prevailed in that city during the winter of1527-1528. The next year he comes to notice in Strasbourg where, for along time, a much larger freedom of thought was allowed than in anyother German city of the period. The great tragedy which he had toexperience was the frustration of the work of his life by the growthand spread of the Ranter influence in the Anabaptist circles, throughthe leadership of Melchior Hoffman and others of a similar spirit. Heloved freedom, and here he saw it degenerating into license. He wasdevoted to a religion of experience and of inner authority, and now{34} he saw the wild extremes to which such a religion was exposed. Hewas dedicated to a spiritual Christianity, and now he was compelled tolearn the bitter lesson that there are many types and varieties of"spiritual religion, " and that the masses are inclined to go with thosewho supply them with a variety which is spectacular and which producesemotional thrills. Our last definite information concerning Bünderlinshows him to have been in Constance in 1530, from which city he wasexpelled as a result of information against the "soundness" of hisdoctrine, furnished in a letter from OEcolampadius. From this time hedrops completely out of notice, and we are left only with conjectures. One possible reference to him occurs in a letter from Julius Pflug, theHumanist, to Erasmus in 1533. Pflug says that a person has newlyarrived in Litium (probably Lützen) who teaches that there are no wordsof Christ as a warrant for the celebration of the Sacrament of theSupper, and that it is to be partaken of only in a spiritual way. Headds that God had intervened to protect the people from such heresy andthat the heretic had been imprisoned. The usual penalty for suchheresy was probably imposed. This description would well fit JohannBünderlin, but we can only guess that he was the opponent of thevisible Sacrament mentioned in the letter which Erasmus received in1533. [3]

Bünderlin's religious contribution is preserved in three little bookswhich are now extremely rare, the central ideas of which I shall givein condensed form and largely in my own words, though I have faithfullyendeavoured to render him fairly. [4] His style is difficult, {35}mainly because he abounds in repetition and has not learned to write inan orderly way. I am inclined to believe that he sometimes wrote, ashe would no doubt preach, in a prophetic, rapturous, spontaneousfashion, hardly steering his train of thought by his intellect, butletting it go along lines of least resistance and in a rhythmic floodof words; his central ideas of course all the time holding thepredominant place in his utterance. He is essentially a mystic both inexperience and in the ground and basis of his conception of God andman. This mystical feature is especially prominent in his second bookon why God became incarnate in Christ, and I shall begin my expositionwith that aspect of his thought. 

God, he says, who is the eternal and only goodness, has always beengoing out of Himself into forms of self-expression. His highestexpression is made in a heavenly and purely spiritual order of angelicbeings. Through these spiritual beings He objectifies Himself, mirrorsHimself, knows Himself, and becomes revealed. [5] He has also pouredHimself out in a lower order of manifestation in the visible creationwhere spirit often finds itself in opposition and contrast to thatwhich is not spirit. The highest being in this second order is man, who in inward essence is made in the image and likeness of God, butbinds together in one personal life both sensuous elements and divineand spiritual elements which are always in collision and warfare witheach other. Man has full freedom of choice and can swing his will overto either side--he can live upward toward the divine goodness, or hecan live downward toward the poor, thin, limiting isolation ofindividual selfhood. But {36} through the shifting drama of our humandestiny God never leaves us. He is always within us, as near to theheart of our being as the Light is to the eye. Conscience is thewitness of His continued Presence; the drawing which we feel towardhigher things is born in the unlost image of God which is planted inour nature "like the tree of Life in Eden. " He pleads in our hearts byHis inner Word; He reveals the goodness of Himself in His vocalopposition to all that would harm and spoil us, and He laboursunceasingly to be born in us and to bring forth His love and Hisspiritual kingdom in the domain of our own spirits. The way of life isto die to the flesh and to the narrow will of the self, and to becomealive to the Spirit and Word of God in the soul, to enter into andparticipate in that eternal love with which God loves us. This centralidea of the double nature of man--an upper self indissolubly linkedwith God and a lower self rooted in fleshly and selfish desires--runsthrough all his writings, and in his view all the processes ofrevelation are to further the liberation and development of the higherand to weaken the gravitation of the lower self. 

His first book deals with God's twofold revelation ofHimself--primarily as a living Word in the soul of man, and secondarilythrough external signs and events, in an historical word, and in atemporal incarnation. With a wealth and variety of expression andillustration he insists and reiterates that only through thecitadel--or better the sanctuary--of his inner self can man bespiritually reached, and won, and saved. Nobody can be saved until heknows himself at one with God; until he finds his will at peace and inharmony with God's will; until his inward spirit is conscious of unitywith the eternal Spirit; in short, until love sets him free with thefreedom and joy of sons of God. Priests may absolve men if they will, and ministers may pronounce them saved, but all _that_ counts fornothing until the inward transformation is a fact and the will hasfound its goal in the will of God: "Love must bloom and the spirit {37}of the man must follow the will of God written in his heart. "[6]

All external means in religion have one purpose and one function; theyare to awaken the mind and to direct it to the inward Word. The moststartling miracle, the most momentous event in the sphere of temporalsequences, the most appealing account of historical occurrences can donothing more than give in parable-fashion hints and suggestions of thereal nature of that God who is eternally present within human spirits, and who is working endlessly to conform all lives to His perfect typeand pattern. In the infant period of the race, both among the Hebrewsand the Gentile peoples, God has used, like a wise Teacher, the symboland picture-book method. He has disciplined them with external lawsand with ceremonies which would move their child-minded imaginations;but all this method was used only because they were not ripe and readyfor the true and higher form of goodness. "They used the face of Mosesuntil they could come to the full Light of the truth and righteousnessof God, for which all the time their spirits really hungered andthirsted. "[7] The supreme instance of the divine pictorial method wasthe sending of Christ to reveal God visibly. Before seeing God inChrist men falsely thought of Him as hostile, stern, and wrathful; nowthey may see Him in this unveiling of Himself as He actually is, eternally loving, patiently forgiving, and seeking only to draw theworld into His love and peace: "When the Abba-crying spirit of Christawakens in our hearts we commune with God in peace and love. "[8] Butno one must content himself with Christ after the flesh, Christhistorically known. That is to make an idol of Him. We can be savedthrough Him only when by His help we discover the essential nature ofGod and when He moves us to go to living in the spirit and power asChrist Himself lived. His death as an outward, historical fact doesnot save us; it is the supreme expression of His limitless love and thecomplete dedication {38} of His spirit in self-giving, and it iseffective for our salvation only when it draws us into a similar way ofliving, unites us in spirit with Him and makes us in reality partakersof His blood spiritually apprehended. Christ is our Mediator in thatHe reveals the love of God towards us and moves our will to appreciateit. [9]

Every step of human progress and of spiritual advance is marked by apassage from the dominion of the external to the sway and power ofinward experience. God is training us for a time when images, figures, and picture-book methods will be no longer needed, but all men willlive by the inward Word and have the witness--"the Abba-cryingvoice"--in their own hearts. But this process from outward to inward, from virtue impelled by fear and mediated by law to goodness generatedby love, gives no place for license. Bünderlin has no fellowship withantinomianism, and is opposed to any tendency which gives rein to theflesh. The outward law, the external restraint, the discipline of fearand punishment are to be used so long as they are needed, and thewritten word and the pictorial image will always serve as a norm andstandard, but the true spiritual goal of life is the formation of arightly fashioned will, the creation of a controlling personal love, the experience of a guiding inward Spirit, which keep the awakened soulsteadily approximating the perfect Life which Christ has revealed. 

The true Church is for Bünderlin as for Denck, the communion andfellowship of spiritual persons--an invisible congregation;ever-enlarging with the process of the ages and with the expandinglight of the Spirit. He blames Luther for having stopped short of areal reformation, of having "mixed with the Midianites instead of goingon into the promised Canaan, " and of having failed to dig down to thefundamental basis of spiritual religion. [10]

In his final treatise[11] he goes to the full length of the implicationof his principle. He recounts with luminous {39} simplicity themystical _unity_ of the spiritual Universe and tells of the divinepurpose to draw all our finite and divided wills into moral harmonywith the Central Will. Once more religion is presented as wholly amatter of the inward spirit, a thing of insight, of obedience to aliving Word, of love for an infinite Lover, the bubbling of livingstreams of water in the heart of man. He declares that the period ofsigns and symbols and of "the scholastic way of truth" is passing away, and the religion of the New Testament, the religion of life and spirit, is coming in place of the old. As fast as the new comes ceremonies andsacraments vanish and fall away. They do not belong to a religion ofthe Spirit; they are for the infant race and for those who have notoutgrown the picture-book. Christ's baptism is with power from above, and He cleanses from sin not with water but with the Holy Ghost and theburning fire of love. As soon as the spiritual man possesses "the keyof David, " and has entered upon "the true Sabbath of his soul, " heholds lightly all forms and ceremonies which are outward and which canbe gone through with in a mechanical fashion without creating theessential attitude of worship and of inner harmony of will with God:"When the Kingdom of God with its joy and love has come in us we do notmuch care for those things which can only happen outside us. "[12]

II

Christian Entfelder held almost precisely the same views as those whichwe have found in the teaching of Bünderlin. He has become even moresubmerged than has Bünderlin, and one hunts almost in vain for theevents of his life. Hagen does not mention him. Grützmacher in his_Wort und Geist_ never refers to him. The great _Realencyklopädie furprotestantische Theologie und Kirche_ has no article on him. GottfriedArnold in his {40} _Kirchenund Ketzer-Historien_ merely mentions him inhis list of "Witnesses to the Truth. " The only article I have everfound on him is one by Professor Veesenmeyer in Gabler's _N. Theol. Journal_ (1800), iv. 4, pp. 309-334. 

He first appears in the group of Balthasar Hübmaier's followers and atthis period he had evidently allied himself with the Anabaptistmovement, which gathered into itself many young men of the time whowere eager for a new and more spiritual type of Christianity. Hübmaiermentions Entfelder in 1527 as pastor at Ewanzig, a small town inMoravia, where, as he himself later says, he diligently taught hislittle flock the things which concerned their inner life. In theeventful years of 1520-1530 he was in Strasbourg in company withBünderlin, [13] and in this latter year he published his first book, with the title: _Von den manigfaltigen in Glauben Zerspaltungen disejar erstanden_. ("On the many Separations which have this year arisenin Belief. ") A second book, which is also dated 1530, bears the title:Von waren Gotseligkayt, etc. ("On true Salvation. ") He wrote also athird book, which appeared in 1533 under the title: _Von Gottes undChristi Jesu unseres Herren Erkandtnuss_, etc. ("On the Knowledge ofGod and Jesus Christ our Lord. ")

His style is simpler than that of Bünderlin. He appears more as a manof the people; he is fond of vigorous, graphic figures of speech takenfrom the life of the common people, much in the manner of Luther, andhe breathes forth in all three books a spirit of deep and saintly life. His fundamental idea of the Universe is like that of Bünderlin. Thevisible and invisible creation, in all its degrees and stages, is theoutgoing and unfolding of God, who in His Essence and Godhead is one, indivisible and incomprehensible. But as He is essentially andeternally Good, He _expresses_ Himself in revelation, and goes out ofUnity into differentiation and multiplicity; but the entire spiritualmovement of the universe is back again toward the fundamental Unity, for Divine Unity is both the Alpha and the Omega of the {41} deeperinner world. His main interest is, however, not philosophical andspeculative; his mind focuses always on the practical matters of a trueand saintly life. Like his teacher, Bünderlin, his whole view of lifeand salvation is mystical; everything which concerns religion occurs inthe realm of the soul and is the outcome of direct relations betweenthe human spirit and the Divine Spirit. In every age, and in everyland, the inner Word of God, the Voice of the Spirit speaking within, clarifying the mind and training the spiritual perceptions by aprogressive experience, has made for itself a chosen people and hasgathered out of the world a little inner circle of those who know theTruth because it was formed within themselves. This "inner circle ofthose who know" is the true Church: "The Church is a chosen, saved, purified, sanctified group in whom God dwells, upon whom the Holy Ghostwas poured out His gifts and with whom Christ the Lord shares Hisoffices and His mission. "[14]

There is however, through the ages a steady ripening of the DivineHarvest, a gradual and progressive onward movement of the spiritualprocess, ever within the lives of men: "Time brings roses. He whothinks that he has all the fruit when strawberries are ripe forgetsthat grapes are still to come. We should always be eagerly looking forsomething better. "[15] There are, he says, three well-marked stages ofrevelation: (1) The stage of the law, when God, the Father, was makingHimself known through His external creation and by outward forms oftraining and discipline; (2) the stage of self-revelation through theSon, that men might see in Him and His personal activity the actualcharacter and heart of God; and (3) the stage of the Holy Spirit whichfills all deeps and heights, flows into all lives, and is the One Godrevealed in His essential nature of active Goodness--Goodness at workin the world. Externals of every type--law, ceremonies, rewards andpunishments, {42} historical happenings, written Scriptures, even thehistorical doings and sufferings of Christ--are only pointers andsuggestion-material to bring the soul to the living Word within, "tothe Lord Himself who is never absent, " and who will be spiritually bornwithin man. "God, " he says, "has once become flesh in Christ and hasrevealed thus the hidden God and, as happened in a fleshly way in Mary, even so Christ must be spiritually born in us. " So, too, everythingwhich Christ experienced and endured in His earthly mission must bere-lived and reproduced in the life of His true disciples. There is nosalvation possible without the new birth of Christ in us, withoutself-surrender and the losing of oneself, without being buried withChrist in a death to self-will and without rising with Him in joy andpeace and victory. [16] He who rightly loves his Christ will speak noword, will eat no bit of bread, nor taste of water, nor put a stitch ofclothes upon his body without thinking of the Beloved of hissoul. . . . In this state he can rid himself of all pictures andsymbols, renounce everything which he possesses, take up his cross withChrist, join Him in an inward, dying life, allow himself, like grain, to be threshed, winnowed, ground, bolted, and baked that he may becomespiritual food as Christ has done for us. Then there comes a state inwhich poverty and riches, pain and joy, life and death are alike, whenthe soul has found its sabbath-peace in the Origin and Fount of allLove. [17] His first book closes with a beautiful account of the returnof the prodigal to His Father and to His Father's love, and then hebreaks into a joyous cry, as if it all came out of his own experience:"Who then can separate us from the Love of God?"

Those who rightly understand religion and have had this birth and thisSabbath-peace within themselves will stop contending over outward, external things, which make separations but do not minister to thespirit; they will give up the Babel-habit of constructing theological{43} systems, [18] they will pass upward from elements to the essence, they will stop building the city-walls of the Church out of baptism andthe supper, which furnish "only clay-plastered walls" at best, and theywill found the Church instead upon the true sacramental power of theinward Spirit of God. [19] The true goal of the spiritual life is sucha oneness with God that He is in us and we in Him, so that the innerjoy and power take our outer life captive and draw us away from theworld and its "pictures, " and make it a heartfelt delight to do all Hiscommandments and to suffer anything for Him. [20]

Here, then, in the third decade of the sixteenth century, when theleaders of the Reformation were using all their powers of dialectic toformulate in new scholastic phrase the sound creed for ProtestantChristendom, and while the fierce and decisive battle was being wagedover the new form in which the Eucharist must be celebrated, thereappeared a little group of men who proposed that Christianity should beconceived and practised as _a way of living_--nothing more nor less. They rejected theological language and terminology root and branch. They are as innocent of scholastic subtlety and forensic conceptions asthough they had been born in this generation. They seem to have wipedtheir slate clean of the long line of Augustinian contributions, and tohave begun afresh with the life and message of Jesus Christ, coloured, if at all, by local and temporal backgrounds, by the experience of theearlier German mystics who helped them to interpret their own simpleand sincere experiences. They are as naïve and artless as littlechildren, and they expect, as all enthusiasts do in their youth, thatthey have only to announce their wonderful truths and to proclaim their"openings" in order to bring the world to the light! They go to thefull length of the implications of their {44} fresh insight withoutever dreaming that all the theological world will unite, across theyawning chasms of difference, to stamp out their "pestilent heresy, "and to rid the earth of persons who dare to question the traditions andthe practices of the centuries. 

Instead of beginning with the presupposition of original sin, theyquietly assert that the soul of man is inherently bound up in the Lifeand Nature of God, and that goodness is at least as "original" asbadness. They fly in the face of the age-long view that the doctrineof Grace makes freewill impossible and reduces salvation wholly to awork of God, and they assert as the ineradicable testimony of their ownconsciousness that human choices between Light and Darkness, thepersonal response to the character of God as He reveals Himself, theco-operation of the will of man with the processes of a living andspiritual God are the things which save a man--and this salvation ispossible in a pagan, in a Jew, in a Turk even, as well as in a man whoranges himself under Christian rubrics and who says paternosters. Theyreject all the scholastic accounts of Christ's metaphysical nature, they will not use the term Trinity, nor will they admit that it isright to employ any words which imply that God is divided intomultiform personalities; but nevertheless they hold, with all thefervour of their earnest spirits, that Christ is God historically andhumanly revealed, and that to see Christ is to see the true and onlyGod, and to love Christ is to love the Eternal Love. 

In an age which settled back upon the Scriptures as the only basis ofauthority in religious faith and practice, they boldly challenged thatcourse as a dangerous return to a lower form of religion than that towhich Christ had called men and as only legalism and scribism in a newdress. They insisted that the Eternal Spirit, who had been educatingthe race from its birth, bringing all things up to better, and who hadused now one symbol and now another to fit the growing spiritualperception of men, is a real Presence in the deeps of men's {45}consciousness, and is ceaselessly voicing Himself there as a livingWord whom it is life to obey and death to disregard and slight. Havingfound this present, immanent Spirit and being deeply convinced that allthat really matters happens in the dread region of the human heart, they turned away from all ceremonies and sacraments and tried to form aChurch which should be purely and simply a Communion of saints--abrotherhood of believers living in the joy of an inward experience ofGod, and bound together in common love to Christ and in common serviceto all who are potential sons of God. 

[1] See Veesenmeyer's article on Bünderlin in _N. Lit. Anzeiger_ forAugust 1807, P. 535. 

[2] The details of his life here given have been gathered mainly fromthe excellent monograph on _Johannes Bünderlin_ by Dr. AlexanderNicoladoni. (Berlin, 1893. )

[3] This incident is given in Dr. Carl Hagen's _Deutschlandsliterarischt und religiöse Verhältnisse im Reformalionszeitalter_, 1868, iii. P. 310. 

[4] The books are:--

(1) _Ein gemayne Berechnung über der Heiligen Schrift Inhalt_, etc. ("A General Consideration of the Contents of Holy Scripture. ") Printedin Strasbourg in 1529. 

(2) _Aus was Ursach sich Gott in die nyder gelassen und in Christovermenschet ist_, etc. , 1529. ("For what cause God has descended herebelow and has become incarnate in Christ. ")

(3) _Erklärung durch Vergleichung der biblischen Geschrift, doss derWassertauf sammt andern äusserlichen Gebräuchen in der apostolischenKirchen geubet, on Gottes Befelch und Zeugniss der Geschrift, vonetlichen dieser Zeit wider efert wird_, etc. , 1530. ("Declaration bycomparison of the Biblical Writings that Baptism with Water, togetherwith other External Customs practised in the Apostolic Church, havebeen reinstated by some at this time without the Command of God or theWitness of the Scriptures. ")

These three books can be found bound in one volume, with writings ofDenck and others, in the Königliche Bibliothek in Dresden. There isalso a copy of his third book in Utrecht. Besides using the booksthemselves I have also used the monograph by Nicoladoni and the studyof Bünderlin in Hagen, _op. Cit. _ iii. Pp. 295-310. 

[5] This idea is reproduced and greatly expanded in the writings of thefamous Silesian Mystic, Jacob Boehme. 

[6] _Ein gemayne Berechnung_, p. 57. 

[7] _Ibid. _ p. 14. 

[8] _Ibid. _ p. 221. 

[9] _Ein gemayne Berechnung_, pp. 218-221, freely rendered. 

[10] _Ibid_. Pp. 30-34. 

[11] _Erklärung durch Vergleichung. _

[12] _Aus was Ursach_, p. 33. These phrases, "Key of David" and"Sabbath Rest for the Soul, " occur in the writings of all the spiritualreformers. 

[13] See _N. Lit. Anzeiger_ (1807), p. 515. 

[14] Entfelder to his brethren at the end of his first book: _VonZerspaltungen_. 

[15] Vorrede to _Von Zerspaltungen_. 

[16] _Von waren Gotseligkayt_, pp. 18-21. 

[17] See especially _Von Zerspaltungen_, pp. 6-8. 

[18] This "Babel-habit of constructing theological systems" isconstantly referred to by Jacob Boehme, as we shall see. I believethat Boehme had read both Bünderlin and Entfelder. 

[19] See _Von Zerspaltungen_, passim, especially p. 17. 

[20] _Von waren Gotseligkayt_, p. 13. 

{46}

CHAPTER IV

SEBASTIAN FRANCK: AN APOSTLE OF INWARD RELIGION

Sebastian Franck is one of the most interesting figures in the group ofGerman Reformers, a man of heroic spirit and a path-breaking genius, though for many reasons his influence upon his epoch was in no degreecomparable with that of many of his great contemporaries. No person, however great a genius he may be, can get wholly free from theintellectual climate and the social ideals of his period, butoccasionally a man appears who has the skill and vision to hit uponnascent aspirations and tendencies which are big with futurity, and whothereby seems to be far ahead of his age and not explicable by anylineage or pedigree. Sebastian Franck was a man of this sort. He wasextraordinarily unfettered by medieval inheritance, and he would be ableto adjust himself with perfect ease to the spirit and ideas of the modernworld if he could be dropped forward into it. 

He is especially interesting and important as an exponent and interpreterof a religion based on inward authority because he unites, in an unusualmanner, the intellectual ideals of the Humanist with the experience andattitude of the Mystic. In him we have a Christian thinker who is ableto detach himself from the theological formulations of his own and ofearlier times, and who could draw, with breadth of mind and depth ofinsight, from the wells of the great original thinkers of all ages, andwho, besides, in his own deep and serious soul could feel the inner flowof central realities. He was no doubt {47} too much detached to be asuccessful Reformer of the historical Church, and he was too littleinterested in external organisations to be the leader of a new sect; buthe was, what he aspired to be, a sincere and unselfish contributor to thespread of the Kingdom of God, and a significant apostle of the invisibleChurch. [1]

Sebastian Franck was born in 1499 at Donauwürth in Schwabia. He beganhis higher education in the University of Ingolstadt, which he enteredMarch 26, 1515. He went from Ingolstadt to Heidelberg, where hecontinued his studies in the Dominican College which was incorporatedwith the University. Here he was associated in the friendly fellowshipof student life with two of his later opponents, Martin Frecht and MartinBucer, and here he came under the influence of Humanism which in thescholarly circles in Heidelberg was beginning to take a place along withthe current Scholasticism of the period. While a student in Heidelberghe first heard Martin Luther speak on the insufficiency of works and onfaith as the way of salvation, and though he must have felt the power ofthis great personality and the freshness of the message, he was not yetripe for a radical change of front. [2] He seems to have felt throughthese student years that a new age was in process of birth, but though hewas following the great events he remained to the end of his Universityperiod an adherent of the ancient Church and was ordained a priest aboutthe year 1524; but very soon after he went over to the party of Reform, and was settled as a reforming preacher in the little church atGustenfelden near Nuremberg. During this period he came into close andintimate relation with the powerful humanistic spirit of that importantcity. Hans Sachs was already a person of fame and influence inNuremberg, and here he became acquainted with the writings of the mostfamous humanists of the day--Erasmus, Hutten, Reuchlin, Pirkheimer, {48}Althamer and others. In 1528 he married Ottilie Behaim, a woman of raregifts, whose brothers were pupils of Albrecht Dürer, and who werethemselves in sympathy with the freer tendencies of the time as expressedby the Anabaptists. Franck, however, though sympathizing with theaspirations of the Anabaptists for a new age, did not feel confidence intheir views or their methods. His first literary work was a translationinto German of Althamer's _Diallage_, which contained an attack from theLutheran point of view upon the various Enthusiasts of the period, especially the Anabaptists. In his original preface to this work Franck, though still in most respects a Lutheran, already reveals unmistakablesigns of variation from the Wittenberg type, and he is plainly moving inthe direction of a religion of the spiritual and mystical type freed fromthe limitations of sect and party. Even in this formative stage heinsists that the Spirit, and not commentaries, is the true guide for theinterpretation of Scripture; he already contrasts Spirit and letter, outer man and inner man, and he here lays down the radical principle, which he himself soon put into practice, that a minister of the Gospelshould resign his charge as soon as he discovers that his preaching isnot bearing spiritual fruit in the transformation of the lives of hiscongregation. [3]

Sometime before 1530 Franck had come into intimate connection with Denck, Bünderlin, Schwenckfeld, and other contemporary leaders of the"Spiritual" movement, and their influence upon him was profound andlasting, because their message fitted the aspirations which, though notyet well defined, were surging subconsciously in him. [4] There arethroughout his writings very clear marks of Schwenckfeld's influence uponhim, but Bünderlin especially spoke to his condition and helped himdiscover the road which his feet were seeking. In an important letterwhich Franck wrote to Johann Campanus in 1531, he calls Bünderlin ascholar, a {49} wonderfully reverent man, dead to the world, powerful inthe Scriptures, and mightily gifted with an enlightened reason; and thisletter shows that he himself has been moving rapidly in the direction inwhich Bünderlin and Denck were travelling, though neither now nor at anytime was Franck a mere copier of other men's ideas. [5] "We mustunlearn, " he writes, "all that we have learned from our youth up from thepapists, and we must change everything we have got from the Pope or fromLuther and Zwingli. " He predicts that the external Church will never beset up again, "for the inward enlightenment by the Spirit of God issufficient. "

In his _Türkenchronik_, or "Chronicle and Description of Turkey, "published in 1530, he had already declared his dissatisfaction withceremonies and outward forms of any sort, his refusal to be identifiedwith any existing, empirical Church, his solemn dedication to theinvisible Church, and his determination to be an apostle of the Spirit. "There already are in our times, " he writes, "three distinct Faiths, which have a large following, the Lutheran, Zwinglian and Anabaptist; anda _fourth_ is well on the way to birth, which will dispense with externalpreaching, ceremonies, sacraments, bann and office as unnecessary, andwhich seeks solely to gather among all peoples an invisible, spiritualChurch in the unity of the Spirit and of faith, to be governed wholly bythe eternal, invisible Word of God, without external means, as theapostolic Church was governed before its apostasy, which occurred afterthe death of the apostles. "[6]

The year that dates his autobiographical letter to Campanus saw thepublication in Strasbourg of Franck's best-known literary work:_Chronica, Zeitbuch und Geschichtsbibel_ ("A Universal Chronicle of theWorld's History from the Earliest Times to the Present"). [7] It has {50}often been pointed out that much of the material of this great Chronicleis taken over from earlier Chroniclers, especially from the NurembergerSchedel, and it is furthermore true that Franck's _Book of the Ages_contains large tracts of unhistorical narrative, set forth after themanner of Chroniclers without much critical insight, but the book, nevertheless, has a unique value. It abounds in Franck's peculiar ironyand paradox, and it unfolds his conception of the spiritual history ofthe race, under the tuition of the Divine Word. At the beginning arepatriarchs living in the dawn of the world under the guidance of inwardvision, and at the end are saints and heretics, whom Franck finds amongall races, bravely following the same inward Light, now after the agesgrown clearer and more luminous, and sufficient for those who willpatiently and faithfully heed it, while the real "heretics" for him are"heretics of the letter. " "We ought to act carefully before God"--thisis Franck's constant testimony--"hold to God alone and look upon Him asthe cause of all things, and we ought always in all matters to noticewhat God says in us, to pay attention to the witness of our hearts, andnever to think, or act, against our conscience. For everything does nothang upon the bare letter of Scripture; everything hangs, rather, on thespirit of Scripture and on a spiritual understanding of the inner meaningof what God has said. If we weigh every matter carefully we shall findits true meaning in the depth of our spiritual understanding and by themind of Christ. Otherwise, the dead letter of Scripture would make usall heretics and fools, for everything can be bedecked and defended withtexts, therefore let nobody confound himself and confuse himself withScripture, but let every one weigh and test Scripture to see how it fitshis own heart. If it is against his conscience and the Word within hisown soul, then be sure he has not reached the right meaning, according tothe mind of the Spirit, for the Scriptures must give witness to theSpirit, never against it. "[8]

{51}

The _Chronica_ naturally aroused a storm of opposition against this boldadvocate of the inner Way. Even Erasmus, who had been canonized inFranck's list of heretics, joined in the outcry against the chronicler ofthe world's spiritual development. His book was confiscated, he wastemporarily imprisoned, and for the years immediately following he wasnever secure in any city where he endeavoured to pursue his labours. Hesupported himself and his family, now by the humble occupation of asoap-boiler, now by working in a printing-house, sometimes in Strasbourg, sometimes in Esslingen, and sometimes in Ulm, only asking that he "mightnot be forced to bury the talent which God had given him, but might beallowed to use it for the good of the people of God. "

In 1534 his _Weltbuch_ appeared from a press in Tübingen, and the sameyear he published his famous _Paradoxa_, which contains the most clearand consistent exposition of his mystical and spiritual religion. Othersignificant books from his pen are his translation of Erasmus' _MoriaeEncomion_ ("Praise of Folly"), with very important additions; _Von derEitelkeit aller menschlichen Kunst und Weisheit_ ("The Vanity of Arts andSciences"), following the treatise by Agrippa von Nettesheim; _Von demBaum des Wissens Gutes und Böses ("Of the Tree of the Knowledge of Goodand Evil");[9] the _Germaniae Chronicon_ ("Chronicle of Germany"), 1538;_Die guldin Arch_ ("Golden Arch"), 1538; and _Das verbütschiert mit 7Siegeln verschlossene Buch ("The Seven-sealed Book"), 1539. 

The closing years of his life were passed in Basle, where he peacefullyworked at his books and at type-setting, while the theologians firedtheir paper guns against him, and here in Basle he "went forth with God"on his last journey to find a safe and quiet "city with foundations, "probably about the end of the year 1542. Three years before his {52}death he had written in his "Seven-sealed Book" of the soul's journeytoward God in these words: "The longer one travels toward the city heseeks the nearer and nearer he comes to the goal of his journey; exactlyso is it with the soul that is seeking God. If he will travel away fromhimself and away from the world and seek only God as the precious pearlof his soul, he will come steadily nearer to God, until he becomes onespirit with God the Spirit; but let him not be afraid of mountains andvalleys on the way, and let him not give up because he is tired andweary, _for he who seeks finds_. "[10] "The Sealed Book" contains an"apology" by Franck which is one of the most touching and one of the mostnoble documents from any opponent of the course which the GermanReformation was taking. "I want my writings accepted, " he declares, "only in so far as they fit the spirit of Scripture, the teaching of theprophets, and only so far as the anointing of the Word of God, Christ theinward Life and Light of men, gives witness to them. . . . Nobody is themaster of my faith, and I desire to be the master of the faith of no one. I love any man whom I can help, and I call him brother whether he be Jewor Samaritan. . . . I cannot belong to any separate sect, but I believein a holy, Christlike Church, a fellowship of saints, and I hold as mybrother, my neighbour, my flesh and blood, all men who belong to Christamong all sects, faiths, and peoples scattered throughout the wholeworld--only I allow nobody to have dominion over the one place which I ampledged to the Lord to keep as pure virgin, namely my heart and myconscience. If you try to bind my conscience, to rule over my faith, orto be master of my heart, then I must leave you. Except _that_, everything I am or have is thine, whoever thou art or whatever thoumayest believe. "[11]

It was Franck's primary idea--the principle to which he was dedicated andfor which he was content to suffer, {53} in the faith that men in futuretimes would come to see as he did[12]--that man's soul possesses a nativecapacity to hear the inward Word of God. He often calls Plato andPlotinus and "Hermes Trismegistus" his teachers, who "had spoken to himmore clearly than Moses did"[13] and, like these Greek teachers of thenature of the soul's furnishings, he insisted that we come "not in entireforgetfulness and not in utter nakedness, " but that there is a divineelement, an innermost essence in us, in the very structure of the soul, which is the starting-point of all spiritual progress, the mark of man'sdignity, the real source of all religious experience, and the eternalbasis of the soul's salvation and joy. He names this inward endowment bymany names. It is the Word of God ("Wort Gottes"), the Power of God("Kraft Gottes"), Spirit ("Geist"), Mind of Christ ("Sinn Christi"), Divine Activity ("göttliche Wirkung"), Divine Origin ("göttlicherUrsprung"), the inward Light ("das innere Licht"), the true Light ("daswahre Licht"), the Lamp of the soul ("das innere Ampellicht"). "Theinward Light, " Franck says in the _Paradoxa_, "is nothing else than theWord of God, God Himself, by whom all things were made and by whom allmen are enlightened. " It is, in Franck's thought, not a capricious, subjective impulse or vision, and it is not to be discovered in suddenecstatic experiences; nor, on the other hand, is the divine Word, forFranck, something purely objective and transcendent. It is rather acommon ground and essence for God and man. It is God in Hisself-revealing activity; God in His self-giving grace; God as theimmanent ground of all that is permanently real, and at the same timethis divine endowment forms the fundamental nature of man's soul--"GottesWort ist in der menschlichen Natur angelegt"[14]--and is the originalsubstance of our being. Consciousness of God and consciousness of selfhave one fundamental source in this deep where God and man areunsundered. "No man can see or know himself unless he sees and knows, bythe Light and Life that is {54} in him. God the eternally true Light andLife; wherefore nobody can ever know God outside of himself, outside thatregion where he knows himself in the ground of himself. . . . Man mustseek, find, and know God through an interrelation--he must find God inhimself and himself in God. "[15] This deep ground of inner reality is inevery person, so far as he is a person; it shines forth as a steadyillumination in the soul, and, while everything else is transitory, thisWord is eternal and has been the moral and spiritual guide of all peoplesin all ages. 

Franck thus differs in a vital point from Schwenckfeld. The latterstarts with man as utterly lost and devoid of any inherent goodness. Bya sudden, supernatural event, at a temporal moment, divine forces breakinto the soul from without and supply it with a revitalizing energy. Man--lost, fallen, sin-blasted and utterly helpless--is by a divine andheavenly creative movement _made_ a new Adam. For Franck, the soul hasnever lost the divine Image, the pearl of supreme price, the originalelement which is God Himself in the soul. We are all, in the deepestcentre of our being, like Adam, possessed of a substantial essence, notof earth, not of time and space, not of the shadow but of the eternal, spiritual, and heavenly type. It may become overlaid with the rubbish ofearth, it may long lie buried in the field of the human heart, it mayremain concealed, like the grain of radium in a mass of dark pitchblende, and be forgotten, but we have only to return home within ourselves tofind the God who has never been sundered from us and who could not leaveus without leaving Himself. We do not need to cross the sea to find Him, we do not need to climb the heavens to reach Him--the Word is nigh thee, the Image is in thy heart, turn home and thou shalt find Him. [16]

The bottomless and abysmal nature of the human soul comes first intoclear revelation in the Person of Christ, who is, Franck declares, trulyand essentially both God and Man. In Christ the invisible, eternal, {55}self-existent God has clothed Himself with flesh and become Man, has madeHimself visible and vocal to our spiritual eyes and ears, and in ChristGod has given us an adequate goal and norm of life, a perfect pattern("Muster") to walk by and to live by. Here we can see both the characterof God and the measure of His expectation for us. But we must not stopwith the Christ after the flesh, the Christ without. He first becomesour life and salvation when He is born within us and is revealed in ourhearts, and has become the Life of our lives. We must eat His body, drink His blood until our nature is one with His nature and our spiritone in will and purpose with His spirit. [17]

Franck belongs in many respects among the mystics, but with peculiarvariations of his own from the prevailing historical type of mysticism. He is without question saturated with the spirit of the great mystics; heapproves their inner way to God and he has learned from them to view thisworld of time and space as shadow and not as reality. No mystic, further, could say harsher things than he does of "Reason. "[18] Humanreason--or more properly "reasoning"--has for him, as for them, a verylimited area for its demesne. It is a good guide in the realm of earthlyaffairs. It can deal wisely with matters that affect our bodily comfortand our social welfare, but it is "barren" in the sphere of eternalissues. It has no eye for realities beyond the world of threedimensions. It goes blind as soon as it tries to speculate about God. He looks for no final results in spiritual matters from intellectualdialectics, whether they be of the old scholastic type, or of the newtype of speculations, formulations and subtleties of the Protestanttheologians. 

Franck always comes back to _experience_ as his basis of religion, as hisway to truth and to divine things. "Many, " he says, "know and teach onlywhat they have picked up and gathered in, without having experienced it{56} in the deeps of themselves. "[19] "He who wishes to know what is inthe Temple must not stand outside, merely hearing people read and talkabout God. _That_ is all a dead thing. He must go inside and have theexperience for himself ("selbst erfahren"). Then first everythingsprings into life. "[20] But "experience" with him does not meanenthusiastic visions and raptures. He puts as little value on ecstasiesand emotional vapourings as he does on dialectic. Ecstasies lead men asoften on false trails as on right tracks. They supply no criterion ofcertitude; they furnish no concrete ideas or ideals to live by; but stillfurther, they do not bring all the deep-lying powers of the soul intoplay as any true source of religion must do. _He_ is striving to find afoundation-principle for the spiritual life which shall not be capriciousor sporadic, and which shall not be confined to one aspect of the innerself, but which shall burn on as a steady illumination in the soul and bethe basis of all moral activity and all spiritual development. He findsthis principle, as we have seen, in the Word of God, which is a divinereality, an eternal and self-existent activity, opening upward into allthe resources of God, and at the same time forming the fundamental natureand ground-structure of the soul. A person may live--many persons do--inthe outer region of the self, using the natural instincts with which heis supplied, pursuing the goals of life which appeal to common sense andsteering the earthly course by custom and by reason, but it is alwayspossible to have a wider range of experience, to live in deeper currents, and to draw upon a _profounder source of insight_. This deeperexperience--which is the basis of Franck's mysticism and, for him, thevery heart of any genuine religion--consists of a personal discovery ofthis eternal Word of God within and an irradiation of the whole beingthrough the co-operation of the will with it. The will is king inman, [21] and can open or shut the gate which leads to life. It can makeits world good or it {57} can make it evil; just as out of one and thesame flower the bee gets honey and the spider poison. [22] It can swingover its allegiance to God the Spirit of truth, or to the god of theworld who is anti-Christ. 

This experience of the Word of God which is thus brought about by thewill of man--by an innermost personal choice--affects, Franck insists, all the faculties of the inner life. Reason now becomes illumined with aLight which it never had until the gate into its deeper region wasopened. Now, through co-operation with the Spirit of God, reason becomescapable of higher processes, and can deal with divine things because ithas actual _data_ to work upon. The emotions, too, are no longer blindand instinctive, they no longer carry the will whither it would not. They are now the overflow of an inner experience which is too rich andfull for expression, [23] which transcends the intellectual apprehensionof it, but they are spiritualized and controlled from within. The morallife is especially heightened, and this is for Franck one of the mainevidences that a divine source has been tapped. The discovery of theWord of God creates and constructs an autonomous "kingdom of theconscience" ("Reich des Gewissens"), gives us "a thousand-fold witness ofGod, " and becomes to us the tree of life and the tree of knowledge. [24]

In his little book on "the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil"--abook which was destined to have a far-reaching influence--he declaresthat the Garden-of-Eden story is a mighty parable of the human soul. Allthat is told in the Genesis account is told of what goes on in themysterious realm within us. It is told as though it were an externalhappening, it is in reality an internal affair. The Paradise and theFall, the Voice of God and the tempting voice of the serpent, the Tree ofLife and the Tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil, are all in our ownhearts as they were in the heart of Adam. Heaven and Hell are there. The one stands fully revealed in the triumphant Adam, who is Christ; theother is {58} exhibited in its awfulness in the disobedient Adam of theFall. 

As fast as the life comes under the sway of the "kingdom of conscience"and a solid moral character is formed, the inner guidance of the Word ofGod becomes more certain and more reliable. Only the good person has asure and unerring perception of the truth, just as only the scientistsees the laws of the world, and as only the musician perceives theharmony of sounds. Not only must all spiritual experience be subject tothe moral test, it must further be tested by the Light of God in othermen and in history, and by the _spirit of Scripture_, which is thenoblest permanent fruit of the Eternal Word. Every person must _prove_the authority of his religion. He must have his heart conquered and hismind taken captive and his will directed by his truth so that he would beready to face a thousand deaths for it, [25] and he must, through histruth and insight, come into spiritual unity and co-operation with allwho form the invisible Church. 

The invisible Church forms the central loyalty of Franck's fervent soul. "The true Church, " he writes, "is not a separate mass of people, not aparticular sect to be pointed out with the finger, not confined to onetime or one place; it is rather a spiritual and invisible body of all themembers of Christ, born of God, of one mind, spirit, and faith, but notgathered in any one external city or place. It is a Fellowship, seenwith the spiritual eye and by the inner man. It is the assembly andcommunion of all truly God-fearing, good-hearted, new-born persons in allthe world, bound together by the Holy Spirit in the peace of God and thebonds of love--a Communion outside of which there is no salvation, noChrist, no God, no comprehension of Scripture, no Holy Spirit, and noGospel. I belong to this Fellowship. I believe in the Communion ofsaints, and I am in this Church, let me be where I may; and therefore Ino {59} longer look for Christ in lo heres or lo theres. "[26] ThisChurch, which the Spirit is building through the ages and in all lands, is, once more, like the experience of the individual Christian, entirelyan inward affair. "Love is the one mark and badge of Fellowship init. "[27] No outward forms of any sort seem to him necessary formembership in this true Church. "External gifts and offices make noChristian, and just as little does the standing of the person, orlocality, or time, or dress, or food, or anything external. The kingdomof God is neither prince nor peasant, food nor drink, hat nor coat, herenor there, yesterday nor to-morrow, baptism nor circumcision, noranything whatever that is external, but peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, unalloyed love out of a pure heart and good conscience, and an unfeignedfaith. "[28]

In his Apology he says that he has withdrawn "from all theologicaldisputations, from all sectarian statements of creed, from baptism andall ceremonies, " and "I stand now, " he adds, "only for what isfundamental and essential for salvation"--that is, vital participation inthe Life of God revealed in the soul. [29] "I am looking, " he writes inthe opening of the _Paradoxa_, "for no new and separate Church, no newcommission, no new baptism, no new dispensation. The Church has alreadybeen founded on Christ the Rock, and since the outward keys andsacraments have been misused and have gone by, He now administers thesacraments inwardly in spirit and in truth. He baptizes His own, even inthe midst of Babylon, and feeds them with His own body, and will do sounto the end of the world. "[30]

In a letter to Campanus he says, "I am fully convinced [by a study of theearly Church Fathers] that, after the death of the apostles, the externalChurch of Christ, with its gifts and sacraments, vanished from the earthand withdrew into heaven, and is now hidden in spirit and in truth, andfor these past fourteen hundred years {60} there has existed no trueexternal Church and no efficacious sacraments. "[31]

His valuation of Scripture fits perfectly into this religion of theinward life and the invisible Church. The true and essential Word of Godis the divine revelation in the soul of man. It is the _prius_ of allScripture and it is the key to the spiritual meaning of all Scripture. To substitute Scripture for the self-revealing Spirit is to put the deadletter in the place of the living Word, the outer Ark in place of theinner sanctuary, the sheath in place of the sword, the horn-pane Lanternin place of the Light. [32] This letter killed Christ in Judea; it iskilling Him now. It has split the Church into fragments and sects and issplitting it now. [33] It always makes a "Babel" instead of a Church. Itkept the Pharisees from seeing Moses face to face; it keeps men now fromseeing the Lord face to face. [34] Franck insists that, from its inherentnature, a written Scripture cannot be the final authority in religion:(_a_) It is outward, external, while the seat of religion is in the soulof man. (_b_) It is transitory and shifting, for language is always inprocess of change, and written words have different meanings to differentages and in different countries, while for a permanent religion theremust be a living, eternal Word that fits all ages, lands, and conditions. (_c_) Scripture is full of mystery, contradiction, and paradox which only"The key of David"--the inner experience of the heart--can unlock. Scripture is the Manger, but, unless the Holy Spirit comes as the daystar in the heart, the Wise man will not find the Christ. [35] (_d_)Scripture at best brings only knowledge. It lacks the power to deliverfrom the sin which it describes. It cannot create the faith, the desire, the love, the will purpose which are necessary to win that which theScriptures portray. No book--no amount of "ink, paper, and letters"--canmake a man good, since religion is not knowledge, but a way of living, a{61} transformed life, and _that_ involves an inward life-process, aresident creative power. "In Pentecost all books are transcended. "[36]

As Franck pushes back through "the ink, paper, and letters of Scripture"to the Spirit and Truth which these great writings reveal, when they areread and apprehended in the light of an inward spiritual experience, so, too, he is always seeking, _through_ the historical Christ, to find theEternal Christ--the ever-living, ever-present, personal Self-Revelationof God. He says, in his "Seven-Sealed Book, " "I esteem Christ the Wordof God above all else, for without Him there is no salvation, and withoutHim no one can enjoy God. "[37] "Christ, " he says in the _Paradoxa_, "hasbeen called the Image, the Character, the Expression of God, yes, theGlory and Effulgence of His Splendour, the very Impression of HisSubstance, so that in Him God Himself is seen and heard and known. Forit is God Himself whom we see and hear and perceive in Christ. In HimGod becomes visible and His nature is revealed. Everything that God is, or knows, or wills, or possesses, or can do, is incarnated in Christ andput before our eyes. Everything that can be said of God can as truly besaid of Christ. "[38]

But this Christ, who is the very Nature and Character of God made visibleand vocal, is, as we have seen, not limited to the historical Person wholived in Galilee and Judea. He is an eternal Logos, a living Word, coming to expression, in some degree, in all times and lands, revealingHis Light through the dim lantern of many human lives--a Christ reborn inmany souls, raised again in many victorious lives, and endlesslyspreading His Kingdom through the ever-widening membership of theinvisible Church. [39] Without this eternal revelation of Himself in aspiritual Fellowship of many members, God would not be God, as a Vinewould not be a Vine without branches; and contrariwise there could be nospiritual humanity without the inward immanent {62} presence of thisSelf-Revealing God in Christ. [40] As in Palestine, so everywhere, Christ--not only Christ after the flesh, but after the Spirit--is acrucified Christ. Only those can open the Sealed Book--can penetrate thedivine Revelation--who bear the mark of the Cross on their forehead, whohave eaten the flesh and drunk the blood of the suffering and crucifiedChrist, who have discovered that the Word of God is eternally a Word ofthe Cross. [41] God is nearest to us when He seems farthest away. He wasnearest to Christ when He was crying: "My God, why hast Thou forsakenme?" So, too, now he who is nearest to the cross is nearest to God, andwhere the flesh is being crucified and the end of all outward things isreached, _there God is found_. [42]

Sin means, for Franck as for all mystics of his type, the _free choice_of something for one's private and particular self in place of life-aimsthat fulfil the good of the whole and realize the universal Will of God. To live for the flesh instead of for the spirit, to pursue the aims of anarrow private self where they conflict with the spirit of universallove, to turn from the Word of God in the soul to follow the idle voicesof the moment--that is the very essence of sin. It is not inherited, itis self-chosen, and yet there is something in our disposition which setsitself in array against the divine revelation within us. The Adam-storyis a genuine life-picture. It is a chapter out of the book of the ages, the life of humanity. We do not sin and fall because he did; we sin andfall because we are human and finite, as he was, and choose the darknessinstead of the Light, prefer Satan to God, pursue the way of deathinstead of the way of Life, as he did. [43]

This will be sufficient to show the essential character of the religionof this lonely man and to present the main tendencies of his bold andindependent thought. He had no desire to be the head of a party; he wastoo remote {63} from the currents of evangelical Christianity to impressthe common people whom he loved, and he was too radical a thinker to leadeven the scholars who had become liberated from tradition by theirhumanistic studies and by historical insight. He was a kind ofsixteenth-century Heraclitus, seeing the flow and flux of all thingstemporal, finding paradox and contradiction everywhere, discovering lifeto be a clash of opposites, with its "way up" and its "way down, " on thesurface a pessimist, but at the heart of himself an optimist; andfinally, beneath all the folly of history and all the sin and stupidityof human life, seeing with the eye of his spirit One Eternal Logos whosteers all things toward purpose, who suffers as a Lamb slain for theflock, who reveals His Truth and Life in the sanctuary of the soul, andwho through the ages is building an invisible Church, a divine Kingdom ofmany members, in whom He lives as the Life of their lives. 

[1] Troeltsch calls him a "literarischer Prophet der alleinigenErlösungskraft des Geistes und des inneren Wortes, " _Die Soziallehren_, p. 886. 

[2] See article by M. Cunitz in _Nouvelle Revue de Théologie_, vol. V. P. 361. 

[3] See Alfred Hegler's _Geist und Schrift bei Sebastian Franck_(Freiburg), 1892, pp. 28-48. 

[4] See next chapter for an account of Caspar Schwenckfeld. 

[5] This Letter to Campanus, written originally in Latin, is extant in aDutch translation, "Eyn Brieff van Sebastiaen Franck van Weirdt, geschreven over etlicken jaren in Latijn, tho synen vriendt JohanCampaen. " See Hegler, _op. Cit. _ pp. 50-53. 

[6] _Chronica und Beschreibung der Türkey_ (Nurnberg, 1530), K. 3 b. 

[7] My copy is the first edition, printed in Strasbourg by BalthasserBeck, 1531. 

[8] _Chronica_, p. 452 b. 

[9] These three books were included in a volume entitled _Die vierkronbüchlein_ (1534). 

[10] _Das verbütschterte Buch_, p. 5. 

[11] Pp. 5-8 of the Apologia to _Das verbütschierte Buch_. 

[12] See _Apologia_, p. 2. 

[13] _Ibid. _ p. 3. 

[14] Hegler, _op. Cit. _ p. 98. 

[15] _Die guldin Arch_, Preface 3b-4a. 

[16] _Paradoxa_, sec. 101. 

[17] _Paradoxa_, sec. 99 and 138. 

[18] Franck translated both Erasmus' _Praise of Folly_ and Agrippa's_Vanity of Arts and Sciences_. 

[19] _Moriae Encomion_, p. 149. 

[20] _Paradoxa_, Vorrede, sec. 13. 

[21] _Moriae Enc. _ p. 97b. 

[22] _Paradoxa_, sec. 29. 

[23] _Moriae Enc. _ p. 93a. 

[24] _Paradoxa_, sec. 63. 

[25] _Moriae Enc. _ p. 110. For the testing of the Word, see Hegler, _op. Cit. _ pp. 117-119. 

[26] _Paradoxa_, Vorrede, sec. 8. 

[27] _Paradoxa_, sec. 9. 

[28] _Ibid. _ sec. 45. 

[29] _Das verbütschierte Buch_, Apology, p. 11. 

[30] _Paradoxa_, Vorrede, sec. 8. 

[31] This Letter is preserved in J. G. Schellhorn's _Amoenitatesliterariae_ (1729), xi. Pp. 59-61. 

[32] _Paradoxa_, Vorrede, sec. 4. 

[33] _Ibid. _ sec. 6. 

[34] _Ibid. _ sec. 2. 

[35] See _Das verbütschierte Buch_, passim. 

[36] Quoted from Hegler, _op. Cit. _ p. 104. 

[37] _Das verbütschierte Buch_, p. 3. 

[38] _Paradoxa_, sec. 101. 

[39] _Ibid. _ sec. 101. 

[40] _Paradoxa_, sec. 8. 

[41] _Das verbütschierte Buch_, pp. 6-9, and _Paradoxa_, sec. 41. 

[42] _Paradoxa_, sec. 41 and 42. 

[43] _Moriae Enc. _ p. 111. _Paradoxa_, passim, especially sec. 28-32. See also Hegler _op. Cit. _ pp. 127-136. 

{64}

CHAPTER V

CASPAR SCHWENCKFELD AND THE REFORMATION OF THE "MIDDLE WAY"[1]

Among all the Reformers of the sixteenth century who worked at theimmense task of recovering, purifying, and restating the ChristianFaith, no one was nobler in life and personality, and no one was moreuncompromisingly dedicated to the mission of bringing into the life ofthe people a type of Christianity winnowed clean from the husks ofsuperstition and tradition and grounded in ethical and spiritualreality, than was Caspar Schwenckfeld, the Silesian noble. No one, toa greater degree than he, succeeded in going behind, not onlyScholastic formulations but even behind Pauline interpretations ofChrist, to Christ Himself. The aspects of the Christ-life whichpowerfully moved him were very different from {65} those which movedFrancis of Assisi three centuries earlier, but the two men had thismuch in common--they both went to Jesus Christ for the source andinspiration of their religion, they both lived under the spell of thatdominating Personality of the Gospels, they both felt the power of theCross and saw with their inner spirits that the real healing of thehuman soul and the eternal destiny of man were indissolubly bound upwith the Person of Christ. [2] Here again, as in the early years of thethirteenth century, there came a gentle Reformer of religion, who woulduse no compulsion but love, who knew how to suffer patiently with hisLord, and whose entire programme was the restoration of primitiveChristianity, though of necessity it would be restored, if at all, interms of the spiritual ideals of the sixteenth century, as theChristianity of St. Francis had been in terms of thirteenth-centuryideals. 

Caspar Schwenckfeld was born of a noble family in the duchy ofLiegnitz, in Lower Silesia, in 1489. He studied in Cologne, inFrankfurt-on-the-Oder, and probably also in the University of Erfurt, though he attained no University degree. His period of systematicstudy being over, about 1511 he threw himself into the life of acourtier, with the prospect of a successful worldly career before him. Luther's heroic contest against the evils and corruptions of the Churchand his proclamation of a Reforming faith shook the prosperous courtierwide awake and turned the currents of his life powerfully towardreligion. He deeply felt at this time, what he expressed a few yearslater, that a new world was coming to birth and the old one dying away. To the end of his days, and in spite of the harsh treatment which helater received from the Wittenberg Reformer, Schwenckfeld alwaysremembered that it was the prophetic trumpet-call of Luther which hadsummoned him to a new life, and he always carried about with him in hislong exile--an exile for which Luther was largely responsible--abeautiful respect and {66} appreciation for the man who had firstturned him to a knowledge of the truth. [3]

From the very beginning of his awakening he shows the moral earnestnessof a prophet, and even in his earliest writings he emphasizes theinwardness of true religion and the importance of a personal experienceof the living, creative Divine Word. [4] As a result of this passion ofhis for the formation of moral and spiritual character in the lives ofthe people, he was very acute and sensitive to note the condition whichactually existed around him, and he was not long in detecting, much tohis sorrow, aspects of weakness in the new type of Christianity whichwas spreading over Germany. Even as early as 1524, in _An Admonitionto all the Brethren of Silesia_[5] he called attention to thesuperficiality of the change which was taking place in men's lives as aresult of the Reformation--"the lack of inward grasp" as he callsit--and to the externality of the new Reform, the tendency to stop at"alphabetical promises of salvation. " He gives a searching examinationto the central principles of Luther's teachings and approves of themall, but at the same time he points out that little will be gained ifthey be adopted only as intellectual statements and formulated views. He pleads for a faith in Christ and an appreciation of Him that shall"reach the deep regions of the spirit, " renew the heart, and produce anew man in the believer--"the atoning work of Christ must bevital"--and for a type of religion that will involve suffering withChrist, real conformity of will to His will, dying to self and risingagain with Him, which means that we cannot "take the {67} cross at itssoftest spot. "[6] He calls with glowing passion for a radicaltransformation of personal and social life, and for a serious attemptto revive primitive Christianity with its conquering power. 

Luther himself was always impressed with the lack of real, intense, personal religion which resulted from the Reformation movement, and heoften bewailed this lack. He said once to Schwenckfeld in this earlyperiod, "Dear Caspar, genuine Christians are none too common. I wish Icould see two together in a place!" But with all his titanic power toshake the old Church, Luther was not able to sift away the accumulatedchaff of the ages and to seize upon the inward, living kernel ofChrist's Gospel in such a real and vivid presentation that men wereonce again able to find the entire Christ, and were once again liftedinto apostolic power through the discovery of Him. This was the taskto which Schwenckfeld now felt himself summoned. It seemed to him thatthe entire basis of salvation should be grasped in a way quitedifferent from Luther's way of formulation, and this called for arestatement of the whole revelation of God in Christ and of the work ofChrist in the soul of man. [7]

Luther's final break with the spiritual Reformer of Silesia, whichoccurred in 1527, was primarily occasioned by Schwenckfeld's teachingon the meaning and value of the Lord's Supper, though their differencewas by no means confined to that point. Schwenckfeld's position hadculminated in 1526 in a suspension of the celebration of the Lord'sSupper--the so-called _Stillstand_--until a right understanding andtrue practice of it according to the will of the Lord should berevealed. [8] "We know at present of no apostolic commission, " hewrote, "nor {68} again do we make any claim to be regarded as apostles, for we have neither received the fulness of the Holy Spirit nor theapostolic seal for such an office. We dwell in humility and ascribenothing to ourselves, except that we bear witness to Christ, invite mento Christ, preach Christ and His infinite work of salvation, and labouras much as we can that Christ may be truly known. "[9]

Into the bitter controversy over the Sacrament--a controversy betweennoble and sincere Reformers, which forms the supreme internal tragedyof the Reformation--we need not now enter. We shall in the properplace give Schwenckfeld's position upon it, though only in so far as itbelongs in an exposition of his type of spiritual Christianity; but theimmediate effect of his position and practices was such a collisionwith Luther, and the arousal of such hostility on the part of theLutherans of Silesia, that the continued pursuit of Schwenckfeld'smission in that country became impossible. He was, however, notexpelled by edict, but under compulsion of the existing situation; andin order not to be a trouble to his friend, the Duke of Liegnitz, hewent in 1529 into voluntary exile, never to return. For thirty yearshe was a wanderer without a permanent home on the earth, but he couldthank his Lord Christ, as he did, for granting him through all theseyears an inward freedom, and for bringing him into "His castle ofPeace. " He once wrote: "If I had wanted a good place on earth, if Ihad cared more for temporal than for eternal things, and if I wouldhave deserted my Christ, then I might have stayed in my fatherland andin my own house, and I might have had the powerful of this world for myfriends. "[10]

He sojourned for longer or shorter periods in Strasbourg, Augsburg, Ulm, and other cities, but nowhere was he safe from his enemies, and healways faced the prospect of banishment even from his place oftemporary sojourn. {69} Furious declarations were passed against himby the Schmalkald League in 1540, for to his anti-Lutheran views on thesacraments he had now added teachings on the nature of Christ which thetheologians pronounced unorthodox. Three years later he sent amessenger to Luther in hope of a friendly understanding. Luther'sanswer was brief and final: "The stupid fool, possessed by the devil, understands nothing. He does not know what he is babbling. But if hewon't stop his drivel, let him at least not bother me with the bookletswhich the devil spues out of him. "[11] At the ministerial Council ofProtestant States in 1556 Schwenckfeld was denounced in the mostvituperous language of the period, and the civil authorities were urgedto proceed against him as a dangerous heretic. He always had, notwithstanding this pursuit of theological hate, many powerfulfriends, and a large number of brave and devoted followers who wereglad to risk goods, home, and life for the sake of what was to them theliving Word of God. He died--or as his friends preferred to say, hehad a quiet and peaceful "home passage"--at Ulm in 1561. Of thepurity, the brave sincerity, the nobility, the outward and inwardconsistency of his life there is no question. His enemies had no wordto say which reflected upon the motives of his heart or upon thegenuine piety of his life. His religion cost him all that he held dearin the outer world--he had not taken "the cross at the softestspot"--and he practised his faith as the most precious thing a mancould possess in this world or in any other. 

We must now turn to a study of his type of Christianity, which will bepresented here not in the order of its historical development, but asit appears in perspective in his life and writings. He does not groundhis conception of salvation, his idea of religion _überhaupt_, as thehumanistic Reformers, Denck, Bünderlin, Entfelder, and Franck, do, onthe essentially divine nature of the {70} soul in its deepestreality, [12] nor again as the medieval mystics do, on the substantialpresence within the soul of a divine soul-centre, an unlost andinalienable Spark or Image of God which can turn back home and uniteitself with its Source, the Godhead. He begins, as Luther does, withman "fallen, " "dead in sin, " by nature "blind and deaf" to divinerealities. For him, as for Luther, there exists no _natural_ freedomof the will, by which a person can spontaneously and of his owninitiative rise up, shake off the shackles of sin, and go to living asa son of God. This stupendous event, this absolute shift of thelife-level, comes, and can come, he thinks, only through an act of God, directly, immediately wrought upon the soul. Salvation must be asupernatural event. Through this act of God from above there resultswithin the soul an experience which in every respect is a new creation. It is a cataclysmic event of the same order as the _fiat lux_ of cosmiccreation, a rebirth through which the man who has it once again comesinto the condition Adam was in before he fell. 

Everything which has to do with salvation in Schwenckfeld'sChristianity goes back to the historical Christ. [13] Christ is thefirst-born of this new creation. He is the first "new Adam, " who byHis triumphant life and victorious resurrection has become for ever "alife-giving Spirit, " the creative Principle of a new humanity. InChrist the Word of God, the actual Divine Seed of God, became flesh, entered into our human nature and penetrated it with Spirit and withLife, conquered its stubborn bent toward sin, and transfigured andtransformed this human flesh into a divine and heavenly substance. Byobedience to the complete will of God, even to the extreme depths ofsuffering, sacrifice, and death on the Cross for {71} the love of men, Christ glorified human flesh, exalted it from flesh to spirit, and inHis resurrected heavenly life He is able to unite Himself inwardly withthe souls of believers, so that His spiritual resurrected flesh andblood can be their food and drink, and He can become the life-givingsource of a new order of humanity, the spiritual Head of a new race. "If the soul of man, " he wrote, "is to be truly nourished, vitally fedand watered, so that it comes into possession of Eternal Life, it mustdie to its fleshly life and _receive into itself a divine and spiritualLife, having its source in the Being of God and mediated to the soul bythe living, inward-working Flesh and Blood of Jesus Christ_, " throughwhich mediation we come into spiritual union and vital fellowship withGod who is Spirit. [14]

Salvation for Schwenckfeld, therefore, is participation in the life ofthis new creation, this new world-order. To become a Christian, in hissense of the word, is to pass over one of the most decisive watershedsin the universe, to go from one kingdom to another kingdom of a higherrank. The _process_--for it is a vital process--is from beginning toend in the realm of experience. By the exercise of faith in thecrucified, risen, and glorified God-Man, as the life-giving Spirit, real power from a higher world streams into the soul. Something"pneumatic, " something which belongs ontologically to a higherspiritual world-order, comes into the person as a divinely bestowedgerm-plasm, with living, renewing, organizing power. As with Irenaeus, so with Schwenckfeld, salvation is "real redemption, " the "deification"of mortal man, the actual formation of an immortal nature, therestoration of humanity to what it originally was, through thein-streaming life-energy of a mystical Adam-Christ, the Founder andHead of a new spiritual race. [15]

By this incoming spiritual power and life-substance the entirepersonality of the recipient is affected. The {72} recreative energywhich pours in transforms both soul and body. The inner eternal Wordof God, who became flesh, acts upon the inner nature of man, so thatthe believing man is changed into something spiritual, divine andheavenly, and like Jesus Christ, the incarnated Word of God. [16] Therecomes, with this epoch-making experience, a sense of freedom not knownbefore, a power of control over the body and its appetites, anillumination of the intellect, a new sensitiveness of conscience to themeaning of sin, an extraordinary expansion of the vision of the goal oflife--which is a full-grown man in Christ, --and an apprehension of thegift of the Spirit sufficient for the achievement of that goal. Notleast among the signs of transfiguration and of heightened life is theattainment of a joy which spreads through the inward spirit and shineson the face--a joy which can turn hard exile into a _Ruheschloss_, "acastle of peace. "

Those who have experienced this dynamic transfiguration gain therebygifts, capacities, and powers to hear the Word of God within their ownsouls, and thus this Word, which is the same life-giving Spirit thatbecame flesh in Christ and that produces the new creation in man, becomes a perpetual inward Teacher in those who are reborn. "Preciousgifts of the Holy Ghost flow from the essential Being of God into theheart of the believer. " There is, Schwenckfeld holds, a doublerevelation of God. The primary Word of God is eternal, spiritual, inward. "The Word, when spiritual messengers preach or teach, is oftwo kinds with a decided difference in their manner of working. One isof God, even is God, and lives and works in the heart of the messenger. This is the inner Word, and is in reality nothing else than thecontinued manifestation of Christ. He is inwardly revealed, and heardwith the inward ears of the heart. "[17] It is, in fact, God Himself_operating_ as Life and Spirit and Light upon the spiritual substanceof the human soul, first as the Life-Seed which forms the new creationin man, and afterwards as the permanent {73} nourishing and tutoringSpirit who leads the obedient soul on into all the Truth, and perfectsit into the likeness and stature of Christ. "There is a living, innerScripture, written in the believer's heart by the finger of God. ""This inner Scripture has an active creative power of holiness, andmakes holy, living, righteous and saved all those in whose hearts it iswritten. "

The _divine word_ in the secondary sense is the outward word--the wordof Scripture. "The other word which serves the inner Word with voice, sound, and expression is the external word, and is heard by theexternal man with his ears of sense, and is written and read inletters. He who has read and heard only that, and not the inner Word, has not heard the Gospel of Christ, the Gospel of Grace, nor has hereceived or understood it. "[18] It is at best only the witness ortestimony which assists the soul to find the real life-giving Word. Cut apart from the inner spiritual Word, the word of the letter is"dead, " as the body would be if sundered from the spirit. "It paintstruth powerfully for the eye, but it cannot bring it into theheart. "[19] "The Scriptures cannot bring to the soul that of whichthey speak. This must be sought directly from God Himself. "[20] Inhis practical use of Scripture and in his estimate of its importance heis hardly behind Luther himself. "There is, " he says, "no writing onearth like the Holy Scriptures. "[21] His Christianity is penetratedand illuminated at every point by the profound spiritual experiences ofthe saints of the Bible, and still more by the vivid portraits ofChrist in the Gospels, by the words from His lips recorded there, andby the experiences of the apostles and the development of the primitiveChurch. He never doubts or questions the inspiration of theScriptures; quite the contrary, he holds that Scripture is "given byGod" and is an inexhaustible well of inspired truth from which the soulcan endlessly draw. The actual content of Christian faith is suppliedby the historical revelation; {74} but Schwenckfeld always insists thatwritten words, however inspired, are still external to the soul, andmerely record historical events which have happened to others in otherages. "If man, " he writes, "is to understand spiritual things and isto know and judge rightly, he must bring the divine Light to theScriptures, the Spirit to the letter, the Truth to the picture, and theMaster to His created work. . . . In a word, to understand theScriptures a man must become a new man, a man of God; he must be inChrist who gave forth the Scriptures. "[2] That which is to change theinner nature of a man must be something personally experienced and notexternal to him; must be in its own nature as spiritual as the soulitself is and not material, as written words are. "The pen cannotcompletely bring the heart to the paper, nor can the mouth entirelyexpress the well of living water within itself. "[23] The Bible leadsto Christ and bears witness of Him as no other book does, but it is notChrist. And even the Bible remains a closed book until Christ opensit. [24] The Scriptures tell, as no other writings do, of the Word ofGod and its life-operations in the world, but they are still not theWord of God. The spiritual realities of life cannot be settled bylaboriously piling up texts of Scripture, by subtle theologicaldialectic, or by learned exegesis of sacred words. If these spiritualrealities are to become real and effective to us, it must be throughthe direct relation of the human spirit with the divine Spirit--theinward spiritual Word of God. [25] "He who will see the truth must haveGod for eyes. "[26]

Schwenckfeld's view of the process of salvation and the permanentillumination of the reborn soul by a real incoming divinesubstance--whether called Word or Seed--is the _dynamic_ feature of hisChristianity. He is endeavouring to find a foundation for a religiousenergism that will avoid the dangers which beset Luther's principle{75} of "justification by faith. " From the inception of theReformation movement there had appeared a tendency to regard theexercise of "faith" as all that was required for human salvation. Luther did not mean it so, but it was the easy line of least resistanceto hold that "faith" had a magic effect in the invisible realm, that isto say: As soon as a person exercised "faith, " God counted the "faith"for righteousness, and regarded that person as "justified. " Theimportant operation was thus in a region outside the soul. Themomentous shift was not in the personal character of the individual, but in the way the individual was regarded and valued in the heavenlyestimates. It was the discovery of the prevalence of this crude andmagical reliance on "faith" which first drove Schwenckfeld to a deeperstudy of the problems of religion. It was the necessity that he feltto discover some way by which man himself could be actually renewed, transformed, recreated, and _made_ righteous--rather than merelycounted or reckoned righteous by some magical transaction--that madehim an independent reformer and set him on his solitary way. 

To this deep and central question of religion, How is a human soulsaved? there were in Schwenckfeld's day four well-known answers:

(1) There was the answer of the Church in which he was born. Salvationis by Grace, mediated through the sacramental channels of themysterious and divinely founded Church. Man's part consists in theperformance of the "works" which the Church requires of him and theproper use of the sacramental means of Grace. Through thesesacramental channels actual Grace, substantial divine help, comes intoman and works the miracle of salvation in him. 

(2) There was the answer of the great mystics, not always clear andsimple, but very profound and significant. The Ground and the Abyss ofthe soul is one substance with the eternal and absolute Godhead. Finite strivings, isolated purposes, selfish aims, centrifugal pursuitsare vain and illusory. We lose our lives in so far as we live {76} inself-will and in self-centred joys. The way home, the way ofsalvation, is a return to that Ground-Reality from which we have goneout--a return to union and oneness of Life with the infinite Godhead. 

(3) The third answer is that of Luther: "Salvation is by faith. " Thisseems at first to be a dynamic answer. It breaks in on the distractedworld like a new moral trumpet-call to the soul. It comes to men likea fresh Copernican insight which discovers a new religiousworld-centre. The soul by its own inward vision, by its moralattitude, by the swing of the will, can initiate a new relation withGod, and so produce a new inward kingdom. That, however, is notLuther's message. He could not take that optimistic view of lifebecause it implied that man has within himself a native capacity forGod, and can rise to the vision and attitude which lead to a moralrenewal of the self. Luther never succeeded in clearing his principlefrom scholastic complications. He never put it upon a moral anddynamic foundation. It remains to the last a mysterious principle, andwas easily open to the antinomian interpretation, that upon theexercise of faith God for Christ's merits "counts man justified"--aninterpretation dear to those who are slack-minded and prone to forensicschemes of salvation. 

(4) The fourth view was that of the humanist-spiritual Reformers, menof the type of Denck and Bünderlin, who are the precursors of what weto-day call the ethical way of salvation. They assume that salvationis from beginning to end a moral process. God is in essence and naturea loving, self-revealing, self-giving God, who has in all ages unveiledHimself in revelations suited to the spiritual stature of man, has inthe fulness of time become incarnate in Christ, and forever pleads withmen through His Spirit to come to Him. Those who see and hear, thosewho respond and co-operate, _i. E. _ those who exercise faith, arethereby morally transformed into an inward likeness to Him, and soenter upon a life which prefers light to darkness, goodness to sin, love to hate. 

{77}

Schwenckfeld was not satisfied with any of these views. He knew andloved the mystics, but he was too much impressed with the mighty Lifeand message of the historical Christ to adopt the mystic's way. Hefelt that Lutheran Christianity was too scholastic, too dependent onexternals, too inclined to an antinomian use of "faith. " He could notgo along the path of the Humanist-Spirituals, for he believed that manhad been ruined in the Fall, was too deeply scarred with sin to helphimself, was without freewill, was devoid of native capacity forspiritual vision and saving faith. Salvation, if it is to be effectedat all, must be initiated by Divine Grace and must be accomplished _forman_ by God. But it could be for Schwenckfeld no forensic adjustment, no change of reckoning in the heavenly ledgers. "Justification, " heonce wrote, "is not only forgiveness of sins, but it is more, it is theactual healing and renewing of the inward man. "[27] It must involve areal and radical transformation of man's nature--man must cease fromsin and the love of it, he must receive from beyond himself a passionfor goodness and a power to enable him to achieve it. The _passion_for goodness, in Schwenckfeld's view, is created through the vision ofthe God-Man who has suffered and died on the Cross for us, and has beenglorified in absolute newness of life; and the _power_ for moralholiness is supplied to the soul by the direct inflowing of divineLife-streams from this new Adam, who is henceforth the Head of thespiritual order of humanity, the Life-giving Spirit who renews all whoreceive Him in faith. "Faith, " he says, "is a penetrating stream oflight flowing out from the central divine Light and Fire, which is GodHimself, into our hearts by which we are inflamed with love for God andfor our neighbour, and by which we see both what we lack in ourselvesand what can abundantly supply our lack, so that we may be made readyfor the Kingdom of God and be prepared to become children of God. "[28]"Real faith, " he elsewhere says, "that is to say, justifying faith, cancome from nothing {78} external. It is a gracious and gratuitous giftof God through the Holy Spirit. It is an emanation ["Tröpflein"] fromthe eternal Life of God, and is of the same essence and substance asGod Himself. "[29] It is, in fact, the Eternal Word of God become vocaland vital within the inner region of our own lives. [30]

The Church, in Schwenckfeld's conception, is this complete spiritualcommunity of which Christ is the Head. "We maintain, " he wrote in theearly period of his mission, and it remained the settled view of hislife, "that the Christian Church according to the usage of theScripture is the congregation or assembly of all or of many who withheart and soul are believers in Christ, whose Head is Christ our Lord, as St. Paul writes to the Ephesians and elsewhere, and who are born ofGod's Word alone, and are nourished and ruled by God's Word. "[31] "TheChristian Church, " he elsewhere says, "is the entire community of thechildren of God. It is the actual Body of Christ, the Seed of Abraham, the House of the living God, the Temple of the Holy Spirit. It has itslife and power through the obedience of faith, it manifests to theworld the Name of the Lord, the goodness and the glory of Him whocalled its members from darkness into His marvellous Light. Whereversuch a Church is gathered, there also is Christ, its Head, who governsit, teaches it, guards and defends it, works in it and pours His Lifeinto its members, to each according to the measure of his living faith. This inward invisible Christ belongs to all ages and all times andlands. "[32] The Church, in its true life and power, is thus for him acontinuation of the apostolic type. He had no interest in theformation of a sectarian denomination, and he was fundamentally averseto a State-Church system. The true Church community can be identifiedwith no temporal, empirical organization--whether established orseparatist. It is a spiritual invisible community as wide as theworld, including all persons in all regions of {79} the earth and inall religious communions who are joined in life and spirit to theDivine Head. It expands and is enlarged by a process of organic growthunder the organizing direction of the Holy Spirit. "As often, " hewrites, "as a new warrior comes to the heavenly army, as often as apoor sinner repents, the body of Christ becomes larger, the King moresplendid, His Kingdom stronger, His might more perfect. Not that Godbecomes greater or more perfect in His essence, but that flesh becomesmore perfect in God, and God dwells in all His fulness in the fleshinto which in Jesus Christ He ever more pours Himself. "[33] Each soulthat enters the _kingdom of experience_ through the work of theLife-giving Spirit is builded into this invisible expanding Church ofthe ages, and is endowed with some "gift" to become an organ of theDivine Head. All spiritual service arises through the definite calland commission of God, and the persons so called and commissioned arerightly prepared for their service, not by election and ordination, butby inward compulsion and illumination through the Word of God. Thepreacher possesses no magical efficacy. His only power lies in hisspiritual experience, his clarified vision, and his organic connectionwith Christ the Head of the Church and the source of its energy. Ifhis life is spiritually poor and weak and thin, if it lacks moralpassion and insight, his ministry will be correspondingly ineffectiveand futile, for the dynamic spiritual impact of a life is in proportionto its personal experience and its moral capacity to transmit divinepower. Here again the emphasis is on the moral aspect of religion ascontrasted with the magical. There can be no severing of theecclesiastical office or function from the moral character of theperson himself. Schwenckfeld has cut away completely fromsacerdotalism and has returned, as far as with his limited historicalinsight he knew how to do it, to the ideal of the primitive ApostolicChurch. The true mark and sign of membership in the community ofsaints--the invisible Church--is, for him as for St. Paul, {80}possession of the mind of Christ, faith, patience, integrity, peace, unity of spirit, the power of God, joy in the Holy Ghost, and theabounding gifts and fruits of the Spirit. "No outward unity oruniformity, either in doctrine or ceremonies, or rules or sacraments, can make a Christian Church; but inner unity of spirit, of heart, souland conscience in Christ and in the knowledge of Him, a unity in loveand faith, does make a Church of Christ. "[34] The Church is in a verytrue sense bone of Christ's bone and flesh of His flesh, vitalized byHis blood, empowered by His real presence, and formed into an organismwhich reveals and exhibits the divine and heavenly Life--a world-orderas far above the natural human life as that is above the plant. 

Quite consistently with this spiritual view of religion--this view thatthe true Church is an invisible Church--Schwenckfeld taught that thetrue sacrament is an inner and spiritual sacrament, and not legal andexternal like those of the Old Testament. "God must Himself, apartfrom all external means, through Christ touch the soul, speak in it, work in it, if we are to experience salvation and eternal life. "[35]The direct incoming of the Divine Spirit, producing a rebirth and a newcreation in the man himself, is the only baptism which avails with Godor which makes any difference in the actual condition of man. Baptismin its true significance is the reception of cleansing power, it is aninward process which purifies the heart, illuminates the conscience, and is not only necessary for salvation but in fact _is_ salvation. Christian baptism is therefore not with water, but with Christ: it isthe immersion of the soul in the life-giving streams of Christ'sspiritual presence. 

Schwenckfeld was always kindly disposed toward the Anabaptists, but hewas not of them. He presented a very different type of Christianity totheir type, which he penetratingly criticized, though in a kindlyspirit. He did not approve of rebaptism, for he insisted that theall-important matter was not how or when water was applied, {81} butthe reception of _Christ's real baptism_, an inner baptism, a baptismof spirit and power, by which the believing soul, the inner man, isclarified, strengthened, and made pure. [36]

His view of the Lord's Supper in the same way fits his entireconception of Christianity as an inward religion. It was through hisstudy of the meaning and significance of the Supper that he arrived athis peculiar and unique type of religion. He began his meditation withthe practical test--the case of Judas. If the bread and wine of theLast Supper were identical with the body and blood of Christ, thenJudas must have eaten of Christ as the other disciples did, and, notwithstanding his evil spirit, he must have received the divinenature into himself--but that is impossible. 

In his intellectual difficulty he turned to the great mysticaldiscourse in the sixth chapter of John, in the final interpretation ofwhich he received important suggestion and help from ValentineCrautwald, Lector of the Dom in Liegnitz. In this remarkable discourseChrist promises to feed His disciples, His followers, with His ownflesh and blood, by which they will partake of the eternal nature andenter with Him into a resurrection life. The "flesh and blood" hereoffered to men cannot refer to an outward sacrament which is eaten in aphysical way, because in the very same discourse Christ says thatoutward, physical flesh profits nothing. It is the Spirit that giveslife, and, therefore, the "flesh and blood" of Christ must besynonymous with the Word if they are actually to recreate and nourishthe soul and to renew and vitalize the spirit of man. 

This feeding and renewing of the soul through Christ's "flesh andblood, " Schwenckfeld treats, as we have seen, not as a figure orsymbol, but as a literal fact of Christian experience. Through theexercise of faith in the person of the crucified, risen, and glorifiedChrist--the creative Adam--incorruptible, life-giving substance comesinto the soul and transfigures it. Something from the divine {82} andheavenly world, something from that spiritualized and glorified natureof Christ, becomes the actual food of man's spirit, so that through ithe partakes of the same nature as that of the God-Man. Not once ortwice, but as a continuous experience, the soul may share this gloriousmeal of spiritual renewal--this eating and drinking of Christ. 

The external supper--and for that matter the external baptism too--mayhave a place in the Church of Christ as a pictorial symbol of theactual experience, or as a visible profession of faith, but thisoutward sign is, in his view, of little moment, and must not occupy theforeground of attention, nor be made a subject of polemic or ofinsistence. The new Creation, the response of faith to the livingWord, the transfiguration of life into the likeness of Christ, are themomentous facts of a Christian experience, and none of these things is_mediated_ by external ceremonies. 

It was his ideal purpose to promote the formation of little groups ofspiritual Christians which should live in the land in quietness, andspread by an inward power and inspiration received from above. He sawclearly that no true Reformation could be carried through by edicts orby the proclamations of rulers, or by the decision of councils. Apermanent work, from his point of view, could be accomplished only bythe slow and patient development of the religious life and spiritualexperience of the people, since the goal which he sought was theformation, not of state-made Churches, but of renewed personal lives, awakened consciences, burning moral passion, and first-hand convictionof immediate relation with the World of Divine Reality. To this workof arousing individual souls to these deeper issues of life, and ofbuilding up little scattered societies under the headship of Christ, which should be, as it were, oases of the Kingdom of God in the world, he dedicated his years of exile. All such quiet inward movementsprogress, as Christ foresaw, too slowly and gradually "forobservation"; but this method of reforming the Church through rebirthand the creation of Christ-guided societies {83} accomplished, evenduring Schwenckfeld's life, impressive results. There were many, notonly in Silesia but in all regions which the missionary-reformer wasable to reach, who "preferred salt and bread in the school of Christ"to ease and plenty elsewhere, and they formed their little groups inthe midst of a hostile world. The public records of Augsburg revealthe existence, during Schwenckfeld's life, of a remarkable group ofthese quiet, spiritual worshippers in that city. Their leaders weremen of menial occupations--men who would have attracted no notice fromthe officials of city or Church if they had been contented to conformto any prevailing or recognized type of religion. Under theinspiration which they received from the writings of Schwenckfeld theyformed "a little meeting"--in every respect like a seventeenth-centuryQuaker meeting--in their own homes, meeting about in turn, discardingall use of sacraments, and waiting on God for edification rather thanon public preaching. They read the books and epistles of Schwenckfeldin their gatherings, they wrote epistles to other groups ofSchwenckfeldians, and received epistles in turn and read them in theirgatherings. They objected to any form of religious exercise whichseemed to them incomprehensible to their spirits and which did notspring directly out of the inward ministry of the Word of God. Theywere eventually discovered, their leaders banished, their books burned, and their little meeting of "quiet spirituals" ("stillen Frommen") asthey called themselves was ruthlessly stamped out. [37] Societiessomething like this were formed in scores of places, and continued tocultivate their inward piety in the Fatherland, until harried bypersecution they migrated in 1734 to Pennsylvania, where they havecontinued to maintain their community life until the present day. 

But the most important effect of Schwenckfeld's life and work must notbe sought in the history of these {84} visible societies which owedtheir origin to his apostolic activity. His first concern was alwaysfor the building of the invisible community of God throughout the wholeworld--not for the promotion of a sect--and his greatest contributionwill be found in the silent, often unnoticed, propagation of hisspirit, the contagious dissemination of his ideas, the gradualinfluence of his truth and insight upon Christian communions and uponindividual believers that hardly knew his name. His correspondence wasextraordinarily extensive; his books and tracts, which were legion, found eager readers and transmitters, and slowly--too slowly forobservation--the spiritual message of the homeless reformer made itsway into the inner life of faithful souls, who in all lands werepraying for the consolation of God's new Israel. Even so early as1551, an English writer, Wyllyam Turner, in a book written as "apreservative and treacle against the poyson of Pelagius, " especially as"renewed" in the "furious secte of the Annabaptistes, " mentions the"Swengfeldianes" as one of the heads of "this monstre in many poynteslyke unto the watersnake with seven heads. "[38] There is, however, slight evidence of the spread of Schwenckfeld's views, whether they becalled "poyson" or "treacle, " in England during the sixteenth century, though they are clearly in evidence in the seventeenth century. One ofthe most obvious signs of his influence in the seventeenth century, both in England and in Holland, appears in the spread of principleswhich were embodied in the "Collegiants" of Holland and thecorresponding societies of "Seekers" in England. [39] The cardinalprinciple of these groups in both countries was the belief that thevisible Church had become apostate and had lost its divineauthoritative power, that it now lacked apostolic ministry andefficacious sacraments and "the gifts of the Spirit" which demonstratethe true apostolic succession. Therefore those who held this view, "like doves without their mates, " were _waiting_ and _seeking_ for theappearing of a {85} new apostolic commission, for the fresh outpouringof God's Spirit on men, and for the refounding of the Church, asoriginally, in actual demonstration and power. 

It was a settled view of Schwenckfeld's that the visible Church hadlost its original power and authority, and he cherished, too, apersistent faith and hope that in God's good time it would again berestored to its pristine vitality and its original conquering power. "We ask, " he writes, "where in the world to-day there is gatheredtogether an external Church of the apostolic form and type, andaccording to the will of Christ. "[40] And yet scattered everywherethroughout the world--even in Turkey and Calcutta[41]--God has, hesays, His own faithful people, known only to Him, who live Christlikeand holy lives, whom Christ the living Word, that became flesh, baptizes inwardly with the Holy Spirit and inwardly feeds withoutexternal preaching or sacrament, writes His law in their hearts andguides into Eternal Life. [42] But the time is coming when once morethere will be in the world an apostolic and completely reformed Churchof Christ, His living body and the organ of the Spirit, with divinegifts and powers and commission. In the interim let the chosenchildren of God, he writes, rejoice and comfort themselves in this, that their salvation rests neither in an external Church, nor in theexternal use of sacraments, nor in any external thing, but that itrests alone in Jesus Christ our Lord, and is received through true andliving faith. [43]

For Schwenckfeld himself the important matter was the increase of thisinward life, the silent growth of this kingdom of God in the hearts ofmen, the spread of this invisible Church, but his writings plainlysuggest that God will eventually restore the former glory to Hisvisible Church. "You are, " he says, in one of his epistles, "to prayearnestly that God will raise up true apostles and preachers andevangelists, so that His Church may {86} be reformed in Christ, edifiedin the Holy Ghost, and unified into one, and so that our boasting ofthe pure preaching of the Gospel and the right understanding and use ofthe sacraments may be true before God, "[44] and the time is coming, wemay in good faith believe, when the sacraments will be used accordingto the will of Christ, and then there will be a true Christian Church, taught outwardly by apostolic ministers and taught inwardly by the LordHimself. [45] Fortunately, however, salvation does not depend uponanything outward, and during the _Stillstand_ or interim there is nodanger to be feared from the intermission of outward ceremonies. [46]

Sebastian Franck graphically describes this waiting, seeking attitudeas well known in his time. He wrote in his "Chronicle" (1531): "Someare ready to allow Baptism and other ceremonies to remain in abeyance["stilston, " evidently Schwenckfeld's _Stillstand_] until God gives afurther command and sends true labourers into His harvest-field. Forthis some have great longings and yearnings and wish nothing else. "[47]The intense _expectation_ which the Seekers, both in Holland andEngland, exhibit was, of course, a much later development, was due tomany influences, and is connected only indirectly with the reformingwork and the Gospel message of Schwenckfeld. It indicates, in theexaggerated emphasis of the Seekers, a failure to grasp the deepersignificance of spiritual Christianity as a present reality, and itmisses the truth, which the world has so painfully slowly grasped, thatthe only way to form an apostolic and efficacious visible Church is notthrough sudden miracles and cataclysmic "restorations" and"commissions, " but by the slow contagion and conquering power of thisinward kingdom, of this invisible Church, as it becomes the spirit andlife of the outward and visible Church. This truth the Silesianreformer knew full well, and for this reason he was ready at all coststo be a quiet apostle of the invisible Community of God and let theoutward {87} organism and organ of its ministry come in God's own way. The nobler men among the English Seekers, as also among the DutchSocieties, rose gradually to this larger view of spiritual religion, and came to realize, as Schwenckfeld did, that the real processes ofsalvation are inward and dynamic. Samuel Rutherford is not a very safewitness in matters which involve impartial judgment, or which concerntypes of spiritual experience foreign to his own type, but he isfollowing a real clew when he connects, as he does, the leaders ofspiritual, inward religion in his day, especially those who had sharedthe seeker aspirations, with Schwenckfeld. [48] Rutherford's account isthoroughly unfair and full of inaccuracies, but it suffices at least toreveal the fact that Schwenckfeld was a living force in the period ofthe English Commonwealth, and that, though almost a hundred years hadpassed since his "home-passage" from Ulm was accomplished, he was stillmaking disciples for the ever-enlarging community and household of God. 

[1] The most important material for a study of Schwenckfeld is thefollowing:--

_Corpus Schwenckfeldianorum_, edited by C. D. Hartranft. PublishedLeipzig, vol. I. (1907); vol. Ii. (1911); vol. Iii. (1913). Othervolumes to follow. 

_Schriften von Kaspar Schwenckfeld_, in 4 folio volumes. Publishedbetween the years 1564-1570. Indicated in my notes as vol. I. , vol. Ii. , vol. Iii. A, vol. Iii. B. There are, too, many uncollected booksand tracts, to some of which I refer in footnotes. 

Karl Ecke, _Schwenckfeld, Luther, und der Gedanke einer apostolischenReformation_ (Berlin, 1911). Important book, but to be followed withcaution. 

R. H. Grützmacher, _Wort und Geist_ (Leipzig, 1902). 

Gottfried Arnold, _Kirchen- und Ketzer-Historien_, i. Pp. 1246-1299. (Edition of 1740. )

H. W. Erbkam, _Geschichte der prolestantischen Sekten im Zeitaller derReformation_ (Hamburg und Gotha, 1848), pp. 357-475. 

Döllinger, _Die Reformation_, i. Pp. 257-280. 

Ernst Troeltsch, _Die Soziallehren der christlichen Kirchen undGruppen_ (Tübingen, 1912), pp. 881-886. 

[2] Christ, Schwenckfeld insisted, is the sum of the whole Bible, andto learn to know Christ fundamentally is to grasp the substance of theentire Scripture. 

[3] He wrote in 1543 to Luther: "I owe to you in God and the truth allhonour, love, and goodwill, because from the first I have reaped muchfruit from your service, and I have not ceased to pray for youaccording to my poor powers. "--_Schriften_, ii. P. 701 d. 

[4] In _An Epistle to the Sisters in the Cloister at Naumberg_, writtenprobably in the autumn of 1523, he says: "A true Christian life in itsessential requirements does not consist in external appearance . . . But quite the contrary, it does consist in personal trust in Godthrough an experience of Jesus Christ, which the Holy Ghost bringsforth in the heart by the hearing of the Divine Word. "--_CorpusSchwenckfeldianorum_, i. P. 118. 

[5] _Ermahnung dess Missbrauchs etlicher fürnemsten Artikel desEvangelii_ (1524). _Corpus Schw. _ ii. Pp. 26-105. 

[6] "Wir greyffen das Creutz noch am waichsten Ort an. "--_Ermahnungdess Missbrauchs_. Corpus Schw. Ii. P. 89. 

[7] "There are now in general two parties that make wrong use of theGospel of Christ, one of which turns to the right and the other to theleft of the only true and straight way. The first party is that of thePapacy . . . The other party consists of those to whom God has nowgranted a gracious light--But!"--_Ermahnung dess Missbrauchs_. 

[8] The _Stillstand_ was proposed in a _Circular Letter_ written bySchwenckfeld, Valentine Crautwald, and the Liegnitz Pastors, April 21, 1526. --_Corpus Schwenckfeld_, i. Pp. 325-333. 

[9] The revival of this idea of a _Stillstand_, that is, of asuspension of certain time-honoured practices of the Church until afurther revelation and new enduement should be granted, will bereferred to in later chapters, especially in connection with the_Collegiants_ of Holland and the English _Seekers_. 

[10] Ecke, _op. Cit. _ p. 217. 

[11] Arnold, _op. Cit. _ ii. P. 251. There are many similar referencesto Schwenckfeld in Luther's _Table Talk_, and he usually calls him bythe opprobrious name of "Stenkfeld. "

[12] "Ein natürliches Licht kennt Schwenckfeld nicht. "--Grützmacher, _Wort und Grist_ (Leipzig, 1902), p. 168. 

[13] The important data for Schwenckfeld's doctrine of Christ and theway of salvation will be found in the following writings by him:--

_Von der göttlichen Kindschaft und Herrlichkeit des ganzen SonesGottes_ (1538). 

_Ermanunge zum wahren und selig machende Erkänntnis Christi_ (1539). 

_Konfession und Erklärung von Erkänntnus Christi und seiner göttlichenHerrlichkeit_ (1540). 

[14] _Schriften_, i. P. 664. See also p. 662. 

[15] For the doctrine of deification in Irenaeus see Harnack, _Hist. OfDogma_, ii. Pp. 230-318. 

[16] See _Schriften_, i. P. 768. 

[17] _Ibid. _ i. P. 767 a. 

[18] _Schriften_, i. P. 767 a. 

[19] _Die heilige Schrift_. X. D. 

[20] _Ibid. _ cviii. C. 

[21] _Ibid. _ ii. B. 

[22] _Die heilige Schrift. _ vi. And vii. 

[23] _Vom Worte Gottes_, xxii. C. 

[24] _Die heilige Schrift. _ iv. B. 

[25] _Catechismus vom Wort des Creütses, vom Wort Gottes, und vomUnderscheide des Worts des Geists und Buchstabens. _

[26] _Die heilige Schrift. _ iv. C. 

[27] _Schriften_, i. P. 725. 

[28] _Ibid. _ i. P. 634. 

[29] _Schriften_, i. P. 380. 

[30] See _ibid. _ ii. P. 421. 

[31] _Corpus Schwenck. _ i. P. 295. 

[32] _Schriften_, iii. A. 

[33] _Schriften_, ii. P. 290. 

[34] _Schriften_, ii. P. 785. 

[35] _Ibid. _ i. P. 768 b. 

[36] _Schriften_, i. P. 513. For a criticism of the legalism of theAnabaptists see _ibid. _ i. Pp. 801-808. 

[37] The details are given in Friederich Roth's _AugsburgsReformations-Geschichte_ (München, 1907), iii. P. 245 ff. 

[38] _A Preservative or Treacle against the Poyson of Pelagius, etc. _(1551), A iii. 

[39] For a fuller account of the Collegiants see Chap. VII. 

[40] _Schriften_, iii. B, p. 572. 

[41] _Ibid. _ ii. P. 783. 

[42] _Ibid. _ a. P. 784. 

[43] _Ibid. _ iii. A, p. 146. 

[44] _Schriften_, ii. P. 785. 

[45] _Ibid. _ ii. P. 783. 

[46] _Ibid. _ iii. A, p. 74. 

[47] Franck's _Chronica_ (1531), p. Ccccli. 

[48] Rutherford, _A Survey of the Spiritual Antichrist_ (1648), chap. V. 

{88}

CHAPTER VI

SEBASTIAN CASTELLIO: A FORGOTTEN PROPHET[1]

Reformation history has been far too closely confined to a few mainhighways of thought, and few persons therefore realize how rich inideas and how complex in typical religious conceptions this spiritualupheaval really was. The types that prevailed and won their way towide favour have naturally compelled attention and are adequatelyknown. There were, however, very serious and impressive attempts madeto give the Reformation a totally different course from the one itfinally took in history, and these attempts, defeated by the sweep ofthe main current, became submerged, and their dedicated and heroicleaders became forgotten. Many of these spiritual ventures which forthe moment failed and were submerged are in striking parallelism withcurrents of thought to-day, and our generation can perhaps appreciateat their real worth these solitary souls who were destined to see theircause defeated, to hear their names defamed, and to live in jeopardyamong the very people whom they most longed to help. 

Sebastian Castellio is one of these submerged venturers. While helived he was so absolutely absorbed in the battle for truth that hetook no pains at all to acquaint posterity with the details of hislife, or to make his name quick and powerful in the ears of men. Whenhe died {89} and laid down the weapons of his spiritual warfare hispious opponents thanked God for the relief and did what they could toconsign him to oblivion. But after the long and silent flow of yearsthe world has come up to his position and can appreciate a spirit whowas too far in advance of the line of march to be comprehended in hislifetime. He was born in the little French village of St. Martin duFresne--not many miles west of Lake Geneva in the year 1515. The homewas pinched with poverty, but somebody in the home or in the villagediscovered that little Bastian was endowed with unusual gifts and mustbe given the chance to realize the life which his youth forecast; andthat ancient family sacrifice, which has glorified so many homes ofpoverty, was made here in St. Martin, and the boy, possessed with hiseager passion for knowledge, was started on his course in the Collègede la Trinité in Lyons. He soon found himself bursting into a newworld, the world of classic antiquity, which the Humanists wererestoring to the youth of that period, and he experienced thatemancipating leap of soul and thrill of joy which such a world ofbeauty can produce upon a lofty spirit that sees and appreciates it. Some time during the Lyons period he came also under a still greaterand more emancipating influence, the divine and simple Christ of theGospels, whom the most serious of the Humanists had rediscovered, andto whom Castellio now dedicated the central loyalty of his soul. 

At twenty-five years of age, now a splendid classical scholar, radiantwith faith and hope and the vision of a new age for humanity which therecovered gospel was to bring in, Castellio went to Strasbourg to sharethe task of the Reformers and to put his life into the new movement. Calvin, then living in Strasbourg, received the brilliant recruit withjoy and took him into his own home. When the great Reformer returnedto Geneva in 1541 to take up the mighty task of his life he summonedCastellio to help him, and made him Principal of the College of Geneva, which Calvin planned to make one of the {90} foremost seats of Greeklearning and one of the most illuminating centres for the study of theScriptures. The young scholar's career seemed assured. He had thefriendship of Calvin, he was head of an important institution oflearning, the opportunity for creative literary work was opening beforehim, and he was aspiring soon to fulfil the clearest call of hislife--to become a minister of the new gospel. His first contributionto religious literature was his volume of "Sacred Dialogues, " a seriesof vivid scenes out of the Old and New Testaments, told in dialoguefashion, both in Latin and French. [2] They were to serve a doublepurpose: first, to teach French boys to read Latin, and secondly, toform in them a love for the great characters of the Bible and anappreciation of its lofty message of life. The stories were reallygood stories, simple enough for children, and yet freighted with adepth of meaning which made them suitable for mature minds. Theirsuccess was extraordinary, and their fine quality was almostuniversally recognized. They went through twenty-eight editions intheir author's lifetime, and they were translated into manylanguages. [3] His bent toward a religion of a deeply ethical andspiritual type already appears in this early work, and here heannounces a principle that was to rule his later life and was to costhim much suffering: "The friend of Truth obeys not the multitude _butthe Truth_. "

At the very time this book was appearing, an opportunity offered fortesting the mettle of his courage. One of those ever-recurrent plaguesthat harassed former ages, before microbes were discovered, fell uponGeneva. The minister, who had volunteered to give spiritual comfort tothose who were suffering with the plague in the hospital, was strickenwith the dread disease, and a new volunteer was asked for. The recordsof the city show that Castellio, though not yet ordained, and under noobligation to take such risk, offered himself for the {91} hazardousservice when the ministers of the city declined it. The ordinationthrough human hands was, however, never to come to him, and a hardertest of courage than the plague was before him. In the course of hisstudies he found himself compelled to take the position that the "Songof Solomon" was an ancient love poem, and that the traditionalinterpretation of it as a revelation of the true relation betweenChrist and the Church was a strained and unnatural interpretation. Healso felt that as a scholar he could not with intellectual honestyagree with the statement in the Catechism that "Christ descended intoHell. " Calvin challenged both these positions of Castellio, but hisopposition to him was clearly far deeper than a difference of opinionon these two points. Calvin instinctively felt that the bold andindependent spirit of this young scholar, his qualities of leadership, and his literary genius marked him out as a man who could not long bean easy-minded and supple subordinate. A letter which Calvin wrote atthis time to his friend Viret shows where the real tension lay. "Castellio has got it into his head, " he writes, "that I want to rule!"The great Reformer may not have been conscious yet of such a purpose, but there can be no question that Castellio read the signs correctly, and he was to be the first, as Buisson has said, to discover that "toresist Calvin was in the mind of the latter, to resist the HolyGhost. "[4] Calvin successfully opposed his ordination, and made itimpossible for him to continue in Geneva his work as an honest scholar. To remain meant that he must surrender his right of independentjudgment, he must cease to follow the line of emancipated scholarship, he must adjust his conscience to fit the ideas that were coming to becounted orthodox in the circle of the Reformed faith. _That_ surrenderhe could no more make than Luther could surrender to the demands of hisopponents at Worms. He quietly closed up his work in the College ofGeneva and went into voluntary exile, to seek a sphere of life where hemight think and speak as {92} he saw the truth and where he could keephis conscience a pure virgin. 

He settled in Basle, where Erasmus had found a refuge, and where, twoyears before, the exiled and hunted Sebastian Franck, the spiritualforerunner of Castellio, had died in peace. For ten years (1545-1555)he lived with his large family in pitiable poverty. He read proof forthe Humanist printer Oporin, he fished with a boat-hook for drift-woodalong the shores of the Rhine, --"rude labour no doubt, " he says, "buthonest, and I do not blush for having done it, "--and he did whateverhonest work he could find that would help keep body and soul together. Through all these years, every moment of the day that could be savedfrom bread-winning toil, and much of his night-time, went into theherculean task to which he had dedicated himself--the completetranslation of the Bible from its original languages into both Latinand French. [5] Being himself one of the common people he always hadthe interests and needs of the common people in view, and he put theBible into current sixteenth-century speech. His French translationhas the marked characteristics of the Renaissance period. He makespatriarchs, prophets, and the persons of the New Testament live againin his vivid word-pictures, as the great contemporary painters weremaking them live on their canvases. But that which gave histranslation its great human merit and popular interest was a seriousdefect in the eyes of the theologians. It was vivid, full of thenative Oriental colour, true in the main to the original, and strong inits appeal to religious imagination, but painfully weak in its supportof the dogmas and doctrines around which the theological battles of theReformation were centring. Still less were the theologians pleasedwith the Preface of his Latin Bible, dedicated to the boy-king ofEngland, Edward VI. Here he boldly insists that the Reformation, {93}wherever it spreads, shall champion the principle of _free conscience_, and shall wage its battles with spiritual weapons alone. The onlyenemies of our faith, he says, are vices, and vices can be conqueredonly by virtues. The Christ who said if they strike you on one cheekturn the other, has called us to the spiritual task of instructing menin the truth, and that work can never be put into the hands of anexecutioner! "I address you, O king, " he concludes, "not as a prophetsent from God, but as a man of the people who abhors quarrels andhatred, and who wishes to see religion spread by love rather than byfierce controversy, by purity of heart rather than by external methods. . . . Read these sacred writings with a pious and religious heart, andprepare yourself to reign as a mortal man who must give an account toimmortal God. I desire that you may have the meekness of Moses, thepiety of David, and the wisdom of Solomon. "[6]

Two years after this appeal to the new Protestantism to make the greatventure of spreading its truth by love and persuasion, there came fromGeneva the decisive answer in the burning of Servetus, followed by thefamous _Defence_ before the world, written mainly by Calvin, of thecourse that had been taken. One month later, a brief Latin workappeared from the press with the title, _De haereticis, an sintpersequendi, etc. _ (Magdeburgi, 1554), followed in very short time by aFrench edition (Rouen, 1554). The body of the work containedimpressive passages in favour of toleration from Church Fathers, fromLuther, Erasmus, Sebastian Franck, and others, concluding with apassage from "Basil Montfort, " a name which thinly veils BastianCastellio himself. The Preface was addressed to the Duke ofWurtemberg, bore the name of "Martinus Bellius, " and was beyond doubtwritten by Castellio, who inspired and directed the entire work, inwhich he was assisted by a very small group of refugees in Basle ofsimilar ideas on this subject to his {94} own. This Preface is one ofthe mother documents on freedom of conscience, from which in time camea large offspring, and it is, furthermore, an interestinginterpretation of a type of Christianity then somewhat new in theworld. Its simplicity, its human appeal, its restrained emotionalpower, its prophetic tone, its sincerity and depth of earnestness markit as a distinct work of genius, almost in the class with Pascal's_Provincial Letters_. 

"If thou, illustrious Prince, had informed thy subjects that thou wertcoming to visit them at an unnamed time and had requested them to beprepared in white garments to meet thee on thy coming; what wouldstthou do, if, on arrival, thou shouldst find that instead of robingthemselves in white they had occupied themselves in violent debateabout thy person--some insisting that thou wert in France, others thatthou wert in Spain; some declaring that thou would come on horseback, others that thou would come by chariot; some holding that thou wouldcome with great pomp, others that thou would come without train orfollowing? And what especially wouldst thou say if they debated notonly with words but with blows of fist and strokes of sword, and ifsome succeeded in killing and destroying others who differed from them?'He will come on horseback. ' 'No, he won't; he will come by chariot. ''You lie. ' 'No, I do not; _you_ are the liar. ' 'Take _that_'--a blowwith the fist. 'You take _that_'--a sword-thrust through the body. OPrince, what would you think of such citizens? Christ asked us to puton the white robes of a pure and holy life, but what occupies ourthought? We dispute not only of the way to Christ, but of His relationto God the Father, of the Trinity, of predestination, of free will, ofthe nature of God, of angels, of the condition of the soul afterdeath, --of a multitude of matters that are not essential for salvation, and _matters, in fact, which never can be known until our hearts arepure, for they are things which must be spiritually perceived_. "

With a striking boldness, but with beautiful simplicity of spirit, hedescribes "an honest follower of Christ"--and {95} it is himself whomhe is describing--"who believes in God the Father and in His Son JesusChrist, and who wants to do His will, but cannot see that will just asothers about him see it, in matters of intellectual formulation and inmatters of external practice. " "I cannot, " he adds, "do violence to myconscience for fear of disobeying Christ. I must be saved or lost bymy own personal faith, not by that of another. I ask you, whetherChrist, who forgave those who went astray, and commanded His followersto forgive until seventy times seven, Christ who is the final Judge ofus all, if He were here, would command a person like that to be killed!. . . O Christ, Creator and King of the world, " he cries out, "dostThou see and approve these things? Hast Thou become a totallydifferent person from what Thou wert? When Thou wert on earth, nothingcould be more gentle and kind, more ready to suffer injuries. Thouwert like a sheep dumb before the shearers. Beaten, spit upon, mocked, crowned with thorns, crucified between thieves, Thou didst pray forthose who injured Thee. Hast Thou changed to this? Art Thou now socruel and contrary to Thyself? Dost Thou command that those who do notunderstand Thy ordinances and commandments as those over us require, should be drowned, or drawn and quartered, and burned at the stake!"

The Christian world holds this view now. It is a part of the necessaryair we breathe. But at this crisis in modern history it wasunforgivably _new_. [7] One man's soul had the vision, one man's entiremoral fibre throbbed with passion for it, and his rich intellectualnature pleaded for it as the only course of reason: "To burn a man isnot to defend a doctrine, it is to _burn a man_!" But it was a voicecrying in a wilderness, and from henceforth Castellio was a marked anddangerous man in the eyes of all who were opposed to "Bellianism "--asthe principle of toleration was nicknamed in honour of MartinusBellius--and that included almost all the world. But to the end of hislife, and in almost every one of his multitudinous {96} tracts hecontinued to announce the principle of religious liberty, and to workfor a type of Christianity which depended for its conquering powersolely on its inherent truth and on its moral dynamic. 

Calvin, who recognized the hand of Castellio in this powerful defenceof freedom of thought, called his opponent "a monster full of poisonand madness, " and proceeded to demolish him in a Reply. In his _Contralibellum Calvini_, which is an answer to this Reply, Castellio declaresthat Calvin's act in burning Servetus was a bloody act, and that nowhis book is a direct menace to honest, pious people. "I, " he adds, "who have a horror of blood, propose to examine the book. I do notdefend Servetus. I have never read his books. Calvin burned themtogether with their author. I do not want to burn Calvin or to burnhis book. I am only going to _answer_ it. " He notes that Calvincomplains of "novelties and innovations, " a strange complaint, hethinks, from a man who "has introduced more innovations in ten yearsthan the entire Church had introduced in six centuries!" All thesects, he reminds the great Reformer, claim to be founded on the Wordof God. They all believe that their religion is true. Calvin saysthat his is _the only true one_. Each of the others says that his isthe only true one. Calvin says that they are wrong. He makes himself(by what right I do not know) the judge and sovereign arbiter. Heclaims that he has on his side the sure evidence of the Word of God. Then why does he write so many books to prove what is evident? Thetruth is surely not evident to those who die denying that it is truth!Calvin asks how doctrine is to be guarded if heretics are not to bepunished. "Doctrine, " cries Castellio, "Christ's doctrine means lovingone's enemies, returning good for evil, having a pure heart and ahunger and thirst for righteousness. _You_ may return to Moses if youwill, but for us others Christ has come. "

Love, he constantly insists, is the supreme badge of any trueChristianity, and the traits of the beatitudes in a person's life are asurer evidence that he belongs in {97} Christ's family, than is thefact that he holds current opinions on obscure questions of belief. "Before God, " he writes in his _Defensio_, a work of the year 1562, tothose who wish to hunt him off the face of the earth, "and from thebottom of my heart, I call you to the spirit of love. " "By the bowelsof Christ, I ask and implore you to leave me in peace, to stoppersecuting me. Let me have the liberty of my faith as you have ofyours. At the heart of religion I am one with you. It is in realitythe same religion; only on certain points of interpretation I seedifferently from you. But however we differ in opinion, why cannot welove one another?"

He was, however, never to have the peace for which he pleaded, and hewas never to experience the love and brotherly kindness for which helonged. Whole sheaves of fiery arrows were shot at him, and in tractafter tract he had to see himself called "monster, " "wretch, " "dog, ""pest, " "fog-bank, " and finally to see himself proclaimed to the worldas a petty thief "who was supporting himself by stealing wood from hisneighbours"! With beautiful dignity Castellio tells the story of howhe fished for public drift-wood on the shores of the Rhine, and how hekept his family alive by honest toil, when he was living in pitiablepoverty, "to which, " he says to Calvin, "everybody knows that thyattacks had brought me. " "I cannot conceive how thou of all persons, thou who knowest me, can have believed a tale of theft about me, and inany case have told it to others. "[9]

Compelled, as he was, to see the Reformation take what seemed to himthe false course--the course of defending itself by persecution, ofbuttressing itself on election, of elevating, through a newscholasticism, doctrine above life, --he turned more and more, as timewent on, toward interior religion, the cultivation of an innersanctuary, the deepening of the mystical roots of his life, and theperfection of a religion of inner and spiritual life. "I have nevertaken holy things lightly, " {98} he once wrote, and in the later yearsof what proved to be his brief as well as stormy life, he drew nearerto Christ as the Life of his life, and laboured with deepening passionto practise and present a religion of veracity, of reality and oftransforming power. "It is certain, " he says in his _Contra libellumCalvini_, "that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and there isfurthermore no doubt about the worth of love--love to God and love toman. There is no doubt, again, of the worth of forgiveness, ofpatience, of pity, of kindness, and of obedience to duty. Why leavethese sure things and quarrel over inscrutable mysteries?"

This point that the things which are essential to salvation are clearand luminous is a frequently occurring one in his writings. Impenetrable mysteries do not interest him, and he declares withreiteration that controversies and divisions are occasioned mainly bythe proclamation of dogma on these inscrutable things. In a remarkablework, which remains still in manuscript--his _De arte dubitandi etconfidendi, sciendi et ignorandi_, --he pleads for a religion that fitsthe facts of life and for the use of intelligence even in these loftymatters of spiritual experience where most astonishing miracles occur. He returns, in this writing, to his old position that the truths whichconcern salvation are clear and appeal powerfully to human reason. "There are, I know, " he says, "persons who insist that we shouldbelieve even against reason. It is, however, the worst of all errors, and it is laid upon me to fight it. I may not be able to exterminatethe monster, but I hope to give it such a blow that it will know thatit has been hit. Let no one think that he is doing wrong in using hismental faculties. It is our proper way of arriving at the truth. "[9]

Without entering in detail into the bottomless controversy of thosetimes, let us endeavour to get an adequate view of Castellio's type ofChristianity, and then we shall be able to form an estimate of the manwho in the {99} strong power of his faith stood almost alone as thegreat battle of words raged around him. [10]

Those on the other side of the controversy began always from theopposite end of the spiritual universe to his point of departure. _They_ were fascinated with the mysteries of the Eternal Will, and usedall the keys of their logic to unlock the mysteries of foreknowledge, predestination, and grace which has wrought the miracle of salvationfor the elect. Castellio, on the other hand, in true modern fashion, starts always with the concrete, the near and the known, to work upwardto the nature of the unknown. We must, he says, try to discover theDivine attributes and the Divine Character by first finding out whatour own deepest nature implies. If God is to speak to us it must be interms of our nature. Before undertaking to fathom with the plummet oflogic the unsoundable mystery of foreknowledge, let us see what we canknow through a return to the real nature of man as he is, andespecially to the real nature of the new Adam who is Christ, the Son ofGod. Man, as both Scripture and his own inner self testify, is made_in the image of God_, is dowered with freedom to determine his owndestiny, may go upward into light, or downward into darkness. Man thusmade, when put to trial, _failed_, followed lower instincts instead ofhigher, and experienced the awful penalty of sin, namely its cumulativepower, the tendency of sin to beget sin, and to make higher choicesever more difficult. Christ, however, the new Adam, has _succeeded_. He has completely revealed the way of obedience, the way in whichspirit conquers flesh. He is the new kind of Person who lives fromabove and who exhibits the cumulative power of goodness. His victory, which was won by His own free choice, inspires all men who see it withfaith and hope in man's spiritual possibilities. Castellio declines todiscuss Christ's metaphysical nature, except in so far as His life hasrevealed {100} it to us. He sees in Him the Heart and Character ofGod, the certainty of Divine love and forgiveness, and the way of lifefor all who desire to be spiritually saved, which means, for him, theformation of a new inward self, a purified nature, a morallytransformed man, a will which no longer loves or wills sin. "Christalone, " he says, "can heal the malady of the soul, but He can heal it. ""There is, " he says again, "no other way of salvation for any man thanthe way of self-denial. He must put off his old man and put onChrist--however much blood and sweat the struggle may cost. " Man, heinsists, is always wrong when he represents God as angry. Christshowed that God needed no appeasing, but rather that man needed to bebrought back to God by the drawing of Love, and be reconciled to Him. 

Faith--which for every prophet of human redemption is the key thatunlocks all doors for the soul--is for Castellio the supreme moralforce by which man turns God's revelations of Himself into spiritualvictories and into personal conquests of character. It is neversomething forensic, something magical. It is, as little, mere beliefof historical facts and events. It is, on the contrary, a moral powerthat moves mountains of difficulty, works miracles of transformation, and enables the person who has it to participate in the life of God. It is a passionate leap ("élan") of the soul of the creature toward theCreator; it is a way of renewing strength in Him and of becoming aparticipator in His divine nature. It is a return of the soul to itssource. It is a _persistent will_, which multiplies one's strength ahundredfold, makes Pentecost possible again, and enables us to achievethe goal which the vision of our heart sees. The only obstacle to thisall-conquering faith is selfishness, the only mortal enemy isself-will. [11]

There have been, Castellio holds, progressive stages in the Divineeducation of the race, and in man's apprehension of God. The mark ofadvance is always found in the progress from law and letter to spirit, and from {101} outward practices and ceremonies to inward experience. Divine revelations can always be taken at different levels. They canbe seen in a literal, pictorial, temporal way, or they can be readdeeper--by those who are purified by faith and love, and made partakersof the self-giving Life of God--as eternal and spiritual realities. The written word of God is the garment of the Divine Thought which isthe real Word of God. It takes more than eyes of flesh to see throughthe temporal garment to the inner Life and Spirit beneath. Only theperson who has in himself the illumination of the same Spirit that gavethe original revelation can see through the garment of the letter tothe eternal message, the ever-living Word hidden within. [12] In theChristianity of the full-grown spiritual man, sacraments and everythingexternal must be used only as pictorial helps and symbolic suggestionsfor the furtherance of spiritual life. Within us, as direct offspringof God, as image of God, there is a Divine Reason, which existed beforebooks, before rites, before the foundation of the world, and will existafter books and rites have vanished, and the world has gone to wreck. It can no more be abolished than God Himself can be. It was by thisthat Jesus Christ, the Son of God--called, in fact, Logos of God--livedand taught us how to live. It was in the Light of this that Hetranscended books and rites and declared, without quoting text, "God isSpirit and thou shalt worship God in spirit and in truth. " This Reasonis in all ages the right investigator and interpreter of Truth, eventhough time changes outward things and written texts grow corrupt. [13]

As his life was drawing to a close, he sent forth anonymously anotherpowerful prophet-call for the complete liberation of mind andconscience. Ten years before the awful deeds of St. Bartholomew's Day, he issued his little French book with the title _Conseil à la Francedésolée_--Counsel {102} to France in her Distress. It is a calm andpenetrating diagnosis of the evils which are destroying the life ofFrance and working her desolation. It throbs with noble patriotism andis full of real prophetic insight, though he spoke to deaf ears andwrote for blind eyes. The woes of France--her torn and distractedcondition--are mainly due to the blind and foolish method of attemptingto force intelligent men to accept a form of religion which in theirhearts they do not believe is true. There can be no united people, strong and happy, until the blunder of compelling conscience entirelyceases. He pleads in tenderness and love with both religious parties, Catholics and Evangelicals, to leave the outgrown legalism of Moses andgo to the Gospels for a religion which leads into truth and freedom. "O France, France, " he cries--as formerly a greater One had said, "OJerusalem, Jerusalem"--"my counsel is that thou cease to compel men'sconsciences, that thou cease to kill and to persecute, that thou grantto men who believe in Jesus Christ the privilege of serving Godaccording to their own innermost faith and not according to some oneelse's faith. And you, that are private people, do not be so ready tofollow those who lead you astray and push you to take up arms and killyour brothers. And Thou, O Lord our Saviour, wilt Thou give to us allgrace to awake and come to our senses before it is forever too late. I, at least, have now done my duty and spoken my word of truth. " St. Bartholomew's Day was the answer to this searching appeal, and theland, deaf to the call of its prophet, was to become more "desolate"still. 

Just as the storm of persecution that had been gathering around him foryears was about to burst pitilessly upon him in 1563, he quietly died, worn out in body, and "passed to where beyond these voices there ispeace. " His students in the University of Basle, where, in spite ofthe opposition from Geneva, he had been Professor of Greek for tenyears, bore his coffin in honour on their shoulders to his grave, andhis little band of disciples devoted themselves to spreading, inHolland and wherever {103} they could find soil for it, the preciousseed of his truth, which had in later years a very wide harvest. [14]

He was not a theologian of the Reformation type. He did not think thethoughts nor speak the dialect of his contemporaries. They need not beblamed for thanking God at his death nor for seeing in him anarch-enemy of their work. They were honestly working for one goal, andhe was as honestly living by the light of a far different ideal. Thespiritual discipline of the modern world was to come through theirlaborious systems, but he, anticipating the results of the travail andthe slow spiral progress, and seeing in clear vision the triumph ofman's liberated spirit, with exuberant optimism believed that thereligion of the Spirit could be had for the taking--and he stretchedout his hand for it!

"I am, " he cried out beneath the bludgeons, "a poor little man, morethan simple, humble and peaceable, with no desire for glory, onlyaffirming what in my heart I believe; why cannot I live and say myhonest word and have your love?" The time was not ready for him, buthe did his day's work with loyalty, sincerity, and bravery, and seen inperspective is worthy to be honoured as a hero and a saint. [15]

[1] F. Buisson, _Sébastien Castellion, sa vie et son oeuvre_ (Paris, 1892), 2 vols. ; Charles Jarrin, _Deux Oubliés_ (Bourg, 1889); ÉmileBroussoux, Sébastien Castellion, sa vie, ses oeuvres, et sa théologie(Strasbourg, 1867); A. Schweizer, _Die protestantischen Centraldogmen_(Zürich, 1854), pp. 311-373. 

[2] _Dialogi sacri, latino-gallici, ad linguas moresque puerorumformandos_. Liber primus. Genève, 1543. 

[3] There were at least three English translations--1610, 1715, and1743. 

[4] Buisson, _op. Cit. _ i. P. 205. 

[5] His Latin Bible appeared in 1551 and the French Bible in 1555. During this period he also brought out a new edition of his "SacredDialogues, " an edition of Xenophon, a translation of the SibyllineOracles, a Latin poem on Jonah, and a Greek poem on John the Baptist, the Forerunner. 

[6] Calvin, in striking contrast, had written to the same boy-king in1548: "Under the cover of the Gospel, foolish people would throweverything into confusion. Others cling to the superstitions of theAntichrist at Rome. _They all deserve to be repressed by the swordwhich is committed to you_. "

[7] Beza called it "diabolical doctrine. "

[8] He selected as the title of this book the opprobrious word whichCalvin had used in the charge--_Harpago_, _i. E. _ "Boat-hook. "

[9] This MS. Is in the Bibliothèque de l'Église des Remontrants inRotterdam. I have used only the extracts given from it in Buisson andJarrin. 

[10] The main lines of Castellio's Christianity can be found in his_Dialogi quatuor_: (i. ) De praedestinatione, (ii. ) De electione, (iii. )De libero arbitrio, (iv. ) De fide (Gouda, 1613) and in his _Scriptaselecta_. (1596). 

[11] For Faith see _De fide and De arts dub. _ ii. 212. 

[12] This idea comes out in his Preface to the Bible, in his _Moseslatinus_, and in his manuscript work, _De arte dubitandi_. 

[13] _De arte dubitandi_. 

[14] Under the nom-de-plume of John Theophilus, Castellio translatedthe _Theologia Germanica_ into Latin, and published it with anIntroduction. His translation carried this "golden book" of mysticalreligion into very wide circulation, and became a powerful influence, especially in England, as we shall see, in reproducing a similar typeof religious thought. 

The Quaker William Caton, who spent the latter part of his life inHolland, cites Castellio seven times in his Tract, _The Testimony of aCloud of Witnesses, who in their Generation have testified against thathorrible Evil of Forcing of Conscience and Persecution about Matters ofReligion_ (1662), and he seems very familiar with his writings. Healso cites Schwenckfeld and Franck on pp. 37 and 17 respectively. 

[15] Castellio's plea for toleration, _Traité des Hérétiques à savoir, si on les doit persécuter_ (Rouen, 1554), has just been reissued inattractive form in Geneva, edited by Olivet and Choisy. 

{104}

CHAPTER VII

COORNHERT AND THE COLLEGIANTS--A MOVEMENT FOR SPIRITUAL RELIGION IN HOLLAND

The struggle for political liberty in the Netherlands forms one of themost dramatic and impressive chapters in modern history, but the story ofthe long struggle in these same Provinces for the right to believe and tothink according to the dictates of conscience is hardly less dramatic andimpressive. Everybody knows that during the early years of theseventeenth century Holland was the one country in Europe which furnishedcities of refuge for the persecuted and hunted exponents of unpopularfaiths, and that the little band of Pilgrims who brought their preciousseed to the new world had first preserved and nurtured it in a safeasylum among the Dutch; but the slow spiritual travail that won this soulfreedom, and the brave work of spreading, on that soil, a religion ofpersonal insight and individual experience are not so well known. [1] Thegrowth and development of this great movement, with its numerousramifications and differentiations, obviously cannot be told here, butone or two specimen lines of the movement will be briefly studied for thelight they throw upon this general type of religion under consideration, and for their specific influence {105} upon corresponding spiritualmovements in England and America. 

The silent propagation and germination of religious ideas in lands faraway from their original habitat, their sudden appearance in a new spotlike an outbreak of contagion, are always mysterious and fascinatingsubjects of research. Some chance talk with a disciple plants the seed, or some stray book comes to the hand of a baffled seeker at the momentwhen his soul is in a suggestible state, and lo! a new vision is createdand a new apostle of the movement is prepared, often so inwardly andmysteriously that to himself he seems to be "an apostle not of men nor byman. " One of the earliest Dutch exponents and interpreters of this typeof spiritual religion which we have been studying as a by-product of theReformation in Germany, and one who became an apostle of it because at acritical period of his life the seeds of it had fallen into his awakenedmind, was Dirck Volckertsz Coornhert. [2]

He was born in Amsterdam in 1522. He perfected himself as expert incopper-plate engraving and etching, and intended to pursue a quiet careerin his adopted city of Haarlem, but he found himself disturbed with"intimations clear of wider scope. " A keen desire to go back to theoriginal sources of religious truth and to read the New Testament and theFathers in their own tongue induced him to learn Greek and Latin after hewas thirty years of age. He possessed excellent gifts and naturalabilities of mind, and he soon had an enviable reputation for skill andlearning. Like Sebastian Franck, whom he resembled in many points, hewas profoundly interested in history and in the stages of man'shistorical development, and, like the former, he undertook thetranslation of great masterpieces which expressed the ideas thatpeculiarly suited his own temper of mind, such as Boethius' _Consolationof Philosophy_; Cicero, _On Duties_; and Erasmus' _Paraphrases of the NewTestament_. He was throughout {106} his life deeply influenced byErasmus, and his writings show everywhere a very strong humanisticcolouring. It was no accident that one of his most important literaryworks was on Ethics ("Sittenkunst"), for his primary interest centred inman and in the art of living well ("Die Kunst wohl zu leben"). [3]

As he developed into independent manhood, he threw himself with greatzeal into the cause of political freedom for the city of Haarlem, onaccount of which he suffered a severe imprisonment in the Hague in 1560, and at a later time was compelled to flee into temporary exile. Heattracted the attention of William of Orange, who discovered hisabilities and made him Secretary to the States-General in 1572, prizedhim highly for his character and abilities, commissioned him to writeimportant state papers, and intrusted very weighty affairs to him. 

In his youth he had been an extensive traveller and had seen with his owneyes the methods which the Spanish Inquisition employed to compeluniformity of faith and, with his whole moral being revolting from theseunspiritual methods, he dedicated himself to the cause of liberty ofreligious thought, and for this he wrote and spoke and wrought with afearlessness and bravery not often surpassed. [4] With this passion ofhis for intellectual and spiritual freedom was joined a deeply groundeddisapproval of the fundamental ideas of Calvinism, as he found itexpounded by the preachers and theologians of the Reformed Church inHolland. As a Humanist, he was convinced of man's freedom of will, andhe was equally convinced that however man had been marred by a _fall_from his highest possibilities, he was still possessed of native giftsand graces, and bore deep within himself an unlost central being, whichin all his wanderings joined him indissolubly to God. On the greattheological {107} issues of the day he "disputed, " with penetratinginsight, against the leading theologians of the Netherlands, and healways proved to be a formidable antagonist who could not be put down orkept refuted. Jacobus Arminius, at the turning of his career, wasselected by the Consistory to make once for all a refutation ofCoornhert's dangerous writings. He, however, became so impressed, as hestudied the works which he was to refute, that he shifted his ownfundamental points of belief, accepted many of Coornhert's views, andbecame himself a greater "heretic" and a more dangerous opponent ofCalvinism than the man whom he was chosen to annihilate. [5]

Sometime in his religious development--it is impossible to settleprecisely when or where--he read the writings of the spiritual Reformers, and received from them formative influences which turned him powerfullyto the cultivation of inward religion for his own soul and to theexpression and interpretation of a universal Christianity--a Christianityof the inward Word and of an invisible Church. The lines of similaritybetween many of his views and those of Franck are so marked that no onecan doubt that he read the books and meditated upon the bold teachings ofthis solitary apostle of the invisible Church. In fact he frequentlymentions Franck by name in his writings and quotes his views. It iscertain, too, that he admired, loved, and translated the writings ofSebastian Castellio, the French Humanist, first an admirer and thenopponent of Calvin, pioneer defender of freedom of thought, and exponentof inward and spiritual religion of the type of the German SpiritualReformers, [6] and it is unmistakable that we have, in this Dutchself-taught scholar, a virile interpreter of this same type ofChristianity, marked with his own peculiar variation, and penetrated withthe living convictions of his personal faith and first-hand experience. While putting emphasis on personal experience and on inward insight henevertheless, like Franck, was suspicious {108} and wary of mystical"enthusiasm" and of "private openings. " He criticized the "revelations"of David Joris and Henry Nicholas, and in place of their caprice heendeavoured to find the way to a religion grounded in the nature ofthings and of universal value. He was deeply read in the Mystics andconstantly used their terminology, but he often gave new meaning to theirwords and pursued quite a different goal from that which absorbs the truemystic. 

Coornhert makes a sharp distinction between lower knowledge and higherknowledge--knowledge proper. Lower knowledge does not get beyond imagesand copies of true reality. It is sufficient for man's practicalguidance in the affairs of this world of space and time, but it becomesonly a "dead knowledge" when it is applied to matters of eternal moment. The higher knowledge, on the other hand, is knowledge won through directexperience and practice of the will. This higher knowledge is possiblefor man because through Reason he partakes of the Word of God which isReason itself revealed and uttered, and therefore he may know God andknow of his own salvation with a certainty that far transcends the lowerknowledge which he possesses of external things, or of mere historicalhappenings. [7]

This Word of God is eternal, and is the source of all spiritual light andtruth that have come to the race in all ages. Through it the patriarchsdiscovered how to live well, even in a world of sin, and through thissame Word the prophets saw the line of march for their people, and by thepower and inspiration of this Word the written word was given as atemporary guidance, as a pedagogical help, as a lantern on men's paths, until the morning Star, Jesus Christ, the living Word, should rise andshine in men's hearts. The living Word is, thus, vastly different fromthe written word. One is essence, the other only image or shadow; one iseternal, the other is temporal; one is uncreated, the other is made; oneis the Light itself, the other is the lantern through which the {109}Light shines; one is Life itself, the other is only the witness of thisLife--the finger which points toward it. [8]

True religion is distinguished from all false or lower forms of religionin this, that true religion is always inward and spiritual, is directlyinitiated within the soul, is independent of form and letter, isconcerned solely with the eternal and invisible, and verifies itself byproducing within man a nature like that of God as He is seen in Christ. The "law" of true religion is a new and divinely formed dispositiontoward goodness--a law written in the heart; its temple is not of stoneor wood, but is a living and spiritual temple, its worship consistsentirely of spiritual activities, _i. E. _ the offering of genuine praisefrom appreciative hearts, the sacrifice of the self to God, and thepartaking of divine food and drink through living communion with Christthe Life. Religion, of this true and saving sort, never comes throughhearsay knowledge, or along the channels of tradition, or by a headknowledge of texts of the written word. It comes only with inwardexperience of the Word of God, and it grows and deepens as the will ofman lives by the Will of God, and as the kingdom of God comes, not insome far-away Jerusalem, or in some remote realm above the sky, but _in aman's own heart_. 

This true and saving religion is begun, and completed, within the soul bya process which Coornhert names by the great historic word, _faith_. Faith is the soul's free assent to the living Word of God as, throughamazing grace, it offers itself to man in the desperate straits of hislife. Man is so made that he perpetually seeks some desired satisfactionand, in his restless search for this unattained good, he tries many falseand specious trails, is endlessly baffled and deceived, and finallydiscovers, if he is fortunate enough to come to himself, that he is likea shipwrecked man on a single plank with sea everywhere about him and nohaven in sight. In this strait the Light, which he has not noted before, breaks in on his darkness, and the way of Grace is presented to him in{110} Christ. He feels himself called to a strange way of finding hisdesired satisfaction--no longer the way of flesh and worldly wisdom, butthe way of the cross, of suffering, and of sacrifice. Reason, enlightened by the Word of God, prompts him to assent; the Scriptures, laden with promises, bear their affirmative testimony, and thus he makeshis venture of faith, takes the risk of the voluntary sacrifice of hisown pleasant desires, his preference for ways of ease and comfort, hisself-will, and makes the bold experiment of trusting the Word of God, asit reveals itself to him, and of following Christ. He finds that hisfaith verifies itself at every step, his experiment carries him on intoan experience, his venture brings him to the reality he is seeking. Every stage of this pragmatic faith, which in a word is _obedience to theLight_, makes the fact and the meaning of sin clearer, at the same timemakes the knowledge of God more real and the nature of goodness moreplain, and it leads away from a superstition of fear to a religion oflove and of joy. [9]

All other religions, besides this true and inward religion of the spirit, called by Coornhert "outer or external religions, " are considered ofvalue only as preparatory stages toward the one true religion whichestablishes the kingdom of God in man's heart. With this fundamentalview, he quite naturally regards all external forms and ceremonies astemporary, and he holds that all of them, even the highest of them, arenothing else than visible signs, figures, shadows, symbols, pointing toinvisible, spiritual, eternal realities, which in their nature are fardifferent from the signs and symbols. The signs and symbols can in noway effect salvation; they can at best only suggest to the quickened soulthe true realities, to know which is salvation. The real and availingcircumcision, as the spiritual prophets and apostles always knew, was acircumcision of the heart, and not of the flesh, and so, too, the trueand availing baptism is a baptism into the life, death, and resurrectionof Christ, {111} and cleanses the soul of its sins and produces "a goodconscience toward God"--the old sinful man is buried and a new andChristlike man is raised. The same transforming effects attach to thereal communion in which the finite human spirit feeds upon its truedivine food and drink--the Life of Christ given for us. The real Sabbathis not a sacred day, kept in a ceremonial and legal sense, but rather aninward quiet, a prevailing peace of soul, a rest in the life of God fromstress and strain and passion. The Church has been pitiably torn andmutilated by disputes over the genuine form of administering these outerceremonies, supposing them to be in themselves sacraments of life. Assoon as they are recognized to be what they really are, only temporarysigns and symbols, then the main emphasis can be put where it properlybelongs, and where Christ himself always put it, on love and on thepractice of love. No ceremony, even though instituted by Christ himselfand practised with absolute correctness, can make a bad heart good, butlove--love which suffers long and is kind--flows only from a renewed andtransformed heart which already partakes of the same nature as that whichwas incarnate in Christ. Imprisonment, isolation, exile, excommunicationmay deprive one of the outward ceremonies, but neither death nor life, nor any outward circumstance in the universe, need separate the soul fromthe love of God in Christ, or deprive it of the privilege of loving![10]

Coornhert criticizes the great Reformers for having put far too weightyemphasis on externals, and he especially criticizes Calvin for havinggiven undue prominence to "pure doctrine" and to the right use ofsacraments. It is impossible, he insists, to establish authoritativelyfrom Scripture this so-called "pure doctrine. " In fact, many parts ofScripture are against the doctrine of predestination, and Scripture isalways against the doctrine of perseverance in sin. All speculationsabout the Trinity, or about the dual nature of Christ, transcend ourknowledge and should be rejected. Furthermore {112} there is noauthoritative Scripture or revelation for the new forms of the sacramentthat have been introduced by the Reformers and are being made essentialto salvation. The true Reformation, he thinks, should be devoted to theconstruction of the invisible Church, which has existed in all ages ofthe world, but which is kept from realizing its full scope and powerbecause the attention of men is too greatly absorbed with signs andsymbols and outward things. [11]

For similar reasons he disapproved of the Anabaptists, even in theirpurified form as worked out under the guidance of Menno Simons. Theystill held, as did the reformed churches, that the true Church is avisible church which every one to be a Christian must join, though thistrue Church, as they conceive it, consists only of "saints. " They claimthe authoritative right to ban all persons who, according to theiropinion, are not "saints. " This right Coornhert denies. He furtherdisapproves of their literal interpretations of the Sermon on the Mount, and of the obstacles which they put in the way of the free exercise ofprophecy on the part of the members of the community. He insists that aperson may be a Christian and yet belong to no visible church, ifmeantime he is a true member of the invisible Communion. He himselfrefrained from taking the communion supper, either with Papists, Lutherans, or Calvinists, because he said they all set the sacramentabove the real characteristic mark of Christian membership, which islove, and because there is no divine command, with distinct andunambiguous authority, for the efficacious celebration of the sacrament, which in any case could not be rightly kept so long as sectarianhostility and lack of love prevail in the contending visiblechurches. [12] Under these circumstances, Coornhert, who was intenselyconcerned for the sincere, simple-minded souls, perplexed by the maze ofvarying sects and parties, refused to found a new sect or to head a newschismatic movement. On behalf of those who could not {113} conform, hepleaded for freedom of conscience and for the right to live in the worldundisturbed as members of the invisible Church, using or omitting outwardceremonies as conscience might direct, waiting meantime and seeking inquiet faith for the coming of new and divinely commissioned apostles whowould _really reform_ the apostate Churches, unite all divided sects, andgather in the world a true Church of Christ. [13]

Meantime, while waiting for this true apostolic Church to appear, Coornhert approved of the formation of an _interim-Church_. This Church, according to his programme, would accept as truth, and as true practice, anything plainly and clearly taught in the canonical Scripture, but headvised against using glosses and commentaries made by men, since that isto turn from the sun to the stars and from the spring to the cistern. This interim-Church was to have no authoritative teachers or preachers. In place of official ministry, the members were to edify one another inChristian love, with the reservation that they would welcome furtherillumination out of the Scriptures wherever they have made a mistake orgone wrong. All persons who confess God as Father, and Jesus Christ assent by God, and who in the power of faith abstain from sins, may belongto this interim-Church. For the sake of those who are still weak andspiritually immature, he allowed the use of ceremonies in theinterim-Church, but all ceremonies are held as having no essentialfunction for salvation, and the believer is at liberty to make use ofthem or to abstain from using them as he prefers. [14]

II

Coornhert's proposed interim-Church, which at best was conceived as onlya temporary substitute for the true apostolic Church, for which everyspiritual Christian is a "waiter" or "seeker, " found actual embodiment ina very interesting movement of the early seventeenth {114} century, knownin Dutch history as the "Collegiants" or "Rynsburgers, " which we shallnow proceed to study. [15] The Collegiants had their origin in one of thestormiest of the many theological controversies which swept over theNetherlands in this critical period of religious history, a controversyarising over the views taught by Jacobus Arminius (1560-1609). The DutchProtestants who accepted his views presented a "Remonstrance" to theStates of Holland and Friesland in 1610, in which they formulated theirdeparture from strict, orthodox Calvinism. The "Remonstrance" containedfive main Articles: (1) that the divine decrees of predestination areconditioned and not absolute; (2) that the atonement is in intentionuniversal; (3) that a man cannot of himself do anything good withoutregeneration; (4) that though the Grace of God is a necessary conditionof human effort it does not act irresistibly in man; (5) that believersare able to resist sin, but are not beyond the possibility of fallingfrom Grace. The opponents to these views, often called "Gomarists, "issued a counter-blast from which they received the name"counter-Remonstrants. " The States-General passed an edict toleratingboth parties and forbidding further dispute, but the conflict of viewswould not down. It spread like a prairie fire, became complicated withpolitical issues, had its martyrdoms, and produced far-reaching resultsand consequences. [16] At the Synod of Dort, on April 24, 1619, theRemonstrants were declared guilty of falsifying religion and ofdestroying the unity of the Church, and were deposed from all theirecclesiastical and academic offices and positions. Two hundred weredeposed from the ministerial office for life, and one hundred werebanished. 

Among the number of deposed ministers was Christian {115} Sopingius, thepastor of Warmund, and the "Remonstrants, " who formed an important partof his congregation, were left without the opportunity of hearing anyministry of which they approved. In this strait Giesbert Van der Kodde, an Elder in the Warmund church, took a bold step. He was the son of aprosperous farmer who had given his children, John, William, Adrian, andGiesbert, an unusually extended education. All the sons learned Latin, Italian, French, and English, while William (known in the scholarly worldas Gulielmus Coddaeus) was a Hebrew and Oriental scholar of note, and atthe age of twenty-six was made Professor of Hebrew in the University ofLeyden. They owed the course of their religious development and theirparticular bent of mind to the writings of men like Sebastian Castellio;Coornhert, whose views have been given above; and Jacobus Acontius, theItalian humanist, who laid down the principles that no majority can makea binding law in matters of faith, that only God's Spirit in the heartsof men can certify what is the truth, and that "Confessions of Faith"have been the ruinous source of endless divisions in the Church. Deeplyimbued with the ideas of these spiritual reformers, and in sympathy asthey were with many of the views and practices of the Mennonites aboutthem, the Van der Kodde brothers decided, under the leadership of theboldest and most conscientious of them, Giesbert, to come togetherwithout any minister and hold a meeting of a free congregational type. At first the meeting was probably held in Giesbert's house, and consistedof readings from the Scripture, prayers, and the public utterance ofmessages of edification by those who formed the group. A little later a"Remonstrant" preacher was sent to care for the orphaned Church inWarmund, but Giesbert had become satisfied with the new type of meeting, and now expressed himself emphatically against listening to preachers wholived without working and at the expense of the community, and whohindered the free exercise of "prophecy. " Many of the members of theChurch did not share these views, but {116} much preferred to have thecomfort of a minister, so that a "separation" occurred, and Giesbert, with his brothers and fellow-believers, rented a house and perfectedtheir new type of congregational meeting. They soon moved their meeting(called a "Collegium, " _i. E. _ gathering) to the neighbouring town ofRynsburg, where it received additions to its adherents, largely drawnfrom the Mennonites, many of whose ideas were strongly impressed upon thelittle "Society, "--for example, opposition to taking oaths, refusal tofight, or even to take measures of self-defence, and rejection of theright of magistrates and other political officers to inflict punishment. They also adopted, as the Mennonites did, the Sermon on the Mount as thebasis of their ethical standard, which they applied with literalness andrigour. They insisted on simplicity of life, the denial of "worldly"occupations or professions, plainness of garb, rejection of the world'setiquette, absence of titles in addressing persons, and equality of menand women, even in public ministry. They introduced the practice ofimmersion ("Dompeldoop") as a mark of initiation into the Society, butthey considered true Christian baptism to be with the Spirit and not withwater, and they allowed their members a large range of liberty in the useor disuse of water baptism, as well as in the form of receiving it. Theyrejected the Supper as an ecclesiastical ceremony, but they highly prizedit as an occasion of fellowship and of group worship. Every person mightshare the supper with them if he confessed his faith in Christ and werenot living in unrepented sin, though they were inclined to excludepersons occupying offices which involved the violation of the Sermon onthe Mount. The one essential mark of fellowship was brother-love, whichwas not to be confined to the narrow limits of the Society, but thatperson was regarded the truest disciple of Christ who practised theneighbour-spirit in the broadest and most effective manner. They caredfor their own sick and poor, and they had a wide sympathy for alloppressed and suffering people. They pushed to the farthest limit {117}their opposition to war and all other forms of destroying human life. 

From the first there was a decided strain of "Enthusiasm" evident in themovement, and a pronounced tendency to encourage a ministry of "propheticopenings. " One of the original members, John Van der Kodde, declaredthat he should fear the loss of his salvation if he failed in a meetingto give utterance to the Word of God revealed to him in his inner being. They encouraged the custom of silent waiting in their gatherings as apreparation for "openings. " They proved from the fourteenth chapter of 1Corinthians that free prophecy is the highest form of ministry, and theyheld that God by His grace could pour out His Spirit upon men in theseventeenth century as well as in the days of the Apostles andEvangelists, who did their mighty work, not as Church officials, but asrecipients of gifts from God. They felt that prayer accompanied by_tears_ was true prayer, "moved" from above. They, however, were personsof scholarship and refinement, and not tumultuous or strongly emotional, but, on the contrary, they highly valued dignity and propriety ofbehaviour. 

As the movement spread, _Collegia_, or societies, were formed in Leyden, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, and in other localities, essentially like themother-society in Rynsburg, but with characteristic variations and withparticular lines of local developments. Once every year they had a largeyearly meeting in Rynsburg, to which the scattered members came from allparts of Holland where there were societies. As time went on, two markedlines of differentiation appeared in the movement, due to the trend ofthe influence of important leaders, one group emphasizing especially the_seeker-attitude_, and the other group receiving its formative influencefrom Cartesian philosophy. Daniel Van Breen, Adam Boreel, and MichaelComans were the early leaders and pillars of the Amsterdam _Collegium_, which was begun in 1645, and some years later the group was greatlystrengthened by the "convincement" of the young Mennonite doctor and{118} teacher, Galenus Abrahams, who soon became the most prominentCollegiant leader in Holland. 

Adam Boreel gave the movement a strong impetus and did much towardputting the teachings of Coornhert into practice. He was born atMiddleburg in 1603. He was a man of good scholarship, being especiallylearned in Hebrew, and he was thoroughly impregnated with the views ofthe spiritualistic Humanists of the former century, Franck, Castellio, and Coornhert, as well as with the views of the mystics, and he washimself a champion of individual religious freedom. He held that thevisible Church since the apostolic age has been astray and apostate, thatConfessions of faith, Church officers, and sacraments are without"authority, " that the uncontaminated teaching of the Holy Scripture isthe only safe norm of faith, and that until a true apostolic Church isagain established in the world by divine commission, each faithful, believing Christian should maintain meantime the worship of God in hisown way and wait in faith for a fuller revelation. [17] His mysticalpiety appears strongly in his hymns, which are preserved in his completeworks. One of these hymns of Boreel has been very freely translated intoEnglish "by a Lover of the Life of our Lord Jesus, " probably Henry More, the Platonist. More says that he finds the hymn "running much upon themortification of our own wills and of our union and communion with God, "and he loves it as a deep expression of his own faith that "no man canreally adhere to Christ, and unwaveringly, but by union to Him by HisSpirit. " I give a few extracts from More's free Translation:

 1. O Heavenly Light! my spirit to Thee draw, With powerful touch my senses smite, Thine arrows of Love into me throw With flaming dart Deep wound my heart, And wounded seize for ever, as thy right. 

{119}

 3. Do thou my faculties all captivate Unto thyself with strongest tye; My will entirely regulate: Make me thy slave, Nought else I crave For this I know is perfect Liberty. 

 5. O endless good! Break like a flood Into my soul, and water my dry earth, 6. That by this mighty power I being reft Of everything that is not One, To Thee alone I may be left By a firm will Fixt to Thee still And inwardly united into one. 

 11. So that at last, I being quite released From this strait-laced Egoity My soul will vastly be increased Into that All Which One we call, And One in itself alone doth All imply. 

 12. Here's Rest, here's Peace, here's Joy and Holy Love, The heaven is here of true Content, For those that seek the things above, Here's the true light Of Wisdom bright And Prudence pure with no self-seeking blent. 

 15. Thus shall you be united with that One, That One where's no Duality, For from that perfect Good alone Ever doth spring Each pleasant thing The hungry soul to feed and satisfy. [18]

Stoupe, in his _Religion of the Dutch_, [19] gives some interestingcontemporary light on this branch of Collegiants whom he calls"Borellists, " as follows: "The Borellists had their name from oneBorrell, the Ringleader of their {120} sect, a man very learned, especially in the Hebrew, Greek, and Latine tongues. He was brother toMonsieur Borrell, ambassador from the States-General to his mostChristian Majesty. These Borrellists do for the most part maintain theopinions of the Mennonites though they come not to their assemblies. They have made choice of a most austere kind of life, spending aconsiderable part of their Estates in almsgiving and a careful dischargeof all the duties incumbent on a Christian. They have an aversion forall Churches, as also for the use of the Sacraments, publick prayers, andall other external functions of God's Service. They maintain that allChurches which are in the world and have been since the death of theapostles and their first subsequent successors have degenerated from thepure doctrine which they preached to the world; for this reason, thatthey have suffered the infallible Word of God contained in the Old andNew Testaments to be expounded and corrupted by Doctors who are notinfallible and would have their own confessions, their catechisms, andtheir Liturgies and their sermons, which are the works of men, to passfor what they really are not, to wit, for the pure Word of God. Theyhold also that men are not to read anything but the Word of God alonewithout any additional application of men. "

Abrahams (b. 1622) intensified the _seeker_ aspect of the Amsterdamgroup, emphasizing the view that the existing Church, even in its bestform, is only an interim-Church with no saving sacraments and nocompelling authority. His position is expressed in the highly important"Nineteen Articles" which he, and his fellow-believer, David Spruyt, drewup in 1658, and in the further Exposition _Nader Verklaringe_ of 1659. These documents present the apostolic pattern or model as the ideal ofthe visible Church for all ages. There neither is nor can be any othertrue Church. It is essentially a Church managed, maintained, andgoverned through "gifts" bestowed by the Holy Spirit, and in this Churcheach spiritual member takes his part according to the measure of hisspecial "gift. " This pattern Church, however, {121} _fell away_ andbecame corrupted after the death of the apostles, and instead of thisglorious Church an external Church was established, claiming to possessauthoritative officials, saving sacraments, and infallible doctrines, butreally lacking the inward power of the apostolic Church, no longerfollowing and imitating Christ, on the contrary adopting the world's wayand the world's type of authority, and destitute of the very mark andessence of real Christianity, _the spirit of love_. Through all theapostasy of the visible Church, however, an invisible Church has survivedand preserved the eternal ideal. It consists of all those, in whateverages and lands, who have lived by their faith in Christ, have keptthemselves pure and stainless in the midst of a sinful world, havepractised love, even when they have received the buffets of hate, havelived above division and schism and sect, and have steadily believed thattheir names were written in heaven and that their Church was visible toGod, even though none on earth called them brother, or recognized theirmembership in the body of Christ. Some time, in God's good time, thatinvisible Church, which no apostasy has annulled or destroyed, willbecome once again a visible Church, equipped with "gifted" teachers andwith apostolic leaders as at the first, beautiful once more as a brideadorned for her husband, and powerful again as the irresistible sword ofthe Spirit. 

But the Reformers--Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, and even Menno Simons--havetaken an unwarranted course toward the reform and restoration of theChurch. It was within their right and power to _improve_ the unbearablecondition of the outward Church, by faithfully following the plainteaching of the New Testament, and without usurping authority. They, however, have not been satisfied to do what lay within the narrow limitsof their commission. They have ambitiously undertaken to set up again anauthoritative visible Church, even though they lacked the gifts of theSpirit for it, and were without the necessary apostolic commission. Theyinsisted on their form of sacraments as essential to salvation; they{122} drew up their infallible creeds; they set up Church officials whowere to rule over other men's faith, and they assumed a certain divineright to compel the consciences of their members. Most of the Reformershave even sanctioned the use of bonds and prisons to secure uniformity offaith! The primitive apostles claimed no such right and made use of nosuch unspiritual methods. Order is a good thing and is everywhere to besought, but God nowhere has conferred upon the heads of His Church theauthority to compel conscience or to force tender souls to submit to asystem which reveals in itself no inherent evidences of divine origin. 

The writers of these Nineteen Articles fail to see anywhere in the worlda divinely established and spiritually endowed Church of Jesus Christ. They are determined to live in purity and love, to avoid dissension andstrife, to guard their membership in the invisible Church, and to wait infaith for the outpouring of the Spirit and the bestowal of miraculousgifts for the restoration of the Church in its pristine apostolic purityand power. We have thus, here in Holland, an almost exact parallel tothe "Seekers" who were very numerous in England in the middle decades ofthe seventeenth century. 

We get a very interesting side-light on Galenus Abrahams in the _Journal_of George Fox. William Penn and George Keith held a "discussion" withthis famous Collegiant leader in 1677, at which time the latter "assertedthat nobody nowadays could be accepted as a messenger of God unless heconfirmed his doctrine by miracle, "[20] and Fox says that Abrahams was"much confounded and truth gained ground. "[21] Fox himself was notpresent at the "discussion, " but he had a personal interview withAbrahams at about the same time as the "discussion. " The interview wasnot very satisfactory. Fox says that he found this "notable teacher""very high and shy, so that he would not let me touch him nor look uponhim, but he bid me keep my eyes off him, for {123} he said they piercedhim!"[22] But at a later visit, in 1684, Fox found the Collegiantdoctor, now venerable with years, "very loving and tender. " "Heconfessed in some measure to truth, " Fox says, "and we parted verylovingly. " At a meeting, held in Amsterdam a few weeks later, Abrahamswas among the large group of attenders, and "was very attentive to thetestimony of the truth, " and, when the meeting was over, Fox says, "hecame and got me by the hand very lovingly, "[23] and seemed no longerafraid of the Quaker's "piercing eyes. " In spirit they were very neartogether, and with a little more insight on both sides the two movementsmight have joined in one single stream. For many years afterwards thecommon people, not given to nice distinctions, called the annualgathering of the Collegiants at Rynsburg "the meeting of the Quakers. "[24]

The other tendency in the movement, which received its fullest expressionin the group of Collegiants at Rynsburg and their friends in Amsterdam, had a still greater parallelism with Quakerism, in fact, the mostimportant book which came from a member of this group--_The Light on theCandlestick_--is indistinguishable in its body of ideas from Quakerteaching, and differs only in one point, that it reveals a morephilosophically trained mind in the writer than does any early Quakerbook with the single exception of Barclay's _Apology_. The author of_The Light on the Candlestick_--written originally in Dutch and publishedin 1662 under the title _Lucerna super candelabro_--was probably PeterBalling, though the book, with characteristic Collegiant modesty, waspublished anonymously. Peter Balling was one of an interesting group ofscholarly Collegiants who became very intimate friends of Baruch Spinoza, and who received from the Jewish philosopher a strong impulse towardmystical religion. Before they became acquainted with the young Spinoza, however, they had already received through Descartes a powerfulintellectual awakening, {124} and had discovered that consciousnessitself, when fully sounded, has its own unescapable evidence of God. Itis not possible here to turn aside and study adequately thisextraordinary philosophical movement known as Cartesianism, beginning inDescartes (1596-1650) and culminating in Spinoza (1632-1677), but thedistinct religious influence of it is so profoundly apparent, both inPeter Balling and in the Quaker apologist Robert Barclay (1648-1690), that a very brief review of the contribution from this source seemsnecessary. 

René Descartes, like almost every other supreme genius who has discovereda new way and has forever shifted the line of march for the race, passedthrough a momentous inward upheaval, amounting to a conversionexperience, and emerged into a new moral and intellectual world. [25] Itwas on November 10, 1619, in the midst of a great campaign during theopening stages of the Thirty Years' War, in which at this time the youngFrenchman was a soldier on the Roman Catholic side, that Descartes, sitting alone all day in a heated room of some German house, resolved tohave done with outworn systems of thought and with tradition, anddetermined to make the search for truth the object of his life. [26] Thenew scientific method, which was the fruit of his reflections andexperiments, and which has since been carried into every field of humanresearch, does not now concern us. The feature of his philosophy whichimpressed these serious seekers after God was his fresh discovery of whatis involved in the nature of self-consciousness. Beginning with the boldresolution to accept nothing untested, to doubt everything in theuniverse that can be doubted, and to receive as truth only that whichsuccessfully resists every attempt to doubt it, he found one absolutelysolid point with which to start, in the self-existence ofself-consciousness--"At least I who am doubting am thinking, and to thinkis to exist. " {125} Pushing his search deeper down to see what is furtherinvolved in the constitution of this self-consciousness, he discovered aconsciousness of God--the idea of an infinitely perfect Being--withinhimself, and this consciousness of God seemed to him to be the underlyingcondition of every kind of knowledge whatever. It turns out to beimpossible, he believes, to think of the "finite" without contrasting it, in implication at least, with the "infinite" which is therefore inconsciousness, just as it is impossible to talk of "spaces" withoutpresupposing the one space of which given "spaces" are parts. That weare oppressed with our own littleness, that we "look before and after andsigh for what is not, " that we are conscious of finiteness, means that wepartake in some way of an infinite which reveals itself in us by aninherent necessity of self-consciousness. There are, then, some ideaswithin us--at least there is this one idea of an infinitely perfectreality--_implanted_ in the very structure of our thinking self, whichcould have come from no other source but from God, who is that infinitelyperfect Reality. Other things may still be doubtful, and a tinge ofuncertainty may rest upon everything external to the mind that perceivesthem, but _the soul and God are sure_, and, of these two certainties, Godis as sure as the soul itself, because an idea of Him is native to thesoul as a necessary part of its "furnishings, " and is the condition ofthinking anything at all. [27]

Spinoza, though bringing to his philosophy elements which are foreign toDescartes, and though fusing his otherwise mathematical and logicalsystem with the warmth and fervour of mystical experience that is whollylacking in the French philosopher, carried Cartesianism to its logicalculmination, and has given the world one of the most impressivepresentations that ever has been given of the view that all things centrein God and are involved in His existence, that it belongs to the verynature of the {126} human mind to know God, and that all peace andfelicity come from "the love of an infinite and eternal object whichfeeds the soul with changeless and unmingled joy. " He, too, had hisconversion-awakening which took him above the love of earthly things, andthrough it he found an unvarying centre for his heart's devotion, whichmade his life, outwardly extremely humble, inwardly one of the noblestand most saintly in the history of philosophy. "After experience hadtaught me, " he writes in the opening of his early _Treatise on theImprovement of the Understanding_, "that all things which are ordinarilyencountered in common life are vain and futile~. ~. ~. I at lengthdetermined to inquire if there were anything which was a TRUE GOOD, capable of imparting itself, and by which alone the mind could beaffected to the exclusion of all else; whether, indeed, anything existedby the discovery and acquisition of which I might have continuous andsupreme joy to all eternity, " and the remainder of his life waspenetrated by a noble passion for the Eternal, and dedicated to theinterpretation of the Highest Good which he had discovered, and whichhenceforth no rival good was ever to eclipse. Dr. A. Wolf well says ofhim: "His moral ardour seems almost aglow with mystic fire, and if we maynot call him a priest of the most high God, yet he was certainly aprophet of the power which makes for righteousness. "[28] He is givinghis own experience in the spiritual principle which he laid down early inhis life: "So long as we have not such a clear idea of God as shall uniteus with Him in such a way that it will not let us love anything besideHim, we cannot truly say that we are united with God, so as to dependimmediately on Him. "[29]

It is Spinoza's primary principle that the only Reality in the universeis an all-inclusive Reality which is the origin, source, and explanationof all that is. All human experience, either of an inward or outwardworld, if it is to have any meaning and reality at all, involves the{127} existence of this inclusive Whole of Reality, that is of God. Itbelongs, thus, fundamentally to the nature of human consciousness to knowGod, for if we did not know Him we should not know anything else. Themoment a "finite thing" or a "finite idea" is severed from the Whole inwhich it has its ground and meaning, it becomes _nothing_; it is "real"only so long as it is a part of a larger Reality, and so every attempt tounderstand a "flower in a crannied wall, " or any other object in theuniverse, drives us higher up until we come at last to that which is the_prius_ of all being and knowledge, the explanation of all that is. 

But this ultimate Reality up to which all our experience carries us--ifwe take the pains to think out what is involved in the experience--is nomere sum of "finites, " no bare aggregation of "parts, " no heaped-uptotality of separate "units. " It is an Absolute Unity which binds allthat is into one living, organic Whole, a Divine Nature, --_naturanaturans_ Spinoza calls it, --and which lives and is manifested in all thefinite "parts, " in so far as they are real at all. And as soon as themind finds itself in living unity with the eternal Nature of things, andviews all things from their centre in God, and sees how all objects andevents flow from the eternal Being of God, it is "led as by the hand toits highest blessedness. "[30] The complications of Spinoza's system, andthe difficulty of finding a "way down" from the Absolute Unity of God tothe differentiation of the modes of a world--_natura naturata_--here, inspace and time, do not now concern us. 

The point of contact between Spinoza and the spiritual movement which weare studying is found in his central principles that God is the _prius_of all finite reality, that to know things or to know one's own mindtruly is to know God, and that a man who has formed a pure love for theeternal is above the variations of temporal fortune, is not disturbed inspirit by changes in the object of his love, but loves with a love whicheternally feeds the soul with joy. 

{128}

During the most important period of his intellectual and spiritualdevelopment, Spinoza spent three years (1660-1663) in the quiet villageof Rynsburg, living in close and intimate contact with his Collegiantfriends. It was here during these happiest years of his life, in thisquiet retreat and surrounded with spiritually-minded men with whom he hadmuch in common, that he wrote his _Short Treatise on God, Man and HisWell-Being_, as well as his _Treatise on the Improvement of theUnderstanding_, which opens with his account of the birth of his ownspiritual passion. These intellectual and high-minded Collegiants hadtheir influence upon the philosopher, and he in turn had a deep influenceupon them. Peter Balling translated into Dutch in 1664 Spinoza's versionof Descartes' _Principia_, and Balling turned to his friend Spinoza forconsolation in his great loss occasioned by the death of his child thatsame year, [31] while the philosopher at his death left all hisunpublished manuscripts to another life-long intimate Collegiant friendof his, John Rieuwertsz. 

_The Light on the Candlestick_, to which we shall now turn for the ripestideas of the little sect, was written while Spinoza was living among theCollegiants in Rynsburg. It was very quickly discovered by the Quakers, who immediately recognized it as "bone of their bone, " and circulated itas a Quaker Tract. It was translated into English in 1663 by B. F. , [32]who published it with this curious title-page: "The Light upon theCandlestick. Serving for Observation of the Principal things in the Bookcalled, _The Mystery of the Kingdom of God, &c. Against severalProfessors, Treated of, and written by Will Ames_. Printed in Low Dutchfor the Author, 1662, and translated into English by B. F. "

The Collegiant author, quite in the spirit and style of Spinoza, urgesthe importance of discovering a central love for "things which aredurable and incorruptible, " "knowing thereby better things than those towhich the {129} multitude are link't so fast with love. " We haveoutgrown the "toyes with which we played as children, " there is now "nodesire or moving thereunto, because we have found better things for ourminds"; so, too, "all those things in which men, even to old age, so muchdelight" would seem like "toyes" if they once discovered the true Light"which abides forever unchangeable, " and if through it they got a sightof "those things which are alone worthy to be known. " This "true andlasting change, " from "toyes" to "the things which are durable andeternal, " can come only through an inward conversion. When a new visionbegins from within, then the outward action follows of itself, but no manwill part with what he judges best till he sees something better, andthen the weaker yields to the stronger without any forcing. [33] Thiswhole work of conversion, of transformation, of "lasting change, " musthave its origin in something within ourselves. We cannot turn frombaubles and "toyes" and our "desire for that which is high in the world"until a Light from some source plainly shows us an eternal reality forwhich we may "highly adventure the tryal. " There is, our author insists, only one place where such a guiding Light could arise, and that is withinthe soul itself, as an inward and immediate knowledge: "'Tis not far toseek. We direct thee to within thyself. Thou oughtest to turn into, tomind and have regard unto, that which is within thee, to wit, the Lightof Truth, the true Light which enlighteneth every man that cometh intothe world. Here 'tis that thou must be and not without thee. Here thoushalt find a Principle certain and infallible, through which increasingand going on into, thou mayest at length arrive unto a happy condition. Of this thou mayest highly adventure the tryal. And if thou happenest tobe one of those that would know all things before thou dost begin~. ~. ~. Know this, Thou dost therein just as those that would learn to readwithout knowing the Letters. He that will not adventure till he be fullysatisfied, shall never begin, much less finish {130} his own salvation. We say then, that we exhort every one to turn unto the Light that's inhim. "[34]

In true Cartesian fashion, he demonstrates why this Light must have itslocus within the soul and not in some external means or medium. Allknowledge that God is being revealed in external signs, or throughexternal means, already presupposes a prior knowledge of God. We canjudge no doctrine, no Book to be Divine except by some inward andimmediate knowledge of what really is Divine. Without this Light theScriptures are only Words and Letters. But "if we experience that theBook called the Bible in regard to the Divine doctrine therein comprisedhath such a harmony with That [in us] by which God is known, that He mustneeds have been the Author of it, there cannot rationally be any morepowerful demonstration. "[35]

The same principle is true with regard to every conceivable form ofrevelation which could be made to our outward senses, whether by words, or by miracles, or by any other visible "operations. " No finite thingcan bring us a knowledge of God unless we already have within us asufficient knowledge of Him to make us able to appreciate and judge theDivine character of the particular revelation; that is to say, we mustalready have God in order either to seek Him or to find Him; or, asBalling puts it, "Unless the knowledge of God precedes, no man candiscern Him. " God is, therefore, the prius of all knowledge: "Theknowledge of God must first be, before there can be knowledge of anyparticular things, "[36] and God must be assumed as present in the soulbefore any basis of truth or of religion can be found. "The Light is thefirst Principle of Religion; for, seeing there can be no true Religionwithout the knowledge of God, and no knowledge of God without this Light, Religion must necessarily have this Light for its first Principle. "[37]"Without thyself, O Man, " he concludes, "thou hast no {131} means to lookfor, by which thou mayest know God. Thou must abide within thyself; tothe Light that is in thee thou must turn thee; there thou wilt find itand nowhere else. God is nearest unto thee and to every man. He thatgoes forth of himself to any creature, thereby to know God, departs fromGod. God is nearer unto every man than himself, because He penetratesthe most inward and intimate parts of man and is the Life of the inmostspirit. Mind, therefore, the Light that is in thee. "[38]

This Light--the first Principle of all Religion--is also called in thislittle Book by many other names. It is "the living Word, " "the Truth ofGod, " "the Light of Truth"; it is "Christ"; it is the "Spirit. "[39] As aDivine Light, it reproves man of sin, shows him that he has strayed fromGod, accuses him of the evil he commits. It leads man into Truth, "eventhough he has never heard or read of Scripture"; it shows him the way toGod; it gives him peace of conscience in well-doing; and, if followed andobeyed, it brings him into union with God, "wherein all happiness andsalvation doth consist. "[40] It operates in all men, though in many menthere are serious "impediments" which hinder its operations--"the lets toit are manifold"--but as soon as a man turns to it and cleanses his innereye--removes the "lets"--he discovers "a firm foundation upon which hemay build stable and enduring things: A Principle whereby he may, withoutever erring, guide the whole course of his life, how he is to carryhimself toward God, his Neighbour and himself. "[41] The writer, havingthus delivered his message, wishes to have it distinctly understood thathe is not trying to draw his readers to any new sect, or to any outwardand visible church. "Go to, then, O Man, " he says, "whoever thou art, wewill not draw thee off from one heap of men to carry thee over untoanother, 'tis somewhat else we invite thee to! We invite thee toSomething which may be a means to attain thy own {132} salvation andwell-being membership in the invisible Church. "

Such is the teaching of this strange little book, written by the friendof Spinoza, and revealing the maturest expression of this slowlydeveloping spiritual movement, which began with Hans Denck and floweduninterruptedly through many lives and along many channels and burst outfull flood in England in "the Children of the Light, " who were known tothe world as Quakers. 

[1] Three important books on this subject are C. B. Hylkema, _Réformateurs_ (Haarlem, 1902); Dr. Heinrich Heppe, _Geschichte desPietismus und der Mystik in der reformirten Kirche, namentlich derNiederlande_ (Leiden, 1879); and Wilhelm Goeters, _Die Vorbereitung desPietismus in der reformierten Kirche der Niederlande_ (Leipzig, 1911). 

[2] The biographical details of his life are given in a Preface to thethree-volume edition of his collected works, published in Amsterdam in1631. 

[3] The title of this work is _Zedekunst, dat is, Wellevens Kunst, vermits waarheydts kennisse vanden Mensche, vande Zonden ende vandeDeughden. Nu aldereerst beschreven in't Neerlandtsch_. Coornhert's_Wercken_ (1631), i. Fol. 268-3353. 

[4] Two of his powerful pleas for the freedom of the mind are, _Epitomeprocessus de occidendis haereticis et vi conscientiis inferenda_ (Gouda, 1591), and _Defensio processus de non occidendis haereticis_ (Hannover, 1593). 

[5] Gottfried Arnold, _Kirchen- und Ketzer-Historien_, ii. P. 378, sec. 3. 

[6] See Chap. VI. 

[7] _Zedekunst_, chaps. I. And ii. 

[8] _Zedekunst_, chaps. Iv. And v. 

[9] Wercken, iii. Fol. 413-427. See also "Hert-Spiegel godlyckerSchrifturen, " _Wercken_, i. Fol. 1-44. 

[10] _Wercken_, iii. Fol. 413-427. 

[11] See Arnold, _op. Cit. _ ii. P. 380, sec. 8. 

[12] His views in this particular are very similar to those ofSchwenckfeld. 

[13] Arnold, _op. Cit_. Pp. 381-382. 

[14] _Wercken_, i. Fol. 554 ff. 

[15] The best history of the Collegiants is J. C. Van Sloe's _DeRijnsburger Collegianten_ (Haarlem, 1895). 

[16] One of the most tragic consequences of the controversy was themartyrdom of John of Barneveldt, the political head of the Remonstrants. Hugo Grotius was thrown into prison, but escaped through the boldingenuity of his wife. 

[17] Adam Boreel's teaching is set forth in his treatise, _Ad. Legem ettestimonium_ (Amsterdam, 1643). Information upon his life and teachingis given in Arnold, _op. Cit. _ ii. 386-387; in Hylkema, _Reformateurs_;and in Walter Schneider, _Adam Boreel_ (Giessen, 1911). 

[18] Henry More's _Annotations upon the Discourse of Truth_ (London, 1682), pp. 271-276. 

[19] Stoupe, _La Réligion des Hollandois_ (Paris, 1673), translated intoEnglish under the title _The Religion of the Dutch_ (London, 1680). Theextract is from p. 82 of the French edition and pp. 26-28 of the Englishedition. 

[20] Sewel, _History of the People called Quakers_ (Phila. Edition, 1823), ii. P. 368. 

[21] _Journal_, (ed. 1901), ii. P. 310. 

[22] _Journal_, ii. P. 401. 

[23] _Ibid. _ ii. Pp. 401-402. 

[24] Simeon Friderich Rues, _Mennoniten und Collegianten_ (Jena, 1743), p. 244. 

[25] See E. S. Haldane, _Descartes, His Life and Times_ (1905), pp. 51-53. 

[26] The autobiographical account of this experience is given in theopening of part ii. Of the _Discourse on Method_. 

[27] Descartes' famous argument is found in Meditations III. And IV. Ofhis _Meditations on First Philosophy_, first published in 1641. For anilluminating interpretation of the entire movement, see Edward Caird'sEssay on Cartesianism in _Essays on Literature and Philosophy_ (1892), ii. Pp. 267-383. 

[28] Spinoza, _Short Treatise on God, Man, and his Well-Being_, Wolf'sedition (London, 1910), p. 102. 

[29] _Ibid. _ p. 40. 

[30] _Ethics_, part ii. Preface. 

[31] See Spinoza's _Correspondence_, Letter No. XXX. 

[32] Benjamin Furley, a Quaker merchant of Colchester, then living inRotterdam. 

[33] _The Light upon the Candlestick_, p. 8, freely rendered. 

[34] _The Light upon the Candlestick_, pp. 3-4. 

[35] _Op. Cit. _ p. 10. He uses also the Cartesian argument that theremust at least be as much reality in the cause as there is in the effect, p. 12. 

[36] _Op. Cit. _ p. 12. 

[37] _Ibid. _ p. 6. 

[38] _The Light upon the Candlestick_, pp. 12-13. 

[39] _Ibid. _ pp. 4 and 9. 

[40] _Ibid. _ p. 5. 

[41] _Ibid. _ p. 6. 

{133}

CHAPTER VIII

VALENTINE WEIGEL AND NATURE MYSTICISM

It is a central idea of mysticism that there is a way to God throughthe human soul. The gate to Heaven is thus kept, not by St. Peter orby any other saint of the calendar; it is kept by each individualperson himself as he opens or closes within himself the spiritualcircuit of connection with God. The door into the Eternal swingswithin the circle of our own inner life, and all things are ours if welearn how to use the key that opens, for "to open" and "to find God"are one and the same thing. The emphasis in "Nature Mysticism" liesnot so much on this direct pathway to God through the soul as upon thesymbolic character of the world of Nature as a visible revelation of aninvisible Universe, and upon the idea that man is a microcosm, a littleworld, reproducing in epitome, point for point, though in miniature, the great world, or macrocosm. On this line of thought, _everything isdouble_. The things that are seen are parables of other things whichare not seen. They are like printed words which _mean_ somethingvastly more and deeper than what the eye sees as it scans mere letters. One indwelling Life, one animating Soul, lives in and moves through thewhole mighty frame of things and expresses its Life through visiblethings in manifold ways, as the invisible human soul expresses itselfthrough the visible body. Everything is thus, in a fragmentary way, afocus of revelation for the Divine Spirit, whose garment is this vastweb of the visible world. But man in a very special way, as a completemicrocosm, is a concentrated extract, a {134} comprehensivequintessence of the whole cosmos, visible and invisible--an image ofGod and a mirror of the Universe. 

These views have a very ancient history and unite many strands ofhistoric thought. They came to light in the sixteenth century with therevival through Greek literature of Stoic, Neo-Platonic, andNeo-Pythagorean ideas. But the Greek stream of thought as it nowreappeared was fused with streams of thought from many othersources--medieval mysticism, Persian astrology, Arabian philosophy, andthe Jewish Cabala, which, in turn, was a fusing of many elements--andthe mixture was honestly believed to be genuine, revived Christianity, and Christ, as the new Adam, is throughout the central Figure of thesesystems. 

Marsilius Ficino, the Italian Humanist, who translated Plato and thewritings of the Neo-Platonists into Latin and so made them current forthe readers of the sixteenth century, gave a profoundly mysticalcolouring to the revived classical philosophy and identified it withpure and unadulterated Christianity. [1] His contemporary, Pico ofMirandola (1463-94), joined the teachings of the Cabala with hisNeo-Platonized Christianity and so produced a new blend. JohannReuchlin (1455-1522), great German classical and Hebrew scholar, braveopponent of obscurantism, forerunner of the Reformation, introduced theNeo-Platonic and Cabalistic blend of ideas into German thought. 

The Cabala, it may be said briefly, in the primary meaning of the word, is the doctrine received by oral tradition as an important supplementto the written Jewish Scriptures, but the Cabala as we know it is anesoteric system which was formed under the influence of many streams ofancient thought-systems, and which came into vogue about the thirteenthcentury, though its devout adherents claimed that it had been orallytransmitted through the intervening ages from Adam in Paradise. According to the teaching of the Cabala, the original Godhead, called_En-Soph_, the Infinite, is in essence {135} incomprehensible andimmutable, and capable of description only in negations. God, theEn-Soph, is above and beyond contact with anything finite, material, orimperfect. It would be blasphemous to suppose that God the infinitelyperfect, God the absolutely immutable One, by direct act made a worldof matter or created a realm of existence marked with evil as thislower realm of ours is. Instead of supposing a creative act, therefore, the Cabala supposes a series of emanations, or overflows ofdivine splendour, arranged in three groups of threes, called_Sephiroth_, which reveal all that is revealable in God, and by meansof which invisible and visible worlds come into being. These_Sephiroth_, or orders of emanation, are _thoughts_ of the Wisdom ofGod become objectively and permanently real, just because He thoughtthem; and though He is vastly, inexhaustibly more than they, yet He isactually immanent in them and the ground of their being. They are (1)the intelligible world, or world of creative ideas; (2) the world ofspiritual forms, such as the hierarchies of angels, souls, and theentire universe of immaterial beings, the world of astral substance orof creative soul-matter; and (3) the natural world, in which the divineplan of Wisdom, the creative ideas, and the astral soul become visiblyand concretely revealed. Man unites all the worlds in himself, and inhis unfallen state as Adam-Cadmon combined all men in one ideal, undifferentiated Man. The visible world is full of hints and symbolsof the invisible, and the initiated learn to read the _signs_ of thingsseen, the meanings of sacred letters, and so to discover the secretsand mysteries of the inner world. The Cabala is full of unrestrainedoriental imagination, of fancies run riot, and of symbolisms ridden todeath. Its confusion of style and thought and its predilection formagic unfortunately proved contagious, and played havoc with theproductions of those who came under its spell. Its marvels, however, powerfully impressed the minds of its German readers. Through it theybelieved they were privileged to share in mysteries which had been hidfrom the creation of the world, and {136} they conceived the idea thatthey had at last discovered a clue that would eventually lead them intoall the secrets of the universe. [2]

Cornelius Agrippa of Nettesheim (1487-1535) by his writings increasedthe prevailing fascination for occult knowledge and pushed thisparticular line of speculation into an acute stage. He was a man oflarge learning and of heroic temper, and, possessed as he was ofundoubted gifts, in a different period and in a different environmenthe would, no doubt, have played a notable part in the development ofhuman thought. But he became enamoured in his youth with theadventurous quest for the discovery of Nature's stupendous secrets, andunder the spell of the Cabala, and under the influence of eagerexpectations entertained in his day by men of rank and learning, thatfresh light was about to dawn upon the ancient mysteries of the world, he took the false path of magic as the way to the conquest of the greatsecret. It was, however, not the crude, cheap magic of popular fancy, a magic of mad and lawless caprice, to which he was devoted; it was amagic grounded in the nature of the deeper inner world which hebelieved was the Soul of the world we see and touch. The Englishtranslator of Agrippa's _Occult Philosophy_ in 1651 very clearlyapprehended and stated in his quaint "Preface to the Judicious Reader, "the foundation idea of Agrippa's magic: "This is, " he says, "true andsublime Occult Philosophy--to understand the mysterious influence ofthe intellectual world upon the celestial world, and of both upon theterrestrial world, and to know how to dispose and fit ourselves so asto be capable of receiving the _superior operations of these worlds, whereby we may be enabled to operate wonderful things by a naturalpower_. "[3] That saying precisely defines Agrippa's faith. There are, he thinks, {137} three worlds: (1) the Intellectual world; (2) theCelestial, or Astral, world; and (3) the Terrestrial world; and man, who is a microcosm embodying in himself all these worlds, may, in theinnermost ground of his being, come upon a divine knowledge which willenable him to unlock the mysteries of all worlds and to "operatewonderful things. " In quite other ways than Agrippa dreamed, sciencehas found the keys to many of these mysteries, and has learned how to"operate wonderful things by a natural power. " His enthusiasm andpassion were right, but he had not learned the slow and patient andlaborious way. 

A still greater figure in this field of occult knowledge and of naturemysticism was the far-travelled man and medical genius, AureolusTheophrastus Bombast, of Hohenheim, generally known as Paracelsus. Hewas born in 1493 in the neighbourhood of Einsiedeln, not far fromZurich, the son of a physician of repute. He studied in the Universityof Basle, and later was instructed by Trithemius, Abbot of St. Jacobsat Wurtzburg, an adept in magic, alchemy, and astrology. He passed along period--probably ten years--of his later youth in travel, studyinghumanity at close range, gathering all sorts of information, forminghis theories of diseases and their cure, and learning to know Nature"by treading her Books, through land after land, with his feet, " which, he once testified, is the only way of knowing her truly. [4]

In 1525 he settled in Basle, and, on the recommendation ofOEcolampadius was appointed professor of physic, medicine, and surgeryin 1527, but his revolutionary teaching and practice, his scorn fortraditional methods, his attacks on the ignorance and greed ofapothecaries raised a storm which he could not weather, and he secretlyleft the city in 1528. Again he became a wanderer, havingextraordinary experiences of success and defeat, treating all manner ofdiseases, writing books on medicine and on the fundamental nature ofthings, and finally died at Salzburg in Bavaria in 1541. 

Paracelsus is a strange and baffling character. He had {138} much ofthe spirit of the new age, tangled with many of the ideas and fanciesof his time. His aspirations were lofty, his medical skill was uniquefor his day, he was in large measure liberated from tradition, and hewas dedicated, as Browning truly represents him, to his mission, but hewas still under the spell of "mystic" categories, and he still held thefaith that Nature's secrets were to be suddenly surprised by an inwardway and by an inward Light:

 Truth is within ourselves; it takes no rise From outward things, whate'er you may believe. There is an inmost centre in us all, Where truth abides in fulness; and around, Wall upon wall, the gross flesh hems it in, This perfect, clear perception--which is truth, A baffling and perverting carnal mesh Binds it, and makes all error: and, to KNOW, Rather consists in opening out a way Whence the imprisoned splendour may escape, Than in effecting entry for a light Supposed to be without. [5]

There are, again, in his Universe, as in the other occult systems, three elemental worlds--the spiritual or intellectual world, the astralworld or universal Soul, and the terrestrial world; and all threeworlds are man's "mothers. " Man is a quintessence of all the elements, visible and invisible. He has a spiritual essence within him which isan emanation of God; he has an astral-soul essence, from the Soul ofthe world; and he partakes, too, of the material and earthly world. His supreme aim in life should be to establish, or rather re-establish, a harmony between his own little world and the great Universe, so thatall the worlds have their right proportions in him, and so that throughhis highest essence he can win the secrets of the lower worlds--theastral and the material. To accomplish _that_ is to be spiritual, tobecome like Adam, {139} a paradisaical Man, or like Christ the newAdam. Even the lowest world is penetrated with the spiritual "seed" or"element. " The very basic substances of which it is composed--sulphur, mercury, and salt--are in essence spiritual principles, elementalforces, rather than crude matter, and the lower world is written over, like a palimpsest, with "signatures" of the divine world to which itbelongs. All doors into all the worlds of God open to faith andprayer, and he who subordinates lower elements in himself to higher haspower and potency in all realms. 

But far more important for the development of spiritual religion, andfar more important as a living link between Reformers like Denck, Schwenckfeld, and Franck of the sixteenth century, and Jacob Boehme andthe spiritual interpreters of the English Commonwealth, was ValentineWeigel, Pastor of Zschopau. Like so many of the men who figure inthese chapters, he is little known, seldom read, not a quick andpowerful name in the world, but he is worth knowing, and he was thebearer of a burning and kindling torch of truth. He was born atNaundorf, a suburb of Grossenhain, District of Meissen, in 1533. Hereceived the Bachelor's and Master's degree of the University ofLeipzig, and he pursued his studies still further in the University ofWittenberg, his study-period having continued until 1567. In theautumn of that year he was ordained and called to be Pastor ofZschopau, where he passed as a minister his entire public life, whichcame to a peaceful end in 1588. He was an ideal pastor and trueshepherd of his flock--loving them and being beloved by them. Hisministry was fresh and vital, and made his hearers _feel_ the presenceand the power of the Spirit of God. 

There was, so far as I can discover the facts, only one blemish on hisreally beautiful character. He lacked that robust, unswervingconscience which compels a man who sees a new vision of the truth toproclaim it, to champion it, and to suffer and even die for it when itcomes into collision with views which his own soul has outgrown. {140}Weigel was resolved not to have his heart's deepest faith, his mind'smost certain truth, known, at least during his lifetime, by the personswho were the guardians of orthodoxy. He signed the "Confessions" ofhis time as though they expressed his own convictions; he counted it aduty of the first importance to guard his pastoral flock from thedistractions and assaults of heresy-hunters, and he left his maturedand deeply meditated views for posterity to discover. How far he waspersonally timid cannot now be determined. It would seem, however, from his own words, [6] that he was especially concerned for the safetyand welfare of his own flock, who would suffer if he were cried down asan enthusiast or a spiritual prophet. But even so, it is very doubtfulif any man can rightly permit anything on earth to take precedence tohis own loyalty to the vision of truth which his soul sees. As aresult, however, of the course he took, he died in good odour ofsanctity, and the epigones of that day had no suspicion of the ideasthat were swarming in the mind of the quiet Pastor of Zschopau, or ofthe mass of manuscripts proclaiming his faith in the inner Word whichhe was leaving behind him, to fly over the world like the loose leavesof the Sibyl. 

His writings were not printed until 1609 and onwards, and as hisdisciples went on producing writings, somewhat in the style and spiritof the master who inspired them, the list of books in Weigel's name isconsiderably larger than the actual number of manuscripts extant at hisdeath in 1588. It is not always easy to distinguish thepseudo-writings from the genuine ones, but there is a vividness andpregnancy of style, a spiritual depth and power in the earlier writingswhich are lacking in the later group, and there is an emphasis on themagical and occult in the secondary writings that is largely absent inthe primary ones. [7] The most important of his books will be referredto and quoted from as I present his type of religion and his message, but I shall draw especially upon his little {141} book, _Von dem LebenChristi, das ist, vom wahren Glauben_ ("On the Life of Christ, or TrueFaith"), as it is the one of Weigel's writings which, in Englishtranslation, most deeply influenced kindred spirits in the EnglishCommonwealth. [8]

His spiritual conception of Christianity was formed and fed by thesermons of Tauler, and by that little book which was "the hidden Manna"for all the spiritual leaders of these two centuries--the _GermanTheology_. Weigel edited it with an introduction. He calls it "aprecious little book, " "a noble book"; but he tells his readers thatthey can understand it and find it fruitful only if they read it "witha pure eye" and with "the key of David, " _i. E. _ with a personalexperience. But while he loved the golden book of mysticism and thesermons of the great Strasbourg preacher, and was led by the hand ofthese guides, he drew also from many other sources and finally arrivedat a type of religion, still interior and personal, but less negativeand abstract than that of the fourteenth-century mystics, and morepenetrated and informed with the presence of the Christ of the Gospels. He insists always that in the last analysis it is Christ in us thatsaves us, but it was Christ in the flesh, the Christ of Galilee andGolgotha, that revealed to men the way to apprehend the inward andeternal Christ of God. "The indwelling Christ, " he wrote, "is all inall. He saves thee. He is thy peace and thy comfort. The outwardChrist, the Christ in the flesh, and according to the flesh, cannotsave thee in an external way. He must be in thee and thou must abidein Him. Why then did He become man and suffer on the Cross? There aremany reasons why, but it was especially that God by the death andsuffering of Christ might take the wrath and hostility out of _our_hearts, on account of which we falsely conceive of God as a wrathfulenemy to us. He had to deal that way with poor blind men like us andso reconcile us with Himself. {142} There was no need of it on Hispart. He was always Love and He always loved us, even when we wereenemies to Him, but we should never have known it if God had notcondescended to show Himself to us in His Son and had not suffered forus. "[9]

Weigel everywhere maintains Christ's double identity--an identity withGod, so that in Christ we see God; and an equal identity with man, sothat Christ is man revealed in his fulfilled possibilities. In Him Godand man are _one_. In this deep-lying and fundamental idea of hisentire Christianity he was undoubtedly influenced, profoundlyinfluenced, by Schwenckfeld. He presents in chapter i. Of his _Life ofChrist_ the Schwenckfeldian view that Christ is God and Man in _one_. But He is Man not in the crass, crude and earthly form: He is notcomposed of mortal and earthly substance as our "Adamical bodies" are. He is wholly and absolutely composed of heavenly, spiritual, divinesubstance. His flesh and blood are as divine and spiritual in originas is His spirit, so that His resurrection and ascension are the normaloutcome of His nature. It was as natural for Him to rise into life andto ascend into glory as it is for heavy things to fall. But thatdivine, spiritual, heavenly nature, which appeared in Him, is the true, original, consummate nature of Man. Man, as we know him, is cloudy, oreven muddy, with a vesture of decay, but that is not a feature of his_real_ nature--either in its original or its potential form--and allwho "put on Christ, " all who have "Christ in them, " become one fleshwith Him and gain an indestructible and permanent inward substance likeHis. 

Consistently with this view, Weigel declares that here lies thesignificance of Christ's saying, "I am Bread"; "I am Meat and Drink. "The only adequate Supper of the Lord, he says, is real feeding upon Hisspiritual, life-giving flesh and blood, so that Salvation is not tiedto external sacraments, but stands only in the faith that Christ feedsus with Himself. [10] There are, he proceeds to show, two radicallydiverse natures, the traits and {143} characteristics of which hearranges in opposing pairs, in two parallel columns as follows:

 A. The Nature of Christ and B. The nature of Adam and of those who live in Him those who live by him, and by Him. _i. E. _ those who live the natural, earthly life. 

 1. This Nature turns from 1. This nature turns from God creatures to God. To creatures. 

 2. This Nature hates itself and 2. This nature loves itself loves others. More than it loves God or others. 

 3. This Nature abhors all it 3. This nature delights only itself does or omits. In itself and in things of self. 

 4. This Nature seeks to lose 4. This nature seeks itself in self. Everything. 

 5. This Nature denies self. 5. This nature cleaves to self. 

 6. This Nature patiently bears 6. This nature thrusts the the Cross. Cross away. 

 15. This Nature desires to be 15. This nature desires to be conformed to Christ and equal with God without His Cross in all things. Any humility at all. [11]

Christ is thus for Weigel entirely a new order of Being--the Beginnerof a new race. Adam had in himself all the possibilities which Christrealized, but the former failed and the latter succeeded and so hasbecome the Head of a divine and heavenly type of humanity. By "a newnativity, " a rebirth from above, any man in the world who wills it inliving faith may be a recipient of the divine-principle, theChrist-Life, and may thereby be raised to membership in the Kingdom ofthe Christ-Humanity, which is as far above the Adam-Humanity as theflower is above the soil from which it first sprang. When Christ isformed within and the Humanity which He produces appears in the world, then a new way of living comes into operation. Love is the supreme"sign" of the new type or order. "The man who has the Christ-Life inhim does not quarrel; he does not go to law for temporall goods; hedoes not kill; he lets his coat and cloke go rather than opposeanother. "[12] "If Christ were of the seed of Adam, He would have the{144} nature and inclinations of Adam. He would hang thieves, beheadadulterers, rack murderers with the wheel, kill hereticks, and putcorporeally to death all manner of sinners; but now He is tender, kind, loving. He kills no one. The Lamb kills no woolf. "[13] Weigel goesthe whole bold way in his revolt from legalism, and he accepts theprinciple of love as a structural principle of the society which Christis forming in the world: "Where the Life of Christ is, there is nowarre made with corporall weapons. " "The world wars but Christ dothnot so. His warfare is spiritual. " "He that maketh warre is noChristian but a woolf, ana belongs not to the sheepfold nor hath heanything to expect of the Kingdom of God, nor may the warrs of the OldTestament, of the time of darknesse serve his turne, for Christiansdeal not after a Mosaicall, earthly fashion, but they walke in the Lifeof Christ, without all revenge. " "We walk no longer under Moses butunder Christ. "[14]

The Christian man, however, even with his new "nativity" and with hisre-created spirit of love, differs in one respect from Christ. Christis wholly heavenly, His Nature is woven throughout of spiritual anddivine substance. There is no rent nor seam in it. Man, on the otherhand, is double, and throughout his temporal period he remains double. By his new "nativity" man can become inwardly spirit though he remainsoutwardly composed of flesh. [15]

Before the "fall" Adam was unsundered from God. It was sin which madethe cleft or rent which separated God and man. Through Christ, the newand heavenly Adam, the _junction_ may be formed again in man's innerself, and once again God and man in us may be unsundered. The flesh isnot destroyed, but it ceases to be the dominating factor. It servesnow merely as the "habitation" of an invisible spirit, and it existsfor the spirit, not the spirit for it. [16] Not only is the body a{145} "habitation" for the Christ-formed soul, but the world nowbecomes to the enlightened soul an Inn for a transient guest ratherthan a permanent abiding-place: "like as in an Inne there is meat setbefore the guest and bedding is allowed to him, even so Christians arein this world guests and their country is above. " "It is not fittingfor a guest that comes into an Inne, where nothing is his own, that heshould appropriate things to himself and quarrel about them!"[17]

As fast as Christ is formed within, as the Life of one's life, thebeliever attains thereby a peace and a power which make the "rent"between flesh and spirit ever less disturbing, though it still remainsuntil the fleshly tabernacle dissolves. The goal of the spiritual lifehere on earth is the attainment of "the silent Sabbath of the soul, " inwhich God becomes so completely the soul's sufficiency that the fleshhas little scope or sway any more, and there is no longer need offurious struggle against it, "like a serpent between two rocks, tryingto pull off his old skin!"[18] In his _Heavenly Jerusalem in Us_, hesays: "It is an attribute of God that He is the Eternal Peace which islonged for by us men, but found by few because they do not _mindChrist_, who is the Way. God has not grounded either thy Peace or thySalvation on thy running hither and yon, nor on thy works and thycreaturely activities, but on an inner calm and quiet, on a Sabbath ofthe soul, in which thou canst hear, with the simple and thetender-minded, what the Lord is saying and doing. "[19]

In close conformity to the teaching of Sebastian Franck, [20] Weigelthinks of the Church of God as an invisible Assembly of all trueBelievers in the entire world, united, not outwardly but inwardly, inthe unity of the Spirit and by the bond of Love and Peace. There arefor him, as for Franck and other "Spirituals, " two kinds of churches:(1) The church composed of a visible group, {146} "to be pointed outwith the finger, " located in a definite country, allied with a temporalgovernment, held together by a body of doctrine, "tied to" certainsacraments and possessed of force to constrain men, by "carnallperswasions, " to conform. [21] Then there is (2) the real Church ofGod, "the upper Jerusalem, " a body visible in no one locality, butdispersed over the earth like wheat in chaff, held together by nodeclarations of doctrine, tied to no sacraments, dependent on noearthly Lieutenant or Vice-gerent, and on no university-trainedDoctors, which recognizes Prince and Ploughman alike, and secures itsunity through Christ and through the invisible cement of Love. "Tothis Assembly, " writes Weigel, "doe I stick; in this holy Church doe Irejoice to be. . . . Jesus Christ is my Head, my Teacher. He iseverywhere with me and in me, and I in Him. Although the Protestantsshould chase me amongst Papists or Atheists, yet I should still be inthe holy Church and should have all the heavenly Gifts common to allBelievers, and although the Papists should banish me into Turkey, yeteven there should I be in the holy Church. "[22]

No book appeared in England before 1648--the date of the translation ofWeigel's _Life of Christ_--which more closely approached the Quakerposition. That religion must have an inward seat and origin; thatdivine things must be learned of God, are taken as axiomatic truthsthroughout this book. If a man is to _see_, he must have eyes of hisown; if he is to teach, he must have the Word of God within him. People say that "there can be no true Faith without outward preachingministry. " That is not so, Weigel declares. The way to heaven is opento hungry penitent souls everywhere, although, as is the case withinfants, they may hear no sermons at all: "Faith comes by inwardhearing. Good books, outward verbal ministry have their place, theytestify to the real Treasure, they are witnesses to the inner Wordwithin us, but Faith is not tied to books; it is a new nativity which{147} cannot be found in a book. He who hath the inward Schoolmasterloseth nothing of his Salvation although all preachers should be deadand all books burned. "[23] Many take great pains to be baptized, and"to hear sermons of their hired priests, " and to use the Lord's Supper, and to read theological books, who, nevertheless, show no "spiritualprofit" therefrom. The reason is that "Truth runs into no one by apipe!"[24] "In the Church of men--the man-made Church--themeasuring-line, " or standard, he says, is the written Scripture, according to one's own interpretation, or according to books, oraccording to University men; but in the true Church the measuring-reedis the inward Word, the Spirit of Christ, within the believer. Thosewho are in the Universities and Churches of men have Christ in theirmouths, and they have a measuring-reed by their side--the inhabitantsof God's Church on the other hand have the Life of Christ and thetesting-standard within themselves. [25] Those who are "nominalprofessors" hang salvation on a literal knowledge of the merit securedby Christ's death; the true believer knows that salvation is never apurchase, is never outwardly effected, but is a new self, a new spirit, a new relation to God: "Man must cease to be what he is before he cancome to be another kind of person. "[26] Outward baptism and externalsupper may, if one wishes, be used as symbols of the soul's supremeevents, but they cannot rightly be thought of as effecting any changeof themselves in the real nature of the man; only Christ theLife-bringer, only the resident work of God within the soul, canproduce the transformation from old self to new self. "Salvation isnot tyed to sacraments. "[27]

It is a well-settled view of Weigel's that Heaven and Hell areprimarily in the soul of man. He says, in _Know Thyself_, that boththe Trees of Paradise are in us; and in his _Ort der Welt_ he declaresthat "the Eternal Hell of the lost will be their own Hell. "[28] And inhis _Christliches {148} Gespräch_ he insists that the holy Spirit, thepresent Christ, does not need to _come down_ from Heaven to meet withus, for when He is in our hearts there then is Heaven. [29] No personcan ever be in Heaven until Heaven is in him. 

In _Der güldene Griff_ and elsewhere Weigel works out a veryinteresting theory of knowledge, which fits well with the inwardness ofhis religious views. He holds that in sense perception the percipientbrings forth his real _knowledge_ from within. The external "object, "or the outward stimulus, is the soliciting occasion, or suggestion, orthe sign for the experience, but what we see is determined from withinrather than from without. All real knowledge is in the knower. Bothexternal world and written scriptures are in themselves _shadows_ untilthe inward spirit interprets them, and through them comes to the Wordof God which they suggest and symbolize. 

Weigel plainly arrived at his ground ideas under the formativeinfluence of Schwenckfeld and Franck, but he also reveals, especiallyin his conception of the deeper inner world and of the microcosmiccharacter of man, the influence of Paracelsus and of the nature mysticsof his time. He was himself, in turn, a most important influence inthe development of the religious ideas of Jacob Boehme, and he ishistorically one of the most significant men of the entire spiritualgroup before the great Silesian mystic. [30]

This chapter cannot come to a proper close without some considerationof a Weigelean book which was translated into English in 1649, underthe title, "_Astrologie Theologized_: That the Inward man by the Lightof Grace, through possession and practice of a holy life, is to beacknowledged and live in us: which is the only means to keep the trueSabbath in inward holinesse. " {149} The anonymous translator ascribesthe book to Weigel. It is, in fact. Part Two of [Greek] _GnôthiSeauton_, but it is uncertain whether it was written by Weigel himself. But whether written by Weigel or later by one of his school, it is agood illustration of the way in which mystically inclined Christians ofthat period endeavoured to make spiritual conquest of the prevailingAstrology and, through its help, to discover the nature of the inner, hidden universe. Astrology, this little book declares, is "conversantwith the secrets of God which are hidden in the natural things ofcreation. " It is the science of reading the unseen through the seen, for, according to the teaching of this book, everything visible is anunveiling of something invisible. Man--who is a centre of the wholeuniverse, who has in himself elements of all the worlds, inner andouter--"is created to be a visible Paradise, Garden, Tabernacle, Mansion, House, Temple and Jerusalem of God. " All the wisdom, power, virtue, and glory of God are hidden and are slumbering in man. Thereis nothing so near to man as God is--"He is nearer to us than we are toourselves"[31]--and the only reason we do not find Him and know Him andopen out our life _interiorly_, so that the true Sabbath comes to thesoul, is due to our "vagabond and unquiet ways of keeping busy with ourown will, outside our internal country. " If I could desist from thethings with which I vex and worry myself, and study to be at rest in myGod who dwells with me; if I could accustom my mind to spiritualtranquillity and cease to wander in a maze of thoughts, cares, andaffections; if I could be at leisure from the external things andcreatures of this world, and chiefly from myself; if, in short, I might"come into a plenary dereliction of myself, " I should at once "begin tosee and know of the most present habitation of God in me and so Ishould eat of the Tree of Life in the midst of the Paradise, _whichParadise I myself am_, and be a Guest of God. "[32] Adam, who was "theProtoplast" and begetter of all men, and who, like everything else inthe universe, was "double, " {150} allowed himself to live toward theoutward instead of toward the inward, permitted the seed of the serpentto grow in him instead of the divine seed, and so came under thedominance of the natural, elemental world, with its "lesser light" ofknowledge and with its "tree of death. " But the Paradise, with itsgreater Light of Wisdom and with its Tree of Life, is always near toman and can be repossessed and regained by him. The outer elements, and the astral world with its visible stars, _rule_ no one, determineno one. Each man's "star" is in his own breast. It lies in his ownpower to "theologize his astrologie, " to turn his universe intospiritual forces. By "a new nativity, " initiated by obedient responseto the inward Light--the spiritual Star, not of earth and not of theastral universe, but of God the indwelling Spirit--he may put on thenew man, created after the likeness of God, and become the recipient ofheavenly Wisdom springing up within him from the Life of the Spirit. [33]

There can be no question in the mind of any one who is familiar withthe literature and religious thought of seventeenth-century England, that the ideas set forth in this chapter exerted a wide and profoundinfluence, and were a part of the psychological climate of the middledecades of that century. The channel here indicated was only one ofthe ways through which these ideas came in. In due time we shalldiscover other channels of this spiritual message. 

[1] Ficino is dealt with at greater length in Chapter XIII. 

[2] The Cabala was, as I have tried to make clear, only one of theinfluences which produced this new intellectual climate. Therediscovered "Hermes Trismegistus, " the mystically coloured Platonism, as it came from Italy, the awakened interest in Nature and in man, andthe powerful message of the German Mystics all played an important parttoward the formation of the new _Weltanschauung_. 

[3] _Three Books of Occult Philosophy_, translated by J. F. (London, 1651). 

[4] Stoddart's Life of Paracelsus (London, 1911), p. 76. 

[5] Browning, _Paracelsus_, B. I. This passage fairly representsParacelsus' general position. "There is, " he says in his_Philosophia sagax_, "a Light in the spirit of man which illuminateseverything. . . . The quality of each thing created by God, whetherit be visible or invisible to the senses, may be perceived andknown. If man knows the essence of things, their attributes, theirattractions, and the elements of which they consist, he will be aMaster of nature, of the elements, and of the spirits. "

[6] _Christliches Gespräch_, chap. Iii. 

[7] There is an excellent critical study of Weigel's writings by A. Israel, entitled, _Weigels Leben und Schriften nach den Quellendargestellt_ (Zschopau, 1888). 

[8] "Of the Life of Christ, That is, Of True Faith which is the Rule, Square, Levell or Measuring Line of the Holy City of God and of theInhabitants thereof here on Earth. Written in the German Language byValentine Weigelus. " (London, Giles Calvert, 1648. )

[9] Quoted from Israel, _op. Cit. _ p. 107. 

[10] _On the Life of Christ_, part i. Chap. Ii. 

[11] _On the Life of Christ_, part i. Chap. Iii. 

[12] _Ibid. _ part i. Chap. Viii. 

[13] _On the Life of Christ_, part i. Chap. Ix. 

[14] _Ibid. _ part ii. Chap. Ix. ; part i. Chap. X. ; part ii. Chap. X. ;and part. I. Chap. Xiv. 

[15] _Ibid. _ part ii. Chaps. Iii. And iv. 

[16] This is the view set forth in his [Greek] _Gnôthi Seauton_ [KnowThyself]. 

[17] _On the Life of Christ_, part ii. Chaps. V. And vii. 

[18] _Ibid. _ part i. Chap. Viii. 

[19] _Vom himmlischen Jerusalem in uns_, chap. Viii. 

[20] Weigel enjoins his readers to read Franck's book on "the Tree ofthe Knowledge of Good and Evil. " See _On the Life of Christ_, part ii. P. 57. 

[21] "Faith, " he says, "cannot be forced into any person by gallows orpillory. " _On the Life of Christ_, part i. Chap. Xv. 

[22] _Ibid. _ part ii. Chap. Xiv. This is built on a passage inFranck's _Apologia_. 

[23] _On the Life of Christ_, part i. Chaps. Iv. And v. 

[24] _Ibid. _ part i. Chap. Vi. 

[25] _Ibid. _ part i. Chaps. Xii. And xiii. 

[26] Quoted from Tauler by Weigel, _ibid. _ chap. Vii. See also partiii. Chap. I. 

[27] _Ibid. _ part ii. Chap. Ii. 

[28] _Op. Cit. _ chap. Xx. 

[29] _Christ. Gespräch_, chap. Ii. 

[30] In his _Der güldene Griff_, he tells of a personal spiritual"opening" which is very similar to the one which occurred later in thelife of Boehme. He found himself astray in "a wilderness of darkness"and he cried to God for Light to enlighten his soul. "_Suddenly, _" hesays, "_the Light came and my eyes were opened so that I saw moreclearly than all the teachers in all the world with all their bookscould teach me. _" Chap. Xxiv. 

[31] _Astrologie Theologized_, p. 8. 

[32] _Ibid. _ pp. 16-17. 

[33] This little book refers with much appreciation to TheophrastusParacelsus. It uses his theory of "first matter" and his doctrine of"the seven governours of the world, " which we shall meet in a new formin Boehme. Another book which carried astrological ideas intoreligious thought in a much cruder way was Andreas Tentzel's _Deratione naturali arboris vitae et scientiae boni et mali_, etc. , whichwas Pars Secunda of his _Medicinii diastatica_ (Jena, 1629). It wastranslated into English in 1657 by N. Turner with the title: "TheMumial Treatise of Tentzelius, being a natural account of the Tree ofLife and of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, with a mysticalinterpretation of that great Secret, to wit, the CabalisticalConcordance of the Tree of Life and Death, of Christ and Adam. " Tentzelwas a famous doctor and disciple of Paracelsus and "flourished" inGermany during the first half of the seventeenth century. 

{151}

CHAPTER IX

JACOB BOEHME: HIS LIFE AND SPIRIT[1]

Few men have ever made greater claim to be the bearer of a newrevelation than did the humble shoemaker-prophet of Silesia, JacobBoehme. "I am, " he wrote in his earliest book, "only a very littlespark of God's Light, but He is now pleased in this last time to revealthrough me what has been partly concealed from the beginning of theWorld, "[2] and he admonished the reader, if he would understand what iswritten, to let go opinion {152} and conceit and heathenish wisdom, andread with the Light and Power of the Holy Spirit, "for this book comesnot forth from Reason, but by the impulse of the Spirit. "[3] "I havenot dared, " he wrote to a friend in 1620, "to write otherwise than wasgiven and indited to me. I have continually written as the Spiritdictated and have not given place to Reason. "[4] Again and again hewarns the reader to let his book alone unless he is ready for a newdawning of divine Truth, for a fresh Light to break: "If thou art not aspiritual overcomer, then let my book alone. Do not meddle with it, but _stick to thy old matters_!"[5]

Before the Spirit came upon him, he felt himself to be a "littlestammering child, " and he always declared that without this Spirit hecould not comprehend even his own writings--"when He parteth from me, Iknow nothing but the elementary and earthly things of thisworld"[6]--but with this divine Spirit unfolding within him "theprofoundest depth" of mysteries, he believed, though with muchsimplicity and generally with humility, that the true ground of thingshad "not been so fully revealed to any man from the beginning of theworld"--"but, " he adds, "seeing God will have it so, I submit to Hiswill. "[7] Nobody before him, he declares, no matter how learned hewas, "has had the ax by the handle, " but, with a sudden change offigure, he proclaims that now the Morning Glow is breaking and the DayDawn is rising. [8] In his _Epistles_ he says: "I am only a layman, Ihave not studied, yet I bring to light things which all the HighSchools and Universities have been unable to do. . . . The language ofNature is made known to me so that I can understand the greatestmysteries, in my own mother-tongue. Though I cannot say I have_learned_ or _comprehended_ these things, yet so long as the hand ofGod stayeth upon me I understand. "[9]

We shall be able to estimate the value of these lofty {153} claimsafter we have gathered up the substance of his teaching, but it may bewell to say at the opening of this Study of Boehme that in my opinionno more remarkable religious message has come in modern centuries froman untrained and undisciplined mind than that which lies scatteredthrough the voluminous and somewhat chaotic writings of thisseventeenth-century prophet of the common people. [19]

He frequently speaks of himself as "unlearned, " and in the technicalsense of the word he was unlearned. He had only a simple schooling, but he possessed extraordinary native capacity and he was well andwidely read in the books which fitted the frame and temper of his mind, and he had very unusual powers of meditation and recollection so thathe thought over and over again in his quiet hours of labour the ideaswhich he seized upon in the books he read. 

There are many strands of thought woven together in his writings, andeverything he dealt with is given a {154} new aspect through the vividinsights which he always brings into play, the amazing visual powerwhich he displays, and his profoundly penetrating moral andintellectual grasp. But, nevertheless, he plainly belongs in thedirect line of these spiritual reformers whom we have been studying. He was deeply influenced, first of all, by Luther, especially in twodirections. He got primarily from the great reformer his transforminginsight of the immense importance of personal faith for salvation, andsecondly he was impressed--almost overwhelmingly impressed in his earlyyears--with the awful reality and range of the principle of positiveevil in the universe, upon which Luther had insisted with intensity ofemphasis. His feet, however, were set upon the track which seemed tohim to lead to light by the help which he got from the other line ofreformers. Schwenckfeld made him feel the impossibility of any schemeof salvation that rested on transactions and operations external to thehuman soul itself, and through that same noble Silesian reformer hediscovered the central significance of the new birth through a creativework of Grace within. Sebastian Franck was clearly one of hisspiritual masters. From him, directly or indirectly, he learned thatthe spirit must be freed from the letter, that external revelations aresymbols which remain dead and inert until they are vivified andvitalized by the inwardly illuminated spirit. He was still moredirectly influenced by Valentine Weigel, the pastor of Zschopau, whounited the spiritual-mystical views of Schwenckfeld, Franck, and theother teachers of his type with a nature mysticism or theosophy whichhad become, as we have seen, a powerful interest in the sixteenthcentury when a real science was struggling to be born, but had not yetseen the light. This nature mysticism came to him also in a crude andindigestible form through the writings of Paracelsus. Through himBoehme acquired a vocabulary of alchemistical terms which he was alwayslabouring to turn to spiritual meaning, but which always baffled him. It has been customary to treat Boehme as a mystic, and he has not {155}usually been brought into this line of spiritual development where I amplacing him, but his entire outlook and body of ideas are differentfrom those of the great Roman Catholic mystics. He has read neitherthe classical nor the scholastic interpreters of mysticism. In so faras he knows of historical mysticism he knows it through Franck andWeigel and others, where it is profoundly transformed and subordinatedto other aspects of religion and thought. Unlike the great mystics, hedoes not treat the visible and the finite as unreal and to be negated. The world is a positive reality and a divine revelation. Nor, again, are sin and evil negative in character for him. Evil is tremendouslyreal and positive, in grim conflict with the good and to be conqueredonly through stern battle. A mystic, an illuminate, he undoubtedly wasin his first-hand experience, but his message of salvation and hisinterpretation of life are of the wider, distinctively "spiritual" type. 

Jacob Boehme[11] was born in November 1575 in the little market-town ofAlt Seidenberg, a few miles from Görlitz. His father's name was Jacoband his mother's Ursula, both persons of good old German peasant stock, possessed of a strong strain of simple piety. The family religion wasLutheran, and Jacob the son was brought up both at home and at churchin the Lutheran faith as it had shaped itself into definite form at theend of the sixteenth century. His early education was very limited, but he was possessed of unusual fundamental capacity and alwaysexhibited a native mental power of very high order. He was always akeen observer; he looked through things, and whether he was in thefields, where much of his early life was spent as a watcher of cattle, or reading the Bible, which he knew as few persons have known it, hesaw everything with a vivid and quickened imagination. He plainlybegan, while still very young, to revolt from the orthodox theology ofhis time, and his {156} years of reading and of silent meditation andreflection were the actual preparation for what seemed finally to cometo him like a sudden revelation or, to use his own common figure, as "aflash. "[12]

His external appearance has been quaintly portrayed by his admiringfriend and biographer, Abraham von Franckenberg, who, like a goodportrait-painter, strives to let the body reveal the soul. "Theexternal form of Jacob's body, " he says, "was worn and very plain; hisstature was small, his forehead low, his temples broad and prominent, his nose somewhat crooked, his eyes grey and rather of an azure-cast, lighting up like the windows of Solomon's Temple; his beard was shortand thin; his voice was feeble, yet his conversation was mild andpleasant. He was gentle in manner, modest in his words, humble inconduct, patient in suffering and meek of heart. His spirit was highlyilluminated of God beyond anything Nature could produce. "[13]

This youth, with "azure-grey eyes that lighted up like the windows ofSolomon's Temple, " was from his childhood possessed of a most acutelysensitive and suggestible psychical disposition. He always felt thatthe real world was deeper than the one which he saw with his senses, and he was frequently swept from within by mighty currents which hecould not trace to any well-mapped region of the domain of Nature. Hisvivid and pictorial imagination, his consciousness of inrushes from theunplumbed deeps within, and his inclination to solitude and meditationare well in evidence at an early age, and we have no difficulty at allin seeing that his psychological equilibrium was unstable, and that hewas capable of sudden shifts of inward level. 

The first sign of his psychical peculiarity comes to light in anincident of his early childhood. While he was tending cattle in thefields one day he climbed alone a neighbouring {157} mountain-peak, andon the summit he espied among the great red sandstones a kind ofaperture overgrown with bushes. Boy-like he entered the opening, andthere within, in a strange vault, he descried a large portable vesselfull of money. The sight of it made him shudder, and, without touchingthe treasure, he made his way out to the world again. To his surprisehe was never able to find the aperture again, though, in company withthe other less imaginative cowboys, he often hunted for it. Hisfriend, von Franckenberg, who relates the story and says that he had itfrom Boehme's mouth, thinks that the experience was "a sort ofemblematic omen or presage of his future spiritual admission to thesight of the hidden treasury of the wisdom and mysteries of God andNature, "[14] but we are more interested in it as a revelation of theextraordinary psychical nature of the boy, with his tendency tohallucination. 

When he was in his fourteenth year he was apprenticed to a shoemaker inSeidenberg, and devoted himself diligently to the mastery of his trade. It was during this period of apprenticeship, which lasted three years, that there was granted to him "a kind of secret tinder and glimmer" ofcoming fame. One day a stranger, plain and mean in dress, butotherwise of good presence, came to the shop and asked to buy a pair ofshoes. As the master shoemaker was absent, the uninitiatedprentice-boy did not feel competent to sell the shoes, but the buyerwould not be put off. Thereupon young Jacob set an enormous price uponthem, hoping to stave off the trade. The man, however, without anydemur paid the price, took the shoes, and went out. Just outside thedoor the stranger stopped, and in a serious tone called out, "Jacob, come hither to me!" The man, with shining eyes looking him full in theface, took his hand and said, "Jacob, thou art little but thou shaltbecome great--a man very different from the common cast, so that thoushalt be a wonder to the world. Be a good lad; fear God and reverenceHis Word. " With a little more counsel, the {158} stranger pressed hishand and went his way, leaving the boy amazed. [15]

He had, his intimate biographer tells us, lived from his very youth upin the fear of God, in all humility and simplicity, and had takenpeculiar pleasure in hearing sermons, but from the opening of hisapprenticeship he began to revolt from the endless controversies and"scholastic wranglings about religion, " and he withdrew into himself, fervently and incessantly praying and seeking and knocking, until oneday "he was translated into the holy Sabbath and glorious Day of Restto the soul, " and, according to his own words, was "enwrapt with theDivine Light for the space of seven days and stood possessed of thehighest beatific wisdom of God, in the ecstatic joy of theKingdom. "[16] Boehme looked upon this "Sabbatic" experience as hisspiritual call, and from this time on he increased his endeavours tolive a pure life of godliness and virtue, refusing to listen tofrivolous talk, reproving his fellows and even his shopmaster when theyindulged in light and wanton conversation, until finally the masterdischarged him with the remark that he did not care to keep "ahouse-prophet" any longer. [17] Hereupon he went forth as a travellingcobbler, spending some years in his wanderings, discovering more andmore, as he passed from place to place, how religion was being lost inthe Babel of theological wrangling, and seeing, with those penetratingeyes of his, deeper into the meaning of life and the world. Near theend of the century--probably about 1599--he gave up his wanderings, married Catherine Kunchman, "a young woman of virtuous disposition, "and opened a shoemaker's shop for himself in the town of Görlitz, wherehe soon established a reputation for honest, faithful work, and wherehe modestly prospered and was able to buy a home of his own, and wherehe reared the four sons and two daughters who came to the happy home. 

{159}

The supreme experience of his life--and one of the most remarkableinstances of "illumination" in the large literature of mysticalexperiences--occurred when Boehme was twenty-five years of age, sometime in the year 1600. His eye fell by chance upon the surface of apolished pewter dish which reflected the bright sunlight, when suddenlyhe felt himself environed and penetrated by the Light of God, andadmitted into the innermost ground and centre of the universe. Hisexperience, instead of waning as he came back to normal consciousness, on the contrary deepened. He went to the public green in Görlitz, nearhis house, and there it seemed to him that he could see into the veryheart and secret of Nature, and that he could behold the innermostproperties of things. [18] In his own account of his experience, Boehmeplainly indicates that he had been going through a long and earnesttravail of soul as a Seeker, [19] "striving to find the heart of JesusChrist and to be freed and delivered from everything that turned himaway from Christ. " At last, he says, he resolved to "put his life tothe utmost hazard" rather than miss his life-quest, when suddenly the"gate was opened. " He continues his account as follows: "In onequarter of an hour I saw and knew more than if I had been many yearstogether in a University. . . . I saw and knew the Being of Beings, the Byss and Abyss, the eternal generation of the Trinity, the originand descent of this world, and of all creatures through Divine Wisdom. I knew and saw in myself all the three worlds--(1) the Divine, Angelical, or Paradisaical World; (2) the dark world, the origin offire; and (3) the external, visible world as an outbreathing orexpression of the internal and spiritual worlds. I saw, too, theessential nature of evil and of good, and how the {160} pregnantMother--the eternal genetrix--brought them forth. "[20]

He has also vividly told his experience in the _Aurora_: "While I wasin affliction and trouble, I elevated my spirit, and earnestly raisedit up unto God, as with a great stress and onset, lifting up my wholeheart and mind and will and resolution to wrestle with the love andmercy of God and not to give over unless He blessed me--then the Spiritdid break through. When in my resolved zeal I made such an assault, storm, and onset upon God, as if I had more reserves of virtue andpower ready, with a resolution to hazard my life upon it, suddenly myspirit did break through the Gate, not without the assistance of theHoly Spirit, and I reached to the innermost Birth of the Deity andthere I was embraced with love as a bridegroom embraces his bride. Mytriumphing can be compared to nothing but the experience in which lifeis generated in the midst of death or like the resurrection from thedead. In this Light my spirit suddenly saw through all, and in allcreated things, even in herbs and grass, I knew God--who He is, how Heis, and what His will is--and suddenly in that Light my will was setupon by a mighty impulse to describe the being of God. "[21]

This experience was the momentous watershed of his life. He isconstantly referring to it either directly or indirectly. "I teach, write, and speak, " is his frequent testimony, "of what has been wroughtin me. I have not scraped my teaching together out of histories and somade _opinions_. I have by God's grace obtained eyes of my own. "[22]"There come moments, " he writes, "when the soul sees God as in a flashof lightning, "[23] and he tells his readers that "when the Gate isopened" to them, they also "will understand. "[24] "In my ownfaculties, " he writes again, "I am as blind a man as {161} ever was, but in the Spirit of God my spirit sees through all. "[25]

During the ten quiet years which followed "the opening of the Gate" tohim, Boehme meditated on what he had seen, and, though he does not sayso, he almost certainly read much in the works of "the great masters, "as he calls them, who were trying to tell, often in confused language, the central secret of the universe. Instead of fading out, his "flash"of insight grew steadily clearer to him as he read and pondered, andlittle by little, as one comes to see in the dark, certain great ideasbecame defined. With his third "flash, "[26] which came to him in 1610, when he felt once more "overshadowed by the Holy Spirit and touched byGod, "[27] he was moved to write down for his own use what he had seen. "It was, " he says, "powerfully borne in upon my mind to write downthese things for a memorial, however difficult they might be ofapprehension to my outer self [intellect] and of expression through mypen. I felt compelled to begin at once, like a child going to school, to work upon this very great Mystery. Inwardly [in spirit] I saw itall well enough, as in a great depth; for I looked through as into achaos where all things lie [undifferentiated] but the unravellingthereof seemed impossible. From time to time an opening took placewithin me, _as of a growth_. [28] I kept this to myself for twelveyears [1600-12], being full of it and I experienced a vehement impulsebefore I could bring it out into expression; but at last it overwhelmedme like a cloud-burst which hits whatever it lights upon. And so itwent with me: whatsoever I could grasp sufficiently to bring it out, that I wrote down. "[29]

This first book which thus grew out of his spiritual travails and"openings" Boehme called _Morning Glow_, to which later, through thesuggestion of a friend, he gave {162} the title _Aurora_. It is astrange _mélange_ of chaos where all things lie undifferentiated and ofinsight; dreary wastes of words that elude comprehension, withbeautiful patches of spiritual oasis. He himself always felt that thebook was dictated to him, and that he only passively held the pen whichwrote it. "Art, " he says, speaking of his writing, "has not writtenhere, neither was there any time to consider how to set it downpunctually, according to the understanding of the letters, but all wasordered according to the direction of the Spirit, which often went inhaste, so that in many words letters may be wanting, and in some placesa capital letter for a word; so that _the Penman's hand_, by reasonthat he was not accustomed to it, did often shake. And though I couldhave wrote in a more accurate, fair, and plain manner, yet the reasonwas this, that the burning fire often forced forward with speed, andthe hand and pen must hasten directly after it; for it goes and comeslike a sudden shower. "[30] This is obviously an inside account of theproduction of inspirational script, amounting almost to automaticimpulsion. Throughout his voluminous writings he often speaks of "thishand, " or "this pen" as though they were owned and moved by a will fardeeper than his own individual consciousness, [31] and his writingsthemselves frequently bear the marks of automatisms. 

His manuscript copy of _Morning Glow_ was freely lent to readers andcirculated widely. Boehme himself kept no copy by him, but he tells usthat during its wanderings the manuscript was copied out in full fourtimes by strangers and brought to him. [32] One of the copies fell intothe hands of Gregorius Richter, pastor primarius of Görlitz, a violentguardian of orthodoxy and a man extremely jealous of any infringementof the dignity of his official position. He proceeded atonce--"without sufficient examination or knowledge"--to {163} "vilifyand condemn" the writing, and in a sermon on "False Prophets" hevigorously attacked the local prophet of Görlitz, who meekly sat inChurch and listened to the "fulminations" against him. [33] After thesermon, Boehme modestly asked the preacher to show him what was wrongwith his teaching, but the only answer he received was that if he didnot instantly leave the town the pastor would have him arrested; andthe following day Richter had Boehme summoned before the magistrates, and succeeded by his influence and authority in overawing them so thatthey ordered the harmless prophet to leave the town forthwith withoutany time given him to see his family or to close up his affairs. Boehme quietly replied, "Yes, dear Sirs, it shall be done; since itcannot be otherwise I am content. " The next day, however, themagistrates of Görlitz held a meeting and recalled the banished prophetand offered him the privilege of remaining in his home and occupationon condition that he would cease from writing on theological matters. On this latter point we have Boehme's own testimony, though he does notrefer the condition to the magistrates. "When I appeared before him"[Pastor Richter], Boehme says, "to defend myself and indicate mystandpoint, the Rev. Primarius [Richter] exacted from me a promise togive up writing and to this I assented, since I did not then seeclearly the divine way, nor did I understand what God would later dowith me. . . . By his order I gave up for many years [1613-18] allwriting or speaking about my knowledge of divine things, hoping vainlythat the evil reports would at last come to an end, instead of whichthey only grew worse and more malignant. "[34]

Boehme's friend, Doctor Cornelius Weissner, in his account, which isnone too accurate, endeavours to find an explanation of Richter'spersistent hate and persecution {164} of the shoemaker-prophet in agentle reproof which the latter administered to the former for havingmeanly treated a poor kinsman of Boehme in a small commercialtransaction, but it is by no means necessary to bring up incidents ofthis sort to discover an adequate ground for Richter's fury. The_Aurora_ itself furnishes plenty of passages which would, if read, throw a jealous guardian of orthodoxy into fierce activity. Onepassage in which Boehme boldly attacks the popular doctrine ofpredestination and asserts that the writers and scribes who teach itare "masterbuilders of Lies" will be sufficient illustration of thetheological provocation: "This present world doth dare to say that Godhath decreed or concluded it so in His predestinate purpose and counselthat some men should be saved and some should be damned, as if hell andmalice and evil had been from eternity and that it was in God'spredestinate purpose that men should be and must be therein. Suchpersons pull and hale the Scriptures to prove it, though, indeed, theyneither have the knowledge of the true God nor the understanding ofScripture. These justifiers and disputers assist the Devil steadfastlyand pervert God's truth and change it into lies. "[35] He closed hisbook with these daring words: "Should Peter or Paul seem to havewritten otherwise, then look to the essence, look to the heart [_i. E. _to interior meaning]. If you lay hold of the heart of God you haveground enough. "[36] His entire conception of salvation was, too, as weshall see, vastly different from the prevailing orthodox conception, and furthermore he was only a layman, innocent of the schools, and yethe was claiming to speak as an almost infallible instrument of a freshrevelation of God. Theologians of the type of the Primarius Richterneed no other provocation to account for their relentless pursuit oflocal prophets that appear in the domain of their authority. 

Meantime Boehme's fame was slowly spreading, and he was drawing intosympathetic fellowship with himself a number of high-minded and seriousmen who were {165} dissatisfied with the current orthodox teaching. Inthis group of friends who found comfort in the fresh message of Boehmewere Dr. Balthazar Walther, director of the Chemical Laboratory ofDresden, Dr. Tobias Kober, physician at Görlitz, a disciple ofParacelsus, Abraham von Franckenberg, who calls Jacob "our God-taughtman, " Doctor Cornelius Weissner, who became intimate with him in 1618, and the nobleman Carl von Endern, who copied out the entire manuscriptof the _Aurora_. These friends frequently encouraged Boehme to breakhis enforced silence, and he himself was restless and melancholy, feeling that he was "entrusted with a talent which he ought to put tousury and not return to God singly and without improvement, like thelazy servant. " "It was with me, " he writes, describing his years ofsilence, "as when a seed is hidden in the earth. It grows up in stormand rough weather, against all reason. In winter time, all is dead, and reason says: 'It is all over with it. ' But the precious seedwithin me sprouted and grew green, oblivious of all storms, and amiddisgrace and ridicule it has blossomed forth into a lily!"[37]

Under the pressure, from without and from within, he resolved afterfive years of repression to break the seal of silence and give theworld his message. Writing to a dear friend, whom he called "a plantof God, " he says: "My very dear brother in the life of God, you aremore acceptable to me in that it was you who awaked me out of my sleep, that I might go on to bring forth fruit in the life of God--and I wantyou to know that after I was awakened _a strong smell was given to mein the life of God_. "[38] During the next six years (1618-24) he wrotealmost incessantly, producing, from 1620 on, book after book in rapidsuccession. [39] In 1622, he informs a friend that he {166} has "laidaside his trade to serve God and his brothers, "[40] and in 1623, hesays that he has written without ceasing during the autumn and winter. He felt throughout his life that the "illumination, " which broke uponhim in the year 1600, steadily increased with the years, and he came tolook upon his first book as only the crude attempt of a child ascompared with his later works. "The Day, " he writes in 1620, "has nowovertaken the _Aurora_ [the morning glow]; it has grown full daylightand the morning is extinguished. "[41] He says, with artlessness, thatwhen he wrote the _Aurora_, he was not yet accustomed to the Spirit. The heavenly joy, indeed, met him and he followed the Spirit'sguidance, but much of his own wild and untamed nature still remained tomar his work. Each successive book marks a growth of "the spirituallily" in him, he thinks: "Each book from the first is ten timesdeeper!"[42]

Once again, the zeal of a friend brought Boehme into the storm-centreof persecution. Until 1623, his works circulated only in manuscriptand were kept from the eye of his ecclesiastical enemy, but toward theend of that year, an admirer, Sigismund von Schweinitz, printed threeof his little books--_True Repentance_; _True Resignation_; and _TheSupersensual Life_--in one volume under the title _The Way to Christ_. Richter was immediately aroused and poured forth his feelings in somedesperately bad verses:

 Quot continentur lineae, blasphemiae Tot continentur in libro sutorio, Qui nil nisi picem redolet sutoriam, {167}

 Atrum et colorem, quern vocant sutorium. Pfuy! pfuy! teter sit fetor a nobis procul![43]

But the Primarius was not content with this harmless weapon ofridicule. He stirred up the neighbouring clergymen to join him in theattack, and a complaint was lodged in Town Council against Boehme as a"rabid enthusiast, " and he was warned to leave the town. Boehme was assweet and gentle in spirit now as he had been ten years before. Hewrote in 1624: "I pray for those who have reviled and condemned me. They curse me and I bless. I am standing the test ["Proba"] and havethe mark of Christ on my forehead. "[44] But he thought that it did notbefit him as an instrument of God's revelation to let the false chargesagainst him go unanswered. He accordingly replied to the accusationsin an _Apology_, in which the whole depth and beauty of his spiritualnature breathes forth. His appeal was in vain and he was forced toleave Görlitz. He went forth, however, in no discouraged mood. He sawthat his message was "being sounded through Europe, " and he predictsthat "the nations will take up what his own native town is castingaway. Already, he hears, his book has been read with interest in theCourt of the Elector of Saxony, and he writes, March 15, 1624: "I aminvited there to a conference with high people and I have consented togo at the end of the Leipzig fair. Soon the revelation of Jesus Christshall break forth and destroy the works of the Devil. "[45] The realtrouble with the world, he thinks, is that the Christians in it aretitular and verbal, "--they are only "opinion-peddlers, "[46] and that iswhy a man who insists upon a reproduction of the life of Christ ispersecuted. The visit to the Elector's Court in Dresden came off wellfor the simple shoemaker. He spent two months in the home of the courtphysician, Dr. Hinkelmann, where many of the nobility and clergy cameto see {168} him and to talk with him. Three professors of theologyand other learned doctors were asked by the Elector to examine him. They reported that they did not yet quite succeed in understanding him, and that therefore they could not pronounce judgment. They hoped "HisHighness would please to have patience and allow the man sufficienttime to expound his ideas"--which were, in fact, already "expounded" inmore than a score of volumes! One of the professors is reported tohave said: "I would not for the world be a party to this man'scondemnation, " and another declared: "Nor would I, for who knows whatlies at the bottom of it all!"[47]

The end of the good man's life, however, was near. He was taken ill inNovember 1624, while staying with his old friend, von Schweinitz, andhe hurried home to Görlitz, where his family had remained during hisabsence, to die in the quiet of his own house. The night before hedied, he spoke of hearing beautiful music, and asked to have the dooropened that he might hear it better. In the morning--as the _Aurora_appeared--he bade farewell to his wife and children, committed his soulto the crucified Lord Jesus Christ, arranged a few simple matters, and, with a smile on his face, said, "Now I go to Paradise. "

His old enemy, Richter, had died a few months before him, but the newpastor was of the same temper and refused to preach his funeral sermon. The second pastor of the city was finally ordered by the Governor ofLausitz to preach the sermon, which he began with the words, "I hadrather have walked a hundred and twenty miles than preach thissermon!"[48] The common people, however, --the shoemakers, tanners anda "great concourse of us his fast friends, " as one of themwrites, --were at the funeral, and a band of young shoemakers carriedhis body to its last resting-place, where a block of porphyry nowinforms the visitor that "Jacob Boehme, _philosophus Teutonicus_"sleeps beneath. 

Grützmacher holds that Boehme is an "isolated thinker, " having little, if any, historical connection with {169} the past. [49] I do not agreewith this view. I find in him rather the ripe fulfilment of thepowerful protest against the dead letter, against a formal religion, and equally a fulfilment of a Christianity of inward life, which wasvoiced so vigorously in the writings of Denck, Bünderlin, Entfelder, Franck, and Weigel, neglecting for the moment another side of Boehmeand another set of influences which appeared in him. The central noteof his life-long prophet-cry was against a form of religion built uponthe letter of Scripture and consisting of external ceremonies andpractices, and this is the ground of Richter's bitter hostility andstubborn opposition. [50]

The Church of his day seems to him a veritable Babel--"full of prideand wrangling, and jangling, and snarling about the letter of thewritten Word, " lacking in true, real, effectual knowledge and power; apitiably poor "substitute for the Temple of the holy Spirit where God'sliving Word is taught. "[51] Through each of his books we hear of"verbal Christendom"; of "titular Christians"; of "historical feignedfaith"; of "history religion"; of "an external forgiveness of sins"; of"the work of outward letters. " "The builders of Babel, " he says, "cannot endure that one should teach that Christ Himself must be theteacher in the human heart"--"they jangle instead about the mere husk, about the written word and letter while they miss the living Word. "[52]

The divisions of Christendom are due to the fact that its"master-builders" are of the Babel-type. They always follow the lineof _opinion_; their basis is "the letter"; their method of approach is_external_. They build "stone houses in which they read the writingswhich the Apostles left behind them, " while they themselves dispute andcontend about "mental idols and {170} opinions. "[53] The true Churchof Christ, on the contrary, is the living Temple of the Spirit. It isbuilt up of men made wholly new by the inward power of the DivineSpirit and made _one_ by an inward unity of heart and life withChrist--as "a living Twig of our Life-Tree Jesus Christ. " Nobody canbelong to this Church unless "he puts on the shirt of a little child, "dies to selfishness and hypocrisy, rises again in a new will andobedience, and forms his life in its inmost ground according to Christ, the Life. [54] "The wise world, " he declares, "will not believe in thetrue inward work of Christ in the heart; it will have only an externalwashing away of sins in Grace, " but the ABC of true religion is fardifferent. [55] He only is a Christian in fact in whom Christ dwelleth, liveth and hath His being, in whom Christ hath arisen as the eternalground of the soul. He only is a Christian who has this high title inhimself, and has entered with mind and soul into that Eternal Wordwhich has manifested itself as the life of our humanity. [56] He wrotenear the end of his life to Balthazar Tilken: "If I had no other bookexcept the book which I myself am, I should have books enough. Theentire Bible lies in me if I have Christ's Spirit in me. What do Ineed of more books? Shall I quarrel over what is outside me before Ihave learned what is within me?"[57] "What would it profit me if Iwere continually quoting the Bible and knew the whole book by heart butdid not know the Spirit that inspired the holy men who wrote that book, nor the source from which they received their knowledge? How can Iexpect to understand them in truth, if I have not the same Spirit theyhad?"[58]

This insistence on personal, first-hand experience and practice of theChrist-Life, as the ground of true religion, {171} is the fundamentalfeature of Boehme's Christianity. He travels, as we shall see, throughimmense heights and deeps. Like Dante, who immeasurably surpasses himin power of expression, but not in prophetic power of vision, he sawthe eternal realities of heaven and hell and the world between, and hetold as well as he could what he _saw_, but his practical message whichruns like a thread through all his writings is always simple--almostchildlike in its simplicity--"Thou must thyself be the way. Thespiritual understanding must be born in thee. "[59] "A Christian is anew creature in the ground of the heart. "[60] "The Kingdom of God isnot from without, but it is a new man, who lives in love, in patience, in hope, in faith and in the Cross of Jesus Christ. "[61]

And this simple shoemaker of Görlitz, with his amazing range of thoughtand depth of experience, practised and embodied the way of life whichhe recommended. He was a good man, and his life touches us even nowwith a kind of awe. "Life, " he once said, "is a strange bath of thornsand thistles, "[62] and he himself experienced that "bath, " but he wentthrough the world hearing everywhere a divine music and "having a joyin his heart which made his whole being tremble and his soul triumph asif it were in God. "[63]

[1] I have used as primary source the German edition of Boehme'sWorks--_Theosophia revelata_--published in 1730 in 8 vols. All myreferences are to the English translations made by Sparrow, Ellistone, and Blunden, 1647-61. These translations were republished, 1764, in 4vols. In an edition which has incorrectly been called William Law'sedition. Four volumes have been republished by John M. Watkins ofLondon, as follows: _The Threefold Life of Man_, 1909; _The ThreePrinciples_, 1910; _The Forty Questions_ and _The Clavis_, 1911; and_The Way to Christ_, 1911. The _Signatura rerum_, in English, has beenpublished in "Everyman's Library. " A valuable volume of selectionsfrom "Jacob Behmen's Theosophic Philosophy" was made by Edward Taylor, London, 1691. Many volumes of selections have been published in recentyears. The books on Boehme which I have found most suggestive andhelpful are the following: Franz von Baader's "Vorlesungen undErläuterungen über J. Böhme's Lehre, " _Werke_ (Leipzig, 1852), vol. Iii. [edition of 1855, vol. Xiii. ]; Émile Boutroux, _Le Philosopheallemand_ (Paris, 1888): translated into English by Rothwell inBoutroux's _Historical Studies in Philosophy_ (London, 1912), pp. 169-233; Hans Lassen Martensen's _Jacob Boehme_ (translated from theDanish by T. Rhys Evans, London, 1885); Franz Hartmann's _Life andDoctrine of Jacob Boehme_ (London, 1891); Von Harless' _Jacob Boehmeund die Alchymisten_ (Leipzig, 1882); Ederheimer's _Jakob Boehme unddie Romantiker_ (Heidelberg, 1901); Paul Deussen's _Jacob Boehme_--anAddress delivered at Kiel, May 8, 1897--translated from the German byMrs. D. S. Hehner and printed as Introduction to Watkin's edition of_The Three Principles_ (1910); Christopher Walton's _Notes andMaterials for a Biography of William Law_ (London, 1854)--a volume ofgreat value to the student of Boehme; Rudolph Steiner's _Mystics of theRenaissance_ (translated, London, 1911), pp. 223-245; A. J. Penny's_Studies in Jacob Boehme_ (London, 1912), uncritical and written fromthe theosophical point of view; Hegel's _History of philosophy_(translated by Haldane and Simson, London, 1895), iii. Pp. 188-216. 

[2] Aurora, John Sparrow's translation (London, 1656), ii. 79-80. 

[3] _Aurora_, iii. 1-3. 

[4] _Third Epistle_, 15. 

[5] _Aurora_, xiii. 27. 

[6] _Ibid. _ viii. 19. 

[7] _Ibid. _ ix 90. 

[8] _Ibid. _ xiii. 2-4. 

[9] _Third Epistle_, 22. 

[10] Many thinkers of prominent rank have borne testimony to thegreatness of Boehme's genius. I shall mention only a few of theseestimates:

"I would recommend you to procure the writings of Boehme and diligentlyread them. For though I have studied philosophy and theology from myyouth . . . Yet I must acknowledge that the above writings have been tome of more service for the understanding of the Bible than all myUniversity learning. "--"J. G. Gictell, 1698. 

"Jacob Boehme, as a religious and philosophical genius, has not oftenhad his equal in the world's history. "--"Jacob Boehme: His Life andPhilosophy. " An Address by Dr. Paul Deussen. 

"Jacob Boehme est le seul, au moins dont on ait eu les écrits jusqu'àlui, auquel Dieu ait découvert le fond de la nature, tant des chosesspirituelles, que des corporelles. "--Peter Poiret, in a note at the endof his _Théologie germanique_, 1700. 

"As a chosen servant of God, Jacob Boehme must be placed among thosewho have received the highest measures of light, wisdom, and knowledgefrom above. . . . All that lay in religion and nature as a mysteryunsearchable was in its deepest ground opened to this instrument ofGod. "--William Law, _Works_ (ed. 1893), vi. P. 205. 

"To Jacob Boehme belongs the merit of having taught more profoundlythan any one else before or after him the truth that back of and behindall that has come to appear of good and evil there is an immaterialWorld which is the essence and reality of all that is. "--Franz vonBaader, _Werke_ (Leipzig, 1852), iii. P. 382. 

Novalis wrote in a letter to Ludwig Tieck in 1800: "Man sieht durchausin ihm [Jakob Böhme] den gewaltigen Frühling mit seinen quellenden, treibenden, bildenden, und mischenden Kräften, die von innen heraus dieWelt gebären. Ein echtes Chaos voll dunkler Begier und wunderbaremLeben--einen wahren auseinandergehenden Mikrokosmos. "--Quoted fromEdgar Ederheimer's _Jakob Boehme und die Romantiker_ (1904), p. 57. 

[11] His English translators in the seventeenth century variouslyspelled his name Behm, Behme, and Behmen. This latter spelling wasadopted in the so-called Law Edition of 1764, and has thus come intocommon use in England and America. 

[12] Boehme refers frequently to "the writings of high masters, " whomhe says he read (_Aurora_, x. 45), and he often names Schwenckfeld andWeigel in particular. See especially _The Second Epistle_, sec. 54-62

[13] _Memoirs of the Life, Death and Burial, and Wonderful Writings ofJacob Behmen_, translated by Francis Okeley (1780), p. 22. 

[14] _Memoirs_, p. 2. 

[15] _Memoirs_, p. 6. Von Franckenberg says that Boehme himself toldhim this incident. 

[16] Ibid. Pp. 4-5. The reader will have noted the long history ofthis phrase, "Sabbath of the soul. "

[17] _Ibid. _ p. 7. 

[18] _Memoirs_, p. 8. Paracelsus taught that the inner nature ofthings might be seen by one who has become an organ of the UniversalMind. He says: "Hidden things which cannot be perceived by thephysical senses may be found through the sidereal body, through whoseorganism we may look into nature in the same way as the sun shinesthrough a glass. The inner nature of everything may be known throughMagic [The Divine Magia] and the power of inner sight. "--Hartmann's_Life of Paracelsus_ (1896), p. 53. 

[19] He uses this word _Seeker_ hundreds of times in his writings. 

[20] _Second Epistle_, sec. 6-8. 

[21] _Aurora_, xix. 10-13. He goes on in the following sections todescribe how for twelve years this insight "grew in his soul like ayoung tree before the exact understanding of it all" was arrived at. 

[22] _The Fifth Epistle_, 50. 

[23] _Aurora_, xi. 146. 

[24] _Ibid. _ xi. 6. 

[25] Aurora, xxii. 47. 

[26] In the _Aurora_ Boehme speaks of the Flash as an experience: "Asthe lightning flash appears and disappears again in a moment, so it isalso with the soul. In its battle the soul suddenly penetrates throughthe clouds and sees God like a flash of Light. "--Ibid. Xi. 76. 

[27] _Memoirs_, p. 8. 

[28] Evidently the "flash" of the year 1610 was not the last one. Infact, he seems to have had frequent ecstasies. 

[29] _The Second Epistle_, 9-10. 

[30] _Third Epistle_, 35. 

[31] See especially _Signatura rerum_, ix. 63, and _Forty Questions_, xxvi. 2-3 and xxx. 3 and 5. 

[32] _Third Epistle_, 32. The _Memoirs_ describe how it was copied by"a Gentleman of some rank" [Carl von Endern]. 

[33] _Memoirs_, p. 9. 

[34] Preserved in the Diary of Bartholomew Scultetus, then Mayor ofGörlitz (Ueberfeld's edition, 1730). This Diary does not record anyactual banishment of Boehme. The data for our knowledge of thepersecutions of Boehme are found in a personal narrative written by hisfriend Cornelius Weissner, M. D. --_Memoirs_, pp. 39-50. 

[35] _Aurora_, xiii. 7-10. 

[36] _Ibid. _ xxxvi. 152. 

[37] _Third Epistle_, 7. 

[38] _Fifteenth Epistle_, 18. This "new smell in the life of God" often occurs inBoehme's writings. Compare George Fox's testimony, "The whole creationhad a new smell. " For further comparisons see pp. 221-227. 

[39] The following is a complete list of his writings:

1612. _The Aurora_. 

1619. _The Three Principles of the Divine Essence_. 

1620. _The Threefold Life of Man; Forty Questions; The Incarnation ofJesus Christ; The Suffering, Death and Resurrection of Christ; The Treeof Faith; Six Points; Heavenly and Earthly Mysterium; The Last Times_. 

1621. _De signatura rerum; The Four Complexions; Apology to BalthazarTilken_ in 2 parts; _Consideration on Esaias Stiefel's Book_. 

1622. Sec. _Apology to Stiefel; Repentance; Resignation; Regeneration_. 

1623. _Predestination and Election of God; A Short Compendium ofRepentance; The Mysterium magnum_. 

1624. _The Clavis; The Supersensual Life; Divine Contemplation;Baptism and the Supper; A Dialogue Between the Enlightened andUnenlightened Soul; An Apology on the Book of Repentance; 177Theosophic Questions; An Epitome of the Mysterium magnum; The HolyWeek; An Exposition of the Threefold World_. 

Undated. _An Apology to Esaias Stiefel; The Last Judgment; Epistles_. 

[40] _Thirty-first Epistle_, 10. 

[41] _The Third Epistle_, 30. 

[42] _Ibid. _ 29. 

[43] There are as many blasphemies in the shoemaker's book as there arelines. It smells of shoemaker's wax and filthy blacking. May thisintolerable stench be far from us. 

[44] _Thirty-fourth Epistle_, 5. 

[45] _Thirty-third Epistle_. 

[46] _Thirty-fourth Epistle_, 16 and 21. 

[47] Weissner's Narrative, _Memoirs_, p. 49. 

[48] _Ibid. _ p. 58. 

[49] _Wort und Geist_, p. 196 _seq. _

[50] What could be a bolder criticism of the existing Church of his daythan this: "In place of the wolf [the Roman Church] there has grown upthe fox [the Lutheran Church] another anti-Christ, never a whit betterthan the first. If he should come to be old enough how he would devourthe poor people's hens!"--_The Three Principles of the Divine Essence_, xviii. 102. 

[51] _Mysterium magnum_, xxvii. 47. 

[52] _Ibid. _ xxviii. 49-51. 

[53] _Mysterium magnum_, xxxvi. 34; xl. 98. 

[54] _Ibid. _ lxiii. 47-51; _Twenty-first Epistle_, 1. 

[55] _Myst. Mag. _ xxv. 13. 

[56] _The First Epistle_, 3-5. 

[57] _Apology to Tilken_, ii. 298. 

[58] _Ibid. _ 72. Compare George Fox's testimony: "All must come tothat Spirit, if they would know God or Christ or the Scriptures aright, which they that gave them forth were led and taught by. "--_Journal_(ed. 1901), i. 35 and _passim_. 

[59] _Sig. Re. _ xiv. I. 

[60] _Myst. Mag. _ lxx. 40. 

[61] _Fourth Epistle_, 27 and 32. 

[62] _The Three Princ. _ xxii. 2. 

[63] _Aurora_, iii. 39. 

{172}

CHAPTER X

BOEHME'S UNIVERSE

"If thou wilt be a philosopher or naturalist and search into God'sbeing in Nature and discern how it all came to pass, then pray to Godfor the Holy Spirit to enlighten thee. In thy flesh and blood thou artnot able to apprehend it, but dost read it as if a mist were before thyeyes. In the Holy Spirit alone, and in the whole Nature out of whichall things were made, canst thou search into Nature. "--_Aurora_, ii. 15-17. 

One idea underlies everything which Boehme has written, namely, thatnobody can successfully "search into visible Nature, " or can sayanything true about Man or about the problem of good and evil, until hehas "apprehended _the whole Nature out of which all things were made_. "It will not do, he thinks, to make the easy assumption that in thebeginning the world was made out of nothing. "If God made all thingsout of nothing, " he says, "then the visible world would be norevelation of Him, for it would have nothing of Him in it. He wouldstill be off beyond and outside, and would not be known in this world. Persons however learned they may be, who hold such 'opinions' havenever opened the Gates of God. "[1]

Behind the visible universe and in it there is an invisible universe;behind the material universe and in it there is an immaterial universe;behind the temporal universe and in it there is an eternal universe, and the first business of the philosopher or naturalist, as Boehmeconceives it, is to discover the essential Nature of this invisible, immaterial, eternal universe out of which this fragment of a visibleworld has come forth. 

{173}

 Need have we, Sore need, of stars that set not in mid storm, Lights that outlast the lightnings. [2]

The visible fragment is never self-explanatory; all attempts to accountfor what occurs in it drive the serious observer deeper for his answer, and with a breathless boldness this meditative shoemaker of Görlitzundertakes to tell of the nature of this deeper World within the world. As a boy he saw a vast treasury of wealth hidden in the inside of amountain, though he could never make anybody else see it. As a man hebelieved that he saw an immeasurable wealth of reality hidden withinthe world of sense, and he tried, often with poor enough success, tomake others see the inside world which he found. We must now endeavourto grasp what it was that he saw. There is no doubt at all that thisinside world which he discovered within and behind visible Nature, within and behind man, is really there, nor is there any doubt in mymind that he, Jacob Boehme, got an insight into its nature andsignificance which is of real worth to the modern world, but he isseriously hampered by the poverty of his categories, by thedifficulties of his symbolism and by his literary limitations, when hecomes to the almost insuperable task of expressing what he has seen. He is himself perfectly conscious of his limitations. He is constantlyamazed that God uses such "a mean instrument, " he regrets again andagain that he is "so difficult to be understood, " and he often wishesthat he could "impart his own soul" to his readers that they "mightgrasp his meaning, "[3] for he never for a moment doubts that "by God'sgrace he has eyes of his own. "[4] He lived in an unscientific age, before our present exact terminology was coined. He was the inheritorof the vocabulary and symbolism of alchemy and astrology, and he wasobliged to force his spiritual insight into a language which for us hasbecome largely an antique rubbish heap. [5] If he {174} had possessedthe marvellous power that Dante had to compel words to express what hissoul saw, he might have fused these artificial symbolisms with the fireof his spirit, and given them an eternal value as the Florentine didwith the equally dry and stubborn terminology of scholasticism, butthat gift he did not have. [6] We must not blame him too much for hisobscurities and for his large regions of rubbish and confusion, but bethankful for the luminous patches, and try to seize the meaning and themessage where it breaks through and gets revealed. 

The outward, visible, temporal world, he declares, is "a spiration, oroutbreathing, or egress" of an eternal spiritual World and this inner, spiritual World "couches within" our visible world and is its groundand mother, and the outward world is from husk to core a parable orfigure of the inward and eternal World. "The whole outward visibleworld, with all its being, is a 'signature' or figure of the inward, spiritual World, and everything has a character that fits an internalreality and process, and the internal is in the external. "[7] As heexpresses the same idea in another book: "The visible world is amanifestation of the inward spiritual World, and it is an image orfigure of eternity, whereby eternity has made itself visible. "[8]

But there is a still deeper Source of things than this inward spiritualWorld, which is after all a manifested and organized World, and Boehmebegins his account with That which is before beginnings--theunoriginated Mother of all Worlds and of All that is, visible andinvisible. This infinite Mother of all births, this eternal Matrix, hecalls the _Ungrund_, "Abyss, " or the "Great {175} Mystery, "[9] or the"Eternal Stillness. " Here we are beyond beginnings, beyond time, beyond "nature, " and we can say nothing in the language of reason thatis true or adequate. The eternal divine Abyss is its own origin andexplanation; it presupposes nothing but itself; there is nothing beyondit, nothing outside it--there is, in fact, no "beyond" and"outside"--it is "neither near nor far off. "[10] It is an absolutePeace, an indivisible Unity, an undifferentiated One--an Abysmal Deep, which no Name can adequately name and which can be described in nowords of time and space, of here and now. 

But we must not make the common blunder of supposing that Boehme meansthat _before_ God expressed Himself and unfolded Himself in theinfinite processes of revelation and creation, He existed apart, asthis undifferentiated One, this unknowable Abyss, this incomprehensibleMatrix. There is no "before. " Creation, revelation, manifestation isa dateless and eternal fact. God to be a personal God must go out ofHimself and find Himself in something that mirrors Him. He must have aSon. He must pour His Life and Love through a universe. What Boehmemeans, then, is that no manifestation, no created universe, noexpression, is the ultimate Reality itself. The manifested universehas come out of More than itself. The Abyss is more than anything, orall, that comes out of it, or can come out of it, and it lies with itsinfinite depth beneath everything which appears, as a man's entirelife, conscious and unconscious, is in and yet lies behind every act ofwill, though we can "talk about" only what is voiced or expressed. 

Even within this Abysmal Depth, that underlies all that comes to being, there is eternal process--eternal movement toward Personality andCharacter: "God is the eternal Seeker and Finder of Himself. "[11] "Inthe {176} Stillness an eternal Will arises, a longing desire formanifestation, the eye of eternity turns upon itself and discoversitself"[12]--in a word there is within the infinite Divine Deep aneternal process of self-consciousness and personality, which Boehmeexpresses in the words, "The Father eternally generates the Son. " "Godhath no beginning and there is nothing sooner than He, but His Wordhath a bottomless, unfathomable origin in Him and an eternal end: whichis not rightly called _end_, but Person, _i. E. _ the Heart of theFather, for it is generated in the eternal Centre. "[13] This innerprocess toward Personality is often called by Boehme "the eternalVirgin" who brings to birth God as Person, or sometimes "the Mirror, "in which God sees Himself revealed as will and wisdom and goodness. 

In the greatest artistic creation of the modern world--"The SistineMadonna"--Raphael has with almost infinite pictorial power of geniustried to express in visible form this Birth of God. Behind curtainswhich hang suspended from nowhere and stretch across the universe, dividing the visible from the invisible, the world of Nature from theworld of holy mystery, the infinite, immeasurable and abysmal God ispictured as defined and personal in the face and figure of a littleChild, in which the artist suggests in symbolism the infinite depth andjoy and potency of Divinity breaking forth out of mystery into form. It is precisely this birth of God into visibility that Boehme isendeavouring to tell. "The Son, " however, Boehme says, "is not dividedor sundered from the Father, as two persons side by side--there are nottwo Gods. The Son is the heart of the Father--God as Person--theoutspringing Joy of the total triumphing Reality, [14] and through thiseternal movement toward self-consciousness and Personality, God becomesSpirit, an out-going energy of purpose, a dynamic activity, burstingforth into infinite manifestation and differentiation--a forth-breathedor expressed Word. [15] Through {177} this eternal process ofself-differentiation and outgoing activity, the inner spiritualuniverse comes into being--as an intermediate Nature or world, betweenthe ineffable Abyss of God on the one hand, and our world of material, visible things on the other hand. " "The process of the wholecreation, " he says, "is nothing else but a manifestation of the deepand unsearchable God, and yet creation is not God but rather like anapple which springs from the power of the tree and grows upon the tree, and yet is not the tree--even so all things have sprung forth out ofthe central divine Desire. "[16]

This entire manifested or out-breathed universe is, he says, theexpression of the divine desire for holy sport and play. The Heart ofGod enjoys this myriad play of created beings, all tuned as theinfinite strings of a harp for contributing to one mighty harmony, andall together uttering and voicing the infinite variety of the divinepurpose. Each differentiated spirit or light or property or atom ofcreation has a part to play in the infinite sport or game or harmony, "so that in God there might be a holy play through the universe as achild plays with his mother, and that so the joy in the Heart of Godmight be increased, "[17] or again, "so that each being may be a truesounding string in God's harmonious concert. "[18]

This eternal, interior World--the Mirror in which the Spirit manifestsHimself--is a double world of darkness and light, for there can be nomanifestation except through opposites. [19] There must be yes and no. In order to have a play there must be opposing players. In order tohave life and reality there must be conflict and conquest. As soon asthe forth-going Word of God is differentiated into many concreteexpressions and the fundamental Unity of the Abyss is broken up intoparticular desires and wills, there is bound to be a clash ofopposites--will and contra-will, strain and tension, light and joy andbeauty, and over against them pain and sorrow and evil. Evil mustappear as soon as there is {178} process of separation, differentiation, variety, specialization and particularity. [20]Darkness appears as soon as there is a contraction or narrowing intoconcrete desire and will. 

Both worlds--the light world and the dark world--are made by desire andwill. Narrowing desires for individual and particular aims, whichsever a being from the total whole of divine goodness, make the kingdomof darkness, while death to self-will and a yearning desire and willfor all that is expressed in the Heart and Light of God, in the Personof His Son, make the kingdom of Light. Lucifer--the awful example ofthe dark World--fell because he stood in pride and despised the Birthof the Heart of God and its gentle, universalizing love-spirit; and sohis light went out into darkness. His climbing up into a severed willwas his fall. The more he climbed toward the sundered aim of his ownwill and turned away from the Heart of God, the greater was his fall, for to turn away from the Heart of God is always to fall. [21] There isno darkness, no evil, in angel or devil or man, except the nature ofthat particular being's own will and desire--both darkness and lightare born of desire. The origin of the fall of any creature, therefore, is not outside that creature, but within it. [22]

The evil in the world is only a possible good spoiled. Beings createdfor a holy sport and play, for an ordered harmony, as infiniteharp-strings for a celestial music, set their wilful desires uponsundered ends, broke the intended harmony, or "temperature, " as Boehmecalls it, introduced strife--the _turba magna_--and darkness, and sospoiled the actual material out of which the kingdoms of nature aremade, for the attitude of will moulds the permanent structure of thebeing. Through the whole universe, visible and invisible, as a result, the dark lines run, and the drama of the whole process of the universeis the mighty issue between light and darkness, good and evil: Twouniversal qualities persist from {179} beginning to end and produce twokingdoms arrayed against each other--each within the other--one love, the other wrath; one light, the other darkness; one heavenly, the otherhellish. [23]

Now out of this inner spiritual universe--a double universe of lightand darkness--this temporal, visible, more or less material, world hascome forth, as an outer sheath of an inner world, and, like its Mother, it, too, is a double world of good and evil. "There is not, " asWilliam Law, interpreting Boehme, once said, "the smallest thing or thesmallest quality of a thing in this world, but is a quality of heavenor hell discovered [_i. E. _ revealed] under a temporal form. Everything that is disagreeable to taste, to the sight, to our hearing, smelling or feeling has its root and ground and cause in and from hell[the dark kingdom], and is as surely in its degree the working andmanifestation of hell in this world, as the most diabolical malice andwickedness is; the stink of weeds, of mire, of all poisonous, corruptedthings; shrieks, horrible sounds; wrathful fire, rage of tempests andthick darkness, are all of them things that had no possibility ofexistence, till the fallen angels disordered their kingdom [_i. E. _until the inner universe was spoiled by narrow, sundered desires]. Therefore everything that is disagreeable and horrible in this life, everything that can afflict and terrify our senses, all the kinds ofnatural and moral evil, are only so much of the nature, effects andmanifestation of hell, for hell and evil are only two words for one andthe same thing. . . . On the other hand, all that is sweet, delightfuland amiable in the world, in the serenity of air, the fineness ofseasons, the joy of light, the melody of sounds, the beauty of colours, the fragrance of smells, the splendour of precious stones, is nothingelse but heaven breaking through the veil of this world, manifestingitself in such a degree and darting forth in such variety so much ofits own nature. "[24]

I have spoken so far as though Boehme traced the {180} source of everything to _will and desire_, as though, in fact, the visible universewere the manifold outer expression of some deep-lying personal will, and in the last analysis that is true, but his more usual form ofinterpretation is that of the working of great structural _tendencies_, or _energies_, or "_qualities_, " as he calls them, which are commonboth to the inner and the outer universe. There are, he declares againand again with painful reiteration, but with little advance oflucidity, seven of these fundamental laws or energies or qualities, like the sevenfold colour-band of the rainbow, though they can never beuntangled or sundered or thought of as standing side by side, fortogether in their unity and interprocesses they form the universe, withits warp and woof of light and darkness. [25]

The first "quality" is a contracting, compacting tendency which runsthrough the entire universe, outer and inner. It is in its inmostessence _desire_, the egoistic tendency, the focusing of will upon adefinite aim so that consciousness contracts from its universal andabsolute possibilities to a definite, limited, concrete _something inparticular_, and thus negates everything else. Desire always disturbsthe "Quiet" and brings contraction, negation and darkness. In theouter world it appears as the property of cohesion which makes theparticles of a particular thing hold and cling together and form oneself-contained and separate thing. It is the individualizing tendencywhich permeates the universe and which may be expressed either as amaterial law in the outer world, or as personal will-tendency in theinner world. 

The second "quality" is the attractive, gravitating tendency whichbinds whole with whole as an organizing, universalizing energy. This, again, is both spiritual and physical--it has an outer and an inneraspect. It is a fundamental love-principle in the inner world--the{181} foundation, as Boehme says, of sweetness and warmth andmercy[26]--and at the same time is a structural, organizing law ofnature, which tends out of many parts to make one universe. [27]

These two diverse tendencies at work eternally in the same worldproduce strain and tension and _anguish_. The tension occasioned bythese opposite forces gives rise to the third "quality, " which is atendency toward movement, oscillation, rotation--what Boehme oftencalls _the wheel of nature_, or the wheel of motion, or the wheel oflife. [28] This, too, is both outer and inner; a law of the physicalworld and a tendency of spirit. There is nothing in nature that is notceaselessly moved, and there is no life without its restlessness andanguish, its inward strain and stress, its tension and its problem, itsdizzy wheel of life--the perpetual pursuit of a goal which ends at thestarting-point as an endless circular process. 

The fourth "quality" is the _flash_, or ignition, due to collisionbetween nature and spirit, in which a new principle of activity breaksthrough what before was mere play of _forces_, and reveals somethingthat has activity in itself, the kindling, burning power of fire, though not yet fire which gives _light_. In the outer world it is thebursting forth of the elemental, fusing, consuming powers of Naturewhich may either construct or destroy. In the inner world it is thebirth of self-consciousness on its lower levels, the awaking of thesoul, the kindling of passion, and desire, and purpose. Any one ofthese four lower "qualities" may stay at its own level, remain initself, out of "temperature" or balance with the rest, and so be only a"dark principle"; or it may go on and fulfil itself in one of thehigher "qualities" next to be described, and so become a part of thetriumphing "light principle. " Fire may be only a "fire of anguish" orit may go up into a "fire of love"; it may be a harsh, {182}self-tormenting fire, or it may be a soft, light-bringing, purifyingfire. Suffering may harden the spirit, or it may be the condition ofjoy. Crucifixion may be mere torture, or it may be the way ofsalvation. It is then here at the _great divide_ between the"qualities" that the universe reveals its differentiation into twokingdoms--"the dark" and "the light. "

The fifth "quality" is Light, springing out of the "flash" of fire andrising to the level of illumination and the revelation of beauty. Itis at this stage of Light that the lower force-forms and fire-formsfirst stand revealed in their full meaning and come to their realfulfilment. On its inner or spiritual side this Light-quality is an"amiable and blessed Love. " It is the dawn and beginning of thetriumphing spirit of freedom which wills to draw all things back to onecentre, one harmony, one unity, in which wild will and selfish passionand isolating pride, and all that springs from the dark fire-root arequenched, and instead the central principle of the spiritualworld--Love--comes into play. 

Boehme calls his sixth "quality" voice or sound, but he means by it theentire range of intelligent expression through tone and melody, musicand speech, everything in the world, in fact, that gives joy and beautythrough purposeful utterance. He even widens his category of "sound"to include colours and smells and tastes, in short, all thesense-qualities by which the world gets revealed in its richness ofbeauty and harmony to our perception. He widens it, too, to includedeeper and subtler tones than those of our earth-born sense--theheavenly sports and melodies and harmonies which the rightly attunedspirit may hear with a finer organ than the ear. 

The seventh, and final, "quality" is body or figure, by which he meansthe fundamental tendency or energy toward expression in actuality andconcrete form. The final goal of intelligent purpose is therealization of wisdom, of idea, in actual Nature-forms andlife-forms--the _incarnation of the spirit_. There is nothing real inthe {183} universe but has its form, its "signature, " its figure, itsbody-aspect: "There is not anything but has its soul and its body, andeach soul is as it were an inner kernel, or seed, to a visible andcomprehensible body, "[29] and, as we shall see, the supreme achievementof the universe is the visible appearance of the Word of God, theeternal Son, in flesh like ours--a visible realization in time of theeternal Heart of God. The glory of God appears in a kingdom of God, avisible vesture of the Spirit. 

All these seven qualities, or "fountain-spirits, " or fundamentaltendencies, are in every part and parcel of the universe, and eachparticular thing or being finds his true place in the vast drama orplay of the universe, according to which "quality" is prepotent, andmarks the thing or being with its "signature. " They constitute intheir eternal nature what Boehme calls _The Three Principles_ thatunderlie all reality of every order. The first principle is thesubstratum or essence of these first three "qualities, " thenature-tendencies at the level of forces, which he generally calls the_fire-principle_, _i. E. _ the dark fire, before the "flash" has come. The second principle is the substratum or essence of the last three"qualities"--the tendencies toward unity, harmony, order, love, whichhe calls the _light-principle_. The third principle produces the unionor synthesis of the other two--the principle of realization in body andform, the triumph over opposition of these two opposing principles inthe exhibition of the real, the actual, the living, the conscious, where dark and light are both joined, but are dominated by anotherirreducible principle. To these three fundamental principlescorrespond the three supreme divine aspects: Father, Son, and HolyGhost. [30]

We are here, of course, far from a scientific account of the processesand evolution of the universe. Boehme {184} is no scientific geniusand he did not dream that every item and event of the world ofphenomena could be causally explained, without reference to any deeperabysmal world of Spirit. His mission is rather that of the prophet who"has eyes of his own. " He is endeavouring to tell us, often no doubtin very laborious fashion, sometimes as "one who is tunnelling throughlong tracts of darkness, " that this outside world which we see anddescribe is a parable, a pictorial drama, suggesting, hinting, revealing an inside world of Spirit and Will; that every slightestfragment of the seen is big with significance as a revelation of anunseen realm, which again is an egress from the unimaginable Splendourof God. He believes, like Paracelsus, that everything inNature--plants, metals, and stars--"can be fundamentally searched outand comprehended" by the inward way of approach, can be read like anopen book by the children of the Spirit who have caught the secret cluethat leads in, and who have the key that unlocks the inner realm. [31]

Obviously his "inner way of approach" works more successfully whenapplied to _man_ than when applied to plants and metals and stars--andwhen he writes of man, whether in the first or in the third person, hedoes often seem to have "eyes of his own, " and to "hold the key thatunlocks. "

It is an elemental idea with him that man is "a little world"--amicrocosm--and expresses in himself all the properties of the greatworld--the macrocosm. [32] "As you find man to be, " he writes, "just sois eternity. Consider man in body and soul, in good and evil, in lightand darkness, in joy and sorrow, in power and weakness, in life anddeath--all is in man, both heaven and earth, stars and elements. Nothing can be named that is not man. "[33] Every man's life isinwardly bottomless and opens from within into all the immeasurabledepth of God. Eternity springs through time and reveals itself inevery person, for the foundation property of the soul {185} of everyman is essentially eternal, spiritual, and abysmal--it is a little dropout of the Fountain of the Life of God, it is a little sparkle of theDivine Splendour. [34] God is spoken of again and again as "man'snative country, " his true "origin and home"--"The soul of man is alwaysseeking after its native country, out of which it has wandered, seekingto return home again to its rest in God. "[25] "The soul of man, " hesays again, "has come out from the eternal Father, out from the DivineCentre, but this soul--with this high origin and this noblemark--stands always at the opening of two gates. "[36] Two worlds, twomighty cosmic principles, make their appeal to his will. Two kingdomswrestle in him, two natures strive for the mastery in his life, and hemakes his world, his nature, his life, his eternal destiny by hischoices: "Whatsoever thou buildest and sowest here in thy spirit, be itwords, works, or thought, that will be thy eternal house. "[37] "Thegood or evil that men do, by acts of will, enters into and forms thesoul and so moulds its permanent habitation. "[38] Adam once, and everyman after him also once, has belonged, in the centre of the soul, toGod, and whether it be Adam or some far-off descendant of him, each isthe creator of his own real world, and settles for himself theatmosphere in which he shall live and the inner "tincture" of hisabiding nature. "Adam fell"--and any man's name can here besubstituted for "Adam"--"because, though he was a spark of God'seternal essence, he broke himself off and sundered himself from theuniversal Will--by contraction--and withdrew into self-seeking, andcentred himself in selfishness. He broke the perfect temperature--orharmonious balance of qualities--and turned his will toward the darkworld and the light in him grew dim. "[39] To follow the dark world isto be Lucifer or fallen Adam, to follow the light world completely isto be Christ[40]--and before every soul the two {186} gates standopen. [41] In a powerful and penetrating passage he says: "We shouldtake heed and beget that which is good out of ourselves. If we make anangel of ourselves we are that; if we make a devil of ourselves, we arethat. "[42]

This last sentence is a good introduction to Boehme's conception of"the next world"--"the great beyond. " He was as completely free of thecrude idea that heaven is a shining locality in the sky, and hell ayawning pit of fire below the earth, as the most exact scientificscholar of the modern world is likely to be. He had grasped theessential and enduring character of man's spiritual nature so firmlythat he ceased to have any further interest in the mythological aspectsin which vivid and pictorial imagination has invested the unseen world. "God's presence itself, " he says, "is heaven, and if God did but putaway the veiling shadows, which now curtain thy sight, thou wouldstsee, even where thou now art, the Face of God and the heavenly gate. God is so near that at any moment a holy Birth [a Birth into the Lifeof God] may be accomplished in thy heart, "[43] and, again, in the samebook he writes: "If man's eyes were opened he would see God everywhere, for heaven is everywhere for those who are in the innermost Birth. When Stephen saw heaven opened and Jesus at the right hand of God, hisspirit did not swing itself aloft into some heaven in the sky, but itrather penetrated into the innermost Birth where heaven always is. Thou must not think that God is a Being who is off in an upper heaven, or that when the soul departs it goes many hundred thousands of milesaloft. It does not need to do that, for as soon as it has entered theinnermost Birth it is in heaven already with God--_near and far in Godis one thing_. "[44]

The "next world"--"the beyond"--therefore, must not be thought of interms of space and time, of here and there, of now and then, as a placeto which we shall journey at the momentous moment of death: "the soul{187} needeth no going forth. "[45] As soon as the external veil offlesh dissolves, each person is in his own country and has all the timebeen in it. There is nothing nearer to you than heaven and hell. Towhichever of them you _incline_ and toward whichever of them youtend--that is most near you, and every man has in himself the key. [46]Heaven and hell are everywhere throughout the whole world. You neednot seek them far off. 

It is always the nature of "Anti-Christ" and "Babel" and"opinion-peddlers" to seek God and heaven and hell above the stars orunder the deep. There is only one "place" to look for God and that isin one's own soul, there is only one "region" in which to find heavenor hell, and that is in the nature and character of the person's owndesire and will: "Even though the devil should go many millions ofmiles, desiring to see heaven and enter into it, yet he would still bein hell and could not see heaven at all. "[47] The soul, Boehme says insubstance, hath heaven or hell in itself. Heaven is the turning of thewill into God's love; hell is the turning of the will into hate. Nowwhen the body falls away the heavenly soul is thoroughly penetratedwith the Love and Light of God, even as fire penetrates and enlightenswhite-hot iron, whereby it loses its darkness--this is heaven and thisis the right hand of God. The soul that dwells in falsehood, lust, pride, envy, and anger carries hell in itself and cannot reach theLight and Love of God. Though it should go a thousand miles or athousand times ten thousand miles--even climb beyond the spaces of thestars and the bounds of the universe--it would still remain in the sameproperty and source of darkness as before. [48] The "next world"--"theworld beyond"--is {188} just _this_ world, as it is in each one of us, with its essential spirit and nature and character clearly revealed andfulfilled. God creates and maintains no hell of ever-lasting torture;He builds and supports no heaven of endless glory. They are bothformed out of the soul's own substance as it turns toward light ordarkness, toward love or hate--in short, as "it keeps house, " to useone of his vivid words, with the eternal nature of things. 

Something like this, then, was the universe which Boehme--with those"azure-grey eyes that lighted up like the windows of Solomon'sTemple"--saw there in Görlitz, as he pegged his shoes. "Open youreyes, " he once said, "and the whole world is full of God. "[49] But heis not a pantheist, in the usual sense of that word, blurring away thelines between good and evil, or the boundaries which mark off self fromself, and self from God. There is forever, to be sure, a hiddenessence or substance in the soul which is from God, and which remainsto the end unlost and unspoiled--something to which God can speak andto which His Light and Grace can make appeal; but I am indestructibly areal I, and God is in His true nature no vague Abyss--He eternallyutters Himself as Person: "The first Abysmal God without beginningbegets a comprehensible will which is Son. Thus the Abyss which initself is an indescribable Nothing [nothing in particular] forms itselfinto Something [definite] through the Birth of a Son, and so isSpirit. "[50] In God Himself there is only Good, only triumphingeternal Joy, [51] but as soon as finite processes appear, as soon asanything is differentiated into actuality, the potentialities ofdarkness and light appear, the possibilities of good and evil arethere: "_All things consist in Yes or No. In order to have anythingdefinite made manifest there must be a contrary therein--a Yes and aNo. _"[52] The universe, therefore, though it came forth out of theeternal Mother and remains still, in its deepest origin and being, rooted in the substance of God, is a {189} battleground of strife, anendless Armageddon. Both within and without the world is woven ofmixed strands, a warp of darkness and a woof of light, and all beingspossessed of will are thus actors in a mighty drama of eternalsignificance, with exits, not only at the end of the Fifth Act butthroughout the play, through two gates into two worlds which are bothall the time present here and now. 

[1] _Aurora_, xxi. 60-62. 

[2] Swinburne, _Erechtheus_. 

[3] See _Fifteenth Epistle_, 25. 

[4] _Fifth Epistle_, 50. 

[5] Like Paracelsus, he uses "sulphur" in a symbolic way to representan active energy of the universe and a form of will in man. In asimilar way, "mercury" stands for intelligence and spirit, and "salt"is the symbol for substance. No one could find in a chemist's shop thesalt or sulphur that Boehme talks about!

[6] There is a fine saying about Dante in the Ottimo Commento: "I, thewriter, heard Dante say that never a rhyme had led him to say otherthan he would, but that many a time and oft he had made words say forhim what they were not wont to say for other poets. "

[7] _Sig. Re. _ ix. 1-3. Paracelsus said, "Everything is the product ofone creative effort, " and, "There is nothing corporeal that does notpossess a soul. "

[8] _The Supersensual Life_, p. 44. 

[9] Paracelsus and others used the term _Mysterium magnum_ to denotethe original, but unoriginated, matter out of which all things weremade. "Mysterium" is anything out of which something germinallycontained in it can be developed. 

[10] _Mysterium magnum_, xxix. 1-2. 

[11] _Forty Questions_, i. 57. 

[12] _Sig. Re. _ ii. 4-15, and iii. 1-10. 

[13] _The Threefold Life of Man_, iii. 2. 

[14] _Aurora_, iii. 35-39. 

[15] _Ibid. _ vi. 6-8; _Clavis_, 18-29. 

[16] _Sig. Re. _ xvi. I. 

[17] _Aurora_, xiii. 48-57; _Myst. Mag. _ viii. 31; _The ThreePrinciples_, iv. 66. 

[18] _Sig. Re. _ xv. 38. 

[19] _Myst. Mag. _ viii. 27. 

[20] _Myst. Mag. _ xxix. 1-10. 

[21] _The Three Principles_, iv. 68-74; _The Threefold Life_, iv. 33. 

[22] _Myst. Mag. _ ix. 3-8. 

[23] _Aurora_, Preface 84. 

[24] Christopher Walton, _Notes and Materials for a Biography of Wm. Law_ (London, 1854), 55. 

[25] The great passages in which Boehme expounds the seven qualitiesare found in the _Aurora_, chaps. Viii. -xi. ; _Sig. Re. _ chap. Xiv. ;_The Clavis_, 54-132; though they are more or less definitely stated orimplied in nearly everything he wrote. Seven "qualities" or"principles" or "sources" appear and reappear in ever shifting formsthroughout the entire literature of Gnosticism, alchemy, andnature-mysticism. 

[26] _Aurora_, viii. 32-35. 

[27] Some of Boehme's enthusiastic friends insist that Sir IsaacNewton, who was an admirer of Boehme, "ploughed with Boehme's heifer, "_i. E. _ got his suggestion of the law of universal gravitation from thephilosopher of Görlitz. See Walton, _Notes_, p. 46 and _passim_. 

[28] _Sig. Re. _ iv. _passim_. 

[29] _Sig. Re. _ xiii. 

[30] For fuller treatment of this point see Boutroux, _HistoricalStudies in Philosophy_, chapter on "Jacob Boehme, the GermanPhilosopher, " pp. 199-201. 

[31] _Third Epistle_, 33. 

[32] _Twenty-fourth Epistle_, 7; _Sig. Re. _ i. 

[33] _The Threefold Life_, vi. 47. 

[34] _The Three Princ. _ xiv. 89; _First Epistle_, 42. 

[35] _The Three Princ. _ x. 26; xvi. 50. 

[36] _Ibid. _ x. 13. 

[37] _Aurora_, xviii. 49. 

[38] _Myst. Mag. _ xxii. 41. 

[39] _Ibid. _ xviii. 31-43, given in substance. 

[40] _Ibid. _ xxvi. 19. The place of Christ in Boehme's system will begiven in the next chapter. 

[41] _Myst. Mag. _ xxvi. 5. 

[42] _Incarnation_, part ii. Ix. 12-14. 

[43] _Aurora_, x. 100-103. 

[44] _Ibid. _ xix. 56-59. 

[45] _The Supersensual Life_, 36. 

[46] _The Three Princ. _ ix. 25-27 and xix. 33. 

[47] _Myst. Mag. _ viii. 28. 

[48] _The Supersensual Life_, 38. Every reader will naturally bereminded of Milton's great lines:

 "The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven. "

There were no doubt many _sources_ in Milton's time for such aconception, but the poet surely would read the translations of Boehmewhich were coming from the press all through the period of his literaryactivity. 

[49] _The Threefold Life_, xi. 106. 

[50] _Election_, i. 10-17. 

[51] _Aurora_, ii. 63. 

[52] _Theosoph. Quest. _ iii. 2-4. 

{190}

CHAPTER XI

JACOB BOEHME'S "WAY OF SALVATION"

"I will write a Process or Way which I myself have gone. "[1] Mostwriters who have treated of Boehme have mainly dealt with his_Weltanschauung_--his theosophical view of the Abyss and the worlds oftime and eternity, --or they have devoted themselves to descriptions ofhis type of mysticism. [2] His important permanent contribution toChristianity is, however, to be found in his interpretation of the way, or, as he calls it, the process of salvation. Very much that he wroteabout the procession of the universe is capricious and subjective. Hisinterpretations of Genesis, and of Old Testament Scripture in general, are thoroughly uncritical and of value only as they reveal his own mindand his occasional flashes of insight. But his accounts of his own_experience_ and his message of the way to God possess an elemental anduniversal value, and belong among the precious words of the prophets ofthe race. His Way of Salvation is in direct line with the centralideas of Denck, Bünderlin, Entfelder, Franck, Schwenckfeld, and Weigel;that is, his emphasis is always, as was theirs, upon the native divinepossibilities of the soul, upon the fact of a spiritual environment inimmediate correspondence and co-operation with the soul, and upon thenecessity of personal and inward experience as the key to every gate oflife; but he puts more stress even than Schwenckfeld did {191} upon theepoch-making new birth, and he sees more in the Person of Christ as theway of salvation than any of the spiritual Reformers of the sixteenthcentury had seen, while his own personal experience was so unique andilluminating, so profound and transforming, that he was able to speakon divine things with a grasp and insight and with a spiritualauthority beyond that attained by any of the reformers in this group. He has given, I think, as profound and as simple, and at the same timeas vital an interpretation of salvation through Christ as theReformation movement produced before the nineteenth century, and muchthat he said touches the very core of what seems to us to-day to be theheart of the Gospel, the central fact of mature religion. [3]

As we have seen, Boehme does not in the least blink the tragic depth ofsin, while he goes as far as anybody in holding that "the centre ofman's soul came out of eternity, "[4] that "as a mother bringeth forth achild out of her own substance and nourisheth it therewith, so doth Godwith man his child, "[5] and that the inward ground and centre of thesoul, with its divine capacity of response to Grace and Light, is aninalienable possession of every man. [6] Yet, at the same time, heinsists that there is in every soul "both a yes and a no, " a vision ofthe good and a _contrarium_, a hunger for the universal will of God anda hunger for the particular will of self. [7] The form of hunger, theinclination of desire, the attitude of will shapes the destiny, formsthe fundamental disposition, and builds the life of every man intoheaven or into hell--"a man puts on a garment of light or a garment ofwrath as he puts on clothes. "[8] To consent to false desire, to turntoward objects that feed only the particular selfish will, to live inthe lower "qualities" of dark-fire is to {192} form a soul _tinctured_with darkness and sundered from the eternal root of Life. Lucifer wentthe whole way in his consent to false and evil desire. He said, "Evilbe thou my good!" and formed his entire nature out of thedark-principle, and "his Light went out. " Adam and his offspring afterhim, however, only dimmed the native Light and deadened the originalpower that belongs to one who comes from God, to live in heavenlyharmony and joy. Man has fallen indeed, but he is not hopelessly lost, he is "forever seeking his native country, " and he forever bears withinhimself an immortal seed which may burst into Life--into a"Lily-blossom. "[9] The way of salvation for Boehme is the _process_ bywhich this original Light and power, dimmed and deadened by sin, arerestored to the soul. 

He never tires of insisting that the restoration can come only by a_process of Life_, not by a "scheme" of theology. Like the earlyprophets of Israel, in their sweeping attacks on the ritual andsacrificial systems that were being substituted for moral and spirituallife, Boehme flings himself with holy passion against the substitutionof doctrines of salvation for a real life-process of salvation, personally experienced in the soul. "Cain" and "Babel" are his twofavourite types of the prevailing substitute-religion which he calls"verbal, " or "historical, " or "titular" Christianity. [10] "WhateverBabel teaches, " he says, "of external imputed righteousness, or ofexternal assumed adoption is without foundation or footing. "[11] He isstill only a follower of "Cain" who tries to cover his old, evil, unchanged self "with the purple mantle of Christ's death. "[12] The"opinion" that the old man of evil-will can be "covered" with Christ'smerit, the "faith" that His death pays off for us the debt of our sinis only "a supposed religion. "[13] "Christianity, " he says again, "does not consist in the mere knowing of history and applying thehistory-knowledge to ourselves, {193} saying: 'Christ died for us; Hehath paid the ransom for us, so that we need do nothing but comfortourselves therewith and steadfastly believe that it is so. '"[14] The"doctors" and "the wise world" and "the makers of opinion" will have itthat Christ has suffered on the Cross for all our sins, and that we canbe justified and acquitted of all our transgressions by what He did forus, but it is no true, safe way for the soul. To stake faith upon ahistory that once was, to look for "satisfaction" through thesufferings which Christ endured before we were born is to be "the childof an assumed grace, " is to possess a mere external and historicalfaith that leaves the dim, weak soul where it was before. All such"invented works" and "supposed schemes" are of Anti-Christ, they "availnothing" whatever toward the real process of salvation. [15]

The gravamen of his charge is not that the "opinions" are false, orthat the "history" is unimportant, but that "opinions" and "history"are taken as substitutes for religion itself, which is and must alwaysbe an actual inward process constructing a new and victorious life inthe person himself. "All fictions, I say, and devices which mencontrive to come to God by are lost labour and vain endeavour _withouta new mind_. Verbal forgiveness and outward imputation ofrighteousness are false and vain comforts--soft cushions for the evilsoul--without the creation of a will wholly new, which loveth andwilleth evil no more. "[16] The whole problem, then, is the problem ofthe formation of a new vision, a new desire, a new will, and Boehmefinds the solution of this deepest human problem in Christ. Christ isthe Light-revelation of God--the shining forth of the Light and Lovenature of the Eternal God. It must not be supposed for a moment thatonce--before satisfaction was made to Him--God was an angry God who hadto be "reconciled" by a transaction, or that there was _a time inhistory_ when God began to reveal His Heart in a Christ-revelation, or{194} that when Christ became man, Deity divided itself into sunderedPersons. [17] "No. You ought not to have such thoughts, " Boehme says. The Heart and Light and Love of God are from eternity. Christ hasnever sundered or broken Himself away from God; they are not two butforever One. All the Light and Love and Joy of God have blossomed intothe Christ-manifestation and become revealed in Him. Like everythingelse in the universe, Christ is both outward and inward. He belongs inthe eternal inward world and He also has had His temporal manifestationin the visible world. The Heart of God became a human soul, broughtthe fulness of the Deity into humanity, and slew the spirit of theworld. [18] The inward penetrated the outward and illuminated it withLight. [19] Christ entered into humanity and tinctured it withDeity. [20] In Him the Heart of God became man, and in the power of theheavenly Light He wrestled with our wild human nature and conqueredit. [21] Eternity and time are united in Him. [22] He is the weddingchamber of God and man. [23] He is God and man in one undividedPerson. [24] He is actual God; He is essential man--the God-man, theman-God, in whom the arms of everlasting Love are outstretched andthrough whom humanity is brought into the power of the Eternal God. [25]It was in this "dear Emmanuel, " as he often calls Christ, that "Lovebecame man and put on our human flesh and our human soul, "[26] and thefull power of Eternal Love stood revealed in time, for "One who is Loveitself was born of our own very birth. "[27] The Cross was not atransaction. It was the culmination of this mighty Love, for "here onthe cross hung God and man"--God's Love springing forth in a soulstrong enough to show it in its full scope. [28]

But let no person think that he can "cover himself with the purplemantle of Christ's sufferings and death, " {195} and so win hissalvation: "Thou thyself, " he says, "must go through Christ's wholejourney, and enter wholly into His process. "[29] "We become childrenof God in Christ, " he wrote in one of his Epistles, "not by an outward, adventitious show of appropriating Grace, not through some merit ofGrace appropriated from without, or received in an historicalapprehension of being justified by another, but through an inward, resident Grace, which regenerates us into childlikeness, so that Christthe conqueror of death arises in us and becomes a dominating operationin us. "[30] This is the heart of his entire message. Every step mustbe experimental. Salvation is an inward process, and Christ isefficacious and effective because _He lives and operates in us_. "Thesuffering and death of Christ, " he says, "avail only for those who dieto their own will in and with Christ, and are buried with Him to a newwill and obedience, and hate sin; who put on Christ in His suffering, reproach, and persecution, take His cross upon them and follow Himunder His red banner; to those who put on Christ in His process and nowbecome in the inward spiritual man Christ's members and the Temple ofGod who dwells in us. No one has a right to comfort himself withChrist's merits unless he desires wholly to put on Christ in himself. He is not a Christian until he has put Him on by true repentance andconversion to Him with absolute resignation and self-denial, so thatChrist espouseth and betrotheth Himself with him. . . . For aChristian must be born of Christ and must die to the will of Adam. Hemust have Christ in him and be a member of His Life according to thespiritual man. "[31]

Faith, which is always the key-word in any person's interpretation ofChristianity, is for Boehme a dynamic process of appropriating Christ, and of re-living Him. "Faith, " he writes in his treatise on _TheIncarnation_, {196} "is not historical knowledge for a man to makearticles of it and to depend on them, but faith is one spirit with God, it is the activity of God; it is free, but only for the right and forpure Love, in which it draws the breath of its power and strength. Itis, finally, itself the substance. "[32] Faith is, thus, not knowledge, it is not believing facts of history, it is not accepting metaphysicaldogma. It is, as he is never weary of saying, "strong earnestness ofspirit, " the earnest will to live in the inward and eternal, passionatehunger and thirst for God, and finally the act of receiving Christ intothe soul as a present power and spirit to live by. "I must die, " hewrote, "with my outward man [the man of self-centred will] in Christ'sdeath and arise and live anew in Him. Therefore I live now by the willof faith in the spirit of Christ and receive Christ with His humanityinto my will. He makes through me a manifestation of the spiritualworld and introduces the true Love-sound into the harp-strings of mylife. He became that which I am, and now He has made me that which Heis!"[33]

Another word for this efficacious and dynamic Faith is "Birth" or"innermost Birth, " by which Boehme means the act of discovering theGate to the Heart and Love and Light of God, and of entering it. "TheSon of God, the Eternal Word of the Father, the Glance and Brightnessand Power of Eternal Light must become man and _be born in you_;otherwise you are in the dark stable and go about groping. "[34] "Ifthou art born of God, then within the circle of thy own life is thewhole undivided Heart of God. "[35] It is a transforming event by whichone swings over from life in the outer to life in the inner world, fromlife in the dark world to life in the light world, and is born into thekingdom, or principle, which Christ revealed in His triumphantspiritual Life. The human spirit, by this innermost Birth, reaches theprinciple of Life by which Christ lived, and the gate into heaven isopened and paradise is in the soul. In a {197} beautiful passage hesays: "This birth must be wrought within you. The Heart, or the Son ofGod must arise in the birth of your life, and then you are in Christand He is in you, and all that He and the Father have is yours; and asthe Son is one with the Father, so also the new man is one with theFather and with the Son, one virtue, one power, one light, one life, one eternal paradise, one enduring substance, one Father, Son, and HolyGhost, and thou His child!"[36] God is no longer conceived as faraway. He is now with His Love and Light as near as the soul is toitself, and the joy of being born in Christ is like the joy of parentswhen a little child is born to them. [37] God's will now becomes theman's will, he turns back into the unity from which he broke away, hesees now in one moment what all the doctors in the schools, on the merelevel of reason, have never seen, and his inward eye is so opened thathe knows God as soon as his eye turns toward Him. [38]

This Faith-process, or innermost life-birth, is not the act of a momentthat is over and done with. It means the progressive formation of anew man within the man, so that the real Christian becomes a livingbranch in a mighty Christ-Tree. Just as Adam was the trunk of a greatrace-tree of fallen humanity, Christ is to be the Eternal Life-Tree ofthe universe in whom all the new-born souls of men shall live asspringing, flowering branches or twigs: God created only one Man; allother men are twigs of the One Stem. [39] "In Christ, " he says, "we areall only one, as a tree in many boughs and branches, " and, with areturn to autobiography, Boehme adds, "His Life has been brought intomine, so that I am atoned with Him in His Love. The will of Christ hasentered into humanity again in me, and now my will in me enters intoHis humanity. "[40] He writes to one of his Silesian friends: "You area growing branch in the Life-Tree of God in Christ, in whom all thechildren of God are also branches, " and he adds that there is "no otherfaith {198} which saves except Christ in us, " the Life of ourlives. [41] Sometimes he calls this triumphant experience the birth ofa new branch in Christ's Life-Tree, sometimes the birth of the Lily inChrist's garden of flowers, sometimes it is the birth of the immortalseed. Sometimes it is uniting in life and spirit with Him who is "theTreader on the Serpent, " sometimes it is finding the noble Virgin, sometimes it is discovering the Philosopher's Stone, sometimes it iswinning the precious Diadem, sometimes it is possessing the key whichunlocks the Door, sometimes it is arriving at the Sabbath Quiet of thesoul. These are only a variety of ways, many of them forgotteninheritances from alchemy and astrology, of saying that the soul findsits goal in an experience which binds it into one common corporate lifewith Christ and so into an elemental Love-Unity with God: whoever isborn of Christ liveth and walketh in Him, puts Him on in His suffering, death, and resurrection, becomes a member of Christ's body, is"tinctured" with His spirit, and has his own human life rooted in theLove of God. [42] Here, then, in the creation and formation of thisorganic Life-Tree the universe attains its ultimate goal. It is whollyan achievement of free will, of holy choice. The dark Principle is notannihilated, is not suppressed, but the Heart of God moves ever on in asteadily growing triumph, binding soul after soul into the divineIgdrasil Tree of the Light Universe, in a unity that is not now theunity of negation and undifferentiation--an Abyss that swallows up allthat is in it, --but a unity of many wills united in a spirit of concordand love, many persons formed by holy desire into one unbroken symphonyas harps of God. 

With the change of _centre_ in the inner man corresponds also the outerlife of word and deed, for the outer, here as everywhere, is only the"signature" of an inner which fits it: "A man must show the root of thetree out of which spirit and flesh have their origin. "[43] When thewill becomes new-born and the soul unites itself as a twig {199} inChrist's Life-Tree, then it ceases to love sin and will it. When Godbrings His will into birth in us, He gives us virtue and power to willwhat He wills, and to leave our sins behind. [44] The attitude of hate, the spirit of war are marks of the old unchanged nature, and areheathenish and not Christian. When Christ is formed in the innerground of the soul, a man leaves the sword in the sheath and lives inthe virtue and power of peace and love. "What will Christ say, " heasks the ministers of the Church of his day, "when He sees yourapostolic hearts covered with armor? When He gave you the sword of theSpirit, did He command you to fight and make war, or to instigate kingsand princes to put on the sword and kill?"[45]

Like the prophets of Israel, he feels intensely the sufferings of thepoor and the oppressed, and he breaks out frequently into a bitingsatire on a kind of Christianity which not only neglects the true_cure_ of soul and body, but "consumes the sweat and blood of theneedy, " and feeds upon "the sighs and groans and tears of thepoor. "[46] The true idea of a _real_ Christianity is "fraternity inthe Life of Christ"--"thy brother's soul, " he says, "is a fellow-memberwith thy soul, "[47] and he insists, as though it were the mighty burdenof his spirit, that all possessions, goods, and talents shallcontribute to the common life of humanity and to the benefit of thesocial group. [48] It is much better for parents to labour to form goodsouls in their children than to strive to gather and to leave behindfor them great riches and abundance of goods![49] Self-desire is aground not only of personal disquiet but also of social disturbance, and Boehme feels that the way to spread peace and joy through the worldis to cultivate the Love-spirit of Christ and to practice it infellowship with men. 

Like his German predecessor, Sebastian Franck, he is {200} primarilyconcerned with the invisible Church, and he holds lightly to theempirical Church as he knows it. The Church to which his spirit isdedicated is the organic Life-Tree of which Christ is the living Stem. The holy Zion is not from without, he says, it is built up of those whoare joined to Christ and who all live together in one city which isChrist in us. [50] A Christian in the life belongs to no sect, heceases to wrangle over opinions and words, he dwells in the midst ofsects and Babel-churches, but he keeps above the controversies andcontentions, and "puts his knowing and willing into the Life ofChrist, " and works quietly on toward the formation and triumph of theone true Christian Church, [51] which will be, when its glory iscomplete, the visible expression of the Divine Life-Tree. 

He dislikes, as much as did the English Quaker, George Fox, the customof calling "stone houses" churches, and he will not admit that abuilding is anything but a building: "Stone houses, called churches, have no greater holiness than other houses, for they are built of stoneand other such material, as other houses are, and God is no morepowerful in them than He is in other houses, but the Church [_i. E. _ theCongregation] which meets there, if the members of it bind themselvesby prayer into one body in Christ, is a holy Temple of JesusChrist. "[52]

His attitude toward outward sacraments consistently fits in with allhis central teachings. The outward, for Boehme, is never unimportant. It is always significant and can always be used as a parable or symbolof something inner and eternal. But the outward is at best onlytemporal, only symbolic, and it becomes a hindrance if it is taken forthe real substance of which it is only the outward "signature": "Theform shall be destroyed and shall cease with time, but the spiritremains forever. "[53] The sacraments, he declares, do not take awaysin, for men go to church all their lives and receive the sacraments{201} and remain as wicked and beastly as ever--while a holy man alwayshas a Church within himself and an inward ministry. [54] Blessedness, therefore, lies not in the outward, but in the life and power of theinward spirit, and it is only a Babel-Church that claims the right tocast out those who have the real substance and neglect only the outwardform. [55] In his _Treatise on the Holy Supper_, he wrote: "It is notenough for a man to hear sermons preached, and to be baptised in thename of Christ, and to go to the Supper. This maketh no Christian. For that, there must be _earnestness_. No person is a Christian unlessChrist live and work in him. "[56]

The pith and heart of Christianity, the consummate goal of the way ofSalvation, for Boehme is, as we have seen, not "history" and not anykind of outward "form" or "letter"--_buchstäbliches Wort_, --it is anexperience in which the soul finds itself "at the top of Jacob'sladder, " and feels its life in God and God's Life in it in an ineffableLove-union. He has himself given a very simple and penetrating accountof this type of experience drawn from what he calls his own book oflife: "Finding within myself a powerful _contrarium_, namely, thedesires that belong to flesh and blood, I began to fight a hard battleagainst my corrupted nature, and with the aid of God I made up my mindto overcome the inherited evil will, to break it, and to enter whollyinto the Love of God. . . . This, however, was not possible for me toaccomplish, but I stood firmly by my _earnest resolution_, and fought ahard battle with myself. Now while I was wrestling and battling, beingaided by God, a wonderful light arose within my soul. It was a lightentirely foreign to my unruly nature, but in it I recognized the truenature of God and man, and the relation existing between them, a thingwhich heretofore I had never understood. "[57] In one of his otherautobiographical passages, he says that after much earnest seeking anddesire and many a hard repulse, "the Gate was opened!" These are {202}characteristic accounts of a profound mystical experience. There hadbeen long stress and inward battle, the tension of a divided self, andthen a great ground swell of earnest will--a resolve, he says, to putmy life in hazard rather than give over, when "a wonderful light arosewithin the soul" and "the Gate was opened. " And "when this mightylight fell upon me, I saw, " he says, in still another description, "inan effectual peculiar manner, and I knew in the spirit. "[58]

The central aspect of his experience was plainly an overmastering_conviction_ of contact with, an immersion into, a deeper world ofspirit and of inner unity of life and spirit with this deeper world. His own personal spirit united, as he once put it, "with the innermostBirth in God and stood in the Light. "[59] He discovered that "God goesclean another way to work" than by the way of reasoning or of senseexperience[60]--instead of waiting for man to climb up to Him, Heclimbs up into man's soul. [61] By a new and inner way, to change thefigure, the tides of the shoreless Divine Sea break in upon the life ofa man and bathe his entire being. It seems to Boehme, at one time, like the rising of a mid-noon Sun, with illuminating rays, and hedescribes the experience in terms of Light and enlarged Vision, or, again, it appears like the bursting open of a secret door into a worldof new dimensions, and he calls it the opening of the Gate, or nowagain he feels as though the elemental creative power of God had burstinto operation within him and that a mighty birth-process had liftedhim to a new kingdom, or to a new order of nature, or, finally, hushedand soothed and healed as though he had suddenly found the breast of aninfinite Mother, he describes his state as "the innermost Quiet"--thereturn to "the soul's eternal native country and abiding Home. "Descriptions here all fail and are only "stammering words of a child, "as Boehme himself says. But, as a matter of fact, descriptions failand fall short in the case of all genuine life-experiences, {203} eventhose that are most universal and common to the race. How one feelswhen after nights of agony from watching over a child that is hoveringbetween life and death, and seemingly certain to slip away from humanreach, the doctor says, "He has passed the crisis and the danger isover!" one cannot describe. Whenever it is a matter that concerns theinner _quick_ of the soul, all words are the stammerings of a child. 

The true mystical experience is not primarily a knowledge-experience, it is not the apprehension of one more describable fact to be added toour total stock of information--what Boehme so often calls "opinions"and "history, "--it is a sudden plunge or immersion into the stream ofLife itself, it is an interior appreciation of the higher meaning oflife by the discovery of a way of entering the Life-process, or, better, of letting the Life-process enter you, on a higher level thanis usual. Life always advances by a kind of leap, an _élan_, whichwould not have been predicted or anticipated, but which, now it is hererevealed in a being with a novel function and a higher capacity ofsurvival, will lift the whole scale of life henceforth to a new level. So, in some way which must for the present at least remain mysterious, the eternal Source of Life, when it finds a human door ready for itsentrance, breaks in--or shall we say that the _earnest will_ climbs upand pushes open the door into new regions in this eternal LifeSource?--and it seems then, as Boehme says, as though "the true natureof God and man and the true relation between God and man" had beenfound. The mystical experience is, thus, one way, perhaps the highestwe have yet discovered, of entering the Life-process itself and ofgaining an interior appreciation of Reality by living in the centralstream and flow of it, so that the Spirit can "break through" and can"see into the Depth of Deity. "

Boehme appears to hold two inconsistent and seemingly contradictoryviews about the human attitude which is the psychological pre-conditionfor this epoch-making experience. In his own autobiographical {204}accounts, he always refers to the part that _earnest resolution_ hasplayed in bringing success to his momentous quest. No great mysticsince St. Augustine has made more of the will in spiritual matters thanhe does. We have seen how the doors to both world-kingdoms standbefore the soul, and how "free-will, " "earnest purpose, " "decisiveendeavour" settle for each soul which door shall open and which shallshut, and so determine its eternal destiny. "Election" is, for Boehme, a fiction of the false imagination, a "Babel-opinion, " a perverseinvention of "the Church of Cain. " Christ never says "thou couldstnot, " but rather "thou wouldst not. "[62]

Not only does he, in a general way, thus make the will the decisiveelement in human destiny, he also implies that the creative "flash" ofspiritual insight, "the innermost birth" which brings the soul intoliving union with its source is due, on the human side, to"resolution, " to "earnestness, " to "valiant wrestling, " to a braveventure of faith that risks everything. It requires "mightyendurance, " "hard labour, " "stoutness of spirit, " and "a great storm, assault, and onset" to open the Gate. In a word, the key to anyimportant spiritual experience is _intention_, inward pre-perception, that holds the mind intently focussed in expectation, without which the"flash" of spiritual vision is not likely to come. 

But on the other hand Boehme is a powerful exponent of the idea thatdesire and will must utterly, absolutely die before God can come tobirth in the soul--"Christ is born and lives in our Nothingness. "[63] Aman, he says, must die wholly to self-hood, forsake it and enter againinto the original Nothing, --the eternal Unity in which nothing iswilled in particular, --before God can have His way with him; all sinarises from self-hood, from desire. [64] "How, " asks a disciple in oneof Boehme's imaginary dialogues, "shall I come to the hidden centrewhere God dwelleth and not man? Tell me plainly, loving sir, how it isto be found and entered into?"

{205}

_The Master_: "There where the soul hath slain its own will and willethno more anything of itself. " . . . 

_The Disciple_: "But how shall I comprehend it?"

_The Master_: "If thou goest about to comprehend in thy own will, itflieth from thee, but if thou dost surrender thyself wholly, then thouart dead to thy own will, and Love will be the Life of thy nature. "[65]He seems to go as far in this direction toward the annihilation ofdesire, negation of the finite, and loss of self-hood as any of thepantheistic mystics. This sample passage will indicate his teaching:"When thou art wholly gone forth from the creature and become nothingto all that is nature and creature, then thou art in that Eternal Onewhich is God Himself, and then thou shalt experience the supreme virtueof Love. "[66]

These two diverse statements are, however, not as inconsistent as theyat first seem. The _will_, the _intention_ that is a psychologicalpreparation for this mystical experience is a will washed and purged ofselfish impulse and self-seeking aims. It is an _intention_ thatcannot be described in terms of any finite "content. " It is theintense heave of the whole undivided being toward God with noreservation, no calculation of return profits, no thought even ofisolated and independent personality. A true account of consciousness, preceding the moment of bursting through the Gate, might emphasize withequal accuracy either the "earnest resolution, " "the storm and onset ofwill, " or "the annihilation of particular desire, " "the surrender ofindividualistic self-hood, " "death to own will in the Life and Virtueof Love. "

The effects of such an experience as that which came to Boehme, if wemay take his case as typical, are (1) The birth of an inner convictionof God's immediate and environing Presence amounting to axiomaticcertainty--faith through experience has become "the substance, " and "isnow one spirit with God"; (2) The radiation of the whole being with "ajoy like that which parents have at the birth of their first-bornchild"--the joy now of the {206} soul crying, "Abba"; (3) A vastlyheightened perception of what is involved in the eternal nature of thereligious life and in the spiritual relation between the soul and God, _i. E. _ increased ability to see what promotes and furthers the soul'shealth and development; (4) A unification, co-ordination, andcentralizing of the inner faculties, so that there is an increment ofpower revealed in the entire personality; and (5) An increase ofclarity and a sharpening of focus in the perception of moraldistinctions together with a distinctly heightened moral and socialpassion. 

Boehme himself always believed, further, that his entire system ofideas, his philosophy of the universe, and his way of salvation were a"revelation" of the Spirit to him, --in a word, that his wisdom was"theosophy, " a God-communicated knowledge. I have no desire to markoff dogmatically the scope and possible limits of "revelation, " nor isit necessary here to discuss the abstract question whether "ideas" areever "communicated" to a mind _ab extra_, and without the mediation ofsubjective processes, or not. In the concrete case of Jacob Boehme, Ido not find any compelling evidence of the unmediated communication ofideas. He was a man of unusual native capacity, and, though untrained, his mind possessed a high order of range and quality, and swept, as hewas, by a mighty transforming experience, he _found himself_ in novelfashion, and was the recipient of inspirations, which fired and fusedhis soul, gave him heightened insight into the significance of thingsold and new, and often enabled him to build better than he knew. Heis, however, obviously using the stock of ideas which his generationand those early and late before it, had made "part of the necessary airmen breathed. " His terminology and symbolism were as old as mythology, and were the warp and woof of the nature philosophies and the alchemyof his day. His impressive and spiritual interpretation ofChristianity is always deep and vital, and freighted with the weight ofhis own inward direct appreciation of God's revelation of Himself inChrist, {207} but even here he is walking on a road which many bravesouls before him had helped to build, and we cannot with truth say thathe supplies us with a new gospel which had been privately"communicated" to him. In fact, the portions of his voluminouswritings which bear the mark of having been written as automaticscript--by "this hand, " as he often says--are the chaotic and confusedportions, full of monotonous repetitions, of undigested andindigestible phrases and the dreary re-shufflings of sub-consciouswreckage. Boehme used to say that "in the time of the lily" hiswritings would be "much sought after. " But I doubt if, even "in thetime of the lily, " most persons will have the patience to read thisshoemaker-prophet's books in their present form, that is, if "in thetime of the lily" men still enjoy and prize intelligence and lucidity;but there already is enough of "the lily-spirit" in the world toappreciate and to give thanks for the experience, the flashes ofinsight, the simple wisdom, the brave sincerity, the inner certainty ofthe true World within the world we see, and the spiritual message of"the way to the soul's native Country, " which he has given us. 

[1] _True Repentance_, i. 

[2] I have given his _Weltanschauung_ in the previous chapter, and Ishall discuss his mysticism at the end of this chapter. 

[3] Hegel says that Boehme's piety is "in the highest degree deep andinward. "--_History of Philos. _ iii. P. 216. 

[4] _True Resignation_, iii. 20. 

[5] _The Three Princ. _, Preface, 4. 

[6] "There is in every man an incorporate ground of Grace, an innerTemple of Christ, the soul's immortal Dowry. No man can sell or pawnthis ground of Grace, this habitation and dwelling-place of Christ. Itremains unlost as the possession of God--an inward Ground and spiritualsubstance. "--_Myst. Mag. _ lxxiv. 20-33, freely rendered. 

[7] _Sig. Re. _ xv. 45. 

[8] _Aurora_, xviii. 43. 

[9] _The Three Princ. _, xiv. 3 and 12; also _ibid. _ 85 and 88. 

[10] _Myst. Mag. _ xxvii. 41. 

[11] _Ninth Epistle_, 16. 

[12] _Myst. Mag. _ xxvii. _passim_; also _Seventh Epistle_, 11-14. 

[13] _Tenth Epistle_, 13-14. 

[14] _Regeneration_, 6. 

[15] For a sample passage see _Sig. Re. _ xv. 22-47. 

[16] _True Resignation_, 30-41. Freely rendered. 

[17] _The Three Princ. _ xxxiii. 8-17. 

[18] _Ibid. _ xix. 6. 

[19] _Sig. Re. _ ix. 67. 

[20] _Ibid. _ xi. 88. 

[21] _Aurora_, Preface, 27. 

[22] _Sig. Re. _ xi. 80. 

[23] Prayer in _True Repentance_. 

[24] _Three Princ. _ xxii. 81. 

[25] _Myst. Mag. _ lxx. 7-10; _Three Princ. _ xviii. 80; and_Supersensual Life_, 27. 

[26] _Three. Princ. _ xxv. 43. 

[27] _Ibid. _ xxv. 6. 

[28] Read _Ibid. _ xxv. 7-41. 

[29] _True Repentance_. 

[30] _First Epistle_, 6. Hegel well says of Boehme: "What marks himout and makes him noteworthy is the Protestant principle of placing theintellectual world within one's own mind and heart, and of experiencingand knowing and feeling in one's own self-consciousness all that wasformerly conceived as a Beyond. "--_History of Philos. _ iii. P. 191. 

[31] _Tenth Epistle_, 16-19. 

[32] _Incarnation_, part iii. Chap. I. 5-15. 

[33] _Sig. Re. _ xii. 10-13. 

[34] _The Threefold Life_, iii. 31. 

[35] _Ibid. _ vi. 71. 

[36] _The Three Princ. _ iv. 9. 

[37] _Aurora_, xix. 52-66. 

[38] _Myst. Mag. _ lxxii. 7-10. 

[39] _Ibid. _ xxiv. 17. 

[40] _Sig. Re. _ ix. 63. 

[41] _Seventh Epistle_, 1. 

[42] _Ibid. _, 6 and 12. 

[43] _Apology to Stiefel_, 23. 

[44] _True Resignation_, iii. 21. 

[45] _Myst. Mag. _ lxii. 25. 

[46] _The Three Principles_, xix. 47; xxi. 32. ; _Sig. Re. _ viii. 27. 

[47] _Forty Questions_, xii. 39. 

[48] For an example of it, see _Myst. Mag. _ lxxiv. 46. 

[49] _Forty Questions_, x. 9. 

[50] _Fourth Epistle_, 32, and _True Repentance_. 

[51] _Regeneration_, 161-162. 

[52] _Myst. Mag. _ lxiii. 47. This theme constantly reappears. 

[53] _Sig. Re. _ xv. 37. 

[54] _Resignation_, vi. 134-151. 

[55] _Forty Questions_, xiv. 17-19. 

[56] _Op. Cit. _ iv. 16. 

[57] Von Hartmann's _Life and Doctrines of Jacob Boehme_, p. 50. 

[58] _Twenty-fifth Epistle_, 2. 

[59] _Aurora_, xix. 95. 

[60] _Twenty-sixth Epistle_, 7. 

[61] _Aurora_, xviii. 9. 

[62] _Sig. Re. _ xvi. 38. 

[63] _Ibid. _ ix. 65. 

[64] _Ibid. _ xiii. 27 and xv. 9. 

[65] _The Supersensual Life_, 29 and 30. 

[66] _Ibid. _ 27. 

{208}

CHAPTER XII

JACOB BOEHME'S INFLUENCE IN ENGLAND

The first appearance in English of any of the writings of Jacob Boehmewas in 1645, when a tiny volume was issued with the title: _TwoTheosophical Epistles, Englished_. 

There had appeared a year earlier (1644) a seven-page biography ofBoehme which was the first presentation of him to the English reader. This brief sketch contains the well-known incidents which became thestock material for the later accounts of his life. [1] It also containedthe following quaint description of Boehme which was the model for allthe portraits of the Teutonic philosopher in the English biographies ofhim: "The stature of his outward body was almost of no Personage; hisperson was little and leane, with browes somewhat inbowed; highTemples, somewhat hauk-nosed: His eyes were gray and somewhat heavenblew, and otherwise as the Windows in Solomon's Temple: He had a thinBeard; a small low Voyce. His Speech was lovely. He was modest in hisBehaviour, humble in his conversation and meeke in his heart. Hisspirit was highly enlightened by God, as is to be seen and discerned inthe Divine Light out of his writings. "

The slender volume of _Theosophical Epistles_ was followed by anotherlittle book issued a year later (1646), {209} consisting of a Discoursedelivered in Latin in the Schools at Cambridge by Charles Hotham, Rector of Wigan. This Discourse was translated into English by theauthor's brother, Justice Durant Hotham, and was published under thetitle: _Introduction to Teutonic Philosophy, or A Determinationconcerning the Original of the Soul_, Englished by D. F. [DurantFrater], 1650. This interesting little volume, full of quaint phraseand strange speculation, reflects throughout its pages the profoundinfluence of Boehme on these two brothers. The Preface to theEnglished edition written by Justice Hotham not only shows specificmarks of Boehme's influence upon a high-minded and scholarly man, butit also reveals in an impressive way a type of thought that was veryprevalent in England at this period of commotion. "There are, " JusticeHotham says, "two islands of exceeding danger, yet built upon andinhabited and defended as part of the main continent of Truth. Thefirst is called: 'I believe as the Church believeth. ' Happy man whomso easie labour hath set on the shore of wisdom! The other island iscalled: 'whatsoever the Church believes that will I not believe. '"Both these "islands" seem to him "exceeding dangerous. " To adopt astruth what the Church has believed, solely because the Church hasbelieved it, to forego the personal quest and to arrive at "the shoresof wisdom" without the venturous voyage, is "too easie labour" for thesoul. But, nevertheless, he feels that the opposite danger--the dangerof negating a truth merely because the Church affirms it--is even moreserious. It is wise to maintain an attitude of "much reverence" towardthe "unanimous consent of good and pious men in sacred matters. " Hesuggests that the way of wisdom consists in making the "I believe" ofthe Church "neither a fetter nor a scandel. " "May I be, " he says, "inthe bed-route of those Seekers that, distrusting the known andexperienced deceits of their own Reason, walk unfettered in the questof truth, . . . Not hunting those poor soules with Dogge and spearewhose dimme sight hath led them into desert and unbeated {210} paths. "This was in all probability the Justice Hotham of whom George Foxwrote: "He was a pretty tender man yt had had some experiences of God'sworkeinge in his hearte: & after yt I had some discourse with him offye things of God hee tooke mee Into his Closett & saide _hee had knowneyt principle_ [of the Light] _this 10 yeere_: & hee was glad yt yeLorde did now publish it abroade to ye people. "[2]

Like his Teutonic master, Justice Hotham distrusts Reason and Sense asspiritual guides. They are at best, he says, "but guides of the night, dim lights set up, far distant from Truth's stately mansion, to leadpoor groping souls in this world's affairs. " The surer Guide is withinthe soul itself, for the soul of man, he insists, has "a noble descentfrom eternal essences" and "our nobel Genealogy should mind us of ourFather's House and make us weary of tutelage under hairy Faunes andcloven-footed Satyres. "[3] He shows that he has lost all interest intheological speculations that assume a God remote in time and space, aGod who once created a world and left it to go to ruin. He reminds hisreaders that the God in whom he believes is "yet alive and stillspeaks. "[4] In the light of this Preface, in which he declares that hehas "suckt in truth from divinest philosophy" from his childhood, it isnot strange that he welcomed Fox, when the latter appeared in Yorkshirein 1651, proclaiming an inward Light and a present God near at hand, nor is it surprising that Hotham said to the young prophet of theinward Guide: "If God had not raised uppe this principle of light andlife, ye nation had beene overspread with rantism . . . But thisprinciple of truth overthrew ye roote & grounde of there [_i. E. _ theRanters'] principle. "[5]

The enthusiasm of Justice Hotham for his Teutonic master gets fervidexpression at the end of his Preface as follows: "Whatever the thricegreat Hermes [Hermes Trismegistus] delivered as oracles from hisprophetical tripos, or Pythagoras spake by authority or {211} Socratesdebated or Aristotle affirmed; yea, whatever divine Plato prophesied orPlotinus proved: this and all this, or a far higher and profounderphilosophy is (I think) contained in the Teutonick's writings. And ifthere be any friendly medium which can possibly reconcile these ancientdifferences between the nobler wisdom which hath fixt her Palace inHoly Writ and her stubborn handmaid, Naturall Reason: this happymarriage of the Spirit and Soul, this wonderful consent of discords inone harmony, we owe in great measure to Teutonicus his skill!"

The central problem of the _Discourse_, written by the brother, CharlesHotham, is the origin of the soul. After the manner of his Germanteacher, the English disciple finds the origin of man's soul in "thebottomless, immeasurable Abyss of the Godhead, " in "the great deep ofthe perpetually eternal God. " Man is an epitome of the universe. Heunites in himself all the contrary principles of the worlds visible andinvisible, he is a unity of body and soul, a centre of light anddarkness, and in him is a "supreme region, " or "Divine Principle, " "bythe mediation of which man has direct fellowship with God. " In man, who thus epitomizes all the spheres and principles of the universe, "God, as in a glasse, hath a lively and delightful prospect of His ownlovely visage and incomprehensible Beauty. " Finally, again, thedisciple reflects the constant teaching of Boehme that everything inthe visible world is a symbol of a fundamental and eternal World. 

Durant Hotham showed the full measure of his devotion to his Germanmaster in the _Life of Jacob Behmen_ which he wrote in 1653. [6] It is, however, much more important for the insight which it gives of theinner life of the Yorkshire Justice than for any biographicalinformation it furnishes of Boehme himself. Hotham thinks that inBoehme he has discovered a new type of Christian Saint--"one who led asaint-like life in much sweet communion {212} with God, " while hedeclares that many of those who "get admission into the Calendar by thesynodical jurisdiction of those who claim also to hold the bunch ofkeys to the bigger Heaven" are hardly ripe for canonization--"As formany who in these last ages have termed themselves saints--what shiftGod may make of them in heaven, I know not (He can do much)--but if Imay speak unfeignedly, they are so unmortified and untrue of word anddeed that they are found untoward members for a true Commonwealth andcivil Society here on Earth. "[7]

The type of saint the Justice admires is one who refuses utterly tochoose the path of least resistance, one who will not be "a messengerof eternal happiness at a cheap rate, " but rather one who comes tochallenge the easy world, to fight evil customs and entrenched systemsand to win "the Land which the Devil holds in possession"; and, withthe name of Jacob Boehme, he thinks he can "begin a new roll of CivilSaints, " hoping, he says, that in these last generations "much company"may be added to the bead roll thus happily started. 

Two points stand out clearly as central ideas of Justice Hotham'sChristianity. The first one is that religion is an inward affair. "God, " he declares, "hath sent this last Generation a plain, uncouthMessage, bidding man to fight, telling him that he shall have a Heaven, a Joy, a Paradise, a Land, a Territory, a Kingship--but that _all thisis in himself, the Land to be won is himself_. "[8] The second one isthat religion is a progressive movement, an unfolding revelation oflife. "What a height of Presumption is it, " he says, "to believe thatthe Wisdom and fullness of God can ever be pent up in a SynodicalCanon? How overweening are we to limit the successive manifestationsof God to a present rule and light, persecuting all that comes notforth in its height and breadth!" It is through this "unnaturaldesire" to keep Christians in "a perpetual infancy" that "our drynurses" in the Church have "brought us to such a dwarfish stature, "{213} and he prays that the merciful God may teach at least one nationa better way than that of "muzzling" the bringer of fresh light. 

Much more important, however, for the dissemination of Boehme's ideasin England was the patient and faithful work of John Sparrow who, incollaboration with his kinsman, John Ellistone, translated into Englishthe entire body of Boehme's writings, between the years 1647 and1661. [9] Sparrow was born at Stambourne in Essex in 1615. He wasadmitted to the Inner Court in 1633 and subsequently called to the Bar. He was probably the author of a widely-read book, published in 1649, under the title of _Mercurius Teutonicus_, consisting of a series of"propheticall passages" from Boehme. [10] His outer life wasuneventful; his inner life is revealed in his Introductions to theBoehme Translations. He begins his long series of Translations withthe testimony that the writings of this author have "so very muchsatisfied" his own soul that he wants others to be partakers of thesame source of light, though he warns his readers that their own soulsmust come by experience into the condition Boehme himself was in beforethey can fully understand him. [11] He is profoundly impressed, {214}as his great contemporary, Milton, was, with the strange birth of newsects "now sprung up in England, " but he hopes that "goodness will getthe upper hand and that the fruits of the spirit will prevail, " and hismind "is led to think" that through Boehme's message, which has beenvery beneficial in other nations, "our troubled, doubting souls inEngland may receive much Comfort, leading to that inward Peace whichpasseth all understanding, and that all disturbing sects andheresies . . . Will be made to vanish and cease. "[12]

Sparrow was deeply impressed with two of Boehme's central ideas, and hegives expression to them, in his own quaint and peculiar way, in almostevery one of his Introductions--(1) the idea that the visible is aparable of the Invisible, and (2) the idea that God manifests Himselfwithin men. In the very first of the Introductions both of these ideasappear: "This outward world, " he says, "is the best outwardlooking-glasse to see whatever hath been, is, or shall be in Eternity, and our own minds are the best inward looking-glasse to see Eternityexactly in";[13] and he expresses the belief that any one who learns toread all the work of God in the world without, and in the mind of manwithin, will learn to know Him truly, will see Eternity manifested intime, will discover that the mind of man is a centre of all mysteries, and that heaven and hell are potentially in us, and he will beconvinced that God is in all things and all things are in God; that welive in Him and that He lives in us. [14]

This second idea--that God can be found in the depth of man's soul--isstrongly emphasized in Sparrow's next Introduction, written in1648--"_The Ground of what hath ever been lieth in man_. "[15] All thatis in the Scriptures has come out of man's experience and therefore cannow be grasped by us. All that was in Adam lies in the ground anddepth of any man. When the Apostle John wrote that there is an unctionwhich teacheth all things and leadeth into all truth, he did notconfine this possibility {215} to apostles, but intended to include allmen in the class of those who may be anointed, and all who know "whatis in man" realize that it is possible to attain to this inward andapostolic guidance. [16] In a passage of great boldness Sparrow goes inhis venturous faith in the inner Spirit as far as the youngLeicestershire preacher did who was starting out, the very year thisIntroduction was written, to proclaim the message of the inward Light. "The ground, " he says, "of all that was in Adam is in us; for whateverGround lay in God, the same lieth in Christ and through Him it lieth inus, for He is in us all. And he that knoweth God in himself . . . Maywell be able to speak the word of God infallibly as the holy men thatpenned the Scriptures. And he that can understand these things inhimself may well know who speaketh by the Spirit of God and whospeaketh his own fancies and delusions. "[17]

In the Introduction to the _Mysterium magnum_, Sparrow returns to thisidea of inward illumination, though he balances it better than he didin the former Introduction, with his estimation of "the antient HolyScriptures, " and he does not again suggest that present-day men speak"infallibly. " He thinks that the same God who so eminently taughtMoses by His Spirit that he could describe the processes of creation, must have also prepared the people by the instruction of the sameSpirit, so that they could understand what was written, and so that theSpirit in one man could verify itself in the experience of many men. He declares that when the Scriptures instruct and perfect the man ofGod, they are effective, "not as a meer relation of things done, " butas the medium of the living Word which reaches the inward Man, thehidden Man of the heart, the Christ in us, so that we pass beyond "thehistory of Christ" and rise to "the experience that Christ is bornwithin us. "[18]

No other book, he says, but the Scriptures, teaches {216} man "withassured knowledge of all the things which concern the soule, theeternal part of man, " for other writers have written from theobservation of their outward senses, but these writers had "inwardsenses--their eyes saw, their ears heard, their hands handled the Wordof Life. " And yet for those in these days who can "look through thevayle or shell within which the Eternal Spirit works its Wonders, " thevisible things of the world prove to be "a glasse wherein thesimilitude of spirituall things are represented" and "the Minde of manis a most clear and undeceiving glasse wherein we may perceive themotions and activities of that Work-Master, the Spirit who hath createdeverything in the world. "[12] In the most satisfactory of all hisIntroductions, the one to the _Aurora_ in 1656, he undertakes to showthat "the Light within" which has now arisen in England is not asubstitute for the Christ of history. On the contrary, he insists thatthe Christ within and the Christ of history is one and the same Personwho is not divided. He was once manifested in the likeness of sinfulflesh, suffering, dying, rising, ascending in glory, and now, in aninward and spiritual manner, He is actually present within men so thatthey may become conformable in soul and spirit to Him and share in Hislife, sufferings, death, resurrection and glory, or they may, by theirown choice, crucify Him afresh within themselves. [20] The Word of Lifecalls loudly within every man, urging the soul to forsake that which itperceives to be evil and to embrace that which it perceives to be goodand holy and divine. This, he says, is the Eternal Gospel, and itbrings to all men everywhere the good news that we live and move andhave our being in God, and that the soul that gropes in sincerity afterGod will find Him, for He is very nigh, even in the heart of theseeker. [21] He deals in an interesting way with the importantcontemporary problem--raised by the prevalence of the emphasis on aninward Divine Presence--whether human Perfection is possible in thislife. His {217} conclusion is that the tendency to sin remains so longas "the mortal body" lasts. No person will ever reach a stage ofearthly life in which the spur of the flesh is eradicated, and so noperson can be infallibly certain that he is beyond sin, but when Christis inwardly united to the soul and His Spirit dwells in us and reignsin us and we are risen in soul, spirit, and mind with Him, then we liveno longer after the flesh, or according to its thrust and push, butshare His life and partake of the conquering power of His Spirit; andthus, though "sown in imperfection we are raised in perfection. "[22]The important matter, however, is not that one call himself a"Perfectist, " but that he actually live "in this earthly pilgrimage andin this vale of sinfull flesh" in the power of Eternity and by theLight of Christ, whose fulness may be revealed in himself. [23]

John Ellistone, Sparrow's kinsman and able helper in the work ofbringing Boehme into English thought, holds the same fundamental ideasas his co-labourer, though he has his own peculiar style and his ownunique way of uttering himself. The stress of his emphasis is alwayson first-hand experience--what he calls "an effectual, living, essential knowledge and real spiritual being of it in one's ownsoul";[24] and the brunt of his attack is {218} always against areligion of "notions"--what he calls "verball, high-flowne, contrivedknowledge and vapouring Notions, " constructed from "the mental idollsof approved masters. "[25] Religion, he maintains, can no more consistof "the letter" or of "a talkative historicall account" than music canconsist of a row of written notes. These things are only signs for thedirection of the skilful musician who must himself _make_ the sounds onhis instrument before there is any music. So, too, if there is to beany real religion in the world, we Christians must do more than readand approve "the deciphered writings of illuminated men, " we must actby the same Spirit that inspired those men, we must be "practitionersof the Divine Light, " we must give "living expression to Divine loveand righteousness, " we must "practice the way of regeneration in theSpirit of Christ and _divinitize our knowledge into an effectualworking love and attaine the experimental and essential reality of itin our owne soules!_"[26] The way out of "the tedious Maze andwearisome laborinth of discussions and opinions concerning God, Christ, Faith, Election, the Ordinances and the Way of Worship" is "to know theWord of Life, Light and Love experimentally, " to have "the fire of Hislove so enkindled in our own hearts that it may breake forth in ourpractice and conversation to the destroying of all Thornes and tearingBryars of vaine contentions!"[27]

Like his kinsman, he has endless faith in the possibility of man; hethinks that the entire Scripture directs us to the Word within us, andthat the Book of all mysteries is within ourselves. "In our owneBook, " he says, "which is the Image of God in us, Time and Eternity andall Mysteries are couched and contained, and they may be read in ourowne soules by the illumination of the Divine Spirit. Our Minde is atrue mysticall Mirror and Looking-glasse of Divine and NaturallMysteries, and we shall receive more real knowledge from one effectuallinnate essentiall beame or ray of Light arising from the New Birthwithin us than in reading many {219} hundreds of authors whereby weframe a Babel of knowledge in the Nation. "[28]

He goes so far with his faith in the soul's possibility to return into"the Original Centre of all Reality" that he declares that a man maysink deep enough into this Original Principle that binds his own soulinto union with God so that he can penetrate by an inner Light andexperience into the secret qualities and virtues hid in all visible andcorporeal things, and may learn to discover the healing and curativepowers of metals and plants, and may thus, by inward knowledge, advanceall Arts and Sciences. [29]

Ellistone returns to this inner way of arriving at a knowledge ofoutward things in his Preface to _Signatura rerum_ in 1651. Man, hedeclares, is a microcosm, or abridgment, of the whole universe, he isthe emblem and hieroglyphic of Time and Eternity, and he who will takepains to push in beyond Solomon's Porch, or the Outer Court of senseand natural reason, to the Inner Court and Holy Place, where theimmortal Seed abides and where man can become one again with that whichhe was in God before he became a creature, then he will have the keythat opens all mysteries both inner and outer. Nature will be an openBook of Parables in which he can read the truth of Eternity, the worldwill be a clear mirror in which he can see the things of the Spirit andhe will know what will cure both soul and body. The "Depth of Godwithin the Soul, " the Inner Light, is the precious Pearl, thenever-failing Comfort, the Panacea for all diseases, the sure Antidoteeven against death itself, the unfailing Guide and Way of allWisdom. [30]

Here, then, were two very enthusiastic disciples of Boehme who tooktheir master's teaching very seriously, who on the whole grasped itsessential meaning, were possessed and penetrated by the _idea_ of adeeper eternal world manifesting itself in the temporal, and who gavetheir lives to the difficult task of making Boehme's message {220}available to their own people and to their own perplexed age. Theywere not "occultists. " They did not run into enthusiastic vapourings, nor did they strain after psychic experiences which would relieve themof the stress and strain of achieving the goal of life through theformation of balanced character and the practice of social virtues, though, as we shall see, some of the readers of their translations tookthe risky course, and ended in the fog rather than in the clear light. 

The question has naturally been raised whether Boehme exercised anydirect influence upon the early Quaker movement. [31] There is atpresent no way of proving that George Fox, the chief exponent of themovement, had actually read the writings of the Teutonic philosopher orhad consciously absorbed the views of the latter, but there are so manymarks of influence apparent in the _Journal_ that no careful student ofboth writers can doubt that there was some sort of influence, direct orindirect, conscious or unconscious. The works of Boehme were, as wehave seen, all available in English, during the great formative periodof Fox's life, from 1647 to 1661. There can be no question that theywere read by the serious _Seekers_ in the period of the Commonwealth. Thomas Taylor, who was one of the finest fruits of the Seeker movement, bears in 1659 a positive testimony to the spiritual value of JacobBewman's (Behmen) writings. Taylor received a letter from JusticeWilliam Thornton of Hipswell in Yorkshire, warning him to beware of"the confused Notions and great words of Jacob Bewman and such likefrothy scriblers. " Taylor replies: "For thy light expressions of JacobBewman, I know in most things he speaks a Parable to thee yet, and sohis writings may well be lightly esteemed of by thee; but there is thatin his Writings which, if ever thy eye be opened, will appear to be asweet unfolding of the Mystery of God and of Christ, in diversparticulars, according to his Gift. And therefore beware of speakingEvil of that which thou {221} know'st not. "[32] We have also seen howBoehme appealed to such noble Seekers as Charles and Durant Hotham, John Sparrow, and John Ellistone. [33] One Quaker of some importance, Francis Ellington, not only read the writings of Boehme, but regarded"that Faithful Servant Jacob Behme" as "a Prophet of the Lord. "[34] Hequotes from his German "Prophet" the words: "A Lilly blossometh to youye Northern Countries; if you destroy it not with sectarian contentionof the learned, then it will become a great Tree among you, but if youshall rather contend than to know the true God, then the Ray passeth byand hitteth only some; and then afterwards you shall be forced to drawwater for the thirst of your souls among strange nations. " Ellingtonregards Boehme as a genuine "prophet, " and the "Lilly" that was toblossom in the North seems to Ellington plainly to be George Fox andhis Quaker Society, which the learned have tried in vain to overthrow. He cites many passages from the Teutonic Prophet of the Lord to showthe parallelism between the prophesied type of spiritual religion andthe Children of the Light who have exactly fulfilled it. [35]

It would be natural to expect that the young Quaker seeker, eager forany light on his dark path, would read the _Forty Questions_ and _TheThree Principles of the Divine Essence_, or at least that he would hearthem discussed by the people among whom he moved in these intense andeventful years. In any case there are ideas expressed and experiencesdescribed in the _Journal_ which look strangely like memories, conscious or subconscious, of ideas and experiences to be found in theBoehme writings. The most striking single passage is one whichdescribes an experience which occurred to Fox in 1648. It is asfollows: "Now was I come up in Spirit through the flaming sword intothe paradise of God. All things were {222} new; and all the Creationgave another smell unto me than before, beyond what words can utter. Iknew nothing but pureness and innocency and righteousness, beingrenewed into the image of God by Jesus Christ, to the state of Adambefore he fell. The creation was opened to me; and it was showed mehow all things had their names given them, according to their natureand virtue. I was at a stand in my mind, whether I should practisephysic for the good of mankind, seeing the nature and virtue of thingswere so opened to me by the Lord. . . . The admirable works ofcreation and the virtues thereof may be known through the openings ofthat divine Word of Wisdom and power by which they were made. "[36]

Jacob Boehme had, as we have seen, a similar experience of having "thenature and virtues of things opened" to him in the year 1600. Thefollowing account of it was given in Sparrow's Introduction to _FortyQuestions_, printed in 1647: "He went forth into the fields and thereperceived the wonderful or wonder works of the Creator in thesignatures, shapes, figures, and qualities or properties of all createdthings very clearly and plainly laid open. Whereupon he was filledwith exceeding joy. " The same incident is told in a slightly differentway in Justice Hotham's _Life of Behmen_: "Going abroad into theFields, to a Green before Neys-Gate, at Gorlitts, he there sate down, and viewing the Herbs and Grass of the Field, in his Inward Light hesaw into their essences, use and properties. " It was, further, afundamental idea of Boehme's that the outward and visible world is aparable and symbol of the spiritual world within, and that by aspiritual experience which carries the soul down to the inner, hidden, abysmal Centre, the secrets and mysteries of the outward creation maybecome revealed. Hotham says that Boehme, by his divine Light, "beheldthe whole of creation, and from that Fountain of Revelation wrote hisbook _De signatura rerum_. "[37] Ellistone, in the Introduction toBoehme's _Epistles_, printed in 1649, predicts {223} that anexperience, like this one which Fox claimed, will come to those whoreceive the inner Divine Light. "This knowledge, " he says, "mustadvance all Arts and Sciences and conduce to the attainment of theUniversal Tincture and Signature, whereby the different secretqualities and vertues that are hid in all visible and corporeallthings, as Metals, Minerals, Plants and Herbes, may be drawne forth andapplied to their right naturall use _for the curing and healing_ ofcorrupt and decayed nature. "[38]

It was also a feature of Boehme's teaching that man must enter againinto Paradise and return to the condition of the unfallen Adam. "TheNoble Virgin" [_i. E. _ Sophia or Spiritual Wisdom], Boehme writes, "showeth us the Gate and how we must enter again into Paradise throughthe sharpness of the sword, " which, in a few lines previous, he calls"the flaming sword which God set to keep the Tree of Life. "[39] Fox'sexperience of the "new smell" of creation is an even more strikingparallel. Mystic awakenings and spiritual openings generally impressthe recipient of them with a sense of new and fresh penetration intothe meaning of things and leave them with a feeling of heightenedpowers, but cases in which the experience results in a new sense of_smell_ are fairly rare. Two persons might, no doubt, have such anexperience quite independently, but one who has become familiar withthe range of _suggestion_ in experiences of this type will note withinterest the large place which "new Smells and Odours" occupy inBoehme's writings. For example, he says, in the _Signatura rerum_, where he describes the coming of the Paradise-experience: "WhenParadise springs up, the paradisaical joy puts itself forth with alovely smell, "[40] and in one of his Epistles he speaks of a spiritualawakening in his own life that was marked by a new smell--"A verystrong Odour was given to me in the life of God. "[41]

There is another passage in Fox's _Journal_, a few lines {224} beyondthis famous account of his Paradise-experience, that also bears themark of Boehme's influence. In fact, it is difficult to believe thatFox could have got his phraseology anywhere else than from Boehme. Thepassage reads: "As people come into subjection to the Spirit of God andgrow up in the Image and Power of the Almighty, they may receive the_Word of Wisdom that opens all things, and, come to know the hiddenUnity in the Eternal Being_. "[42] Everywhere in Boehme it is "Sophia, the Word of Wisdom, " that "opens all things, " and the goal of allspiritual experience and of all divine illumination for him consists incoming to "the hidden Unity in the Eternal Being, or the EternalEssence. " That is not a Biblical phrase, and it is not one which theDrayton youth would have heard from native English sources. It came toEngland with the Boehme literature. Further revelations along thissame line of "opening" follow in the _Journal_. In the Vale of Beavorthe Lord "opened" things to Fox, relating to "the three greatprofessions in the world, physic, divinity and law. " "He showed me, "Fox says, "that the physicians were out of the Wisdom of God by whichthe creatures were made, and so knew not their virtue because they were_out of the Word of Wisdom_. " He saw that the priests were actuated by_the dark power_--a very suspicious phrase to one who knows what aplace the "Dark Principle" holds in Boehme's writings--and he saw thatthe lawyers were out of the Wisdom of God. But it was opened to himthat all these three professions might be "reformed" and "brought intothe Wisdom of God by which all things were created, " and "have a rightunderstanding of the virtues of things through the Word of Wisdom"; for"in the Light all things may be seen both visible and invisible. "[43]The extraordinary use of Old Testament figures, by which Foxillustrates the condition of the Church, in the section of the_Journal_ following the passages above quoted, is no less significant. The figures of Cain and Esau, of Korah and Balaam, and the types ofAdam and Moses are given {225} quite in the style of _The ThreePrinciples_, or of the _Mysterium magnum_. [44] One parallel isespecially interesting. Fox says: "I saw plainly that none could readMoses aright without Moses' spirit, by which Moses saw how man was inthe Image of God in Paradise, and how he fell and how death came overhim, and how all men have been under this death. "[45] The Preface to_Mysterium magnum_ says: "I cannot but think that the same God thattaught Moses so eminently by His Spirit had so fitted the people forwhom he wrote that they were capable to receive instruction by hiswords. "[46] This idea, so frequently expressed in the writings of Fox, that no one can understand the Scriptures except by the Spirit thatgave forth the Scriptures, [47] is equally a fundamental idea of Boehmeand his English interpreters. In many passages of the _Mysteriummagnum_ Boehme declares that the written word is only a witness to theliving Word, which latter Word can be understood only by those who arein the Spirit that spoke in the Prophets and Apostles. [48] Sparrow, inhis Introduction to the _Aurora_, declares that no person canunderstand the spiritual mystery of redemption, "though he reade of itin the Scriptures, " unless the Holy Spirit in himself, the true DivineLight, enlighten him, and give him the word of faith in his heart;"neither, " he adds, "can any understand the Holy Scriptures but by thesame Gifts of the Holy Spirit in the Soul. "[49]

On one occasion the Lord showed Fox the nature of things that are inthe human heart--"as the nature of dogs, swine, vipers, etc. "[50] So, too, Boehme saw that there are many kinds of wild beast in man'snature--the lion, the wolf, the dog, the fox, and the serpent. [51] Foxfrequently speaks of the two "seeds"--the Seed of God or the Seed ofChrist and the seed of the serpent--and the victory of life in theSpirit consists in having the Seed of God conquer the seed of theserpent, or, as Fox {226} often expresses it, having "the Seed of Godbruise the serpent's head, " or having "the Seed of God atop of thedevil and all his works"; or having "the Seed reign. "[52] Thisphraseology runs throughout Boehme's writings. The two "seeds" areeverywhere in evidence, and "the Treader on the serpent" is thefrequent name for Christ and for the victorious soul. God showed Adam, Boehme says, how "the Treader on the serpent" should once again bebrought with virtue and power up into the Paradise of God, and liveanew by the Word of God. [53]

Fox, in the account of his first great transforming opening in 1647, says: "I knew God by revelation as one who hath the key doth open. "[54]This is a frequent figure in Boehme for a first-hand experience. "Where is Paradise to be found?" he asks. "Is it far away or is itnear? One person cannot lend the key to another. Every one mustunlock it with his own key or else he cannot enter, "[55] and again hedescribes that "surpassing joy of the new regeneration, " when the soul"gets the keys of the kingdom of heaven and may open for itself. "[56]

Fox's "openings" about university-trained ministers and his referencesto "stone churches, " or "churches of stone and mortar, " have manyparallels in Boehme. Dinah of the Old Testament, for example, is"nothing else but a figure of our stone churches and our colleges withtheir ministers!" and Jacob's concubine, again, "signifieth nothingelse but the stone churches in which God's word and testament arehandled. "[57]

Finally, Fox's great vision of an ocean of Darkness and an ocean ofLight, while no doubt a real experience and expressed in his own words, is profoundly like Boehme's fundamental insight that there are twoworld-principles of Light and Darkness, and that Light is, in the end, victorious over Darkness. [58]

No attempt has been made to gather an exhaustive set {227} of parallelsbetween the experiences and ideas of these two religious teachers. Enough, however, is presented to show that this spiritual leader inEngland was distinctly a debtor to the Teutonic seer who died the sameyear in which the former was born. Fox himself never mentions Boehmeby name, nor does he ever refer to the little sect of "Behmenists, "which, springing into existence contemporaneously with the birth of theQuaker movement, had an interesting, though short-lived, history; but anumber of the followers of Fox went aggressively into the lists againsttheir puny rival. 

The so-called "sect of Behmenists" is thus described by Richard Baxter:"The fifth sect are the Behmenists whose opinions go much toward theway of the former [the Quakers] for the sufficiency of the Light ofNature, Inward Light, the salvation of the Heathen as well asChristians, and a dependence on 'revelations. ' But they are fewer innumber, and seem to have attained to greater Meekness and conquest ofpassions than any of the rest. Their doctrines are to be seen in JacobBehmen's Books, by him that hath nothing else to do, than to bestow agreat deal of time to understand him that was not willing to be easilyunderstood!"[59]

"The chiefest" of this "sect of Behmenists, " Baxter says, was Dr. JohnPordage. Pordage was born in 1607; was curate in 1644 of St. Lawrence's in Reading; was made rector of the Church in Bradfield latein 1646; was charged in 1651 with heresies, comprised in nine articles, consisting apparently of a sort of mystical pantheism. He was at firstacquitted, but was later charged again with heresies on these ninecounts, with fifty-six more, and was deprived of his rectory in 1655. He valiantly defended himself in a book with the title, _Truthappearing through the Clouds of Undeserved Scandel_, and in otherpublications, and after the Restoration he was reinstated. As theBehmenists were definitely attacked by the Quaker, John Anderdon, in1661, it is to be inferred that they existed as a society at least asearly as the {228} Restoration, though the movement became much moreprominent in the 'seventies, when Pordage discovered a remarkable womannamed Jane Leade, and they "agreed to wait together in prayer and purededication. " Jane Leade, whose maiden name was Jane Ward, was born ofa good English family in 1623. She was a psychopathic child, and as ayoung girl "heard miraculous voices" which led her to devote herself toreligion. She became profoundly impressed with the writings of Boehme, as Pordage had been still earlier, and under the _suggestion_ ofBoehme's experiences she received many "prophetic visions, " which arerecorded in her spiritual Diary, _A Fountain of Gardens_. [60] A fewinstances of her experiences in the early stages will be of some valueto the reader. She was visiting, she says, in April 1670, in a quiet, retired place, and was "contemplating the happy state of the angelicalworld, much exercised upon Solomon's choice, which was to find out theNoble Stone of Wisdom. " "There came upon me an overshadowing brightcloud, and in the midst of it the Figure of a woman, most richlyadorned with transparent gold, her hair hanging down, and her face asterrible as chrystal for brightness, but her countenance was sweet andmild. At which sight I was somewhat amazed, and immediately this Voicecame, saying, Behold, I am God's Eternal Virgin, Wisdom, whom thou hastbeen enquiring after. I am to unseal the Treasures of God's deepWisdom unto thee. . . . Wisdom shall be born in the inward parts ofthy soul. " Three days later, "the same Figure in greater Glory didappear, with a crown upon her head, full of majesty, saying, Behold meas thy Mother and know thou art to enter into covenant, to obey theNew-Creation laws that shall be revealed unto thee. "[61] In heraccount of the following extraordinary experience there are many marksof Boehme's influence: "I retained no strength, my Sun of Reason andthe Moon of my outward sense were folded up and withdrew. I knewnothing by myself, as {229} to those working properties from Nature andCreature, and the wheel of the Motion standing still, another[influence] moved from a central Fire, so that I felt myself transmutedinto one pure flame. Then came that Word to me, 'This is no other thanthe Gate to my Eternal Deep. '"[62]

Pordage's main contribution to the exposition of "Behmenism" was a bookpublished in 1683 and entitled, _Theologia Mystica, or the MysticDivinitie of the Eternal Invisibles_. It is the work of a confusedmind, and its spiritual penetration, as also its mastery of the Englishlanguage, are of a low order. The marks of Boehme's influence appeareverywhere in the book, though Pordage is quite incapable ofcomprehending the more profound and robust features of Boehme'sphilosophy. What he relates professes to be what he himself has _seen_in visions, or what he has heard from celestial visitants. It has, hesays, been his privilege to taste much of that Tree of Life which growsin the midst of the Paradise of God; to smell the difference betweenheaven and hell; to have seen through the veil of nature into thespiritual glory of eternity, to have felt "the distillations ofheavenly dew and secret touches of the Holy Ghost. " Unlike hisTeutonic master, he taught (and it was also the view of Jane Leade)that in the end Divine Love transmutes evil into good and even hellinto Paradise. One passage in his book, written in his best style, will be sufficient to illustrate his glowing optimism: "Love is of atransmuting and transforming Nature. The great effect of Love is toturn all things into its own Nature, which is all goodness, sweetness, and perfection. This is that Divine Power which turns Water into Wine, Sorrow and Hellish Anguish into exulting and triumphing Joy; Curse intoBlessing; where it meets with a barren heathy Desart it transmutes itinto a Paradise of delights; yea, it changeth evil to good and allimperfection into perfection. It restores that which is fallen anddegenerated to its primary Beauty, Excellence and Perfection. It is{230} the Divine Stone, the White Stone with a Name written on it, which none knows but him that hath it . . . The Divine Elixir whosetransforming power and efficacy nothing can withstand. "[63]

His greater disciple, Jane Leade, "the enamoured woman-devotee ofPordage, " the main exponent of the Behmenist movement of this period, was a far too voluminous writer. [64] She was a sincere, pure-mindedwoman, of intense devotion, but she was a strongly emotional type ofperson, and lived in a kind of permanent borderland of visions andrevelations. Her language, like that also of Pordage, isungrammatical, of involved style, and full of overwrought and fancifulimagination. Christopher Walton, who in many ways respected her, callsher writings "a huge mass of parabolicalism and idiocraticdeformity!"[64] In her _Message to the Philadelphian Society_ shereports a curious vision from heaven which assures her that the Quakersare not God's chosen people. There pass in review before herilluminated sight the various claimants to the lofty title of the trueChurch, the real Bride of Christ. There are Anabaptists, FifthMonarchy Men, and many others. "Then, " she says, "did I see a bodygreater than any of these come up with great boldness, as deemingthemselves to have arrived to Perfection and so visibly distinguishingthemselves from all the rest, and I said, Now surely the anointed ofthe Lord is before Him. But a Voice said, Neither are these they; forthe Lord seeth not as man seeth. "[66]

A third and intellectually far greater member of this group of"Behmenists" was Francis Lee, a Fellow of St. John's College, Oxford, astudent in Leyden University, and a man of splendid parts. He becameacquainted with the movement while in Holland, and on his return homesought out Jane Leade, became her adopted son, and, later, on thestrength of a "revelation" made to his {231} spiritual mother, hemarried her daughter. Until the time of Jane Leade's death in 1704, hewas her devoted disciple, writing for her in the period of herblindness, and editing and publishing many of her books. He was themoving spirit in the formation of "the Philadelphian Society" for thepropagation of the mystical ideas of the followers of Boehme--a Societywhich existed from 1697 to 1703, and which had a far-reaching influencenot only in England but still more on the Continent of Europe. [67]

John Anderdon, an interesting Quaker pamphleteer, born in 1624, convinced of the Truth of the Quaker Message by the preaching ofFrancis Howgil in 1658, and for many years a prisoner for his faith, for which he finally died in prison, furnishes in his attack on the"Behmenists" in 1661 the earliest data available for an estimate oftheir views and practices. [68] The writer has evidently read the worksof Jacob Boehme, or at least some of them, and he contends that the"Behmenists" whom he is attacking have failed to understand thewritings of their master and have never fathomed "the tendencie of hisspirit": "The Conclusion which you have drawn to yourselves from hisWritings will not profit you; neither doth it make you any jot the moreexcellent, that ye can talk much of him and his Books and Writings, being not come to the right Spirit in which is life, which brings menout of dead Forms. "[69]

His main criticism of the little sect is that its members make use of"Mediums and borrowed Instruments for the conveyance of God's Grace andVirtue into the Soul, "[70] and that they have "not come to the Lightwhich gives {232} a true understanding of the things of God, " though headmits that there "was sometime" in them "a hungering and thirstingafter Righteousness. "[71] These "Mediums" are evidently the Water ofBaptism and the Bread and Wine of the Supper--"Ordinances, " he says, "as you call them. "[72] It would seem from this Quaker Pamphlet thatthe "Behmenists" under review were much like the followers of Fox, except only that they continued to use the sacraments. This use of"Mediums" seemed to him indicate that they were "out of the Light" and"trying to _cover_ the serpent's head, " instead of stamping on it, butAnderdon would not have written his _Blow at Babel_ if he had not beenimpressed with the general marks of likeness in other respects betweenthe "Behmenists" and his own people. 

Another interesting Quaker document furnishes a glimpse of the"Behmenists" a dozen years later--at about the period when John Pordageand Jane Leade were beginning to "wait together in prayer and puremeditation. " It is a Minute adopted by the London "Morning Meeting" ofFriends, "the 21st of ye 7th Month 1674. " The occasion for action wasthe reception of "an Epistle to the Behminists, " written by RalphFrettwell of Barbadoes, at an earlier period "one of the Chief Judgesof the Court of Common-pleas" in the island. He had been stirred towrite for the same reason that impelled Anderdon, and his "Epistle"called these partly spiritualized people, as he believed, to the fullerLight, and warned them against the use of Baptism, and Bread and Wine, and "the Pater Noster. " The Minute of the Morning Meeting, which openswith the words: "Deare freind R. F. In the Truth that never changethbut changeth all who believe and obey it, " records the decision of theMeeting not to publish the Epistle, "wee haveing well weighed it in thefeare of God and in tender Care of Truth. " The reason given in theMinutes for not publishing the "Epistle" is, first, that "the writingsof J. B. Reveal {233} a great mixture of light and darkness, " andindicate that he lived sometimes in the power of one and sometimes inthe power of the other, that God Himself has tried and judged theSpirit of darkness, and that the Spirit of Light has already "come toits own Centre and flows forth again purely"--presumably in the Quakermovement. [73] As the Lord Himself has given judgment and has givenvictory to the Principle of the Light, the publication of the "Epistle"is unnecessary. 

And, secondly, Frettwell, in calling the "Behmenists" from "the use ofMediums, " admits that at an earlier period of his life, before hereceived the full Light, he "received light and peace" through theseexternal things. This seemed to the Meeting "too much giveing themencouragement" to dwell in things which give "only drynesse andbarrenness, " and they fear that "the ffoxes among them would takeadvantage" of this aid and comfort. [74] It would appear that thegravamen of the Quaker attack on the little sect was the failure of itsmembers to dispense with sacraments. At a later period, when the"Philadelphian Society" was in full flower, an old-time pillar Quaker, George Keith, then become a Churchman and "an apostate" in the eyes ofFriends, attacked the writings of Jane Leade on the ground that "shewrote derogatory to the Humanity of Christ, " _i. E. _ the historicalChrist. Francis Lee took up vigorously the defence, and told GeorgeKeith that he himself had taught again and again the same principle ofinward Light and inward Religion, that he had never yet publiclyrenounced these early ideas of his, and that he of all men ought tounderstand the meaning of a Christ within and of a "Still Eternity. "[75]

Traces of Boehme's influence appear in the terms and {234} ideas ofmany English writers during the period under consideration, besidesthose specifically mentioned. Sir Isaac Newton read Boehme's bookswith great appreciation and meditated upon those strange accounts ofthe invisible universe which underlies and is in the visible world, butwe need not take too seriously the claim of the "Behmenists" that "hewas ploughing with Behmen's heifer" when he discovered the law ofuniversal gravitation![76] Milton, without any doubt, had read theGerman mystic's account of the eternal war between the Light Principleand the Dark Principle, of the fall of Lucifer, of the loss ofParadise, and of the return of man in Christ to Paradise, and there aremany passages in the great poet which look decidedly like germinationsfrom the seed which Boehme sowed, but we must observe caution intracing the origin of verses written by a poet of Milton's genius andoriginality and range of knowledge. One great Englishman of a laterperiod, William Law, unmistakably owed to Jacob Boehme the maininfluences which transformed his life, and through the pure and lucidstyle of this noble English mystic of the eighteenth century, Boehme'sinsights found a new interpretation and a clearer expression than hehimself or any other interpreter had been able to give them. [77]

[1] "The Life of one Jacob Boehmen, who although he was a meane man, yet wrote the most wonderful deepe knowledge in Naturall and DivineThings, that any hath been known to doe since the Apostles' Times, andyet never read them or learned them from any other man, as may be scenein that which followeth. "--London, 1644, printed by L. N. For RichardWhitaker. 

[2] _Journal of George Fox_ (Cambridge edition, 1911), i. P. 18. 

[3] Preface, A. 4. 

[4] _Ibid. _

[5] _Journ. _ i. P. 29. 

[6] _The Life of Jacob Behmen_, written by Durant Hotham, Esquire, November 7, 1653. Printed for H. Blunden, and sold at the Castle inCorn Hill, 1654. 

[7] _Life of Jacob Behmen_, B. 2. 

[8] _Op. Cit. _ B. 2. 

[9] The writings were translated in the following order: In 1647, _Forty Questions_ by Sparrow; _The Clavis_, by Sparrow. In 1648, _TheThree Principles_, by Sparrow; _The Way to Christ_ (including theTreatises, _On True Repentance_; _On True Resignation_; _OnRegeneration_; _The Supersensual Life_; and _On Illumination_), bySparrow. In 1649, _Of the Last Times_, by Sparrow; _Epistles of JacobBehmen_, by Ellistone. In 1650, _The Three-fold Life_, by Sparrow. In1651, _De signatura rerum_, by Ellistone. In 1652, _Christ'sTestaments_--Baptism and Supper, --by Sparrow. In 1654, _The Mysteriummagnum_, by Ellistone and Sparrow; _A Table of the DivineManifestation_, by H. Blunden and Sparrow; _A Table of the ThreePrinciples_, H. Blunden and Sparrow; _An Epitome of the ThreePrinciples_, by Sparrow. In 1655, _On Predestination_, by Sparrow; _AShort Compendium on Repentance_, by Sparrow. In 1656, _The Aurora_, bySparrow. In 1659, _The Treatise on the Incarnation_, by Sparrow. In1661, _The Great Six Points_; _The Earthly and Heavenly Mystery_; _TheFour Complexions_; _Two Apologies to Tylcken_; _Considerationsconcerning Stiefel's Threefold State of Man_; _An Apology concerningPerfection_; _On Divine Contemplation_; _An Apology for the Books onTrue Repentance and True Resignation_; _177 Theosophic Questions_; _TheHoly Week_; _25 Epistles_, by Sparrow. 

[10] Sparrow refers to this book in his Introduction to _The ThreePrinciples_ as follows: "For a taste of the Spirit of prophecy whichthe author [Boehme] had, there is a little treatise of some propheciesconcerning these latter times, collected out of his writings by a loverof the Teutonic philosophy and entitled Mercurius Teutonicus. "

[11] Introd. To _Forty Questions_. 

[12] Introd. To _Forty Questions_. 

[13] Ibid. 

[14] Ibid. 

[15] Introd. To _The Three Princ. _

[16] Introd. To _The Three Princ. _

[17] Ibid. 

[18] "To the Reader" in _Myst. Mag. _

[19] "To the Reader" in _Myst. Mag. _

[20] Preface to the Reader in _Aurora_. 

[21] Preface for the _Aurora_. 

[22] Preface for the _Aurora_. 

[23] A contemporary of Sparrow, probably Samuel Pordage, wrote anEncomium on Sparrow in the Introduction to a long Behmenite Poem called_Mundorum explicatio_ (London, 1661). The passage is as follows:

 "And learned Sparrow we thy praises too Will Sing; rewards too small for what is due, The Gifts of Glory and of Praise we owe: The English Behmen doth Thy Trophies show. Whilst Englishmen that great saint's praise declare, Thy Name shall join'd with his receive a share. The Time shall come when his great Name shall rise, Thy Glory also shall ascend the skies. Thou mad'st him English speak, or else what Good Had his works done us if not understood? To Germany they beneficial prove Alone: till we enjoyed them by thy Love. Their German Robes thou took'st from them, that we Their Beauties might in English Garments see. Thus has thy Love a vast rich Treasure showen, And made what was exotic now our own. "

[24] Preface to Boehme's _Epistles_ (1649). 

[25] Preface to Boehme's _Epistles_. 

[26] _Ibid. _

[27] _Ibid. _

[28] Preface to _Epistles_. 

[29] _Ibid. _

[30] Preface to _Sig. Re. _

[31] This question was raised by Barclay in his _Inner Life of theReligious Societies of the Commonwealth_ (London, 1879), pp. 214-215. 

[32] Thomas Taylor's _Works_ (London, 1697), p. 86. 

[33] The writings themselves constantly use the word "Seeker, " and theIntroductions emphasize the Seeking attitude. 

[34] _Christian Information Concerning these Last Times_, by F. E. (London, 1664), pp. 10-11. 

[35] _Op. Cit. _ pp. 11-12. 

[36] _Journal_ (ed. 1901), 28. Unfortunately the Cambridge Journaldoes not contain any biographical incidents prior to 1652. 

[37] Hotham's _Life_, D. 4. 

[38] Preface to _Epistles_, p. 10. 

[39] The _Three Princ. _, trans. 1648, xx. 40-41. 

[40] _Sig. Re. _ viii. 23. 

[41] _Ep. _ xv. 18. For another passage on "the new smell, " see _TheThree Princ. _ iv. 27. 

[42] _Journal_, i. P. 29. 

[43] _Ibid. _ i. Pp. 29-30. 

[44] See _Journal_, i. Pp. 31-34. 

[45] _Ibid. _ i. P. 33. 

[46] _Op. Cit. _ A. 

[47] See, for specimen passages, _Journal_, i. Pp. 36 and 124. 

[48] See especially _Myst. Mag. _ xxxviii. Sections 52-59. 

[49] Preface to _Aurora_, B. 

[50] _Journal_, i. P. 19. 

[51] _Three Princ. _ xvi. 31-37. 

[52] See _Journal_, i. P. 13; pp. 190-191 and _passim_. 

[53] _Three Princ. _ iv. 5. See also _ibid. _ xv. 24; xvi. 42; andxviii. 24. 

[54] _Journal_, i. P. 12. 

[55] _Three Princ. _ ix. 25-26. 

[56] _Ibid. _ xix. 33. 

[57] _Myst. Mag. _ lxii. 17 and lxiii. 36. 

[58] See Fox's _Journal_, i. P. 19. 

[59] _Reliquiae Baxterianae_ (London, 1715), i. 77. 

[60] _A Fountain of Gardens_, 4 vols. , London, 1696-1701. 

[61] _Op. Cit. _ i. Pp. 17-19. 

[62] _A Fountain of Gardens_, p. 25. 

[63] _Theologia mystica_, p. 81. 

[64] Christopher Walton, in his _Notes and Materials_ (1854), gives alist of eighteen of her books. 

[65] _Ibid. _ p. 238. 

[66] _Op. Cit. _ p. 9. Pordage disliked the Quakers and speaksslightingly of them in _Theologia mystica_. He also wrote a Treatiseagainst them. See Walton, p. 203. 

[67] Important material on this subject may be found in Walton's _Notesand Materials_, especially pp. 188-258. 

[68] The full title-page of Anderdon's book is as follows: _One Blow atBabel_. In those of the Pepole called Behemnites, whose Foundation isnot upon that of the Prophets and Apostles, which shall stand sure andfirm forever; but upon their own carnal conceptions, begotten in theirImaginations upon Jacob Behmen's writings: They not knowing the betterpart, the Teachings of that Spirit that sometime opened some Mysteriesof God's Kingdom in Jacob, have chosen the worser part in Esau, according to the predominancy of that Spirit which ruled in them whenthey made choice of their Religion, as it doth in others the hearts ofthe children of disobedience. --By John Anderdon. (London, printed inthe year 1662, written in 1661). 

[69] _One Blow at Babel_, p. 3. 

[70] _Ibid. _ pp. 1 and 6. 

[71] _One Blow at Babel_, pp. 1-2. 

[72] Jane Leade's writings give great importance to the outwardsacraments. 

[73] The use of the phrase "its own Centre, " which became an importantQuaker term, is an interesting relic of Boehme's influence. 

[74] _Minutes of the Morning Meeting_, i. George Fox apparently askedto see Frattwell's MS. , for in a Letter under date of eighth mo. 1st, 1674, Alexander Parker writes to George Fox: "I likewise spoke to Edw. Man [Edward Mann] to send down Ralph ffrettwells Book, I suppose heintends to see thee shortly and if he can find ye Book to bring ittwith him. "--_Journal_ (Cambridge edition), ii. P. 305. 

[75] Walton's _Notes and Materials_, pp. 227 and 231. 

[76] See Walton's _Notes and Materials_, pp. 3, 46, 72, and 404. 

[77] William Law lies beyond the period to which this volume isdevoted. It is customary to call the edition of Behmen's _Works_, published 1764-1781, "William Law's Edition. " This is quite incorrect. This edition is in the main a reprint of the earlier Translations bySparrow and Ellistone. It was edited by George Ward, assisted byThomas Langcake, and printed at the expense of Mrs. Hutcheson, anintimate friend of William Law. 

{235}

CHAPTER XIII

EARLY ENGLISH INTERPRETERS OF SPIRITUAL RELIGION: JOHN EVERARD, GILES RANDALL, AND OTHERS

I

The ideas developed by spiritual Reformers on the Continent werebrought into England by a great variety of carriers and over manyroutes. Some of the routes were devious and are difficult to trace, but some of them, on the other hand, are obvious and easily found. Oneof the potent and pervasive intellectual influences for the formationof the "spiritual" type of thought in England was the Platonicinfluence which came to England through the Humanists. This strand ofthought, inherited from the remote past, is woven into the innerstructure of all these interpreters of the divine Life. The Englishrevival of Greek philosophy is closely connected with the work of theearly Italian Humanists, especially with that of the Florentinescholar, Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499), who was selected and educated byCosimo de Medici to be the head of the new Academy in Florence. It wasa fixed idea of Ficino that Philosophy and Religion are identical, andtherefore that Religion, if it is true Religion, is rooted and groundedin Reason, since God is the source of all Truth and all that isrational. Plato, in Ficino's eyes, is Philosophy. He was the divineforerunner of Christ in the realm of intellect as John the Baptist wasin the realm of the law. In his mind Plato's Philosophy is thegreatest possible preparation for an adequate understanding of theworld of Truth which Christ has unveiled and of the way {236} of Lifewhich He has revealed. Ficino translated Plato's Dialogues into Latin, and gave his own interpretation of the great philosopher in a Treatiseon _Plato's Doctrine of Immortality of Souls_. He also translatedPlotinus and the writings falsely attributed to Dionysius theAreopagite, and put them anew into spiritual circulation. 

Ficino, though living in an age of corruption and debauchery, andthough closely associated with Humanists who had hardly a thin veneerof Christianity, and who were bent on reviving paganism, yet himselfmaintained a positive Christian faith and a pure and simple life. Hefound it possible to be a priest in the Christian Church and at thesame time to be a high-priest in the temple of Plato, because he foundfaith and reason to be indivisible and indissoluble. His influence wasmarked upon the early English Humanists, Linacre, Grocyn, Colet, andMore, and he was a vital influence in the new revival, which occurredin the seventeenth century, of Plato and Plotinus as contributors to avirile religion based upon an inherent divine and human relationship. 

Still another influence, of a very different sort, came to England byway of Italy--the intense interpretation of Faith as the way ofsalvation, expressed in the writings of the Spanish reformer, Juan deValdès, and in the powerful sermons of his two Italian disciples, Bernardino Ochino (1487-1564) and Pietro Martire Vermigli (1500-1562), generally known as Peter Martyr. Juan de Valdès, twin brother of theHumanist, Alfonso de Valdès, the friend of the Emperor Charles V. , wasborn of a distinguished Castilian family toward the end of thefifteenth century. He was splendidly prepared in his youth, bothmentally and religiously, for the great work of his life, which was tobe a spiritual mover of other souls. As his views of the neededtransformation of Christianity broadened and intensified he concludedthat he would be safer in Italy than in Spain, and he thus took up hisresidence in Naples in 1529. Here he became the centre of a remarkablecircle of spiritual men and women who were dedicating themselves to thereform of the Church and to the {237} propagation of a more vitalreligion. Ochino, the most powerful Italian preacher of the age; thefervent scholar, Vermigli; the papal secretary, Carnesecchi, later amartyr to the new faith; Vittoria Colonna, the friend of Michael AngeloBuonarotti, and the beautiful Giulia Gonzaga, were among those whokindled their torches from his burning flame. For the instruction ofhis friends--especially for Giulia Gonzaga--de Valdès translated St. Paul's Epistles to the Romans and Galatians and wrote commentaries onthem, and contributed the penetrating original works, _The ChristianAlphabet_ and _The Hundred and Ten Divine Considerations_. [1]

These writings present in vivid and powerful style the way of salvationthrough Faith. The primary insight is Lutheran, but it is everywherecoloured and tempered by the author's Humanistic outlook. He insists, in all his interpretations of salvation, upon the vital interior workof the Holy Spirit and upon the necessity of re-living the Christ-lifein all its heights and depths. All the truths of religion, heconstantly urges, must be known and verified in experience, and thosewho are to be effective ministers of the Gospel in any age must knowthat they are divinely sent and must be taught by the inward Word ofGod rather than by human science. The attractive power of the Cross isrediscovered in his profound experience and makes itself felt as thedynamic principle of his entire moral activity. 

The _Divine Considerations_ was put into English by Nicholas Ferrar(1592-1637) of Little Gidding, and published at Oxford in 1638, together with the Introduction to the _Commentary on Romans_, under thename of "John Valdesso. " The English translation was submitted byFerrar to his friend, George Herbert, who wrote some interestingcritical notes which were printed with the original edition. GeorgeHerbert expresses his great love for "Valdesso, " whose eyes, he says, God has opened, even in the midst of Popery, "to understand andexpresse so clearly {238} and excellently the intent of the Gospell inthe acceptation of Christ's righteousness, " but he "likes not" hisslighting of Scripture and his use of the Word of God for inwardrevelation. He believed, though wrongly, that de Valdès was a"mystic, " and that he was advocating a religion of "private enthusiasmsand revelations. " The fact was rather that de Valdès was presenting orwas aiming to present a religion of universal validity, brought tobirth by the discovery of God in Christ as revealed in the Gospel, andmade continuously effective anew by personal experience of the sameChrist as Divine Revealer in the lives of men. 

There is no question of the far-reaching influence of Ferrar'stranslation of this vital message of de Valdès, especially amongscholars and literary men. It must also have had a popular influence, for Samuel Rutherford in 1648 declared it to be one of the "poysonable"sources of "Familisme, Antinomianisme, and Enthusiasme. "[2] He chargesthat "Waldesso, " as he calls him, teaches men that the Scriptures havebeen supplanted by the inner Light, in fact that "Scripture shines onlyas a light in a dark place until the Day-star arises in the heart, andthat then man hath no more need to seeke that of the holy Scripturewhich departs of it selfe, as the light of a candle departs when theSunne-beames enter, even as Moses departed at the presence of Christand the Law at the presence of the Gospel. "[3]

Ochino and Vermigli spent six important years in England from 1547 to1553, when persecution under Mary forced them to flee. They were farmore under the influence of Calvin at this period than under that oftheir former friend de Valdès, but they both with the fire andintensity of their Italian nature--especially Ochino in hissermons--drove home to the hearts and consciences of their hearers theway of salvation by faith and the absolute necessity of innerexperience and interior religion. 

{239}

II. JOHN EVERARD

Dr. John Everard of Clare College, Cambridge, was clearly one of theearliest and one of the most interesting carriers of these ideas, andin his case it is not difficult to discover the influences which shapedthe course of his thought and suggested the general lines of hismessage. He was born about 1575--the birth year of JacobBoehme--though all early biographical details are lacking. He had along student period at Clare College, receiving his degree of B. A. In1600, M. A. In 1607, and D. D. In 1619. He was deeply versed in thegreat mystics, and always reveals in his sermons the influence ofPlotinus and Dionysius the Areopagite, and no less the influence ofEckhart, Tauler, and the _Theologia Germanica_. But at some period ofhis life he tapped a new source and came into possession of a freshgroup of live and suggestive ideas which influenced all the thinking ofhis later stage. His translations, some of which are in MS. And somein printed form, furnish a clue to the main sources of his ideas, whichpresent a striking parallelism with those held by the continentalspiritual Reformers of the sixteenth century. He was possessed oforiginal power and of penetrating insight, with "eyes of his own, " butno one can fail to see that he had read and pondered the writings ofthese submerged Reformers, and that in a country remote from theirs hehas become a reincarnation of their ideas and a new voice for theirmessage. 

His public career, in the England of the first two Stuarts, was astormy one. He was Rector of St. Martin-in-the-Field. In the earlystage of his preaching he felt called upon to oppose the "SpanishMarriage" as "the great sin of matching with idolaters, " and heunderwent a series of imprisonments for his attacks upon this preciousscheme of King James, who wittily suggested changing his name from Dr. Everard ["Ever-out"] to "Dr. Never-out. " Some time before his fiftiethyear--the date cannot be exactly fixed--he reached {240} his new anddeeper insight, and henceforth became the bearer of a message whichseemed to him and to his friends like the reopening of the treasury ofthe Gospels, and in this new light he felt ashamed of the barren periodof his life when he walked in "the ignorance of litteral knowledge, "when he was "a bare, literal, University preacher, " as he himself says, and had not found "the marrow and the true Word of God. "[4] The greatchange which cleaves his public career into two well-defined parts isimpressively indicated by his friend and disciple, Rapha Harford, inhis "Dedicatory Epistle" to the Sermons and in his preface "to theReader, " though he nowhere gives any light upon the events andinfluences which initiated the transformation. "In a special andextraordinary manner God appeared to him in his latter days, " Harfordsays, "and after that, he desired nothing more than to bring others tosee what he saw and to enjoy what he enjoyed. "[5] He was, we are told, "a man of presence and of princely behaviour" and was known "as a goodphilosopher, few or none exceeding him, " "endowed with skill and depthof learning, " but after his new experience, when he "came to knowhimself, " and to "know Jesus Christ and the Scriptures _experimentally_rather than grammatically, literally or academically, " he came toesteem lightly "notions and speculation, " "letter-learning" and"University-knowledge, " and he "_centred his spirit_ on union andcommunion with God" and turned his supreme interest from "forms, externals and generals" to the cultivation of "the inner man, " and to"acting more than talking. "[6]

His new way of preaching--vivid, concrete, touched with subtle humour, grounded in experience and filling old texts with new meaning--appealedpowerfully to the common people and to an elect few of the more highlyprivileged who had won a large enough freedom of spirit to go with himinto new paths. [7] Like his Master, he loved {241} the common people, "thinking it no disparagement to accompany with the lowest of men, ""tinkers, coblers, weavers and poor beggarly fellows who came running"to hear him, and he poured out the best he had in his treasury to any, even the simplest and most ordinary, who cared to hear of this"spiritual, practical experiment of life. " His preaching naturallybrought him suffering and persecution. He was "often fetched into theHigh Commission, " was forced to give "attendance from Court to Courtand from Term to Term, " was on one occasion fined a thousand pounds forhis "heresies, " and had many interviews with Archbishop Laud, but healways held that "Truth is strongest, " and he declared that God hadcalled him to be "a Sampson against Philistines and a David against thehuge and mighty Goliath of his times, "[8] and he was ready to pay thecost of obedience to the Light. His friend, Harford, who had "muchado" to keep the manuscript of his sermons "out of the Bishop'sfingers, " declares that though Everard clearly "distinguished theoutward and killing letter from the Life and Spirit of the Holy Word, "he was not an antinomian or in sympathy with ranterism. "Our author, "the Dedicatory Epistle says, and says truly, "missed both rocks againstwhich many have split their vessels. He carries Truth amain withTopsail set. He cuts his way clear between the meer Rationalist whowill square out God according to his Reason, and the Familist who livesabove all ordinances and by degrees hath turned licencious Ranter. "Thomas Brooks added to Harford's Testimony a brief "Approbation" to theVolume, on Behalf of the Publishers, recommending all readers toreceive its "heaven-born truths" into their homes and into theirhearts, assuring them that as they read and open their inner eyes theywill find their own hearts in the book and the book in their ownhearts, _i. E. _ the book will "find them. "

Before turning to Everard's message, as it finds expression in the rarevolume of his sermons--_The Gospel Treasures Opened_--we must considerthe Translations {242} which he left unpublished. They are preservedin clearly written manuscripts in Cambridge University Library, underthe title "Three Bookes Translated out of their Originall. "[9] Thefirst "Book" bears the following title-page: "The Tree of Knowledge ofGood and Evil, And the Tree of Life in the Midst of the Paradise ofGod: Taken out of a Book called The Letter and the Life, or The Fleshand the Spirit. Translated by Dr. Everard. " An interesting article onDr. Everard in _Notes and Queries_[10] concludes that this first "Book"of Everard's is a free translation of the Second Part of Tentzel's_Medicina diastica_. This guess, however, proves to be incorrect, though there is a slight likeness between Tentzel's book and theEnglish MS. Everard's book is, in reality, a translation of SebastianFranck's _Von dem Baum des Wissens Gutes und Böses_ ("Of the Tree ofKnowledge of Good and Evil"). The translation is made from a Latinedition of Franck's little book, which was published in 1561. Theentire message of this treatise, written by the wandering chroniclerand spiritual prophet of Germany, and here reproduced in English, isthe _inwardness_ of everything that concerns the religious life. TheTree of Life was in Adam's heart, and in that same inner region of thesoul was the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The story ofParadise is a graphic parable of the soul's experience. "That Treewhich tested Adam was and is nothing else in truth but the Nature, Will, Knowledge, and Life of Adam, and every man is as much forbiddento eat of this Tree as Adam was. " Franck's significant book containedpassages from Hans Denck's _Widerruf_ ("Confession"), and Everardtranslated them as an appendix to his first manuscript book. [11] Theyhold the very heart of Denck's message and deal, with Denck's usualsincerity and boldness, with the fundamental nature of spiritualreligion. He here declares the primacy of the Word of God in the soulover everything else that ministers to man's life: "I prefer the HolyScriptures before all Humane {243} Treasure; yet I do not so muchesteem them as I do the Word of God which is living, potent, andeternal, and which is free from all elements of this world: For that isGod Himself, Spirit and no letter, written without pen or ink, so thatit can never be obliterated. True Salvation is in the Word of God; itis not tied up to the Scriptures. They alone cannot make a bad heartgood, though they may supply it with information. But a heartillumined with the Light of God is made better by everything. " Franckdeclares, in comment on Denck's words: "I myself know at least twentyChristian Religions all of which claim to rest on the Holy Scriptureswhich they apply to themselves by far-fetched expositions andallegories, or from the dead letter of the text. . . . They can beunderstood rightly, however, only by the divine new-man, who isGod-born, and who brings to them the Light of the Holy Spirit. " Therecan be no doubt, I think, that Dr. Everard found in the writings ofthese two sixteenth-century prophets the body and filling of his ownnew conceptions of Christianity, and it was through his vigorousinterpretations that this stream of thought first flowed into England. 

It will not be necessary to make extended comment on Everard's othertranslations. The second one was "The Golden Book of GermanDivinitie, " rendered into English in 1628 from the Latin edition of"John Theophilus, " who is Sebastian Castellio, and the third is atranslation of Nicholas of Cusa's _De visione Dei_ ("The Vision ofGod"), which is a profound and impressive piece of mystical literatureand deserves to be much better known than it is. Everard, further, translated the "Mystical Divinity" of Dionysius the Areopagite, selections from John Tauler and Meister Eckhart, and "The DivinePymander [Poemander] of Hermes Trismegistus"--a book which nearly allthe spiritual Humanists ranked in the very first list of religiousliterature. [12]

We must now turn to Everard's message as it is {244} presented in hisSermons, and endeavour to discover what he told the throngs of peoplewho came gladly to hear him in the Kensington Meetings and thegatherings at Islington. The central emphasis in every sermon is onpersonal experience, or, as we should phrase it to-day, on a religionof life and reality. He has had his own "scholastic" period, but helooks back on it as a passage across an arid desert, and he feels amission laid upon him to call men everywhere away from a religion of"notions and words"[13] to a religion of first-hand experience andinwardly felt realities. Unless we know Christ, he says, experimentally so that "He lives within us spiritually, and so that allwhich is known of Him in the Letter and Historically is truly done andacted in our own souls--until we experimentally verify all we read ofHim--the Gospel is a meer tale to us. " It is not saving knowledge toknow that Christ was born in Bethlehem but to know that He is born inus. It is vastly more important to know experimentally that we arecrucified with Christ than to know historically that He died inJerusalem many years ago, and to feel Jesus Christ risen again withinyou is far more operative than to have "a notional knowledge" that Herose on the third day. "When thou begins to finde and know not merelythat He was conceived in the womb of a virgin, but that _thou_ art thatvirgin and that He is more truly and spiritually, and yet as really, conceived in thy heart so that thou feelest the Babe beginning to beconceived in thee by the power of the Holy Ghost and the Most Highovershadowing thee; when thou feelest Jesus Christ stirring to be bornand brought forth in thee; when thou beginnest to see and feel allthose mighty, powerful actions done in thee which thou readest that Hedid in the flesh--here is a Christ indeed, a real Christ who will dothee some good. "[14]

{245}

To have Christ born in the soul means also to "do the deeds of Christ, "to grow and increase toward perfection as His life is more fullymanifested in us, to be able to say as we read of divine events, "Thisday is this Scripture fulfilled in me, " and to see Christ work all Hismiracles before our eyes to-day. It is the "key of experience" whichunlocks all the drawers and cabinets and hidden and secret doors ofScripture. [15] We can discover, as we read, that there are wholearmies of Philistines in us to be overcome, that there are Goliaths tobe slain, and that there are Promised Lands to be won. [16] "When thouhast seen God and found Him for thyself; then thou mayest say: Now Ibelieve, not only because it is written in Genesis, but because I havefelt it and seen it written and fulfilled in mine own soul. "[17] "Menshould not so much trouble themselves, " he says to those who areexpecting a "Fifth Monarchy, " "about a personal reign of Christ hereupon earth, if they saw that the chief and real fulfilling of theScriptures were _in them_; and that, whatever is externally done in theworld or expressed in the Scriptures, is but typical andrepresentative, and points out a more spiritual _saving_, and a moredivine fulfilling of them. "[18]

In almost the same figures used by Sebastian Franck he contrasts theletter and the Spirit, the outward and the inward, the word of thewritten Book and the living Word of God. This contrast is carefullyworked out in four sermons, preached at Kensington, on "The Dead andKilling Letter, and the Spirit and the Life. " Here he insists, oftenin quaint and curious phrases, that the Old Testament, "from the firstof Genesis to the last of the Prophets, " is an allegory, "woven like abeautiful tapestry" to picture forth to the eye a history whose realmeaning is to be found within the soul; if you dwell upon it only aspicture, only as history, it is a letter that kills; if you see yourown selves in it and by it, then it gives life. [19] You may learn thewhole Bible by heart and speak to any point in divinity according totext and letter, and yet know {246} nothing of God or of spirituallife. [20] "If you be always handling the letter of the Word, alwayslicking the letter, always chewing upon that, what great thing do you?No marvel you are such starvelings!"[21] The letter is the husk; theWord, the Spirit, is the kernel; the letter is the earthen jar, theSpirit is the hidden manna; the letter is the outer court, the Spiritis the inner sanctuary; the letter is the shadow, the Spirit is thesubstance; the letter is the sheath, the Spirit is the sharp two-edgedsword; the letter is the hard encasing bone that must be broken, theSpirit is inward marrow which nourishes the soul; the letter istemporal, the Word is eternal[22]--"if ye once know the truthexperimentally after the Spirit ye will no longer make such a stirabout Forms, Disciplines, and Externals as if that were the great andonly Reformation!"[23] The real difficulty, the true cause ofspiritual dryness, is that "men strive and contend so much for theletter and the external part of God's worship, that they neglect theinward and internal altogether; for where is the man who is so zealousand hot for the internal as he is for the external. If we press men tothe inward before the outward, or do as I do, lift up that; either howcold and heartless they are, or else how quarrelsome and malicious theyare!"[24] When once the inward core of things has been grasped and thetransforming experience has occurred, making a new man--freed, illuminated, sin-delivered, with "God the Life of the life and the Soulof the soul"[25]--the outward forms and the external things will fallinto the right perspective and will receive their proper emphasis. Imitating St. Augustine's great saying: "Love God absolutely and thenyou may do as you please, " Everard says, "Turn the man loose who hasfound the living Guide within him, and then let him neglect the outwardif he can; just as you would say to a man who loves his wife with alltenderness, 'you may beat her, hurt her or kill her, if you wantto!'"[26]

The conception of God which forms the foreground of {247} all Everard'steaching is one perfectly familiar to those that have studied the greatmystics who have formed their ideas under the direct or indirectinfluence of Plotinus. The conception is, of course, not necessarilymystical--it is rather a recurring type of metaphysics--but it haspeculiarly suited the mystical mind and is often regarded by Christianhistorians as synonymous with mysticism. God, for Everard as forDionysius and for Eckhart, Tauler, and Franck, is unknowable, unspeakable, unnamable, abstracted from all that is created andvisible, an absolute One, alone of all beings in the universe able tosay "I am, " since He alone is Perfect Reality; but just for that reasonHe is unrevealable in His inmost nature to finite beings and incapableof manifestation through anything that is finite. [27]

He is a permanent and unchanging Substance; all things that are visibleare but shadow and appearance, are like bubbles in the water which arenow here and now gone. [28] Every created and finite thing, however--from a grain of sand to a radiant sun and from a blade ofgrass to the Seraph that is nearest God--is a beam or a ray orexpression of that eternal Reality, is an angel or messenger that insome minute, or in some glorious fashion, reveals God in space andtime; and all created things together, from the lowest to the highest, from the treble of the heavenly beings to the base of earthly things, form "one mighty sweet-tuned instrument, " sending forth one harmonioushallelujah to the Creator and revealing a single organic universe, "acted and guided by one Spirit"--the Soul of all that is. [29] "Askthe craggy mountains what part they sing, and they will tell you thatthey sing the praise of the immutableness and unchangeableness of God;ask the flowers of the field what part they sing, and they will tellyou they sing the wisdom and liberality of God who cloathes them beyondSolomon in all his glory; ask the sun, moon and stars what part theysing, and they will say the constancy of God's promises, that they holdtheir course and do not alter it; ask the poor received sinner {248}what part he sings, and he will tell you he sings the infinite freemercy of a most gracious Father; and ask the wicked, obstinate sinnerwhat part he sings, and he will tell you he sings the praise of thepatience and justice of God. "[30]

In a very striking passage, Everard points out how the beings nearestin order to God are most free of matter and imperfection, while thoselower in hierarchical scale are increasingly more material: "God is apure Spirit, only Form without any manner of matter; and all theCreatures, the further off from Him, the more matter [they have] andthe nearer the less. For example, Angels are pictured with complete_bodies_; yet to show they are further off from matter than men, therefore they have always wings. And Arch-angels, they being nearerthe Nature of God than Angels, are pictured _with bodies cut off by themiddle with wings_. But Cherubims, having less matter and nearer GodHimself than either, are pictured _only with heads and wings, withoutbodies_. But Seraphims, being farthest off from man and nearest of allto God, _have no bodies nor heads nor wings at all_ but [are] onlyrepresented _by a certain yellowish or fiery Colour_. "[31]

We ourselves, we men, are both finite and infinite. We have come froman infinite source, and even in our apparent finiteness andindependence we still remain inwardly joined to that central Reality. 

He tells this in his parable of the water-drops: "Suppose twowater-drops reasoning together, and one says to the other, 'Whence are we? Canst thou conceive whence we are? Dost thou knoweither whence we come or to whom we belong, or whither we shall go?Something we are, but what will in a short time become of us, canstthou tell?' And the other drop might answer, 'Alas, poor fellow-drop, be assured we are nothing, for the sun may arise and draw us up andscatter us and so bring us to nothing. ' Says the other again, 'Supposeit do, for all that, yet we are, we have a being, we are something. '

'Why, what are we?' saith the other. 

{249}

'Why, brother drop, dost thou not know? We, even we, as small and ascontemptible as we are in ourselves, yet we are members of the Sea;poor drops though we be, yet let us not be discouraged: _We belong tothe vast Ocean_. '"[32]

The way back to this infinite Ocean from which we have come and inwhich we belong is through the tiny rivulet, the narrow inlet, of ourown souls, for "the Sea flows into all the creeks and crannies of theWorld. "[33] But to find Him--this original Ground and Reality--we must"leave the outcoasts" and go back into "the Abysse. " Most of us arebusy "playing with cockel-shells and pebble-stones that lie on theoutcoasts of the Kingdom, " and we do not put back to the infinite Seaitself, where we become united and made one with His Life. [34]

The process of return is a process of denial and subtraction. The"cockel-shells and pebble-stones" must be left, and one finite thingafter another must be dropped, and finally "all that thou callest I, all that self ness, all that propriety that thou hast taken to thyself, whatsoever creates in us Iness and selfness, must be brought tonothing. "[35] If we would hear God, we must still the noises withinourselves. "All the Artillery in the World, were they all dischargedtogether at one clap, could not more deaf the ears of our bodies thanthe clamorings of desires in the soul deaf its ears, so you see a manmust go into silence or else he cannot hear God speak. "[36] All "theminstrels" that are singing of self and self interests "must be castout. " If "the creature" is to be loved and used at all, it must beloved and used rightly and in balance, which is hard to do. "Thou mustlove it and use it as if thou loved it not and used it not, notappropriating it to thyself, and always being ready to leave itwillingly and freely; so that thou sufferest no rending, no tearing inthy soul to part with it, and so thou usest it for God and in God andto ends appointed by God. "[37]

The result of this junction of finite and infinite in us is {250} thata Christian life is bound to be a strenuous contest: "you must expectto fight a great battel. " "You are, " Everard says again, "bidden tofight with your own selves, with your own desires, with your ownaffections, with your own reason, with your own will; and therefore ifyou will finde your enemies, never look without. If you will finde outthe Devil and what he is and what his nature is, look within you. _There_ you may see him in his colours, in his nature, in his power, inhis effects and in his working. "[38]

In a word, the way to God is the way of the Cross. Christ Himself isthe pattern and His way of Life is the typical way for all who wouldfind God--"Christ Jesus is He that all visions tend to; He is thesubstance of all the types, shadows, and sacrifices. He is the_business_ that the whole Word was ever about, and only is, and shallbe about; He hath been, is, and shall be the business of all ages, inone kinde or other. "[39] "The Book of God, " he says in another sermon, "is a great Book, and many words are in it, and many large volumes havebeen drawn out of it, but Jesus Christ is the body of it; He is theMark all these words shoot at. "[40] It henceforth becomes our businessto find Christ's life and Christ's death in us, to see that all Hisdeeds are done in us. Christ's will must become our will, Christ'speace our peace, Christ's sufferings our sufferings, Christ's cross ourcross, and then we may know "the eternal Sabbath, " and keep "quiet, even if the whole fabrick of heaven and earth crack and the mountainstumble down. "[41]

Everard was always on the watch for those things which prevent thegrowth, progress, and advance of the soul into the deeper significanceof religion. The true Christian continually "grows taller in Christ, "he does not stop at "the child's stature, " his growth is "not stintedlike a Dwarf. "[42] He discovers one of the prevailing {251} causes ofarrested development, the "stinting" of the soul, to lie in the wronguse of externals, in the subtle tendency to "rest" in the elements orbeginnings of religion, as he calls them, in "the lowest things inChristianity. " This is "to cover oneself with fig-leaves as Adamdid. "[43] Men "turn shadows into substance, " and instead of usingordinances and sacraments, "as means, schoolmasters and tutors, " "assteps and guides to Christ who is the Truth and Substance, " they so usethem that they stop the soul mid-way and hinder it from going on toChrist. [44] He cites the way in which St. Paul "burst out into a holydefiance" of everything which did not directly minister to theformation of a new creation within the person, whether it were Mosesand the law or even Christ after the flesh, or any "outward Priviledgesand Ordinances" whatever. Those who make these things "the top andquintessence of religion" miss the Apostle's "more excellent way. "Those who "stick in externals" and "rest upon them as Crutches andGo-bies" [_i. E. _ become arrested there] prevent growth in religion, "turn the ordinance into an Idol" and occasion disputes anddifferences, "like children who quarrel about triffles. "[45] ButEverard is, nevertheless, very cautious not to go too far in thisdirection and he always shows poise and balance. So long as theoutward, whether letter or sacrament, is kept in its place and is usedas means or medium for the attainment of a spiritual goal--theformation of Christ within--he approves of its use and warns against atoo sudden transcendence of the outward helps to the soul. [46]

Here in England, then, during the tumultuous years from 1625 to 1650 asolid scholar and a great preacher was teaching the people the sameviews which the spiritual Reformers of Germany had taught a centuryearlier. Like them, Everard taught that the book of the Bible, in sofar as it consists of words, syllables, and letters, is not the Word ofGod, for God's Word is not ink and paper, but Life and Spirit, quickand powerful, illuminating the {252} soul immediately, anddemonstrating itself by its creative work upon the inward man until hebecomes like the Spirit that works within him. [47] Like them, heinsisted that Christ becomes Saviour only as He becomes the Life of ourlives and repeats in us in a spiritual way the events of His outwardand historical life. Like them, too, he had discovered that God is nota being of wrath and anger, needing to be appeased. On the contrary hesays: "Beloved, were you once to come to a true sight of God, you wouldsee Him glorious and amiable, full of love and mercy andtenderness--all wrath and frowns blown clean away. We should see inHim not so much as any shadow of anger. "[48] Like them, he foundheaven not far away but in the redeemed soul: "Heaven is nothing butGrace perfected, 'tis of the same nature of that you enjoy here whenyou are united by faith to Christ. "[49] "I remember, " he once said, "how I was taught as a child, either by my nurse, or my mother, or myschoolmaster, that God was above in heaven, above the sun, moon andstars, and there, I thought, was His Court, and His Chamber ofpresence, and I thought it a great height to come to this knowledge;but I assure you I had more to do to unlearn this principle than ever Ihad to learn it. "[50] He tries to call his hearers away from "thechildish apprehensions" that heaven is a place of "visible and ocularglories, " or that "it shall be only hereafter, " or that its glory"consists in Thrones, and Crowns, and Scepters, in Music, Harps andVyols, and such like carnal and poor things. "[51]

He was a man of beautiful spirit, of saintly life, "courageous anddiscerning, " "concerned not so much over self-sufferings as that truthshould not in any way be obstructed through him, " and he belongs in thelist of those who saw through the veil of the outward, through theparable of the letter, and found the inward and eternal Reality. [52]

{253}

III. GILES RANDALL AND HIS TRANSLATIONS

Another seventeenth-century interpreter of religion as direct andimmediate experience of God was Giles Randall, who, like John Everard, was a scholar, a translator of religious books, and a powerful popularpreacher. If one knew him only through the accounts of theheresy-hunters of the period, one would suppose him to have been adisseminator of the most "virulent poyson" for the soul; but a carefulexamination of all the material available convinces me that he was ahigh-minded, sincere, and fearless bearer of the message of thepresent, living, inwardly-experienced Christ, as Eternal Spirit, DivineLight, and Word of God. 

It is extremely difficult, from the fragmentary details at hand, toconstruct a biographical account of Randall, but the following sketchof him seems fairly well supported by facts:

He was the son of Edward Randall of Chipping Wycombe, Bucks, andreceived his B. A. From Lincoln College, Oxford, February 13, 1625-6. [53] He was probably the nephew of John Randall, B. D. (1570-1622), an eminent Puritan divine, a man of good scholarship andof large means, who bequeathed by will his house and garden to his"loveing Nephewe Gyles Randall. "[54] He seems to have been for someyears a minister in good odour and repute, and to have given nooccasion of complaint against his doctrine before 1643. He probablywas the Giles Randall who was arrested in 1637 and tried in the StarChamber for {254} preaching against "ship-money" as unjust and anoffence against God, since it was, he declared in his sermon, "a way oftaking burdens off rich men's shoulders and laying them on the necks ofpoor men. "[55] He was again before the Star Chamber--this time it iscertainly our Giles Randall--in 1643 charged with preaching"anabaptism, " "familism, " and "antinomianism, " according to the usuallabels of the time. He had been for some years preaching peaceably at"the Spital" in London with great multitudes of people nocking to hearhim. [56] The charge of heresy was brought against Randall for a sermonwhich he was said to have preached in St. Martin Orgar's, a soundlyorthodox church, in Candlewick ward, London--the charge being that hepreached against "the mandatory and obligatory nature of the law as aChristian rule to walk by, " and asserted that a child of God can liveas sinless a life as Christ's was. [57] He was "removed" from theministry "for his anabaptism" in the autumn of 1644, though hecontinued to preach after being "removed. "[58] The famous drag-nets ofheresy give us a few more details of Randall's "poysonous" doctrine. Edwards says that Randall taught that "our common food, ordinary eatingand drinking, is a sacrament of Christ's death, " and that "allcreatures [_i. E. _ everything in the visible creation] held forth God inChrist. "[59] Samuel Rutherford charges him with teaching a possibleperfection in this life: "Randall, the antinomian and Familist says, those persons are ever learning and never coming to knowledge who saythat perfection is not attainable in this life. "[60] He furthercharges that Randall in a sermon said that "Christ's Parables, fromSowing, a Draw-net, Leaven, etc. , did prove that to expound theScriptures by allegories was lawfull and that all the things of thislife, as Seeds, the Wayside, a Rocke, the Sea, a {255} Net, the Leaven, etc. , were sacraments of Christ . . . And that a spiritual minde mightsee the mysteries of the Gospel in all the things of nature and of thislife. This man who preacheth most abomnable Familisme is suffered inand about London publickly, twise on the Lord's Day, to draw hundredsof Godly people after him!"[61]

John Etherington throws a little more light upon the nature of this"abomnable Familism, " which so many godly people liked. He says thatRandall taught in his sermons that when a person is baptized with theHoly Ghost he knows all things, and has entered into the deep mysterywhich is "like the great ocean where there is no casting anchor norsounding the bottome"; that perfection and the resurrection areattainable in the present time; that "those who have the Spirit havenothing to doe with the law nor with the baptism of repentance whichJohn preached"; "he presumes to turn the holy writings of Moses, theProphets, of Christ and His Apostles into Allegories, " and gives "aspiritual meaning" to the same. [62] It is clear from the comments ofthese crumb-pickers of pernicious doctrine that Giles Randall, as apreacher, was teaching the views now quite familiar to us. He wasteaching that the whole world is a revelation of God, that Christ isGod fully revealed; that the Divine Spirit, incarnate in Him, comesupon men still and brings them into the bottomless, unsoundable deepsof Life with God, and makes it possible for them to attain a perfectlife; that the Scriptures as outward and legal must be transcended, andthat they must be spiritually discerned and experienced. 

Nearly everything connected with Randall's name presents an historicalpuzzle to us. His biography, as we have seen, lies hid in obscurityand his books present baffling problems. There are three translationsof religious classics which bear his name on the title-page, and whichare introduced to the reader in Prefaces written by him, but it is farfrom certain that he actually made the {256} translations. In 1646 hepublished a little book called the _Single Eye, or the Vision of Godwherein is unfolded the Mystery of the Divine Presence_. Randall saysthat the book was written by "that learned Doctor Cusanus. " It is infact a translation of the _De visione Dei_ of Nicholas of Cusa, and itis word for word a printed copy of the Cambridge MS. Ascribed to JohnEverard. The other book, published in 1648, is an English edition of_Theologia Germanica_, the translation being made from the Latin of"John Theophilus, " that is, Sebastian Castellio. It is called "aLittle Golden Manuall briefly discovering the mysteries, sublimity, perfection and simplicity of Christianity in Belief and Practice. "Everard, it will be remembered, also translated this "little goldenbook, " but in this case there are very great variations betweenRandall's printed copy and the Cambridge MS. , and they probably did notcome from the same hand. [63] The English translation was evidentlymade some time before the appearance of this edition of 1648, forRandall says in his Introduction that "This little Book was long veiledand obscured (by its unknown tongue) from the eye of the illiterate andinexpert, until some years since, through the desires and industries ofsome of our own countrymen, lovers of Truth, it was translated and madeto speak to thee in thine own dialect and language. But the time ofits Nativity being under the late wise and wary Hierarchic who hadmonopolized and engrossed the discovery of others . . . It walked upand down the city in MSS. At deer rates from hand to hand of somewell-wishers to truth, in clandestine and private manner; like Moses inhis Arke, or the little {257} Child fled and hid from Herod, neverdaring to crowd into the Presse, fearing the rude usuage of those thenin authority. "[64]

Both Robert Baillie and Benjamin Bourne had seen the treatise beforetheir respective books against heresy appeared in 1646, and they weredeeply stirred against Randall for sowing what to their minds seemedsuch dangerous doctrines and such regard for "Popish writings. "[65]His critics further connect Randall with other books. Baillie speaksof two books: "the one by a Dutch Frier [evidently the Theologia] andthe other by an English Capuchine. " Bourne writes against thosedangerous books _Theologia Germanica, The Bright Star, Divinity andPhilosophy Dissected_, and Edwards couples with _the Vision of God_(the treatise by Nicholas of Cusa) "the third part of the Rule ofPerfection by a Cappuchian Friar. "[66]

John Goodwin, vicar of St. Stephen's in Coleman St. , commenting onEdward's _Gangraena_, humorously says: "I marvaile how Mr. Edwardshaving (it seems) an authorized power to make errors and heresies atwhat rate and of what materialles he pleaseth, and hopes to live uponthe trade, could stay his pen at so small a number as 180, and did notadvance to that angelicall quotient in the Apocalypse, which is _tenthousand times ten thousand_, " and he adds that if Edwards hadconsulted with a book "printed within the compasse of his foure years, intitled _Divinity and Philosophy Dissected, set out by a mad man_, with some few others . . . He shall be able to increase his roll oferrors from 180 to 280, if not to 500. "[67] Samuel {258} Rutherfordsays: "So hath _Randel_ the _Familist_ prefixed an Epistle to twoPopish Tractates, furnishing to us excellent priviledges of Familisme, the one called _Theologia Germanica_, and the other _Bright Starre_, which both advance perfect Saints above Law, and Gospel". . . [68]

This treatise, called _A Bright Starre_ (London, 1646), which so deeplydisturbed the seventeenth-century guardians of orthodoxy, is atranslation of "The Third Part of the Rule of Perfection, " written byan English Capuchin Friar, and "faithfully done into the Englishtongue, " apparently by Randall, "for the common good. "[69] It is aprofoundly mystical book, characterized by interior depth and insight. Its central aim is the exposition of a stage of spiritual life whichtranscends both "the active life" and "the contemplative life, " a stagewhich the writer calls "the Life Supereminent. " In this highest stage"the essential will of God is practiced, " without strain or effort, because God Himself has now become the inner Life and Being of theperson, the spring and power of the new-formed will. 

Randall's preface, or "Epistle to the Reader, " as he calls it, is afurther revelation of his religious views, and his Christian spirit. He pleads for freedom and for variety in religious life and thought. God does not want one fixed and unvarying Christian form or doctrine;He wants variety in the spiritual life as He has arranged for varietyin the external world of nature: "As in the world all men are not of anequall height and stature of body, but some taller, some shorter; someweaker, some stronger: so neither are all of one just and evenproportion in spiritual light and strength of faith in the kingdome ofChrist, some are dwarfs of Zacheus his pitch, some {259} againe ofSaul's port, taller by his head and shoulders than his brethren; so, inthe kingdome of Christ, some are babes, some are young men, some arefathers, every one according to the measure of the gift of Christ. "God has something in His kingdom that fits each spiritual stature, something suited to each intellectual capacity. He does not want oneand the same note struck by all--"harping blindly on one string. " Hedoes not want men to be "tyed to one forme and kept forever to onelesson, unable to top up their work"--He wants men to "go from strengthto strength, from faith to faith and from height to height. "

Randall declares that he has observed with deep sorrow "the_non-proficiency_ of many ingenuous spirits who through the policie ofothers and the too too much modesty and timerity of themselves" havefailed to progress "to the top and pitch" of their possibleperfection--"poore soules after many years travelling being found inthe same place and going the same pace!" He hopes that this book onPerfection which he is now giving "common vulgar people in their ownmother tongue, " though it is a way that is "high and hard and almostunheard of amongst us, " may help men to grow up into their full statureand to come to "the uttermost steps of Jacob's Ladder which reachethinto the heavens. " The lower stages of the religious life consist (1)of external practices and exercises in conformity to the law of God, and (2) interior contemplation and meditation of a God thought of asoutside and beyond the soul's real possession. But the true spirituallife, and "Sabbath rest of the soul, " is reached only when God becomesthe inner Life of our lives, when Christ is formed within and we seeLight and have our wisdom through His divine anointing. At the higheststage of spiritual life man finds himself by ceasing to be himself. God can now reveal His beauty and glory through such a person and actand work in him and through him. This teaching, Randall admits, isonly for "experienced Christians, " but he believes that this book willhave "good successe amongst _the Children of {260} the Light_, who aretaught of God and who run and read the hidden and deepe things ofGod. "[70]

If we may judge Randall from his extant Prefaces he was a beautifulspirit and was, in fact, what he calls himself, "a lover of the Truthin the Truth. "[71] He says that "Nothing is or ever was endeavored bymost men, with more industry and less success than the true knowledgeof God, " but this perennial failure is due, he thinks, to the falseways which have been taken, especially to "the negative process ofabstraction" by which men have tried in vain to find God. The onlytrue way to Him is "the new and living way" through the concreterevelation of Him. "The sound and unerring knowledge of God standethin your knowledge of your man Christ Jesus, and whoever hath seen Himhath seen the Father also, for He is not a dead image of Him, but aliving Image of the invisible God, yea, the fulgor or brightness of Hisglory and character of His person. . . . He is an Immanuel, God withus, God in us. . . . But there is no true knowledge of God within ustill He be in us formed in the face of Jesus Christ. "[72] He declaresthat since "understanding" must be helped by "sense" and "sense is notavailable till it live in the light of the understanding, " we mustlearn to find the infinite in the finite, the invisible in the visible, and thus in Christ we have God "finitely infinite and infinitelyfinite"--"He cloathes Himself with flesh, reason, sense and the formand nature of a servant, who yet is above all and Lord over all. " "Hethat is infinitely above thee makes himselfe be to thee [visibly] whatHe is in thee. "[73] Christ is the universal revealer of God to all whosee Him, just as the portrait of a human face seems to fix and followthe beholder from any position in the room, while at the same time itdoes the same to all other beholders from whatever angle they maylook. [75]

_The Vision of God_, whether Englished by Randall or {261} by Everard, or by both working together, is translated into beautiful, oftenpoetical and rhythmical English, and contains many vivid passages, suchas the following: "Thou, O God, canst never forsake me so long as I am_capable of Thee_. "[75] "I love my life exceedingly because Thou artthe sweetness of my life. "[76] "No man can turn to Thee except Thou bepresent, for except Thou wert present and diddest solicit me I shouldnot know Thee at all. "[77] "Restless is my heart, O Lord, because Thylove hath enflamed it with such a desire that it cannot rest but inThee alone. "[78] "In the Son of Man I see the Son of God, because Thouart so the Son of Man that Thou art the Son of God and in the finiteattracted nature I see the Infinite Attracting Nature. " "I see allthings in thy human nature which I see in thy divine nature. "[79] "Tocome to God is Paradise; to see God is to be in Paradise. "[80] "TheWord of God illuminateth the understanding as the light of the sun doththe world. I see the fountain of Light in the Word of God. . . . Christ is the Word of God humanified and man deified. "[81] "What ismore easie than to believe God, what is more sweet than to loveHim. . . . Thy Spirit, O God, comes into the intellectual spirit ofgood men, and by the heat of divine love concocts the virtuall powerwhich may be perfected in us. . . . All Scriptures labour for nothingbut to show Thee, all intellectual spirits have no other exercise butto seek Thee and to reveal Thee. Above all things Thou hast given meJesus for a Master, the Way of Life, and Truth, so that there might benothing at all wanting to me. "[82]

The literary style of _Divinity and Philosophy Dissected_ is unlikethat of Randall's known writings, and yet it is not impossible for himto have written it. [83] The ideas which fill the little book are quitesimilar to those which {262} Randall held and are in full accord withthose which prevailed in this general group of Christian thinkers. Thewriter of the treatise, whoever he was, is fond of allegory andsymbolic interpretation. He turns Adam into a figure and makes theGarden of Eden an allegory in quite modern fashion. "Doe you thinke, "he writes, "that there was a materiall garden or a tree whereon didgrow the fruit of good and evill, or that the serpent did goe up in thesame to speake to the woman? Sure it cannot stand with reason that itcould be so, for it is said that all the creatures did come to Adam, and he gave them names according to their natures: now it is contraryto the Serpent's nature to speake after the manner of men, unlesse youwill alleadge that she understood the language of the beasts, andthought them wiser than God, and resolved to be ruled by them, which tome seems altogether against reason, that the woman should be soignorant and unrationall, who was created rationall after the image ofGod to be ruler of all creatures: for at this day if a Serpent went upinto a tree, and did speake from thence to men and women, it would makethem afraid in so much that they would not doe what he bid them: ordost thou thinke that in Mesopotamia (a great way off beyond the seas)that there is a materiall garden wherein standeth the tree of life, andthe tree of knowledge of good and ill, both in one place, and anangell, standing with a flickering sword to keep the tree of life fromthe man!"[84]

The book contains a very striking confession of Faith quite unlike thatwhich Rutherford or Baillie or Edwards would have allowed as "sound, "but yet serious, honest, and marked with a clear note of experience. God is, for the writer, above everything a living God, a Spirit, "aperfect clear Light that reveals to man the Truth. " God is, he says, Light, Life, and Love, and He is all these things to man. He instructsand convinces his conscience; He disciplines and corrects him; Heraises condemnation in us for our sins, and "His Light persuades ourhearts to have true sorrow and real repentance for our sins, with a{263} broken and contrite heart and sorrowful spirit, and so we beginto hate ourselves and our sins, and doe really forsake them. "[85]"There is, " he maintains, in words that sound strangely like the yetunborn Quakers, "an infallible Spirit, Jesus Christ, the power of Godin us, which directs, corrects, instructs, perswades, and makes us wiseunto salvation; for He is the holy Word of life unto us . . . Anddiscovers all mysteries unto us, . . . If so be we are obedient untoHim; but if we are not obedient unto Him, this infallible Spirit, JesusChrist in us, then we shall know nothing of God or of the Scriptures, but it shall be a _sealed book, a dead letter, a seeming contradiction_unto us. "[86]

Samuel Rutherford declares the little treatise to be "a rude, foolishand unlearned Pamphlet of late penned and changing, as Familists andAntinomians doe, Scripture and God and Christ into metaphores and vaineAllegories. "[87] The comment of this good man is honest and sincere, but of value only as revealing the mental attitude of himself. Herethe representative of the old system was speaking out of the past andcondemning a dawning movement which with his apperceiving material hecould not understand, but which was in a few years to haveextraordinary expansion and which, when it should in time becomedefecated through discipline and spiritual travail, was destined tospeak to the condition of many minds to whom Rutherford's "notions"have become only empty words. 

IV

A beautiful little anonymous book of this period, containing a similarconception of Christianity to that set forth in the writings of Everardand Randall, must be briefly considered here: _The Life and Light of aMan in Christ Jesus_ (London, 1646). The writer, who was a scholarlyman, shows the profound influence of the _Theologia Germanica_, thatuniversal book of religion which {264} fed so many souls in thesixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and he has evidently found, eitherat home or abroad, spiritual guides who have brought him to theDay-star in his own heart. 

Religion, he says, is wholly a matter of the "operative manifestationof Christ in a man--the divine Spirit living in a man. "[88] To missthat experience and to lack that inner life in God is to miss the veryheart of religion. "There be many and diverse Religions and Baptismsamong many and diverse peoples of the habitable world, but to bebaptized as a man in Christ--that is to be baptized into the living, active God, so that the man has his salvation and eternal well-beingwrought in him by the Spirit and life of his God--is the onlybest. "[89] Those who lack "this real spiritual business" never attain"the true Sabbath-rest of the soul. " They go to meeting on "Sunday, Sabbath or First day [_sic_] merely to hear such or such a rare divinepreach or discourse, or to participate in such or such Ordinances. "[90]They have "an artificiall, historicall Divinity [Theology] which theyhave attained by the eye, that is by reading books, or by the ears, that is, by hearing this or that man, or by gathering upexpressions"--their religion rests on "knowledge" and not on Christexperienced within. [91] This external religion is not so much wrong asit is inadequate and immature. "It is, " he says, "like unto youngchildren, who with shells and little stones imitate a realbuilding!"[92] The religion which carries a man beyond shadows to truerealities and from the cockle-shell house to a permanent and eternaltemple for the Spirit is the religion which finds Christ within as theDay-star in the man's own heart. [93]

There is throughout this simple little book a noble appreciation oflove as the "supream good" for the soul. "The God of infinite goodnessand eternal love" is a kind of refrain which bursts forth in thesepages again {265} and again. Love in _us_ is, he thinks, "a sparkle ofthat immense and infinite Love of the King and Lord of Love. "[94]Salvation and eternal well-being consist for him in the formation of alife "consecrated and united unto the true Light and Love of Christ. "The man who has this Life within him will always be willing and gladwhen the time comes "to returne againe into the bosome of his heavenlyFather-God. "[95] And not only is the man who has the Life of Christ inhim harmonized in love upwardly toward God; he is also harmonizedoutwardly towards his fellows. "He is a member with all other men, with the good as a lowly-minded disciple to them; with those that arenot in Christ, as a deare, sympathizing helper, doing his utmost to dothem good. "[96] He has written his "little Treatise, " he says, "as alove-token from the Father" to help lead men out of the "darke pits ofthe world's darkness" into the full Light of the soul's day-dawn. 

The book lacks the robustness and depth that are so clearly in evidencein most of the writings that have been dealt with in this volume, butthere is a beauty, a simplicity, a sweetness, a sincerity born ofexperience, which give this book an unusual flavour and perfume. Thewriter says that there is "an endless battle between the Seed of thewoman and the seed of the serpent, " but one feels that he has foughtthe battle through and won. He says that "a man should be unto Godwhat a house is to a man, " _i. E. _ a man should be a habitation of theliving God, and the reader feels that this man has made himself ahabitation for the divine presence within. He says if you wantspiritual help you must go to a "man who has skill in God, " and onelays down his slender book feeling assured that, out of the experienceof Christ in his own soul, he did have "skill in God, " so that he couldspeak to the condition of others. There was at least one man inEngland in 1646 who knew that the true source and basis of religion wasto be found in the experience of Christ within and not in theologicalnotions of Him. 

[1] The Italian titles of these two books are _Alfabeto Christiana_(1546) and _Le Cento et dieci divine Considerationi_ (1550). 

[2] _A Survey of the Spiritual Antichrist_ (1648), p. 164. 

[3] _Ibid. _ p. 319. 

[4] Epistle Dedicatory to _Some Gospel Treasures Opened_ (London, 1653). 

[5] _Gospel Treas. _, "To the Reader. "

[6] _Ibid. _

[7] Sometimes "Divers Earls and Lords and other great ones" were in hisaudience. 

[8] _Gospel Treas. _, "To the Reader. "

[9] _Sig. Dd. _ xii. P. 68. 

[10] Fourth series, i. P. 597. 

[11] Denck's name is used in its Latin form John Denqui, and he iscalled _magnus theologus_. 

[12] _Hermes Trismegistus_ was published in Everard's lifetime. Largeextracts from his manuscript translations are given in the _GospelTreasures Opened_ (1653). _The Vision of God_ was edited and publishedin full by Giles Randall in 1646, and it is very probable that Everardand Randall did this work together. 

[13] _Gospel Treasures Opened_, p. 393. 

[14] Sermon on "The Starre in the East, " _Gospel Treas. _ pp. 52-54. See also pp. 586-587. Compare the famous lines of Angelus Silesius:

 "Had Christ a thousand times Been born in Bethlehem But not in thee, thy sin Would still thy soul condemn. "

_Angelus Silesius_, edited by Paul Carus (Chicago, 1909), p. 103. 

[15] _Gospel Treas. _ pp. 59, 72, and 98. 

[16] _Ibid. _ pp. 270-271. 

[17] _Ibid. _ p. 282. 

[18] _Ibid. _ p. 92. 

[19] _Ibid. _ p. 280

[20] _Gospel Treas. _ pp. 310-311. 

[21] _Ibid. _ p. 286. 

[22] _Ibid. _ p. 468. 

[23] _Ibid. _ p. 343. 

[24] _Ibid. _ p. 344. 

[25] _Ibid. _ p. 341. 

[27] _Ibid. _ p. 344. 

[27] _Gospel Treas. _ p. 81. 

[28] _Ibid. _ p. 630. 

[29] _Ibid. _ pp. 637 and 658. 

[30] _Gospel Treas. _ p. 411. 

[31] _Ibid. _ 2nd ed. Ii. P. 345. 

[32] _Gospel Treas. _ p. 753. 

[33] _Ibid. _ p. 418. 

[34] _Ibid. _ pp. 423-425. 

[35] _Ibid. _ p. 230. 

[36] _Ibid. _ p. 600. 

[37] _Ibid. _ p. 308. 

[38] _Gospel Treas. _ p. 142. 

[39] _Ibid. _ p. 648. 

[40] _Ibid. _ p. 642. 

[41] _Ibid. _ pp. 99 and 250. Everard's greater contemporary, Pascal, also held the view that what happened to Christ should take place inevery Christian. He wrote to his sister, Madame Perier, Oct. 17, 1651, on the death of their father: "We know that what has been accomplishedin Jesus Christ should be accomplished also in all His members. "

[42] _Ibid. _ pp. 555-556. 

[43] _Gospel Treas. _ p. 315. 

[44] _Ibid. _ p. 558. 

[45] _Ibid. _ pp. 561-562. 

[46] _Ibid. _ pp. 563-565. 

[47] _Gospel Treas. _ pp. 310-315. 

[48] _Ibid. _ p. 361. 

[49] _Ibid. _ p. 365. 

[50] _Ibid. _ p. 736. 

[51] _Ibid. _ p. 552. 

[52] It is not possible to tell whether the sermons of John Everardwere generally known to the early Quakers or not. He held similarviews to theirs on many points, and he reiterates, with as much vigouras does Fox, the inadequacy of University learning as a preparation forspiritual ministry. One Quaker at least of the early time read Everardand appreciated him. That was John Bellers. In his "Epistle to theQuarterly Meeting of London and Middlesex, " written in 1718, Bellersquotes "the substance of an excellent Discourse of a poor man inGermany, above 300 years ago, then writ by John Taulerus, and sinceprinted in John Everard's Works, who was a religious dissenter in KingJames the First's time. " He thereupon gives the "Dialogue between aLearned Divine and a Beggar" (which Everard ascribed to Tauler) to addforce to his own presentation of "the duty of propagating piety, charity, and industry among men. "

[53] Foster's _Alumni Oxonienses_ (1500-1714), vol. Iii. Early Series, p. 1231. 

[54] 57, Savile, Probate Court of Canterbury, Somerset House. 

[55] Calendar of State Papers, Dom. Ser. Charles I. 

[56] Robert Baillie's _Anabaptisme, the true Fountains of Independency_(1646), p. 102, [57] Thomas Gataker's _God's Eye on His Israel_ (1645), Preface. 

[58] _Journal of Commons_, August 9, 1644, pp. 584-585. 

[59] _Gangraena_ (1646), part iii. P. 25. 

[60] _A Survey of the Spiritual Antichrist_ (1647), chap. Xi. P. 143. 

[61] _A Survey of the Spiritual Antichrist_, chap. Lxxvi. Pp. 162-163. 

[62] _A Brief Discovery_, etc. (1645), pp. 1-5. 

[63] Contemporary writers held that the Giles Randall who preached in"the Spital" was the translator. Robert Baillie, Principal of GlasgowUniversity, in his work on _Anabaptisme_, pp. 102-103, speaks ofRandall who preached in "the Spital, " and refers to his increasingtemerity as shown by the fact that "he hath lately printed two verydangerous books and set his Preface before each of them, composed as heprofesses long ago by Popish Priests, the one by a Dutch Frier and theother by an English Capuchine. " Baillie further refers to the "deadlypoison" of these books as shown in Benjamin Bourne's _Description andConfutation of Mysticall Antichrist, the Familists_ (1646), where "thedangerous books" are named, as _Theologia Germanica, the Bright Star, Divinity and Philosophy Dissected_. Edward's _Gangraena_ alsoidentifies Randall the preacher with the translator of "Popish Bookswritten by Priests and Friers, " citing as an example "The Vision of Godby Cardinall Cusanus, " _op. Cit. _ (1646), part iii. 

[64] Preface. 

[65] Bourne's _Description and Confutation_ and Baillie's_Anabaptisme_. It seems likely that there was an earlier edition ofthe Theologia than this of 1648, as the chapters and pages quoted byBourne do not correspond with those of the 1648 edition, whosetitle-page has this clause: "Also a Treatise of the Soul and otheradditions not _before_ printed. "

[66] _Gangraena_, part iii. 

[67] Goodwin's _Cretensis_ (1646). The book, entitled _Divinity andPhilosophy Dissected_, and attributed by implication to Randall, waspublished in Amsterdam in 1644, with the following title-page:

 "Divinity & Philosophy Dissected, & set forth by a mad man. "The first Book divided into 3 Chapters. "Chap. I. The description of the World in man's heart with the Articles of the Christian Faith. "Chap. II. A description of one Spirit acting in all, which some affirme is God. "Chap. III. A description of the Scripture according to the history and mystery thereof. "Amsterdam, 1644. "

[68] _Survey_, etc. , part ii. Chap. Xlvii. P. 53. 

[69] The only copy of Randall's _Bright Starre_ which I have been ableto locate is in the Lambeth Palace Library. A copy of it formerlybelonged to the learned Quaker, Benjamin Furly, and was sold with hisremarkable collection of books in 1714. 

[70] This term, "Children of the Light, " was the name by which Friends, or Quakers, first called themselves. It was plainly a term current atthe time for a Christian who put the emphasis on inward life andpersonal experience. 

[71] Preface to _Theologia_. 

[72] Preface to _The Vision of God_. 

[73] _Ibid. _

[74] Nicholas' Preface to _De visione Dei_. 

[75] _The Vision of God_, p. 11. 

[76] _Ibid. _ p. 13. 

[77] _Ibid. _ p. 19. Compare this passage with Pascal's saying: "Thouwouldst not seek me if thou hadst not already found me. "

[78] _Ibid. _ p. 37. 

[79] _Ibid. _ p. 130. 

[80] _Ibid. _ p. 138. 

[81] _Ibid. _ pp. 151-152. 

[82] _Ibid. _ pp. 170-176. 

[83] There is no author's name or initial in the book, only thestatement that it is "put forth" by a "mad man, " who "desires to be inmy wits and right minde to God, although a fool and madman to theworld. "

[84] _Divinity and Philosophy Dissected_, pp. 39-40. 

[85] _Divinity and Philosophy Dissected_, p. 17. 

[86] _Ibid. _ p. 62. 

[87] _A Survey of the Spiritual Antichrist_, chap. Xiv. P. 163. 

[88] _Life and Light_, p. 3. 

[89] _Ibid. _ pp. 99 and 101 quoted freely. 

[90] _Ibid. _ p. 19. It should be noted that this use of "First-day"for Sunday antedates the Quaker practice. 

[91] _Ibid. _ pp. 26-27. 

[92] _Ibid. _ p. 35. 

[93] See _ibid. _ p. 36. 

[94] _Life and Light_, p. 11. 

[95] _Ibid. _ p. 38. 

[96] _Ibid. _ p. 34. 

{266}

CHAPTER XIV

SPIRITUAL RELIGION IN HIGH PLACES--ROUS, VANE, AND STERRY

The spiritual struggles which culminated in the great upheaval of theEnglish Commonwealth were the normal fruit of the Reformation spirit, when once it had penetrated the life of the English _people_ and kindledthe fire of personal conviction in their hearts. Beginning as it didwith the simple substitution of royal for papal authority in thegovernment of the Church, the English Reformation lacked at its inceptionthe inward depth, the prophetic vision, the creative power, the vigorousarticulation of newly awakened personal conscience, which formed such acommanding feature of the Reformation movement on the Continent. It tookanother hundred years in England to cultivate individual conscience, toripen religious experience, to produce the body of dynamic _ideas_, andto create the necessary prophetic vision before an intense and popularspirit of Reform could find its voice and marching power. The contact ofEnglish exiles and chance visitors with the stream of thought in Germany, in Switzerland, and in Holland, and the filtering in of literature fromthe Continent, together with the occasional coming of living exponents, sowed the seeds that slowly ripened into that strange and interestingvariety of religious thought and practice which forms the inner life ofthe Commonwealth. The policy of the throne had always opposed thissteadily increasing tide of thought which refused to run in the well-wornchannels, but, as usual, the opposition and hindrances only served to{267} deepen personal conviction, to sharpen the edge of conscience, tonourish great and daring spirits, to formulate the battle-ideas and towin popular support. The inner life and the varied tendencies of theCommonwealth are too rich and complicated to be adequately treatedhere. [1] The purpose of this chapter is to show how the type of inwardand spiritual religion, which the Reformation in its kindling powereverywhere produced, finds expression in the writings of three men whocame to large public prominence in the period of the Commonwealth, Francis Rous, Sir Harry Vane, and Peter Sterry. 

I

Francis Rous was born in Cornwall in 1579. He graduated B. A. At Oxfordin 1597 and at the University of Leyden in 1599. He entered the MiddleTemple in 1601, with the prospect of a legal and public career beforehim, but soon withdrew and retired to Cornwall, where in a quiet countryretreat he became absorbed in theological studies. His later writingsshow an intimate acquaintance with the great Church Fathers, especiallywith St. Augustine, St. Ambrose, Clement of Alexandria, Origen and thetwo Gregorys, and with the mystics, especially with the writings ofDionysius the Areopagite, St. Bernard, Thomas à Kempis, and John Tauler. He was intensely Puritan in temper and sympathies in his earlier periodof life, and much of his writing at this stage was for the purpose ofpromoting the increase of a deeper and more adequate reform in theChurch. He translated the Psalms into "English Meeter, " and his versionwas approved by the Westminster Assembly, authorized for use byParliament, and adopted by the estates in Scotland, "whose Psalms, "Carlyle says, "the Northern Kirks still sing. "[2]

He was a member of Charles I. 's first and second Parliaments, and againof the Short Parliament and of {268} the Long Parliament. He was also amember of the Little Parliament, often called "Barebones Parliament, " ofwhich he was Speaker, and of the Parliaments of 1654 and of 1656, and hewas, too, a member of Oliver's Council of State. He was one of manythoughtful men of the time who passed with the rapid development ofaffairs from the Presbyterian position to Independency, and he served onthe Committee for the propagation of the Gospel which framed acongregational plan for Church government. He was a voluminous writer, but his type of Christianity can be seen sufficiently in his three littlebooks: _Mystical Marriage_ (1635), _The Heavenly Academy_ (1638), and_The Great Oracle_ (1641). [3]

He, again, like so many before him, influenced by Plato as well as by theNew Testament and Christian writers, made the discovery that there issomething divine in the soul of man, and that this "something divine" inman is always within hail of an inner world of divine splendour. "I wasfirst breathed forth from heaven, " he says, "and came from God in mycreation. I am divine and heavenly in my original, in my essence, in mycharacter. . . . I am a spirit, though a low one, and God is a Spirit, even the highest one, and God is the fountaine of this spirit [ofmine]. "[4]

The possession of this divine "original, " unlost even in the mist andmystery of a world of time and sense, enables man, he holds, to live inthat higher world even while he sojourns in this lower world. Humanreason, _i. E. _ reasoning, is sufficient to guide in the affairs of thislife, but it is blind to the world of the Spirit from which we came. "The soule has two eyes--one human reason, the other far excelling that, a divine and spiritual Light. . . . By it the soule doth see spiritualthings as truly as the corporall eye doth corporal things. "[5] "Humanreason acknowledges the sovereignty of this spiritual Light as a candleacknowledges the greater light of the sun, " and, {269} by its in-shining, the soul passes "beyond a speculative and discoursing holiness, evenbeyond a forme of godliness and advances to _the power of it_. "[6] Butthis inward Light does not make outward helps unnecessary. "The light ofthe outward word [the Scriptures] and the Light in our soules are twinnesand agree together like brothers, "[7] and again he says, "It is aninvaluable [inestimable] Loss that men do so much divide the outwardTeacher from the Inward, " though he insists that the ministry of theSpirit is above any ministry of the letter. [8]

This eye of the soul which is a part of its original structure and isresponsive to the Light of the spiritual world, so that "soule and Lightbecome knit together into one, " is also called by Rous, as by hispredecessors, "Seed" or "Word. " Sometimes this divine Seed is thought ofas an original part of the soul, and sometimes, under the assumption that"man has grown wild by the fall of Adam" and is "run to weeds, " it isconceived, as by Schwenckfeld, as a saving remedy supernaturally suppliedto the soul--"Christ entering into our spirits lays in them an immortalseed. "[9] In any case, whether the Seed be original, as is often impliedand stated, or whether it be a supernatural gift of divine Grace inChrist, as is sometimes implied, it is, in Rous' conception, essentialfor the attainment of a religious experience or a Christian life: "AChristian man hath as much need of Christ's Spirit [called in otherpassages Seed or Word] to be a Christian and to live eternally, as anatural man hath of a spirit [principle of intelligence] to be a man andto live temporally, so Christ's Spirit and a man together are aChristian, which is a holy, eternal and happy thing. "[10] He shows, asdo so many of those who emphasize the inner experience of Christ as aliving presence, an exalted appreciation of the historical revelation inChrist. Christ is, he says, both God and man, and thus being the perfectunion of divinity and humanity {270} can be our Saviour. [11] Here in thefull light of His Life and Love we may discover the true nature of God, who was "great with love before we loved Him. "[12] The outer wordanswers to the inner Light as deep calls unto deep, and the two are "knittogether" not to be sundered. The eye must be on Christ the Light, andthe wise soul "must watch the winde and tide of the Spirit, as the seamanwatcheth the naturall winde and tide. When the tide of the Spiritfloweth then put thy hand to the oar, for then if thou row strongly thoumaiest advance mightily. "[13]

He quaintly says that he has written about these spiritual things, aboutthe world of divine splendour and the "soule's inner eye, " because hewants to exhibit "some bunches of grapes brought from the land of promiseto show that this land is not a meere imagination, but some have seene itand have brought away parcels, pledges and ernests of it. In theseappears a world above the world, a love that passeth human love, a peacethat passeth naturall understanding, a joy unspeakable and glorious, ataste of the chiefe and soveraigne good. " He has, further, writtenbecause he wanted to "provoke others of this nation to bring forth moreboxes of this precious ointment. "[14]

His little books are saturated with a devotional spirit rising into wordslike these: "Let my love rest in nothing short of thee, O God!" "Kindleand enflame and enlarge my love. Enlarge the arteries and conduit pipesby which Thou the head and fountaine of love flows in thy members, thatbeing abundantly quickened and watered with the Spirit I may abundantlylove Thee. "[15] They contain bursts of intense prayer--"Put thy owneimage and beauty more and more on my soule. " He went through all theParliamentary storms of that great epoch; he was Provost of Eton College;he was Cromwell's friend; but his main ambition seems to have been to be"knit to God by a personal union, " to have "the {271} dayspring in hisown heart, " and to be taught in "the heavenly Academy--the High School ofExperience. "[16]

II

The story of Sir Harry Vane's life, adequately told, would involve theentire history of the great epoch of the Commonwealth. Next to Cromwell, he was the most influential shaper of events from the time of the meetingof the Long Parliament in 1640 until his "retirement" on the occasion ofthe expulsion of the members of Parliament in 1653. In his views ofconstitutional government and of human liberty he was one of the mostoriginal and one of the most modern men of the seventeenth century. Richard Baxter, who had no love for Vane, is only stating an actual factwhen he says: "To most of our changes he was that within the House thatCromwell was without. "[17] Clarendon, who loved him still less, said ofhim: "He was indeed a man of extraordinary parts, a pleasant wit, a greatunderstanding which pierced into and discerned the purposes of men withwonderful sagacity. "[18] What Milton thought of him he has told in oneof the noblest sonnets that a poet ever wrote on a great statesman:

 Vane, young in years, but in sage counsel old, Than whom a better senator ne'er held The helm of Rome, when gowns not arms repelled The fierce Epirot and the African bold: Whether to settle peace, or to unfold The drift of hollow states hard to be spelled, Then to advise how war may best upheld Move by her two main nerves, iron and gold, In all her equipage; besides to know Both spiritual power and civil, what each means, What severs each, thou hast learned, which few have done: The bounds of either sword to thee we owe; Therefore on thy firm hand religion leans In peace, and reckons thee her eldest son. [19]

{272}

Vane was quite naturally selected at the Restoration as one of the actorsin the historical drama who could not be allowed to live any longer. Theday after Vane's trial began, Charles II. Wrote to Clarendon: "He is toodangerous a man to let live, if we can honestly put him out of theway. "[20] His death brought out the loftiest traits of his character, and gave him a touch of beauty and glory of character which for posterityhas done much to cover the flaws and defects which were not lacking inhim. "In all things, " writes Pepys, who saw everything in those days, "he appeared the most resolved man that ever died in that manner. "[21]

It is, however, not Vane the statesman, the maker of covenants withScotch armies, the creator of sinews of war for the battles of MarstonMoor and Naseby, the organizer of a conquering navy, the man who daredwithstand his old friend Cromwell in the day of the great soldier'spower, that concerns us in this chapter; it is Vane, the religiousIndependent, the exponent of inward religion; the man whom Milton calls"religion's eldest son. " Even in his early youth he passed through adecisive experience which altered his entire after-life. "About thefourteenth or fifteenth year of my age, " he said in his dying speech, "God was pleased to lay the foundation or ground-work of repentance inme, for the bringing me home to Himself, by His wonderful rich and freegrace, revealing His Son in me, that by the knowledge of the only trueGod and Jesus Christ whom He hath sent, I might, even whilst here inthe body, be made a partaker of eternal life, in the first fruits ofit. . . . Since that foundation of repentance was laid in me, throughgrace I have been kept steadfast, desiring to walk in all goodconscience toward God and toward men, according to the best light andunderstanding God gave me. " From this early period on through his life, he always emphasized the importance of first-hand experience, of inwardrevelation, and of Christ's reign in the kingdom of the {273} human soul. He was still a very young man, when, under the impelling guidance of hisconscience, he felt himself called to intermit, as Schwenckfeld andothers had done, the practice of the sacraments of the Church. Hisattitude toward the sacraments at this time, and, apparently everafterwards, was that of the "Seekers. " He had reached the insight thatreligion is a spiritual relationship with a spiritual God, and on thebasis of this position he questioned the divine "commission" of those whoadministered the external ceremonies of the Church. It is, however, perfectly clear that these views were not "original" with him, but thathe had come under the influence of the teachings of the men whom I amcalling "spiritual Reformers. "

How inward and mystical his type of Christianity really was, may begathered from a short passage of an _Epistle_ which he wrote in 1661:"The Kingdom of God is within you and is the dominion of God in theconscience and spirit of the mind. . . . This Kingdom of Christ iscapable of subsisting and being managed inwardly in the minds of Hispeople, in a hidden state concealed from the world. By the powerthereof, the inward senses, or eyes of the mind are opened and awakenedto the drawing of them up to a heavenly converse, catching and carryingup the soul to the throne of God and to the knowledge of the life that ishid with Christ in God. Those that are in this Kingdom, and in whom thepower of it is, _are fitted to fly with the Church into the wilderness, and to continue in such a solitary, dispersed, desolate condition tillGod call them out of it. They have wells and springs opened to them inthis wilderness, whence they draw the waters of salvation, without beingin bondage to the life of sense_. "[22]

He was only twenty-two years of age when, "for conscience' sake" and "inthe sweete peace of God, " he left England and threw in his lot with theyoung colony in Massachusetts Bay. At twenty-three he was {274} Governorof the Colony and found himself plunged into a maelstrom of politics, Indian wars, and ecclesiastical quarrels which would have tried even aveteran like John Winthrop. It was here in Massachusetts that the linesof his religious thought first come clearly into view, if any of Vane'sreligious ideas can ever properly be called "clear. " The controversy inthe Massachusetts Colony (1636-1638) was initiated and led by AnneHutchinson, and was, in the phraseology of that period, an issue between"a Covenant of Works" and "a Covenant of Grace, " which was aseventeenth-century way of stating the contrast between a religionhistorically revealed and completely expressed in an infallible Book onthe one hand, and, on the other, a religion primarily based on theeternal nature of God and man, and on the fact of immediate revelationand communication between the God of Grace and the needy soul. [23]Governor Vane aligned himself with the Hutchinson party and was insympathy with this second type of religion, the religion of inwardexperience, the immediate conscious realization of God, which, in theterminology of the times, was called "the Covenant of Grace. "[24]Absorbed as he was for the next fifteen years after his return fromAmerica in momentous public affairs, he had no opportunity to giveexpression to the religious ideas which were forming in his mind. Duringhis "retirement" after his break with Cromwell, he wrote two books whichgive us the best light we can hope to get on his religious views--_TheRetired Man's Meditations_ (1655), and _A Pilgrimage into the Land ofPromise_ (1664), written in prison in 1662. 

Baxter complained that his Doctrines were "so clowdily formed andexpressed that few could understand them, "[25] and the modern reader, however much time and patience he bestows upon Vane's books, is forced toagree with Baxter. Vane acknowledges himself that his {275} thought is"knotty and abstruce. " In religious matters his mind was alwayslabouring, without success, to find a clear guiding clue through a mazeand confusion of ideas, which fascinated him, and he allowed his mind toget lost in what Sir Thomas Browne calls "wingy mysteries. " He had nosound principle of Scripture interpretation, but allowed his untrainedand unformed imagination to run wild. Texts in profusion from Genesis toRevelation lie in undigested masses in his books. He had evidently readJacob Boehme, but, if so, he had only become more "dowdy" by the reading, for he has not seized and appreciated Boehme's constructive thoughts, and, at least in his later period and in his last book, he is flounderingunder the heavy weight of millenarian ideas, which do not harmonize wellwith his occasional spiritual insights of an ever-growing revelation toman through the eternal Word who in all ages voices Himself within thesoul. He was an extraordinary complex of vague mysticism and astutestatesmanship. 

In one matter he was throughout his life both consistent and clear, namely, in the advocacy of freedom of conscience in religion. He puthimself squarely on a platform of toleration in his early controversywith Winthrop. [26] His friend Roger Williams in later life heard himmake "a heavenly speech" in Parliament in which he said: "Why should thelabours of any be suppressed, if sober, though never so different? Wenow profess to seek God, we desire to see light!"[27] Throughout hisparliamentary career he stood side by side with Cromwell in the difficulteffort, which only partly succeeded, to secure scope for all honestreligious opinion. Finally, in _The Retired Man's Meditations_, hewrote: "We are bound to understand by this terme [the Rule of Magistracy]the proper sphere, bounds and limits of that office _which is not tointrude itself into the office and proper concerns of Christ's inwardgovernment and rule in the {276} conscience_. " After defining themagistrate's proper functions in the affairs of the external life, hethen adds: "The more illuminated the Magistrate's conscience and judgmentis, as to natural justice and right, by the knowledge of God andcommunications of Light from Christ, the better qualified he is toexecute his office. "[28]

The central idea of his religious thought--though it never completelypenetrated the fringes of his mind--was the reality of the living Word ofGod, the self-revealing character of God, who is an immediate, inwardTeacher, who is His own evidence and demonstration, and who has, Vanetestifies, "experimentally obtained a large entrance and reception in myheart as a seed there sown. "[29] This living Word is not to be confusedwith the Scriptures, which are an outward testimony to the inner Word--anexternal way to the "unveiled and naked beauty of the Word itself, " whois Spirit and Life. [30] In the long process of self-revelation throughthe living Word a temporal universe has been created by emanations intime, a universe double in its nature, first a deeper, invisible universeof light, of angels and exalted spirits, then a visible and material and"animalish" world, a shadow of the invisible world. [31] At the top ofthe order, man was created, uniting both the visible and the invisibleworlds in one being. Man thus in himself is in miniature a double world, a world of light and spirit and a world of shadow. Two seeds, as Boehmehad already taught, are always working in man, and his native free-willdetermines the course of his destiny. In his first test, man fell, though "the tree of life, " which was a visible type of Christ, was beforehis eyes in Paradise, but this event was only the beginning of the longhuman drama, and the real history of the race is the story of the stagesand dispensations of the living Word of God, educating, regenerating, andspiritualizing man, and bringing him to the height of his spiritualpossibilities. 

{277}

In the first stage of this divine pedagogy, man has the Word of Godwithin himself "as a lampe or light in his mind, manifesting itself toinward senses, assisted by the ministry of angels. " This is the periodof "conditional covenant, " under which man's spiritual life depends on"obedience to the inward operations of this Word, " and those that obeyare made "Children of the Light, " and attain a forward-lookingapprehension of the coming Son. [32]

The second degree of glory--"a more excellent and near approach to thesight of the Son Himself"--is the training stage under the written word, which makes wise unto salvation. This is a dispensation of discipline, reproof, correction, instruction in righteousness, and it culminates inthe manifestation of Grace in Jesus Christ, who is the Root of a newrace. There are two ways of using the ministry of Grace in JesusChrist--on the lower level as mere "restoration-work" and on the higherlevel as "re-creation into new life. " Those who apprehend Christ on thelower level, as simply a new law-giver, do not get beyond the spirit ofbondage and do not succeed in attaining an immutable and incorruptiblenature. Those, however, who are born from within by the immortal andincorruptible Seed of God are "changed from their wavering unstablepower" into an inward likeness to God, into a love that binds man'sspirit into union with God's Spirit, into "steadfast and unmoveabledelight in goodness" and "fixed and unshaken averseness to sin andevil. "[33]

The third and final stage of glory, the full dispensation of theSpirit--when "the whole creation will be restored to its primitive purityand to the glorious liberty of sons of God"--will be the thousand years'reign of Christ to which, Vane believed, both the outward and inward Wordtestify. [34]

It is not easy to see how a man of Vane's mental and moral calibre, whohad himself, as he tells us in his scaffold speech, been "brought home tohimself by {278} God's wonderful, rich and free Grace, revealing His Sonin me that I might be a partaker of eternal life, " and who had all hislife held that there is an eternal Word and Seed of God working bothwithout and within to bring men to their complete spiritual stature, should be unwilling to trust the operation of this divine Word to finishwhat He had begun, and should resort to a cataclysmic event of a neworder for the final stage. We of this later and more scientific agemust, however, speak with some caution of the idealistic dreams andvisions and glowing expectations of men, who in their deepest soulsbelieved that God was a living, acting God who, in ways past finding out, intervened in the affairs of men and fulfilled His purposes of good. "God is almighty, " Vane said once in a Parliamentary speech. "Will younot trust Him with the consequences? He that has unsettled a monarchy ofso many descents, in peaceable times, and brought you to the top of yourliberties, though He drive you for a while into the wilderness, He willbring you back. He is a wiser workman than to reject His work. "

George Fox, in 1657, was "moved of ye Lord to speake to him of ye trueLight, " having heard that "Henery Vane has much enquired after mee. " Foxtold him, in his usual fashion, "howe yt Christ had promised to hisdisciples to sende ym ye holy ghoast, ye spiritt of truth which shouldeleade ym into all truth which wee [Friends] witnessed and howe yt yegrace of God which brought salvation had appeared unto all men and was yesaintes teacher in ye Apostles days & soe it was nowe. " Vane's commenton the Quaker's message was: "None of all this doth reach to myexperiens, " and Fox, in his plain straightforward manner, said: "Thouhast knowne somethinge formerly; but now there is a mountaine of earth &imaginations uppe in thee & from that rises a smoake which has darkenedthy braine: & thou art not ye man as thou wert formerly. . . . I wasmoved of ye Lord to sett ye Seede Christ Jesus over his heade!"[35]

{279}

Clarendon was more charitable toward Vane than was Fox, who never dealsgently with persons who approach his point of view and yet miss it. Theformer, declaring that Vane's writings lack "his usual clearness andratiocination, " and that "in a crowd of very easy words the sense was toohard to find out, " yet concludes to give the furnace-tried statesman thebenefit of the doubt: "I was of opinion that the subject was of sodelicate a nature that it required another kind of preparation of mind, and perhaps another kind of diet, than men are ordinarily suppliedwith!"[36]

There can, at any rate, be no doubt of Vane's honesty or of his loyaltyto the Light within him. Standing face to face with death, he told hisstrange audience that he had put everything that he prized in the worldto hazard for the sake of obeying the best Light which God had grantedhim, and he added these impressive words: "I do earnestly persuade allpeople rather to suffer the highest contradiction from men, than disobeyGod by contradicting the Light of God in their own conscience. "

III

Peter Sterry was born in Surrey, early in the seventeenth century, andentered Emmanuel College, Cambridge, in 1629, graduating B. A. In 1633 andM. A. In 1637. Emmanuel College had been founded during Elizabeth's reign(1584) by one of her statesmen, Sir Walter Mildmay, for the especialencouragement of Calvinistic theology, and it was the most importantintellectual nursery of the great Puritan movement in England. DuringSterry's University period there was a remarkable group of tutors andfellows gathered in Emmanuel College. Foremost among them was Tuckney, who was tutor to Benjamin Whichcote the founder of the school ofCambridge Platonists, or "Latitude-Men, " and Whichcote himself was atEmmanuel College {280} throughout Sterry's period, graduating M. A. Thesame year that Sterry graduated B. A. 

Sterry was a thorough-going Platonist in his type of thought and had muchin common with Henry More, whose writings were "divinely pleasant" to himand whom he calls "a prophet" of the spiritual unity of the universe, andwith Ralph Cudworth, the spiritual philosopher, though he finds "somewhatto regret" in the work of both these contemporary CambridgePlatonists. [37] Sterry is not usually reckoned among the CambridgePlatonists, but there is no reason why he should not be included in thatgroup. He was trained in the University which was the natural home ofthe movement, he read the authors most approved by the members of thisschool, and his own message is penetrated with the spirit and ideals ofthese seventeenth-century Platonists. His writings abound withreferences to Plato and Plotinus, with occasional references to Proclusand Dionysius the Areopagite; and the world-conceptions of this compositeschool of philosophers, as they were revived by the Renaissance, arefundamental to his thought. He was thoroughly acquainted with thewritings of Ficino, and quotes him among his approved masters. He hadalso profoundly studied the great mystics and was admirably equippedintellectually to be the interpreter of a far different type ofChristianity from that of the current theologies. 

He became intimate in his public career with Sir Harry Vane, and thereare signs of mutual influence in their writings, which gave occasion forRichard Baxter's pun on their names: "Vanity and sterility were nevermore happily conjoined. "[38] Upon the execution of Charles I. , Sterrywas voted a preacher to the Council of State with a salary of one hundredpounds a year, which was soon after doubled and lodgings at Whitehalladded. He generally preached before Cromwell on Sundays, and on everyother Thursday at Whitehall, frequently before {281} the Lords andCommons. A number of his sermons were printed "by Order of the House, "and enjoyed a wide popularity, though their great length would make themimpossible sermons to-day. Cromwell evidently appreciated his preachingvery highly and felt no objection to the mystical strain that runsthrough all his sermons. He had many points of contact with Milton, andmay have been for a period his assistant as Latin Secretary. [39] He wasdevotedly fond of music, art, and poetry, and he held similar views toMilton regarding the Presbyterian system. He naturally fell out ofpublic notice after the Restoration, and quietly occupied himself withliterary work, until his death in 1672. The main material for a study ofhis "message" will be found in his three posthumous Books: _A Discourseof the Freedom of the Will_ (1675); _Rise, Race and Royalty of theKingdom of God in the Soul of Man_ (1683), and _Appearance of God to Manin the Gospel_ (1710). [40] His prose style is lofty and often markedwith singular beauty, though he is almost always too prolix for ourgeneration, and too prone to divide his discourse into heads andsub-heads, and sub-divisions of sub-heads. Here is a specimen passage ofhis dealing with a topic which Plato and the great poets have oftenhandled: "Imagine this Life as an Island, surrounded by a Sea ofDarkness, beyond which lies the main Land of Eternity. Blessed is he whocan raise himself to such a Pitch as to look off this Island, beyond thatDarkness to the utmost bound of things. He thus sees his way before andbehind him. What shall trouble him on his Twig of Life, on which he islike a bird but now alighted, from a far Region, from whence again heshall immediately take his flight. Thou cam'st through a Darkness hitherbut yesterday when thou wert born. Why then shouldst thou not readilyand cheerfully return through the same Darkness back again to thoseeverlasting Hills?"[41] I will give one more {282} specimen passagetouching the divine origin and return of the soul: "At our Birth, whichis the morning of life, our Soul and Body are joined to this fleshlyImage as Horses are put into a Waggon, to which they are fastened bytheir Harnes and Traces. [42] The Body is as the forehorse, but the Soulis the filly which draws most and bears the chief weight. All the daylong of this life we draw this Waggon heavy laden with all sorts oftemptations and troubles thorow deep ways of mire and sand. This only isour comfort that the Divine Will, which is Love itself in its perfection, as a Hand put forth from Heaven thorow a Cloud, at our Birth put us intothis Waggon and governs us all the day. In the evening of our life, atthe end of the day, Death is the same Divine Will as a naked Hand of pureLove, shining forth from an open Heaven of clear light and glory, takingour Soul and Body out of the Waggon and Traces of this fleshly Image andleading them immediately into their Inn. "[43]

Everything in the universe, he believes, is double. The things that areseen are copies--often faint and shadowy--of That which is. Everyparticular thing "below" corresponds to an eternal reality "above. " Eventhose things which appear thin and shallow possess an infinite depth, orwe may just as well say an infinite height. "Didst thou ever descry, " heasks, "a glorious eternity in a winged moment of Time? Didst thou eversee a bright Infinite in the narrow point of an Object? Then thouknowest what Spirit means--that spire-top whither all things ascendharmoniously, where they meet and sit connected in an unfathomed Depth ofLife. "[44] And the immense congeries of things and events, even "thejarring and tumultuous contrarieties, " "through the whole world, throughthe whole compass of time, through both the bright and the black Regionsof Life and Death, " consent and melodize in one celestial music {283} andperfect harmony of Divine purpose. [45] "The stops and shakes make musicas well as the stroaks and sounds, " even Death and Hell "are bound by agold chain with shining links of Love" to the throne of God. [46]

He outdoes even the "pillar" Quakers, his contemporaries in later life, in his proclamation of a Divine Root and Seed in the soul of man. Inwords almost precisely like those which Barclay used later in his_Apology_, he says: "There is a spiritual man that lies hid under thenatural man as seed under the ground, "[47] or, again, "go into thyselfbeyond thy natural man, and thou shalt meet the Spirit of God. "[48]There is "something eternal, " "a seminal infiniteness, " in the soul, itsnative Root and Bottom, consubstantial with it and inseparable from it. "It lasts on through all forms, wearing them out, casting them off fornew forms, through which it manifests itself, until it finally brings usback into Itself and becomes our only clothing. "[49] But though"native, " it is not a part or function of the natural, psychical man, itis not of the "finite creature. " It is from above, a transcendentReality; it belongs to the eternal world and yet it is a Root of Godwithin, a point in the soul's abyss (or apex) unsevered from God, so thatone who knew the soul to its depths would know God. [50] Beneath all thewreck and ruin and havoc of sin it is still there, with its "glimpses ofimmortal Beauty. " The prodigal who would return "home" must first returnto himself, to that divine Seed, "hid deep beneath the soil and dung, beneath the darkness, deformity and deadness of its Winter-Season andrise up in its proper Spring into pleasant flowers and fruits, as aGarden of God. "[51] There is thus "a golden thread" which is alwaysthere to guide the soul back home, through all the mazes of the world, or, to use another of his figures, "Thou hast but to follow the stream ofLove, the Fountain of the Soul, if thou {284} wouldst be led to that Seawhich is the confluence of all the waters of Life, of all Truth, of allGoodness, of all Joy, of all Beauty and Blessedness. "[52]

The _Fullness_ of the juncture of God and Man is seen only in Christ. InHim, "God and Man are one, one Love, one Life, one Likeness. "[53] He isthe Pattern, the unspoiled Image, the Eternal Word, and He is, too, theHead of our race. In Him the Divine Spirit and the human spirit "aretwined into one. " "If you want to see God, then see Christ. "[54] If youwant to see what the Seed in us can blossom into when it is unhampered bysin, again, see Christ. [55] He is a Life-giving Spirit who can penetrateother spirits, who broods over the soul as the creative Spirit broodedover the waters, and who, when received, makes us radiant with _Love, which is the only truth of religion_. 

Sin is the mark and brand of our failure--it is our aberration from thenormal type as it is fully revealed in Christ. "Nothing is so unnaturalas sin, "[56] nothing is so irrational, nothing so abnormal--it is alwaysa break from the unity of the divine Life, a movement towards isolationand self-solitariness, a pursuit of narrowing desires, a missing of thepotential beauty and harmony of the Soul. [57] But in every case, whetherit be Adam's or that of the last man who sinned, it is always an act offree-will--"even in its most haggish shapes sin is the act of free-will. "Some strange contrary principle in us, something from a root alien to thedivine Root, makes civil war within us, [58] and though the Word of God'seternal Love is ringing in our ears and though the gleams of divineBeauty are shining in our eyes, we still walk away into "the barrendessert of the world and forsake our proper habitation in the paradise ofGod. "[59] There is no way back from the "barren dessert, " without acomplete reversal of direction, a conversion: "He that will pass {285}from the dismal depths of sin to the heights of strength and holinessmust make his first motion a conversion, a change from a descent to anascent, from going outward toward the circle to go inward towards thecentre"; there must be an _awakening_ so that the soul comes to see allthings in the light of their first Principle; a Birth through the Spiritand a newness of life through the bubbling of the eternal Spring. [60]

The mighty event of re-birth is described by Sterry very much after themanner of Schwenckfeld. The new Seed, Christ Jesus, the divine Lifeitself, comes into operation within the man, and the new-made man, raisedwith Christ, is joined in Spirit with Him and lives henceforth not afterAdam but after Christ the Head of the spiritual Race. [61] The shift ofdirection, the complete reversal, however, does not mean "parting withdelights, " or "putting on a sad and sour conversation"--on the contrary, it means enlargement of soul and "a gainful addition of joy, " thediscovery within of another world and a new kingdom. [62]

Like all this group of thinkers to whom he is kindred, Sterry makes asharp contrast between the Spirit and the letter, between what happenswithin the soul and what is external to it. The early stage of religionis characterized by externals, and only after long processes of tutorshipand discipline does the soul learn how to live by the Seed of life andLight of truth within. The early stage is legalistic, during which theperson is "hedged about" with promises and threats, "walled in" with lawsand ordinances, "living in a perpetual alarm of fears, " "shut up torules, retirements and forms"--but it is far better to serve God fromfear and by outward rules than not to serve Him at all. The true way ofprogress is to move up from fear and law to love and freedom, and fromoutward rules to the discovery of a central Light of God, a HeavenlyImage, in the deeps of {286} one's own spirit--"real knowledge comes whenthe Day Star rises in the heart. "[63] We pass from "notions" and "words"to an inward power and a bubbling joy. He calls the period of law andletter a "baby-stage, " "when we see truth as blear-eyed beholders. "Legal religion compared with the religion of the Spirit is "like a sparkstruck from flint at midnight" compared with the sun; it is like "drawingthe waters of Grace, a bucketful at a time, " when we might have "theSpirit gushing as a living and perpetual Fountain. "[64] But God is sogood that He speaks to us in a variety of ways, and He lets us "spell Hisname" with the alphabet, until we learn to know His own Voice. Nature, in the elements of visible creation, tells us of Him; Reason compels usto recognize One who is First and Best, the All in all; the written wordcries in our ears that God is Love; but above these voices there is aPrinciple within our own souls by which "God propagates His Life" in us, and he who, in this love-way, has become a son knows God as_Abba-Father_. [65] We pray now with power, when this new Life of theSpirit has come into us, and we pour our spirits out inself-forgetfulness, "as a River pours itself into the sea, where itloseth its own name and is known only as the waters of the Sea. "[66]

He is always gentle in his account of other religions and other stages offaith, and he sees good in all types, if only they help the soul tohunger for the Eternal and do not cramp it. "O that I had a hundredmouths, " he writes, "an hundred tongues, a Voice like the Voice of Godthat rends Rocks, to cry to all sorts of Persons and Spirits in this Landand in all the Christian World through the whole creation: 'Let all thatdiffer in Principles, Professions, Opinions and Forms, see the good thereis in each other'!"[67]

The world, busy with action and choosing for its historical study the menwho did things, has allowed {287} Peter Sterry to drop into oblivion andhis books to gather dust and cobwebs, but there was, I think, a Seed ofGod in him, and he had a message for his age. He sincerely endeavouredto hand on the torch which in his youth at Cambridge had been kindled inhim by some other flame. "When one candle is lighted, " he beautifullysays, "we light many by it, and when God hath kindled the Life of Hisglory in one man's Heart he often enkindles many by the flame ofthat. "[68]

[1] I have studied the "Familists, " the "Anabaptists, " the "Seekers, " and"Ranters, " and some of the interesting religious characters, such as JohnSaltmarsh, William Dell, and Gerard Winstanley, in my _Studies inMystical Religion_ (London, 1908). 

[2] Oliver Cromwell's _Letters and Speeches_ (New York, 1900), i. P. 103. 

[3] These three books were issued together in Latin under the title, _Interiora Regni Dei_, in 1655 and in 1674, and in an English Collectionof Rous' Works under the title, _Treatises and Meditations_ (1657). 

[4] _Mystical Marriage_, pp. 1-2. 

[5] _Treatises and Meditations_, pp. 230-231. 

[6] _Treatises and Meditations_, pp. 240 and 258. 

[7] _Ibid. _ p. 235. 

[8] _The Heavenly Academy_, pp. 110-111. 

[9] _Mystical Marriage_, p. 10. 

[10] _Treatises and Meditations_, p. 496. 

[11] _Mystical Marriage_, p. 10. 

[12] _Ibid. _ p. 16. 

[13] _Ibid. _ p. 193. 

[14] Preface to _Mystical Marriage_. 

[15] _Mystical Marriage_, p. 322. 

[16] _The Heavenly Academy_, Preface, and _ibid. _ p. 57. 

[17] _Reliquiae Baxterianae_, i. P. 75. 

[18] Clarendon, _History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars_ (Oxford, 1827), p. 1581. 

[19] Milton's sonnet _To Sir Henry Vane the Younger_. 

[20] Burnet, _History of his Own Times_ (Airy ed. ), i. P. 286. 

[21] Pepys, _Diary_ (ed. By H. B. Wheatley, London, 1893), ii. P. 242. 

[22] An Epistle to the Mystical Body of Christ on Earth. The lines whichI have put in italics in the text clearly show the "seeker"-attitude. 

[23] See my _Quakers in the American Colonies_ (1911), pp. 1-25. 

[24] In his _Retired Man's Meditations_ he speaks of "Christ's rule inthe legal conscience" and "Christ's rule in the evangelical conscience, "by which he means to contrast a religion founded on external performancesor historical events, and a religion founded on _events transacted in thesoul of the man himself_. 

[25] _Reliquiae Baxterianae_, i. P. 75. 

[26] See Vane's _A Brief Answer to a certain Declaration made of theIntent and Equity of the Order of Court_, etc. , in Hutchinson'sCollection of Original Papers. 

[27] Preface to Williams' _Bloudy Tenet_. 

[28] _The Retired Man's Meditations_, p. 388. Italics mine. 

[29] _Ibid. _ Preface

[30] _Ibid. _ chap. Ii. 

[31] _Ibid. _ ii. Chaps. Iii. And iv. See also _A Pilgrimage into theLand of Promise_, pp. 1-3. 

[32] _A Pilgrimage into the Land of Promise_, pp. 51-52. 

[33] _Ibid. _ pp. 55-56. 

[34] _Retired Man's Meditations_, chap. Xxvi. 

[35] _Journal of George Fox_ (Cambridge ed. ), i. Pp. 313-314. 

[36] _Animadversions on Cressy's Answer to Stillingfleet_ (1673), p. 59. 

[37] See _A Discourse of the Freedom of the Will_ (1675), pp. 31-32. 

[38] _Reliquiae Baxterianae_, i. P. 75. 

[39] A Mr. Sterry was appointed Sept. 8, 1657, to assist Milton as LatinSecretary (_Nat. Dict. Of Biog. Art. _ "Sterry"). 

[40] Besides the above named I have also used his Sermons on _The Cloudsin which Christ Comes_ (1648) and _The Spirits' Conviction of Sinne_(1645). 

[41] _Rise, Race and Royalty_, p. 8. 

[42] There is, he thinks, an inner "body" which is as immortal as thesoul and which together with the soul is united to the body offlesh--"the fleshly Image. "

[43] _Rise, Race and Royalty_, p. 435. 

[44] _Ibid. _ p. 24. See also _ibid. _ p. 5, and _Discourse_, p. 55. 

[45] _Discourse_, pp. 30-35. Also p. 161. 

[46] _Ibid_. Preface, p. C 8, and _Rise, Race and Royalty_, p. 164. 

[47] _Rise, Race and Royalty_, p. 126. 

[48] _Ibid. _ p. 96. 

[49] _Ibid. _ pp. 4, 5, 6, 18-19. 

[50] _Discourse_, pp. 67 and 77. 

[51] _Rise, Race and Royalty_, Preface, p. B 2. See also pp. 362 and512-513. 

[52] _Discourse_, Preface, pp. A and c 6, and _Rise, Race and Royalty_, p. 101. 

[53] _Rise, Race and Royalty_, p. 78. 

[54] _Ibid. _ p. 68. 

[55] _Ibid. _ pp. 95 and 184. Also _Appearance of God_, pp. 239 and 251. 

[56] _Rise, Race and Royalty_, p. 73. 

[57] _Ibid. _ pp. 16-18 and 141, and _Discourse_, pp. 141-142. 

[58] _Appearance of God_, p. 91. 

[59] _Rise, Race and Royalty_, p. 359. 

[60] _Rise, Race and Royalty_, pp. 2, 23, and 466. 

[61] See especially _Appearance of God_, pp. 74-75 and 480. 

[62] _Rise, Race and Royalty_, pp. 107-109. 

[63] _Rise, Race and Royalty_, pp. 46-47 and 467. 

[64] _Ibid. _ pp. 56-60. 

[65] _Ibid. _ pp. 63-67. 

[66] _Appearance of God_, pp. 130-131. 

[67] _Discourse_, Preface, p. A 6. 

[68] _Rise, Race and Royalty_, p. 39. 

{288}

CHAPTER XV

BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE, THE FIRST OF THE "LATITUDE-MEN"[1]

The type of Christianity which I have been calling "spiritual religion, "that is, religion grounded in the nature of Reason, finds, at least inEngland, its noblest expression in the group of men, sometimes called"Cambridge Platonists, " and sometimes "Latitude-Men, " or simply"Latitudinarians. " These labels were all given them by their critics andopponents, and were used to give the impression that the members of thisgroup or school were introducing and advancing a type of Christianity toobroad and humanistic to be safe, and one grounded on Greek philosophyrather than on Scripture and historical Revelation. [2]

They were, however, undertaking to do in their generation precisely whatthe long line of spiritual interpreters had for more than a century beenendeavouring, through pain and suffering, misunderstanding and fiercepersecution, to work out for humanity--a religion of life and reality, areligion rooted in the eternal nature of the Spirit of God and the spiritof man, a religion as authoritative and unescapable "as mathematicaldemonstration. "[3]

It is not possible to establish direct connection between the leaders ofthis school and the writings of the successive {289} spiritual Reformerson the Continent whom we have been studying in this volume, though theparallelism of ideas and of spirit is very striking. Both groups werepowerfully influenced by the humanistic movement, both groups drew uponthat profound searching of the soul which they found in the works ofPlato and Plotinus, and both groups read the same mystical writers. These things would partly account for the similarities, but there wasalmost certainly a closer and more direct connection, though we cannottrace it in the case of Whichcote as we can in that of John Everard ofClare College. There has been a tendency to explain Whichcote's viewsthrough the influence of Arminius and Arminians; but he himself deniedthat he had been influenced by Arminius, [4] while his disciple, NathanielCulverwel, speaks disapprovingly of Arminianism. [5] There are nodistinct allusions in Whichcote to Jacob Boehme, and the former'sconception of the Universe is vastly different from the latter's, buttheir vital and ethical view of the way of salvation is almost exactlythe same, and the constant insistence of Whichcote and his disciples thatHeaven and Hell are primarily conditions of life in the person himselfhas, as we know, a perfect parallel in Boehme. 

The Cambridge scholars were much better equipped for their task than anyof the men whom we have so far studied, their gravest difficulty being anoverweighting of learning which they sometimes failed to fuse with theirspiritual vision and to transmute into power. But with all theirpropension to learning and their love of philosophy, they were primarilyand fundamentally _religious_--they were disciples of Christ rather thandisciples of Plato and Plotinus. Bishop Burnet's testimony to thepositive spiritual contribution of this movement, now underconsideration, and to the genuineness of the religious life of these menis well worth quoting. After describing the arid condition of his time, the prevailing tendency of ministers to seek pomp and luxury, and theapparent thinness of the preaching of the day, he adds: "Some {290} fewexceptions are to be made; but so few, that if _a new set of men had notappeared of another stamp_, the Church had quite lost her esteem over thenation. " He then designates this group of Cambridge scholars. Speakingparticularly of Whichcote, he says: "Being disgusted with the drysystematical way of those times, he studied to raise those who conversedwith him to a nobler set of thoughts, and to consider religion as _a seedof a deiform nature_ (to use one of his own phrases). In order to this, he set young students much on reading the ancient philosophers, chieflyPlato, Tully and Plotin, and on considering the Christian religion as adoctrine sent from God, both to elevate and sweeten human nature, inwhich he was a great example, as well as a wise and kind instructor. Cudworth carried this on with a great strength of genius and a vastcompass of learning. "[6]

These "Latitude-Men" were Puritan in temper and in intensity ofconviction; they were all trained in the great nursery of Puritan faith, Emmanuel College, and they were on intimate terms with many of the menwho were the creators of the outer and inner life of the Commonwealth, but in their intellectual sympathies they went neither with the sectariesof the time--"the squalid sluttery of fanatic conventicles, " as S. P. Puts it--nor with the prevailing Puritan theology. They read Calvin andBeza with diligence, at least Whichcote did, but their thought did notmove along the track which the great Genevan had constructed. Theydiscovered another way of approach which made the old way and the oldbattles seem to them futile. Instead of beginning with the eternalmysteries of the inscrutable divine Will, they began with the fundamentalnature of man, always deep and difficult to fathom, but for ever theground and basis of all that can be known in the field of religion. Their interest was thus psychological rather than theological. It istheir constant assertion that nothing is more intrinsically rational thanreligion, and they focus all their energies to make this point clear andevident. 

{291}

They came to their intellectual development in the period when Hobbes wasformulating one of the most powerful and subtle types of materialism thathas ever been presented. They were, too, contemporaries of Descartes, and they followed with intense interest the attempt of the greatFrenchman to put philosophy in possession of a method as adequate for itsproblems as the method of geometry was for the mathematical sciences. None of the "Platonists" was possessed of the same rare quality of geniusas either of these two great philosophers, but they saw with clearinsight the full bearing of both systems. They heartily disapproved ofHobbes' materialism and shuddered at its nakedness. They were too muchcommitted to the ideals of Humanism to be positive opponents ofDescartes' rational formulation of all things outer and inner, but theynever felt at home with the vast clock-like mechanism to which his systemreduced the universe, and they set themselves, in contrast, to produce areligious philosophy which would guarantee freedom, would give widerscope for the inner life, would show the kinship of God and man and putmorality and religion--to their mind for ever one and inseparable--on afoundation as immovable as the pillars of the universe. 

The first of this group, the pathbreaker of the movement, was BenjaminWhichcote, though it must not be forgotten that he had noble forerunnersin John Hales, William Chillingworth, and Jeremy Taylor. Thebiographical details which have survived him are very limited. A greatteacher's life is so largely interior and so devoid of outward eventsthat there is usually not much to record. [7] He was descended from "anancient and honourable family, " and was born at Whichcote-Hall, in theparish of Stoke, the 11th of March, 1609. He was admitted in 1626 toEmmanuel College--"which was looked on from its first foundation as aSeminary of Puritans"--and was there under the tutorship of two greatPuritan teachers. Dr. Anthony Tuckney and Thomas Hill, {292} both ofwhom were for a time associated with John Cotton, afterwards the famouspreacher of colonial Boston. He was ordained both deacon and priest in1636, was made Provost of King's College, Cambridge, in 1644, "went-out"Doctor of Divinity in 1649, and for twenty years gave the afternoonLecture on Sundays at Trinity Church, Cambridge. At the Restoration hewas deprived of the Provostship by order of the King, which brought hisuniversity career to an end. He was made curate of St. Anne's, Blackfriars, in 1662, and later received from the Crown the vicarage ofSt. Laurence Jewry, where he preached twice each week until his death in1683. 

He once said in one of his sermons: "Had we a man among us, that we couldproduce, that did live an exact Gospel life; had we a man that was reallygospelized; were the Gospel a life, a soul, and a spirit to him . . . Hewould be the most lovely and useful person under heaven. Christianitywould be recommended to the world by his spirit and conversation. "[8]Dr. Whichcote himself was, as far as one can judge from the impressionwhich he made on his contemporaries, such a "gospelized" man. He"recommended religion, " as Dr. Salter says, by his life and writings, andshowed it "in its fairest and truest light as the highest perfection ofhuman nature. "[9] He seemed to be "emancipated" when he came back toCambridge as Provost of King's College, and he devoted himself to"spreading and propagating a more generous sett of opinions" than thosewhich were generally proclaimed in the sermons of the time, and "theyoung Masters of Arts soon cordially embraced" his message. [10]

This "new sett of opinions, " proclaimed in Trinity Church with vision andpower, soon disturbed those who were of the older and sterner schools ofthought. "My heart hath bin much exercised about you, " his old friendand tutor, Dr. Tuckney, wrote to him in 1651, "especially since yourbeing Vice-Chancellour, I have seldom heard you preach, but thatsomething hath bin delivered {293} by you, and that so authoritativelyand with big words, sometimes of 'divinest reason' and sometimes of 'morethan mathematical demonstration, ' that hath much grieved me. "[11] Thenovelty of Dr. Whichcote's "opinions" comes more clearly into view as theletter proceeds: "Your Discourse about Reconciliation that 'it doth notoperate on God, but on us' is Divinity [theology] that my heart risethagainst. . . . To say that the ground of God's reconciliation is fromanything in us; and not from His free grace, freely justifying theungodly, is to deny one of the fundamental truths of the Gospel thatderives from heaven. "[12]

The correspondence which followed this frank letter supplies us with theclearest light we possess, or can possess, upon Whichcote's inner lifeand type of religion. He replied to his old friend, whom he had alwaysheld "in love, reverence and esteem, " that he had noticed of late that"our hearts have not seemed to be together when our persons havebin, "[13] "but, " he adds, "your letter meets with no guilt in myconscience. " "My head hath bin possessed with this truth [which I ampreaching] these manie years--I am not late nor newe in thispersuasion. "[14] He then proceeds to quote from his notes exactly whathe had said on the subject of reconciliation in his recent Discourse. Itwas as follows: "Christ doth not save us by onely doing for us _without_us [_i. E. _ historically]: yea, we come at that which Christ hath done forus with God, by what He hath done for us _within_ us. . . . With Godthere cannot be reconciliation without our becoming God-like. . . . Theydeceeve and flatter themselves extreamly; who think of reconciliationwith God by means of a Saviour acting upon God in their behalfe and _notalso working in or upon them to make them God-like_, " and he says that headded in the spoken sermon, what was not in his notes, that a theologywhich taught a salvation without inward moral transformation was"Divinity minted in Hell. "[15]

{294}

Dr. Tuckney in his second letter becomes still more specific. He admitsthat Whichcote's "persuasion of truth" is not "late or newe"; heremembers, on the latter's first coming to Cambridge, "I thought you thensomwhat cloudie and obscure in your expressions. " What he now noticeswith regret is the tendency in his old pupil to "cry-up reason ratherthan faith"; to be "too much immersed in Philosophy and Metaphysics"; tobe devoted to "other authours more than Scripture, and Plato and hisschollars above others"; to be producing "a kinde of moral Divinitie, onlie with a little tincture of Christ added"; to put "inherentrighteousness above imputed righteousness" and "love above faith, " and touse "some broad expressions as though in this life wee may be aboveordinances"; and finally he notices that since Whichcote has "cast hissermons in this mould, " they have become "less edifying" and "lessaffecting the heart. "[16] He thinks, too, that he has discovered theforeign source of the infection: "Sir, those whose footsteppes I haveobserved [in your sermons] were the Socinians and Arminians; the latterwhereof, I conceive, you have bin everie where reading in their workesand most largely in their Apologie. "[17]

"In a thousand guesses, " Whichcote answers this last charge, in hissecond letter, "you could not have bin farther off from the truth of thething. " "What is added of Socinians and Arminians, in respect of mee, isgroundless. I may as well be called a Papist, or Mahometan; Pagan orAtheist. And trulie, Sir, you are wholly mistaken in the whole course ofmy studies. You say you find me largelie in their _Apologia_; to myknowledge I never saw or heard of the book before! . . . I have not readmanie bookes; but I have studied a fewe: meditation and invention hathbin my life rather than reading; and trulie I have more read Calvine andPerkins and Beza than all the bookes, authors and names you mention. _Ihave alwaies expected reason for what men say_, less valuing persons andauthorities in the stating and {295} resolving of truth, therefore haveread them most where I have found itt. I have not looked at anie thingas more than an opinion which hath not bin underpropt by convincingreason or plaine and satisfactorie Scripture. "[18]

As to the charge that he has become immersed in philosophy, Whichcotemodestly replies: "I find the Philosophers that I read good as farre asthey go: and it makes me secretlie blush before God when I find eyther myhead, heart or life challenged by them, which I must confess, I oftenfind. " To the criticism that he "cries-up reason, " he answers that hehas always found in his own experience that "that preaching has mostcommanded my heart which has most illuminated my head. " "EverieChristian, " he insists, "must think and believe as he finds cause. Shallhe speak in religion otherwise than he thinks? Truth is truth, whoeverhath spoken itt or howsoever itt hath bin abused. If this libertie benot allowed to the Universitie wherefore do wee study? We have nothingto do butt to get good memories and to learn by heart. "[19] Finally, tothe impression expressed by Dr. Tuckney that his sermons are lessedifying and heart-searching, he replies with dignity and evidently withtruth: "I am sure I have bin all along well understood by persons ofhonest heartes, but of mean place and education: and I have had theblessing of the soules of such at their departure out of this world. Ithanke God, my conscience tells me, that I have not herein affectedworldlie shewe, but the real service of truth. "[20]

We need not follow further this voluminous correspondence in which twohigh-minded and absolutely honest men reveal the two diverging lines oftheir religious faith. To the man whose mind found its spiritual footingalone on the solid ground of Calvin's unmodified system, the new"persuasion" was sure to seem "cloudie and obscure"; and no number ofletters could convince him that the new message presented a safe way offaith and life. And no amount of criticism or advice could change theother man who found it necessary for him to have {296} reasonable causefor what he was to believe and live by. Whichcote closes the friendlydebate with some very positive announcements that for him religion mustbe, and must remain, something which guarantees its reality in the soulitself: "Christ must be inwardlie felt as a principle of divine lifewithin us. "[21] "What is there in man, " again he says, "moreconsiderable than that which declares God's law to him, pleads for theobservation of it, accuseth for the breach and excuseth upon theperformance of it?"[22] And finally he informs his friend that each ofthem must be left free to follow his own light: "If we differ there is nohelp for it: Wee must forbear one another. . . . If you conceeveotherwise of me than as a lover and pursuer after truth, you thinkamisse. . . . Wherein I fall short of your expectation, I fail fortruth's sake. "[23]

The central idea in Whichcote's teaching, which runs like a gulf-streamthrough all his writings, is his absolute certainty that there issomething in the "very make of man"[24] which links the human spirit tothe Divine Spirit and which thus makes it as natural for man to bereligious as it is for him to seek food for his body. There is a"seminal principle, " "a seed of God, " "something that comes immediatelyfrom God, " in the very structure of man's inner nature, [25] and thisstructural possession makes it as natural and proper for man's mind totend toward God, "the centre of immortal souls, " as it is for heavythings to tend toward their centre. [26] "God, " he elsewhere says, "ismore inward to us than our own souls, " and we are more closely "relatedto God than to anything in the world. "[27] The soul is to God as theflower is to the sun, which opens when the sun is there and shuts whenthe sun is absent, [28] though this figure breaks down, because, inWhichcote's view, God never withdraws and is never absent. This ideathat the spiritual life is absolutely rational--a normal function {297}of man's truest nature--receives manifold expression in Whichcote's_Aphorisms_, which constitute a sort of seventeenth-century Book ofProverbs, or collection of Wisdom-sayings. He had absorbed one greatsaying from the original Book of Proverbs, which he uses again and again, and which became the sacred text for all the members of the school--"thespirit of man is a candle of the Lord. "[29] This Proverb is forWhichcote a key that fits every door of life, and the truth which itexpresses is for him the basal truth of religion, as the followingAphorisms will sufficiently illustrate:

"Were it not for light we should not know we had such a sense as sight:Were it not for God we should not know the Powers of our souls which havean appropriation to God. "[30]

"God's image is in us and we belong to Him. "[31]

"There is a capacity in man's soul, larger than can be answered byanything of his own, or of any fellow-creature. "[32]

"There is nothing so intrinsically rational as Religion is. "[33]

"The Truths of God are connatural to the soul of man, and the soul of manmakes no more resistance to them than the air does to light. "[34]

"Religion makes us live like men. "[35]

"We worship God best when we resemble Him most. "[36]

"Religion is intelligible, rational and accountable: It is not our burdenbut our privilege. "[37]

Something is always wrong, he thinks, if Religion becomes a burden: "Itis imperfection in Religion to _drudge_ in it, and every man drudges inReligion if he takes it up as a task and carries it as a burden. "[38]The moment we follow "the divine frame and temper" of our inmost naturewe find our freedom, our health, our power, and our joy; as one of theAphorisms puts it: {298} "When we make nearer approaches to God, we havemore use of ourselves. "[39]

This view is beautifully expressed in Whichcote's Prayer printed at theend of the _Aphorisms_: "Most Blessed God, the Creator and Governor ofthe World; the only true God, and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Wethy Creatures were made to seek and find, to know and reverence, to serveand obey, to honour and glorify, to imitate and enjoy Thee; who art theOriginal of our Beings, and the Centre of our Rest. Our ReasonableNature hath a peculiar Reservation for Thee; and our Happiness consistsin our Assimilation to, and Employment about, Thee. The nearer weapproach unto Thee, the more free we are from Error, Sin, and Misery; andthe farther off we are from Thee, the farther off we are from Truth, Holiness, and Felicity. Without Thee, we are sure of nothing; we are notsure of ourselves: but through Thee, there is Self-Enjoyment in the mind, when there is nothing but Confusion, and no Enjoyment of the World. "

Religion is thus thought of as the normal way of life, as the truefulfilment of human nature and as complete inward health. "Holiness, " hesays, "is our right constitution and temper, our inward health andstrength. "[40] Sin and selfishness carry a man below the noble Creationwhich God made in him, and Religion is the return to the true nature andcapacity of God's Creation in man: "The Gospel, inwardly received, dyesand colours the soul, settles the Temper and Constitution of it and isrestorative of our Nature. . . . It is the restitution of us to thestate of our Creation, to the use of our Principles, to our healthfulConstitution and to Acts that are connatural to us. "[41]

As soon as man returns to "his own healthful Constitution" and to "thestate of his Creation, " he finds that Religion has its evidence andassurance in itself. God made man for moral truths, "before He declared{299} them on Sinai, " or "writ them in the Bible, "[42] and so soon as thesoul comes into "conformity to its original, "[43] that is "intoconformity to God according to its inward measure and capacity, "[44] andlives a kind of life that is "self-same with its own Reason, "[45] theDivine Life manifests itself in that man and kindles his spirit into ablazing candle of the Lord. Those who are spiritual "find and feelwithin themselves Divine Suggestions, Motions and Inspirations; . . . Alight comes into the Mind, a still Voice. "[46]

This direct and inward revelation is, however, for Whichcote never "arevelation of new matter, " never a way to the discovery of truths of aprivate nature. The revelations which the guidance of the Divine Spiritbreathes forth within our souls are always truths of universalsignificance, truths that are already implicitly revealed in the Bible, truths that carry their own self-evidence to any rational mind. Butthese revelations, these discoveries of what God means and what life maybecome, are possible only to those who prepare themselves for inwardconverse and who centre down to the deeper Roots of their being: "Unlessa man takes himself sometimes out of the world, by retirement andself-reflection, he will be in danger of losing _himself_ in theworld. "[47] Where God is not discovered, something is always at faultwith man. "As soon as he is abstracted from the noise of the world, withdrawn from the call of the Body, having the doors of the senses shut, the Divine Life readily enters and reveals Itself to the inward Eye thatis prepared for it. "[48] "Things that are connatural in the way ofReligion, " he once said, "the Illapses and Breakings in of God upon us, require a mind that is not subject to Passion but is in a serene andquiet Posture, where there is no tumult of Imagination. . . . There isno genuine and proper effect of Religion where the Mind is not composed, sedate and calm. "[49]

{300}

There is no tendency in Whichcote to undervalue Scripture. Inwardrevelations are for him not a substitute for the Bible nor an appendix toit. Through the Divine Light in the soul and through Scripture, Divinecommunications are imparted to men. These he calls respectively "truthof first inscription" and "truth of after-revelation, "[50] and they nomore conflict than two luminaries in the physical world conflict. "Morals, " he says, "are inforced by Scripture, but they were beforeScripture: they were according to the nature of God, "[51] and, as healways claims, according to the deiform nature in man's reason. [52] Assoon as a person interprets the Light within him--the candle of the Lordin his own heart--by the Light of revelation his inward illuminationbecomes clearer; and contrariwise, as soon as one brings an enlightenedspirit to the Bible its message becomes clarified--"the Spirit withinleads to a right apprehension of those things which God hathdeclared. "[53] But Truth is always vastly more than "Notions, " orconceptual formulation of doctrine. "Religion, " as he says in hiswisdom-proverbs, "is not a System of Doctrine, an observance of Modes ora Form of Words"--it is "a frame and temper of mind; it shows itself in aLife and Action conformable to the Divine Will"; it is "our resemblanceto God. "[54] Bare knowledge does not sanctify any man; "Men of holyHearts and Lives best understand holy Doctrines. "[55] We always deceiveourselves if we do not get beyond even such high-sounding words asconversion, regeneration, divine illumination, and mortification; if wedo not get beyond names and notions of every sort, into a real holinessof life that is a conformity of nature to our original. His mostimportant passage on this point is one which is found in his Sermon onthe text: "Of this man's seed hath God, according to His promise, raisedup unto {301} Israel a Saviour, Jesus" (Acts xiii. 23). "Religion, " hesays in this passage, "is not satisfied in Notions; but doth, in deed andin reality, come to nothing unless it be in us not only matter ofKnowledge and Speculation, but doth establish in us a Frame and Temper ofMind and is productive of a holy and vertuous Life. Therefore let thesethings take effect in us; in our Spirituality and Heavenly-mindedness; inour Conformity to the Divine Nature and _Nativity from above_. Forwhoever professes that he believes the Truth of these things and wantsthe Operation of them upon his Spirit and Life doth, in fact, make voidand frustrate what he doth declare as his Belief. He doth receive theGrace of God in vain unless this Principle and Belief doth descend in hisHeart and establish a good Frame and Temper of Mind and govern in allActions of his Life and Conversation. "[56] This translation of Light andTruth and Insight into the flesh and blood of action is a necessary lawof the spiritual life: "Good men spiritualize their bodies; bad menincarnate their souls";[57] or, as he expresses it in one of his Sermons:"To be [spiritually] well and unactive do not consist together. No manis well without action. "[58]

Religion is, thus, with him always a dynamic principle of Life, workingitself out in the frame and temper of the man and producing itscharacteristic effects in his actions. It does not operate "like a charmor spell"--it operates only as a vital principle[59] and we becomeeternally the self which we ourselves form. "We naturalize ourselves, "to use his striking phrase, "to the employment of eternity. "[60] We arelost, not by Adam's sin, but by our own; and we are saved, not byChrist's historical death, but by our own obedience to the law of theSpirit of Life revealed in Him and by our own death to sin;[61] and thebeginning of Heaven is one with the beginning of conformity to the willof God and to our nativity from above. "Heaven is a temper of spirit, before it is a place. "[62] {302} There is a Heaven this side of Heavenand there is as certainly a Hell this side of Hell. The most impressiveexpression of this truth is given in one of his Sermons: "All miseryarises out of _ourselves_. It is a most gross mistake, and men are ofdull and stupid spirits who think that the state which we call Hell is anincommodious place only; and that God by His sovereignty throws mentherein. Hell ariseth out of a man's self. And Hell's fewel is theguilt of a man's conscience. It is impossible that any should be somiserable as Hell makes a man and as there a man is miserable by his owncondemning of himself: And on the other side, when they think that Heavenarises from any place, or any nearness to God or Angels, that is notprincipally so; but Heaven lies in a refined Temper, in an inwardReconciliation to the Nature of God. So that both Hell and Heaven havetheir Foundation within Men. "[63] The evil and punishment which followsin are "consequential" and inseparable from sin, and so, too, eternallife is nothing but spiritual life fulfilling itself in ways that areconsequential and necessary in the deepest nature of things: "That whichis our best employment here will be our only employment in eternity. "[64]

The good old Puritan, Tuckney, suspected that Whichcote was promulgatinga type of Christianity which could dispense with ordinances--"as thoughin this life wee may be above ordinances, "--and it must be confessed thatthere was some ground for this suspicion. He was no "enthusiast" and hein no way shared the radical anti-sacramentarian spirit of the smallsects of the Commonwealth, but it belonged to the very essence of thistype of religion, as we have seen in every varied instance of it, to holdlightly to externals. "The Spirit, " as Whichcote once said, "makes menconsider the Inwards of things, "[65] and almost of necessity the graspslackens on outward {303} forms, as the vision focusses more intentlyupon inward and eternal realities. It is one of his foundationprinciples that "we worship God best when we resemble Him most, "[66] andif that is true, then the whole energy of one's being should concentrateupon the cultivation of "the deiform nature, " "the nativity from Above. "The real matters of religion, as he keeps insisting, are matters of lifeand inner being, the formation of disposition and the right set of will. But these vital things have been notoriously slighted, and "men's zeal isemployed in usages, modes and rites of parties"; in matters that aredivisive and controversial rather than in "things that are lovely in theeyes of all who have the Principles of Reason for their rule. "[67] Thegreat differences in religion have never been over necessary andindispensable Truth; on the contrary the disturbing differences havealways been and still are "either over Points of curious and niceSpeculation, or about arbitrary modes of worship. "[68] Just as fast asmen see that religion is a way to fullness of life, a method of attaininglikeness to God, and just as soon as they realize that God can be trulyworshipped only by acts and attitudes that are moral and spiritual, _i. E. _ acts and attitudes that attach to the deliberate consent of theinner spirit, Whichcote thinks that "rites and types and ceremonies, which are all veils, " will drop away and religion will become one with arich and intelligent life. [69]

We can well understand how this presentation of Christianity as "aculture and discipline of the whole man--an education and consecration ofall his higher activities"[70]--would seem, to those accustomed todualistic theologies, "clowdie and obscure. " It was, however, "no newepersuasion. " In all essential particulars it is four-square with thetype of religion with which the spiritual Reformers of Germany andHolland had for more than a century made the world acquainted. But, {304} in the words of the Epistle to the Hebrews, somewhat adapted: "allthese, having had the witness borne to them through their faith, receivednot the promise in full, God having provided some better, _i. E. _ fuller, thing, that they should not be made complete, apart from those whosucceeded them and fulfilled their hopes. "

[1] This interesting phrase occurs in _A Brief Account of the New Sect ofLatitude-Men_, by S. P. (probably Simon Patrick), 1662. 

[2] S. P. In his _Sect of Latitude-Men_ says: "A Latitude-Man is an imageof Clouts [a man of straw] that men set up to encounter with, for want ofa real enemy; it is a convenient name to reproach a man that you owe aspite to. "

[3] Letters of Tuckney and Whichcote in the Appendix to Whichcote's_Aphorisms_ (London, 1753), p. 2. 

[4] _Aphorisms_, Appendix, p. 53. 

[5] Culverwel, _Elegant Discourses_ (1654), p. 6. 

[6] Burnet, _History of His Own Times_ (London, 1850), p. 127. 

[7] We are dependent, for the few facts which we possess concerningWhichcote's life, on the Sketch of him written by Dr. Samuel Salter, as aPreface to his edition of Whichcote's _Aphorisms_, published in 1753. 

[8] _Select Sermons_ (1698), p. 30. 

[9] Salter's Preface, pp. Xxii-xxiii. 

[10] _Ibid. _ p. Xx. 

[11] Appendix to _Aphorisms_ (1753), p. 2. 

[12] Ibid. P. 4. 

[13] Ibid. P. 7. 

[14] Ibid. Pp. 8 and 13. 

[15] Ibid. Pp. 13 and 14. 

[16] Appendix to _Aphorisms_, pp. 37-38. 

[17] _Ibid. _ p. 27. 

[18] Appendix to _Aphorisms_, pp. 53-54. 

[19] _Ibid. _ p. 57. 

[20] _Ibid. _ p. 60. 

[21] Appendix to _Aphorisms_, p. 125. 

[22] _Ibid. _ p. 127. 

[23] _Ibid. _ pp. 133-134. 

[24] _Select Sermons_ (1698), p. 149. 

[25] _Ibid. _ pp. 131-133. 

[26] _Ibid. _ p. 88. 

[27] _Ibid. _ p. 109. 

[28] _Ibid. _ p. 74. 

[29] Proverbs xx. 27. 

[30] _Aphorism_ 861. 

[31] _Aphorism_ 934. 

[32] _Aphorism_ 847. 

[33] _Aphorism_ 457. 

[34] _Aphorism_ 444. 

[35] _Aphorism_ 87. 

[36] _Aphorism_ 248. 

[37] _Aphorism_ 220. 

[38] _Several Discourses_ (1707), iv. P. 259. 

[39] _Aphorism_ 709. 

[40] _Several Discourses_, iv. P. 192. 

[41] _Select Sermons_, pp. 55 and 62

[42] _Select Sermons_, p. 7. 

[43] _Discourses_, iv. P. 191. 

[44] _Ibid. _ p. 171. 

[45] _Ibid. _ p. 259. 

[46] _Select Sermons_, p. In

[47] _Aphorism_ 302. 

[48] Quoted almost literally from _Select Sermons_, p. 72. 

[49] _Ibid. _ pp. 32-33. 

[50] _Select Sermons_, p. 6. He also says in Aphorism No. 109, "God hathset up two Lights to enlighten us in our Way: the Light of Reason, whichis the Light of His Creation; and the Light of Scripture which isAfter-Revelation from Him. "

[51] _Aphorism_ 587. 

[52] See _Several Discourses_, iv. P. 173. 

[53] _Ibid. _ ii. P. 275. 

[54] _Aphorisms_ 1127, 853, and 1028. 

[55] _Select Sermons_, p. 79; and _Aphorism_ 285. 

[56] _Select Sermons_, p. 350. 

[57] _Aphorism_ 367. 

[58] _Select Sermons_, p. 71. 

[59] _Aphorisms_ 243 and 625. 

[60] _Aphorism_ 290. 

[61] _Aphorisms_ 525, 612. 

[62] _Aphorism_ 464. 

[63] _Select Sermons_, p. 86. This will be recognized as in perfectparallelism with Jacob Boehme's teaching, and the parallel is even morestriking in the passage where Whichcote says that "Religion must informthe Judgment with Truth and reform the Heart and Life by the _Tincture_of it. " (_Select Sermons_, p. 157). 

[64] _Aphorism_ 51. 

[65] _Select Sermons_, p. 42. 

[66] _Aphorism_ 248. 

[67] _Select Sermons_, p. 153. 

[68] _Ibid. _ p. 21. 

[69] _Several Discourses_, ii. P. 329. 

[70] John Tulloch's _Rational Theology in the Seventeenth Century_, ii. P. 115. 

{305}

CHAPTER XVI

JOHN SMITH, PLATONIST--"AN INTERPRETER OF THE SPIRIT"[1]

Principal Tulloch, in his admirable study of the Cambridge Platonists, declares that John Smith was "the richest and most beautiful mind andcertainly by far the best writer of them all. "[2]

There can be no doubt, in the thought of any one who has come intoclose contact with him, of the richness and beauty of his spirit. Heleaves the impression, even after the lapse of more than two hundredand fifty years, of having been a saint of a rare type. Those who werenearest to him in fellowship called him "a good man, " "a Godlike man, ""a servant and friend of God, " "a serious practicer of the Sermon onthe Mount"; and we who know him only afar off and at second hand feelsure nevertheless that these lofty words were rightly given to him. His scholarship was wide--he had "a vastness of learning, " as Patricksays; but his main contribution was not to philosophy nor to theology, it consisted rather of an exhibition of religion wrought out in theattractive form of a beautiful spiritual life: "He was an Exemplar oftrue Christian Vertue of so poized and even a life that by his Wisdomand Conscience one might live almost at a venture, walking blindfoldthrough the world. "[3]

The details of his life are very meagre. We are in the {306} maindependent on the literary portraits of him drawn by two of hisaffectionate friends--John Worthington who edited his Discourses, andSimon Patrick who delivered the remarkable sermon on the occasion ofhis funeral. [4] From these sources we learn that John Smith was bornat Achurch near Oundle about the year 1618, "of parents who had longbeen childless and were grown aged. " It appears incidentally that hisparents were poor, and that Benjamin Whichcote, who was Smith's collegeTutor, made "provision for his support and maintenance" in his earlystudent days. [5] He entered Emmanuel College in 1636, and here he cameunder the profound religious and intellectual influence of Whichcote, for whom "he did ever express a great and singular regard. " He becamea Master of Arts in 1644, and that same year was elected Fellow ofQueens' College. It was about this time that Whichcote returned toCambridge, "spreading and propagating a nobler, freer and more generoussett of opinions, " which "the young Masters of Arts soon cordiallyembraced. " Among those who formed this group of awakened and kindledstudents Smith was an enthusiastic member, and he himself soon became apowerful exponent in the Chapel of Queens' College of a similarmessage, which, a contemporary writer says, "contributed to raise newthoughts and a sublime style in the members of the University. " He wassmitten, while still young, with a painful lingering illness, which hebore "without murmuring or complaining, " "resting quietly satisfied inthe Infinite, Unbounded Goodness and Tenderness of his Father, " hopingonly that he might "learn that for which God sent the suffering, "[6]and he died August 7, 1652, "after God had lent him to the world forabout five and thirty years. "[7] "I was desirous, " his friend Patricksays at the opening of his funeral sermon, "that I might have stai'dthe wheels of that Triumphant Chariot wherein he seemed to be carried;that we might have {307} kept him a little longer in this world, tillby his holy breathing into our souls, and the Grace of God, we had beenmade meet to have some share in that inheritance of the saints inlight"; but now, he adds, "we are orphans, left without a father. "[8]Patrick adapts to his own departed teacher the beautiful words whichGregory Thaumaturgus used of his great instructor, Origen: "He hathentangled and bound up my soul in such fetters of love, he hath so tyedand knit me to him, that if I would be disengaged, I cannot quitmyself. No, though I depart out of the world, our love cannot die, forI love him even as my own soul, and so my affection must remainforever. "[9] The whole sermon throbs with intense love, and while itis somewhat overweighted with quotations and learned allusions, it yetexpresses in an impressive way the sincere affection of a disciple fora noble master who has "begot another shape in his scholar and has madeanother man of him. "[10] "Such men, " he says, "God hath alwaies in theworld, men of greater height and stature than others, whom He sets upas torches on an hill to give light to all the regions roundabout. "[11] Such men "are the guard and defense of the towns wherethey reside, yea of the country whereof they are members; they are thekeepers and life-guards of the world; the walls and bulwarks of theNation, "[12] and when they leave the world everybody soon feels that aglory has departed--"when Elijah goes away you shall have fifty men gothree days to seek him!"[13]

This disciple, who declared that whatever "heavenly life" there was inhimself had been "hatched" by the fostering care, the nurturing loveand the brave conduct of his teacher, has left a few very clear traitsfor the creation of a true portrait of this saintly interpreter of theSpirit: He was a Fountain running over, Worthington says, "an everbountifull and bubbling Fountain. "[14] Love was bubbling and springingup in his soul and flowing out to all. He would have emptied his soulinto others. He {308} was dipped into Justice as it were over head andears; he had not a slight tincture but was dyed and coloured quitethrough with it. He cared only for those substantial and solid thingsof a Divine and Immortal Nature, which he might carry out of the worldwith him. He was a living library, a walking study, a whole college inhimself, that carried his learning about with him; a man of greatindustry, indefatigable pains, and herculean labours. His learning wasso concocted that it lay not in notions in his head, but was wroughtout and formed in his very soul so that a man came away always betterafter converse with him. His faith did not busy itself about finenotions, subtilties, and curiosities, but it was firmly set and fixedin an experience of the mercy and goodness of God, seen in JesusChrist. He lived in a continuous enjoyment of God and perpetually drewnearer to the Centre of his soul's rest and always stayed God's time ofadvancement. His spirit was absorbed in the business and employment ofbecoming perfect in his art and profession--which was the art _of beinga good man_. [15] The devoted scholar's highest wish, as he closes hisglowing account of his beloved master, who "enshrined so much Divinitythat everything about him had a kind of sacredness, " was that those whohad enjoyed his presence and inspiration and had formed their livesunder his instruction might "so express his life" in theirs, that menwould say as they saw these disciples of his, "There walks at least ashadow of Mr. Smith!"[16]

It would be difficult to find any one, in the long list of those whohave interpreted Christianity, who has been more insistent than wasJohn Smith that religion is the normal function of the soul and thesurest evidence of its health and sanity. But religion of this normaland spiritual type must be sharply differentiated both fromsuperstition and from legalistic religion. The mark of superstition inhis mind is the apprehension of God as capricious, a hard Master, andof such a character that his {309} favour can be gained only by servileflattery or bribery or by spells of magic. Superstition is "a brat ofdarkness" born in a heart of fear and consternation. It producesinvariably "a forced and jejune devotion"; it makes "forms of worshipwhich are grievous and burdensome" to the life; it chills or destroysall free and joyous converse with God; it kills out love and inwardpeace, and instead of inspiring, heightening, and purifying man's soul, it bends all its energies in the vain attempt to alter the capriciousattitude of the superior Being who scares and terrifies men. It is, however, a very subtle spirit and one hard to eradicate. It invadesour religion even when we are least aware of it: "it enters into ourchambers, creeps into our clothes, twines about our secret devotions, and actuates our forms of belief and orthodox opinions. "[17]

Legalistic religion, or the "covenant of works, " is much of a piecewith superstition. It, again, is always a burden to be borne. Itsmark is "drudgery and servility. " It is a "lean and lifeless form ofexternal performances. " Its "law" is always something outside the soulitself. It is a way of acquiring "merit, " of getting reckoned among"heaven's darlings, " but it is not a way of life or expansion or poweror joy. [18]

This "dead" legalistic form of religion is, however, not merely a thingof antiquity, of some early "dispensation" in the long stretch of yearscalled "B. C. " Like superstition, legalistic religion also has "creptinto our clothes" and "twined about our secret devotions. " The"gospel" can be made, and has often enough been made, "as legal as everthe religion of the Jews was. " The gospel becomes legal, in Smith'ssense, wherever it is treated "as something onely without us, " "as ameer historical story or account, " or as a collection of book-facts, or"as _credenda_ propounded for us to believe, " or when we attempt to"make Christ's righteousness serve onely as our outward_covering_. "[19] "Some of our {310} _Dogmata_, " he thinks, "andNotions of Justification puff us up in far higher and goodlier conceitsof ourselves than God hath of us; and we _profanely_ make the unspottedrighteousness of Christ serve only as a _covering_ to wrap up our fouldeformities and filthy vices in. "[20] This tendency, wherever itappears, is but legal religion. Men adopt it because it does not"pinch their sins. " It gives them a "sluggish and drowsie Belief, alazy Lethargy to hugg their supposed acceptation with God"; it enablesthem "to grow big and swell with a mighty bulk with airy fancies andpresumptions of being in favour with Heaven, " and it fans up "apertinacious Imagination that their Names are enrolled in the Book ofLife, or crossed off in the Debt-Book of Heaven. " But it is all "ameer Conceit or Opinion, " for such men are "never the better in realityin themselves and God judges all things as they are. " "While mencontinue in their wickedness, they do but vainly dream of a device totie the hands of Almighty Vengeance. "[21]

True religion, on the other hand, is absolutely another thing, sunderedby the width of the sky from either superstition or legalisticreligion. It is a reception and assimilation of the Life of God withinthe soul of man which is predisposed by its fundamental nature to theinflux and formative influence of the Spirit of God, who is theenvironing Life and inner atmosphere of all human spirits: "_SpiritualLife comes from God's breath within us and from the formation of Christwithin the soul_. "[22]

Like all of his kind, Smith begins with what to him is an axiomaticfact, that the human soul has a "royal pedigree and noble extraction, "that, "as the best philosophers have alwaies taught, we must enquirefor God within ourselves, " that "Principles of Divine Truth have beenengraven on man's Heart by the finger of God, " that we can find "aclear impression of some Eternal Nature and Perfect Being stamped uponour own souls, " that there are "Radical Principles of Divine Knowledge"{311} and "Seeds of Divine Nature" hidden within us and that a DivineSpirit blows and breathes upon men's hearts, assisting the soul toparticipate in the Life of God. [23] In one of his bold sayings thisposition is summed up as follows: "Religion is a Heaven-born thing, theSeed of God in the spirits of men, whereby they are formed to asimilitude and likeness of Himself. A true Christian is every way of amost noble extraction, of an heavenly and divine pedigree. "[24]

He finds the mark of man's excelling dignity in the inexhaustible depthof his nature and in his noble discontent with every finite and mutablething. The soul of man is "too big for earthly designs and interests. "There is forever a restless appetite within man for some infinite Goodwithout which he can never be satisfied. Everything which he attainsor achieves still leaves him in "pinching penury, " unsatiated with"the thin and spare diet which he finds in his finite home. " Hissoul, "like the daughters of the Horseleach is always crying: 'Give, give. '" No happiness worth having ever arises, nor through a wholeeternity could arise, for any soul sequestered like a hermit inthe narrow confines of its own private cell, sundered from "theFountain-Goodness, " for which it was created. The immortal Principlewithin forever drives it to seek its Original, and it lives only whenit "lives above itself, " and follows "its own proper motion upward. "[25]

The real Gospel in contrast to the "legal gospel, " is "the formation ofa Christlike Nature in a man's soul by the mighty power of the DivineSpirit. "[26] It is no new set of opinions; no body of Notions aboutTruth; "no system of saving Divinity, cast in a Pedagogical mould"; itis, from its Alpha to its Omega, Spirit and Life, or, to put it inSmith's own words, it is "a vital or energetical Spirit or Power ofRighteousness, " "a Principle of Life working in man's spirit, " "aquickening ministration, " "a Seed of God, " "a vital Influx, spreadingthrough all {312} the powers of the soul and bringing it into a DivineLife. "[27] There are many close imitations of this real Gospel whichon the outside look exactly like it, but they only assume "the garishdress and attire of religion, " they put on "the specious andseemingly-spiritual Forms" without the inward Life and Power which arealways the mark of true religion. These "mimical Christians" reformtheir looks, instruct their tongues, take up the fitting set of dutiesand system of opinions, underprop their religion with sacredperformances; "chameleon-like, they even turn their insides to whateverhue and colour" is demanded of religion; they "furnish this domestickScene of theirs with any kind of matter which the history of religionaffords them"--only, however they "cunningly fashion out their religionby Book-skill, " they cannot get "the true and living thing, " whichcreates a new spirit and produces a new inward joy: "True Religion isno piece of artifice; it is no boiling up of our Imaginative powers northe glowing heats of Passion; though these are too often mistaken forit, when in our jugglings in Religion we cast a mist before our eyes. But it is a new Nature informing the souls of Men; it is a Godlikeframe of Spirit, discovering it self most of all in serene and clearMinds, in deep Humility, Meekness, Self-denial, Universal Love of Godand all true Goodness, without Partiality and without Hypocrisie;whereby we are taught to know God, and knowing Him to love Him andconform ourselves as much as may be to all that Perfection which shinesforth in Him. "[28]

Heaven and Hell for John Smith, as for Boehme and for Whichcote, "havetheir foundation laid in Men's own souls. "[29] They are rathersomething within us than something without us. Sin and hell have thesame origin, "the same lineage and descent. " "The Devil is not onlythe name of one particular thing, but a _nature_. He is not so much aparticular Being designed to torture wicked men in the world to come asa hellish and diabolical {313} nature seated in the minds of men. . . . Could the Devil change his foul and impure nature, he would neither bea Devil nor miserable. . . . All Sin and Wickedness in man's spirithath the Central force and energy of Hell in it, and is perpetuallypressing down towards it as towards its own place. There needs nofatal necessity or Astral influences to tumble wicked men down forciblyinto Hell: No, Sin itself, hastened by the mighty weight of its ownnature, carries them down thither with the most swift and headlongmotion. "[30] "Would wicked men dwell a little more at home, and_descend into the bottom of their own Hearts_ they would soon find Hellopening her mouth wide upon them, and those secret fires of inward furyand displeasure breaking out upon them. "[31] So, too, the Kingdom ofHeaven is within. It lies not so much in external things, goldenstreets and crowns, as in the quality and disposition of a man's mind. The enjoying of God consists not so much in a change of place as inparticipation in the nature of God and in assimilation to God. Nothingcan stand firm and sure, nothing can have eternal establishment andabiding permanence that "hath not the everlasting arms of true Goodnessunder it. "[32]

In a very fine passage, in the noble discourse on "True Religion, "Smith says: "I wish there be not among some such a light and pooresteem of Heaven, as makes them more to seek after _Assurance of Heavenonely in the Idea of it as a thing to come than after Heaven it self_;which indeed we can never be well assured of untill we find it risingup within ourselves and glorifying our own souls. When true Assurancecomes, Heaven it self will appear upon the Horizon of our souls, like amorning light chasing away all our dark and gloomy doublings before it. We shall not then need to light up our Candles to seek for it incorners; no, it will display its own lustre and brightness so before usthat we may see it in its own light, and our souls the true possessoursof it. " "Should a man hear a Voice from Heaven or see a Vision fromthe Almighty to testifie unto him the Love of God towards him [and the{314} Assurance of his Salvation]; yet methinks it were more desirableto find a Revelation of all _from within_, arising up from the Bottomeand centre of a man's own soul, in the Reall and Internal impressionsof a Godlike nature upon his own spirit; and thus to find theFoundation and Beginning of Heaven and Happiness within himself; itwere more desirable to see the crucifying of our own Will, themortifying of the meer Animal life and to see a Divine life rising upin the room of it, as a sure Pledge and Inchoation of Immortality andHappiness, the very Essence of which consists in a perfect conformityand cheerful compliance of all the Powers of our Souls with the Will ofGod. "[33]

The consciousness of Immortality rises or falls with the moral andspiritual height of the soul. Nothing makes men doubt or question theImmortality of their souls so much as their own "base and earthlyloves, " and so, too, inward goodness "breeds a sense of the Soul'sImmortality": "Goodness and vertue make men know and love, believe anddelight in their Immortality. When the soul is purged and enlightenedby true sanctity it is more capable of those Divine irradiationswhereby it feels it self in conjunction with God. It knows thatAlmighty Love, by which it lives, is stronger than death. It knowsthat God will never forsake His own life which He has quickened in thesoul. Those breathings and gaspings after an Eternal participation ofHim are but the energy of His own breath within us. "[34]

Smith finds the world in which he lives a fair world, everywhere fullof "the Prints and Footsteps of God, " the finite creatures of which are"Glasses wherein God reflects His glory. " There are many "golden linksthat unite the world to God, " and good men, "conversing with this lowerworld and viewing the invisible things of God in the things that aremade in the outward Creation, may many times find God secretly flowinginto their souls and leading them silently out of the Court of theTemple into the Holy Place. "[35]

{315}

The outward world is thus not something stubbornly foreign to thespirit; it is not the enemy's country, but every finite good andeverything of beauty is "a Blossom of the First Goodness, a Beam fromthe Father of Lights. " The spiritual person discovers that the wholecreation is spiritual. He learns to "love all things in God and God inall things, and he sees that God is All in all, the Beginning andOriginal of Being, the Perfect Idea of their goodness and the end oftheir motion. " In the calming illumination of this clarified vision, the good man, in whose soul religion has flowered, "is no longersolicitous whether this or that good thing be mine, or whether myperfections exceed the measure of this or that particular Creature, forwhatever good he beholds anywhere he enjoys and delights in as much asif it were his own, and whatever he beholds in himself he looks uponnot as his _property_ but _as a common good_; for all these Beams comefrom one and the same Fountain and Ocean of Light in whom he loves themall with an universal Love. When his affections run along the streamof any created excellencies, whether his own or any one's else, yetthey stay not here but run on until they fall into the Ocean; they donot settle into a fond love and admiration either of himself or anyother's excellencies, but he owns them as so many Pure Effluxes andEmanations from God, and in any particular Being loves the UniversalGoodness. Thus a good man may walk up and down the world as in aGarden of Spices and suck a Divine Sweetness out of every flower. There is a twofold meaning in every Creature: a Literal and Mystical; agood man says of everything that his Senses offer to him: it speaks tohis lower part but it points out something above to his Mind andSpirit. . . . True Religion never finds it self out of the InfiniteSphere of Divinity and wherever it finds Beauty, Harmony, Goodness, Love, Ingenuity, Wisdom, Holiness, Justice, and the like, it is readyto say: _Here is God_. Wheresoever any such Perfections shine out, anholy Mind climbs up by these Sunbeams and raises up it self toGod. . . . A good man finds every place he {316} treads upon _HolyGround_; to him the world is God's Temple. "[36]

The supreme instance of the revelation of the Universal through theparticular, of the invisible through the visible, the Divine throughthe human, is seen in Christ. It was precisely such an event as mighthave been expected, for "the Divine Bounty and Fulness has always beenmanifesting Itself to the spirits of men. " Those who have lived byinward insight have perpetually found themselves "hanging upon the armsof Immortal Goodness. " At length, in this One Life the Divine Goodnessblossomed into perfect flower and revealed its Nature to men. In Himdivinity and humanity are absolutely united in one Person. In Christwe have a clear manifestation of God and in Him, too, "we may see withopen face what human nature can attain to. "[37] This stupendous event, however, was no "gracious contrivance, " no scheme to restore lapsed menin order that God might have "a Quire of Souls to sing eternalHallelujahs to Him"; it was just "the overflowing fountain and effluxof Almighty Love bestowing itself upon men and crowning Itself bycommunicating Itself. "[38] The Christ who is thus divine Grace becomevisible and vocal is also at the same time the irresistible attraction, "strongly and forcibly moving the souls of men into a conjunction withDivine Goodness, " which is what Smith always means by the great word, _Faith_. It is something in the hearts of men which by experience"feels the mighty insinuations of Divine Goodness"; complies with it;perpetually rises into co-operation with it, and attains its true "lifeand vivacity" by partaking of it. [39] Christ is thus the Node, orCentre, of both Grace and Faith. 

With this apprehension of Faith as a vital thing--a new and livingway--Smith thinks very lightly of "notions" and what he calls "aknowledge of Divinity [Theology] which appears in systems andmodels. "[40] This is but a poor way, he thinks, to "the Land ofTruth. " {317} "It is but a thin and aiery knowledge that is got by meerspeculation. " "This is but spider-like to spin a worthless web out ofone's own bowels. " "Jejune and barren speculations may unfold thePlicatures of Truth's garment, but they cannot discover her lovelyFace. " "To find Truth, " he says in another figure, "we must breakthrough the outward shell of words and phrases which house it, " and by_experience and practice_ discover the "inward beauty, life andloveliness of Truth. "[41]

This hard "shell of words and phrases" which must be broken beforeTruth is found, is one of Sebastian Franck's favourite sayings, and wefind Smith also repeating Franck's vivid accounts of the weakness ofScripture when it is treated only as external history, or as words, texts, and phrases. "Scripture, " he says, in the exact words andfigures of the German Humanist, "is a Sealed Book which the greatestSophist may be most acquainted with. It is like the Pillar of fire andcloud that parted between the Israelites and Egyptians, giving a clearand comfortable light to all those that are under the manuduction andguidance thereof [_i. E. _ those who have the inner experience] but beingfull of darkness and obscurity to those that rebel against it. "[42]"The dead letter, " he says, "is a sandy foundation" for religion, because it is never in books and writings but rather in the human soulthat men must seek for God. [43] Action and not words; life and notmotions; heart and not brain, hold the key to Truth: "They cannot begood at Theorie that are bad at Practice. "[44] "Our Saviour, " he says, "would not draw Truth up into any System, nor would He lay it out intoCanons or Articles of Faith, because He was not so careful to stock theworld with Opinions and Notions as to make it thrive with true piety, Godlike purity and spiritual understanding"; and in a very happypassage, he reminds us that there are other ways of propagatingreligion besides writing books: "They are not alwaies the best Men whoblot the most paper; Truth is not so {318} voluminous nor swells intosuch a mighty bulk as our Bookes doe. Those minds are not alwaies themost chaste that are the most parturient with learned Discourses. "[45]

I have, I believe, now given a true account of Smith's type ofChristianity, It was no new message. It was a re-expression of ideasand ideals that had already been often proclaimed to the dull ears ofthe world. He, however, is never a repeater of other men's ideas. What he offers is always as much his own as was the life-blood whichcoursed through his heart. He fed upon the literature which waskindred to his growing spirit, and his books helped him find the roadwhich he was seeking; but he was nobly true to his own theory that theway of Life is discovered by spiritual experience rather than by"verbal description, " and this quiet, sincere scholar and prophet ofthe soul found it thus. He once said that "Truth is content, when itcomes into the world, to wear our mantles, to learn our language and toconform itself as it were to our dress and fashions";[46] that is tosay, prophets speak in their own dialect and use the modes of their ownculture, but they are prophets through their own temporal experience ofthat one eternal Reality which shines into their souls in its ownLight. [47]

What impressed his contemporary friends most was the beauty of hisspirit, and that is what still most impresses the reader of hisDiscourses. He has succeeded in preserving some of the strong elixirof his life in the words which survive him, and we know him as avaliant soldier in that great army of soldier-saints who have foughtwith spiritual weapons. "This fight and contest, " he himself has toldus, "with Sin and Satan is not to be known by the rattling of Chariotsor the sound of an alarm: it is indeed alone transacted upon the innerstage of men's souls and spirits--but it never consists in a sluggishkind of doing nothing that so God might do all. "[48] A Life is alwaysbattle, and the true Christian is always "a Champion of God" clad inthe armour of Light for the defeat of {319} darkness and the seed ofSatan. In this battle of Armageddon John Smith took a man's part, andhis affectionate disciple Simon Patrick was quite right in saying, asthe master passed away, "My father, my father, The chariot of Israeland the horsemen thereof. "

The other members of this impressive group of Cambridge Platonists, especially Ralph Cudworth, Henry More, Nathaniel Culverwel and JohnNorris, might well be studied, and they would furnish some additionalaspects of religious thought, but the teachings of the two exponentswhom I have selected as representative of the school have brought thecentral ideas and the underlying spirit of this seventeenth centuryreligious movement sufficiently into view. Their intimate connectionwith the currents of thought which preceded them has also been madeadequately clear. This volume does not pretend to be exhaustive, andit cannot follow out all the interesting ramifications of thecomplicated historical development which I have been tracing. I havebeen compelled to limit myself to the presentation of typical specimensand examples of this continuously advancing spiritual movement whichfound one of its noblest figures in John Smith. 

[1] Simon Patrick uses this phrase in his funeral sermon on his friendJohn Smith. _Select Discourses_ (1673), p. 472. 

[2] _Rational Theology_, ii. P. 122. 

[3] Patrick's Sermon, _Select Discourses_, p. 496. 

[4] Worthington's Sketch is given in the Preface to the Reader in_Select Discourses_, pp. Iii-xxx, and Patrick's Sermon is given as anAppendix to the same volume, pp. 471-512. 

[5] Preface, p. Vi. 

[6] Patrick, _op. Cit. _ p. 498. 

[7] Preface, p. Xxviii. 

[8] Patrick, _op. Cit. _ pp. 471 and 472. 

[9] _Ibid. _ p. 484. 

[10] _Ibid. _ p. 477. 

[11] _Ibid. _ p. 474. 

[12] _Ibid. _ pp. 480-481. 

[13] _Ibid. _ p. 486. 

[14] Preface, p. Iii. 

[15] This portrait is made up entirely of passages gathered out ofPatrick's Sermon, and but slightly altered. 

[16] _Op. Cit. _ p. 509. 

[17] "A Short Discourse on Superstition, " in _Select Discourses_, pp. 24-36. 

[18] "Discourse on Legal Righteousness, etc. , " _ibid. _ pp. 273-338. 

[19] Smith uses this phrase in precisely the same manner as JacobBoehme. 

[20] _Select Discourses_, p. 316. 

[21] _Ibid. _ pp. 319-321, quoted freely. 

[22] _Ibid. _ p. 21, quoted freely. 

[23] _Select Discourses_, pp. 13, 14, 57, 61, and 118. 

[24] _Ibid. _ p. 370. 

[25] _Ibid. _ pp. 375, 393, 395, 403, 407-408. 

[26] _Ibid. _ p. 311. 

[27] _Select Discourses_, pp. 303, 305, and 315. 

[29] _Ibid. _ p. 364. For Smith's view of mimical Christians see pp. 359-364. 

[29] _Ibid. _ p. 144. 

[30] _Select Discourses_, p. 452. 

[31] _Ibid. _ p. 456. 

[32] _Ibid. _ pp. 452 and 445. 

[33] _Select Discourses_, p. 416. 

[34] _Ibid. _ pp. 97-98. Quoted freely. 

[35] _Ibid. _ pp. 419-420. 

[36] _Select Discourses_, pp. 421-423. 

[37] _Ibid. _ pp. 332 and 336. 

[38] _Ibid. _ p. 398. 

[39] _Ibid. _ p. 325. 

[40] _Ibid. _ p. 2. 

[41] _Select Discourses_, pp. 4, 7, and 8. 

[42] _Ibid. _ p. 278. 

[43] _Ibid. _ pp. 3 and 288. 

[44] _Ibid. _ p. 12. 

[45] _Select Discourses_, p. 12. 

[46] _Ibid. _ p. 165. 

[47] _Ibid. _ p. 260. 

[48] _Ibid. _ pp. 461 and 458. 

{320}

CHAPTER XVII

THOMAS TRAHERNE AND THE SPIRITUAL POETS OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

I

The powerful religious upheaval in England which reached itsculmination during the two middle decades of the seventeenth century, profoundly stirred both the upper and lower intellectual strata ofsociety. It fused and organized men on the one hand, and carried thembeyond themselves; and on the other hand it broke up settled habits ofthought, swept away many customs and practices which had become almostirresistible subconscious influences, and left those who were in anyway morally and intellectually defective at the mercy of chancecurrents and eddies. As a result there appeared a strange medley oftiny sects. These groups, seething with enthusiasm, scattered prettymuch over England, unorganized or loosely organized, generally gatheredabout some influential psychopathic leader, were lumped together in thepublic mind and named "Ranters. "[1] They are by no means a negligiblephenomenon of the period. They reveal the back-wash of the spiritualmovement, which in the main went steadily onward. They exhibit, intheir loose and unmoralized freedom, the inherent dangers which attachto the proclamation of spiritual liberty, and they furnish a clearhistorical illustration of the truth that progress toward a religiongrounded upon the inner life of man can only be slowly and painfullyachieved. 

{321}

The religious poets of this period, on the other hand, furnish clearevidence of the constructive, organizing and fusing power of thesenewly dawning spiritual insights, as they worked upon the minds ofhighly gifted and endowed persons. Poets are not Reformers. They donot consider themselves "commissioned" to reconstruct old systems ofthought, old forms of faith and old types of church-organization, or tore-interpret the Gospel, the way of salvation and the communion ofsaints. Their mission is a different one, though it is no lessspiritual and, in the best sense of the word, no less practical. Thepoets are always among the first to feel the direction of spiritualcurrents, and they are very sure voices of the deeper hopes andaspirations of their epoch. All the religious poets of this particularperiod reveal very clearly the influence of the ideas which werecentral in the teaching of the spiritual leaders whom we have beenstudying. The reader of Milton needs no argument to convince him ofthe fact that, however far removed the great poet was in most points ofview from the contemporary Quakers, he nevertheless insistedemphatically, as they did, on the illumination of the soul by a Lightwithin; "a celestial Light, " he calls it in _Paradise Lost_, whichshines inward and irradiates the mind through all her powers, andsupplies an inward sight of things invisible to sense[2]--a Light whichsteadily increases as it is used by the obedient soul. [3] The originof this inward Light, according to Milton's thought, is the eternalWord of God, who is before all worlds and who is the source of allrevelation, whether inward or outward: the Spirit that prefers

 Before all temples the upright heart and pure. [4]

The minor religious poets of the period had not, however, formed theirintellectual outlook under the imperial sway of theological systems ofthought in anything like {322} the degree that Milton had. Theyreflect the freer and less rigidly formulated currents of thought. "All divinity is love, or wonder, " John Donne wrote in one of hispoems. No phrase could better express the intense religious life ofthe group of spiritual poets in England who interpreted in beautiful, often immortal, form this religion of the spirit, this glowingconsciousness that the world and all its fulness is God's and thateternity is set within the soul of man, who never is himself until hefinds his Life in God. 

 E'en like two little bank-dividing brooks, That wash the pebbles with their wanton streams, And having rang'd and search'd a thousand nooks, Meet both at length in silver-breasted Thames, Where in a greater current they conjoin: So I my best beloved's am; so He is mine. 

 E'en so we met: and after long pursuit, E'en so we joined; we both became entire: No need for either to renew a suit, For I was flax and He was flames of fire. Our firm united souls did more than twine; So I my best beloved's am; so He is mine. [5]

Whatever these poets, Herbert, Vaughan, Traherne, Crashaw, Quarles, sayof the soul and its fuller life, they say quite naturally in terms oflove and wonder. Religion has become for them the flowering of thesoul; the flooding of the whole being with health and joy; theconsummation of life; and they tell of it as lovers tell of theirdiscovery and their joy. 

 Oh mightie love! man is one world and hath Another to attend him. [6]

We have here in these poets, as in the writings of Whichcote and Smith, a type of religion which is primarily concerned with the liberation andwinning of the whole of life, a thing which, they all tell us, can bedone only in conscious parallelism with the set of eternal currents. 

These minor prophets of seventeenth century English literature haveoften been treated as mystics, and there {323} is in all of them, except George Herbert, a rich strand of mystical religion, but theirmysticism is only an element, a single aspect, of a very much wider andcompleter type of religion which includes all the strands that composewhat I have been calling "spiritual religion"--an inner flooding of thelife with a consciousness of God, a rational apprehension of the soul'sinherent relation to the Divine, and a transforming discovery of themeaning of life through the revelation in Christ, which sets all one'sbeing athrob with love and wonder. 

 Eternal God! O thou that only art The sacred fountain of eternal light, And blessed loadstone of my better part, O thou, my heart's desire, my soul's delight, Reflect upon my soul and touch my heart, And then my heart shall prize no good above thee; And then my soul shall know thee; knowing, love thee. [7]

II

Thomas Traherne is one of the best and most adequate representatives, in this literary group, of this type of religion. He was profoundlyinfluenced by the revival of Plato and Plotinus, and by the writings ofthe religious Humanists and he had absorbed, consciously orunconsciously, the ideas and ideals which appear and reappear in thewidespread movement which I have been tracing. He was a pure and noblesoul, a man of deep experience and fruitful meditation, the master of arare and wonderful style, and we shall find in his writings a glowingappreciation and a luminous expression of this type of inner, spiritualreligion. 

He was born about the year 1636, probably at Hereford, the son of apoor shoemaker, but of a notable and well-endowed family line. He tookno pains to inform the world of his outward history and we are leftwith guesses as to most of the details of his earthly career, but hehas himself supplied us with an unusually full account of his {324}inward life during the early years of it. "Once I remember, " he says, "I think I was about four years old when I thus reasoned with myself, sitting in a little obscure room of my father's poor house: If there bea God certainly He must be infinite in Goodness, and I was prompted tothis by a real whispering instinct of Nature. "[8] Whereupon the childwonders why, if God is so rich, he himself is so poor, possessed of "soscanty and narrow a fortune, enjoying few and obscure comforts, " but hetells us that as soon as he was old enough to discover the glory of theworld he was in, and old enough for his soul to have "_sudden returnsinto itself_, " there was no more questioning about poverty and narrowfortunes. All the wealth of God was his--

 I nothing in the world did know But 'twas divine. [9]

As nobody has better caught the infinite glory of being a child, and asnobody in literature has more successfully "set the little child in themidst, " than has Traherne, it may be well to let him tell us here inhis splendid enthusiasm what it is to be a child and what the eyes of achild can see. He shall do it, first in his magnificent prose and thenin his fine and simple verse. 

"Certainly Adam in Paradise had not more sweet and curiousapprehensions of the world, than I when I was a child. All appearednew, and strange at first, inexpressibly rare and delightful andbeautiful. I was a little stranger, which at my entrance into theworld was saluted and surrounded with innumerable joys. My knowledgewas Divine. . . . My very ignorance was advantageous. I seemed as onebrought into the Estate of Innocence. All things were spotless andpure and glorious: yea, and infinitely mine, and joyful and precious. I knew not that there were any sins, or complaints or laws. I dreamednot of poverties, contentions or vices. All tears {325} and quarrelswere hidden from mine eyes. Everything was at rest, free and immortal. I knew nothing of sickness or death or rents or exaction, either fortribute or bread. In the absence of these I was entertained like anAngel with the works of God in their splendour and glory, I saw all thepeace of Eden; Heaven and Earth did sing my Creator's praises, andcould not make more melody to Adam, than to me. All Time was Eternity, and a perpetual Sabbath. Is it not strange, that an infant should beheir of the whole World, and see those mysteries which the books of thelearned never unfold?

"The corn was orient and immortal wheat, which never should be reaped, nor was ever sown. I thought it had stood from everlasting toeverlasting. The dust and stones of the street were as precious asgold; the gates were at first the end of the world. The green treeswhen I saw them first through one of the gates transported and ravishedme, their sweetness and unusual beauty made my heart to leap, andalmost mad with ecstasy, they were such strange and wonderful things. The Men! O what venerable and reverend creatures did the aged seem!Immortal Cherubims! And young men glittering and sparkling Angels, andmaids strange seraphic pieces of life and beauty! Boys and girlstumbling in the street, and playing, were moving jewels. I knew notthat they were born or should die. But all things abided eternally asthey were in their proper places. Eternity was manifest in the Lightof the Day, and something infinite behind everything appeared; whichtalked with my expectation and moved my desire. The city seemed tostand in Eden, or to be built in Heaven. The streets were mine, thetemple was mine, the people were mine, their clothes and gold andsilver were mine, as much as their sparkling eyes, fair skins and ruddyfaces. The skies were mine, and so were the sun and moon and stars, and all the World was mine; and I the only spectator and enjoyer of it. . . . So that with much ado I was corrupted, and made to learn thedirty devices of this world. Which {326} now I unlearn, and become, asit were, a little child again that I may enter into the Kingdom ofGod. "[10]

 How like an Angel came I down! How bright are all things here! When first among His works I did appear O how their Glory did me crown! The World resembled His _Eternity_ In which my soul did walk; And everything that I did see Did with me talk. [11]

 Long time before I in my mother's womb was born, A God preparing did this glorious store, The world, for me adorne. Into this Eden so divine and fair So wide and bright, I come His son and heir. [12]

Like Vaughan, who, in his "angel-infancy, " could

 In these weaker glories spy Some shadows of eternity, and who

 Felt through all this fleshly dress Bright shoots of everlastingness, [13]

Traherne not only saw, in his paradise-innocence, the glory of theearth and sky--the streets paved with golden stones, and boys and girlswith lovely shining faces--but he also felt that he was part of adeeper world which lay about his infancy and wooed him with love. 

 O Lord I wonder at Thy Love, Which did my Infancy so early move. [14]

And out of this childhood experience, which many a meditative child canmatch, he insists that God visited him. 

 He did Approach, He did me woo; I wonder that my God this thing would do. 

 He in our childhood with us walks, And with our thoughts Mysteriously He talks; He often visiteth our Minds. [15]

{327}

I know of no one who has borne a louder testimony than Traherne to thedivine inheritances and spiritual possibilities of the new-born child, or who has more emphatically denied the fiction of total depravity: "Ispeak it in the presence of God, " he says, "and of our Lord JesusChrist; in my pure primitive Virgin Light, while my apprehensions werenatural and unmixed, I cannot remember but that I was ten thousandtimes more prone to good and excellent things than to evil. "[16] Andhe adds this impressive word on the doctrine of inheritance: "It is notour parents' loins, so much as our parents' lives, that enthrals andblinds us. "[17]

After a happy childhood, during which "The Earth did undertake theoffice of a Priest, "[18] and when his soul was

 A living endless eye Just bounded with the sky, Whose power, whose act, whose essence was to see, [19]

he entered Brasenose College, Oxford, in the year 1652, being made B. A. In 1656, M. A. In 1661, and Bachelor of Divinity in 1669. He wasadmitted in 1657 to the Rectory of Credenhill, near Hereford, where heremained for about ten years, and in 1667 he was made chaplain to SirOrlando Bridgman, in whose service he died in 1674, and was buried"under the reading-desk" in the church at Teddington near Hampton Court. 

During his lifetime he published _Roman Forgeries_ (1673), anunimportant work, and had begun the publication of his _ChristianEthics_, which appeared, after his death, in 1675. His _Poems_ and his_Centuries of Meditations_ remained in MS. Unknown until they werediscovered in a London bookstall about the year 1897, and theirauthorship was proved by Bertram Dobell who published the _Poems_ in1903, and the _Centuries of Meditations_ in 1908. There still remainsin MS. An octavo volume of meditations and devotions. 

Traherne's poems show that he always dwelt near the {328} gate ofHeaven and was easily aware of the "ancient Light of Eden. " Anaccidental bit of gossip, reported in John Aubrey's _Miscellanies_, indicates that he was subject to psychical experiences of an unusualsort, and the poet himself has reported an impressive crisis-experiencewhen he chose his destiny and settled his preference for inwardtreasures, even though it meant, as with George Fox, the wearing of aleather suit. 

"When I came into the country, and being seated among silent trees, andmeads and hills, had all my time in mine own hands, I resolved to spendit all, whatever it cost me, in the search of happiness, and to satiatethat burning thirst which Nature had enkindled in me from my youth. Inwhich I was so resolute, that I chose rather to live upon ten pounds ayear, and to go in leather clothes, and feed upon bread and water, sothat I might have all my time clearly to myself, than to keep manythousands per annum in an estate of life where my time would bedevoured in care and labour. And God was so pleased to accept of thatdesire, that from that time to this, I have had all things plentifullyprovided for me, without any care at all, my very study of Felicitymaking me more to prosper, than all the care in the whole world. Sothat through His blessing I live a free and a kingly life as if theworld were turned again into Eden, or much more, as it is at thisday. "[20]

Like his predecessors in this faith, Traherne is never tired ofdeclaring the infiniteness of the human soul. Eternity is in the humanheart, if only the way of the open door is taken, if only the eyes areopened to see. God, he says, has made our spirits "centres ineternity, " opening upon "innumerable infinities. " The Ocean is but adrop of a bucket to the immensity of the soul, with its abysmal deepsand its immeasurable capacities. It is the very essence and being ofthe soul to feel infinity, for "God is ever more near to us than we areto ourselves, so that we cannot feel our own souls without feelingHim. "[21] "You are never, " he says, "your true self, till you live{329} by your soul more than by your body, and you never live by yoursoul until you feel its incomparable excellence. "[22] Its nobility isrevealed by its insatiable hungers, its surpassing dignity is declaredby its endless wants, its inability to live by bread alone. "As by theseed we conjecture what plant will arise, and know by the acorn whattree will grow forth, or by the eagle's egg what kind of bird; so do weby the powers of the soul upon earth, know what kind of Being, Person, and Glory will be in the Heavens, where its latent powers shall beturned into Act, its inclinations shall be completed, and itscapacities filled. "[23]

Not only in a primitive Eden, but in the world as we know it, with itsblack and white, man always bears within himself the mark of a heavenlyorigin, and has the quickening Seed of God in the depth of his soul:"The Image of God is seated in the lineaments of the soul. " Man is thegreatest of all miracles; he is "a mirror of all Eternity. "[24] Histhoughts run out to everlasting; he is made for spiritual supremacy andhas within himself an inner, hidden life greater than anything else inthe universe. [25] We are "nigh of kin to God" and "nigh of kin

 To those pure things we find In His great mind Who made the world. "[26]

There is

 A Spiritual World standing within An Universe enclosed in Skin. [27]

With the same enthusiasm with which he proclaims the divine origin andthe heavenly connections of the soul, Traherne also proclaims the gloryand beauty of the visible world as a revelation of God. 

 Eternity stooped down to nought And in the earth its likeness sought. [28]

The world is not God, for He is Spirit, but the world is "a gloriousmirror" in which the verities of religion are {330} revealed and inwhich the face of God is at least partially unveiled. [29] It is herein this "mirror" that the clairvoyant eye discovers God's being, perceives His wisdom, goodness, and power, guesses out the footsteps ofHis love, and finds promises and pledges of the larger fulfilment ofthat love. Here in the world, which is full of "remainders ofParadise, " is surely the visible porch or gate of Eternity. [30] It iseasy to believe that God has given us His Son when once we have seenthe richness of the world which He has given us. [31] But the world isnever "ours" until we learn how to see it and enjoy it in its beauty, even in the most common things, and until we discover that all itsservice and all its excellency are spiritual: "Pigs eat acorns, butneither consider the sun that gave them life, nor the influences of theheavens by which they were nourished, nor the very root of the treefrom whence they came. This being the work of Angels who in a wide andclear light see even the sea that gave them [the acorns] moisture: Andfeed upon that acorn spiritually while they know the ends for which itwas created, and feast upon all these as upon a World of Joys withinit: while to ignorant swine that eat the shell it is an empty husk ofno taste nor delightful savour. "[32]

Men, as well as angels, can learn to use the world spiritually--canlearn to see how rough, common things are part of "the divineexchequer"; how a grain of sand exhibiteth the wisdom of God andmanifesteth His glory. [33] With this prelude, Traherne gives hisglowing account of the true, spiritual way to enjoy the world. 

"Your enjoyment of the world is never right, till every morning youawake in Heaven; see yourself in your Father's Palace; and look uponthe skies, the earth, and the air as Celestial Joys: having such areverend esteem of all, as if you were among the Angels. The bride ofa monarch, in her husband's chamber, hath no such causes of delight asyou. 

"You never enjoy the world aright, till the Sea itself {331} floweth inyour veins, till you are clothed with the heavens, and crowned with thestars: and perceive yourself to be the sole heir of the whole world, and more than so, because men are in it who are every one sole heirs aswell as you. Till you can sing and rejoice and delight in God, asmisers do in gold, and Kings in sceptres, you never enjoy the world. 

"Till your spirit filleth the whole world, and the stars are yourjewels; till you are as familiar with the ways of God in all Ages aswith your walk and table; till you are intimately acquainted with thatshady nothing out of which the world was made; till you love men so asto desire their happiness with a thirst equal to the zeal of your own;till you delight in God for being good to all; you never enjoy theworld. Till you more feel it than your private estate, and are morepresent in the hemisphere, considering the glories and the beautiesthere, than in your own house; till you remember how lately you weremade, and how wonderful it was when you came into it: and more rejoicein the palace of your glory, than if it had been made but to-daymorning. 

"Yet further, you never enjoy the world aright, till you so love thebeauty of enjoying it, that you are covetous and earnest to persuadeothers to enjoy it. And so perfectly hate the abominable corruption ofmen in despising it, that you had rather suffer the flames of Hell thanwillingly be guilty of their error. . . . The world is a mirror ofinfinite beauty, yet no man sees it. It is a Temple of Majesty, yet noman regards it. It is a region of Light and Peace, did not mendisquiet it. It is the Paradise of God. It is more to man since he isfallen than it was before. It is the place of Angels and the Gate ofHeaven. When Jacob waked out of his dream, he said, 'God is here, andI wist it not. How dreadful is this place! This is none other thanthe House of God, and the Gate of Heaven. '"[34]

But notwithstanding his exuberant and overflowing joy in creation, Traherne is conscious that the world has {332} its "dreggy parts, " thatit has been "muddied" by man's misuse of it, and that the havoc of sinis apparent. The light which shined in infancy becomes eclipsed as thecustoms and manners of life close down over it and cover it. Men'smouths are full of talk of fleeting, vulgar, and worthless things, andthey speak no syllable of those celestial and stable treasures whichform the only wealth of life. The emphasis in education is on thewrong things. So with much ado the innocent child is "corrupted andmade to learn the dirty devices of the world, " which he must againunlearn and become a little child once more in the Kingdom of God. [35]The taint, however, is not in the native structure of the soul, it isnot through a biological transmission, it is due to false training--itis from the parents' lives rather than their loins. Let parents, hesays, who desire holy children learn to make them possessors of divinethings _betimes_. It is "deadly barbarous and uncouth" to "put grubsand worms" into little children's minds, to teach them to say thishouse is mine, this bauble is a jewel, this gew-gaw is a fine thing, this rattle makes music, when they ought to be made instead to see thespiritual glory of the earth and sky, the beauty of life, the sweetnessand nobility of Nature, and to live joyously, like birds, in union andcommunion with God. I am sure, he concludes, that barbarous peoplethat go naked come nearer to Adam, God, and the Angels, in thesimplicity of their wealth, than do many among us who partake of whatwe nick-name civility and mode. [36] The entire work of redemption is, thus, to restore man to himself, to bring him once more to the Tree ofLife, to enable him to discover the glory all about him, to reveal tohim the real values of things, and to bring to birth within him animmortal love. The true healing of the soul is always through thebirth of love. Before a soul loves, it lives only to itself; as soonas love is born it lives beyond itself and finds its life in the objectof its love. It is Christ who first reveals the full measure of love, who makes us see the one adequate Object of love, and who {333} forgeswithin our human spirits the invisible bonds of a love that binds usforever to Him who so loved us. Here in Him--"a Man loving all theworld, a God dying for mankind"[37]--we see that we are infinitelybeloved, that the foundations of an eternal Friendship are laid, thatGod is infinitely prone to love, and that true love spares nothing forthe sake of what it loves--"O miraculous and eternal Godhead sufferingon a Cross for me!"[38] "That Cross is a tree set on fire withinvisible flame which illuminateth all the world. The flame is love:the love in His bosom that died upon it. "[39]

But there is no salvation for us in the Cross until it kindles the sameflame of love in us, until that immeasurable love of His becomes anirresistible power in us, so that we henceforth live unto Him thatloved us. It must, if it is to be efficacious, shift all our valuesand set us to loving as He loved--"He who would not in the same casesdo the same things Jesus Christ hath done can never be saved, " for loveis never timorous. [40] The love of Christ is to dwell within us andevery man is to be the object of it. God and we are to become onespirit, that is, one in will and one in desire. Christ must livewithin us. We must be filled with the Holy Ghost, which is the God ofLove; we must be of the same mind with Christ Jesus and led by HisSpirit, and we must henceforth treat every man in respect to thegreatness of Christ's love--this is salvation in Traherne's conceptionof it, and holiness and happiness are the same thing. [41] The Crosshas not done its complete work for us until we can say: "O Christ, Isee thy crown of thorns in every eye; thy bleeding, naked, wounded bodyin every soul; thy death liveth in every memory; thy crucified personis embalmed in every affection; thy pierced feet are bathed in everyone's tears and it is my privilege to enter with thee into everysoul. "[42]

However contemplative and mystical the bent of Traherne's mind may havebeen, he always finds the {334} terminus of spiritual life in action, indeed, in brotherly service, in what he calls "blessed operations. "Speaking apparently of himself, he finely says: "He thought it a vainthing to see glorious principles buried in books, unless he did removethem into his understanding; and a vain thing to remove them into hisunderstanding unless he did revive them and raise them up withcontinual _exercise_. Let this therefore be the first principle ofyour soul--that to have no principles or to live beside them is equallymiserable. Philosophers are not those that speak but do greatthings. "[43] "It is, " he writes in words which sound like those of hiscontemporary Winstanley, "it is an indelible principle of Eternaltruth, that practice and exercise is the Life of all. Should God giveyou worlds and laws and treasures, and worlds upon worlds, and Himselfalso in the Divinest manner, if you will be lazy you lose all. Thesoul is made for action and cannot rest till it be employed. . . . Iftherefore you would be happy, your life must be as full of operation asGod of treasure. "[44]

Love, once kindled in the soul, is the mother of all heroic actions;love knows how to abound and overflow--the man who has lighted his lifefrom Christ's love is constant in trials, patient in sufferings, courageous in assaults, prudent in difficulties, victorious andtriumphant in action. [45]

Traherne shares with Boehme and with the Cambridge Platonists the viewthat Eternity is as much here as anywhere. Those Christians, hethinks, who put off felicity and defer their enjoyment with long delays"are to be much suspected. "[46] "'Tis not, " so he states his law, "change of place, but glorious principles well practised that establishHeaven in the life and soul. An angel will be happy anywhere and adevil miserable, because the principles of the one are always good, ofthe other, bad. From the centre to the utmost bounds of theeverlasting hills all is Heaven before God, and full of {335} treasure;and he that walks like God in the midst of them is blessed. "[47] "Youare in Heaven everywhere. "[48] The real business of life, as heelsewhere declares, is to "piece this life with the life of Heaven, tosee it as one with all Eternity, a part of it, a life within it, "[49]which reminds us of Vaughan's great words:

 I saw Eternity the other night Like a great ring of pure and endless light, As calm as it was bright: And round beneath it, Time in hours, days, years, Driv'n by the spheres, Like a vast shadow mov'd; in which the world And all her train were hurl'd. [50]

And with much penetration Traherne tells us that Eternity is not anendless addition of "times "--a weak infinite series of durations, butrather a Reality in which all true realities abide, and which retainsin a present now all beginnings and all endings. [51] Eternity is justthe real world for which we were made and which we enter through thedoor of love. 

 It is a spiritual world within, A living world and nearer far of kin To God than that which first He made. While that doth fade This therefore ever shall endure Within the soul as more divine and pure. [52]

[1] See my _Studies in Mystical Religion_, chap. Xix. 

[2] Book III. Lines 51-55. 

[3] Book III. Lines 194-197. 

[4] Book I. Line 18. Since this chapter was written, Alden Sampson's_Studies in Milton_ (New York, 1913) has been published. His valuablechapter on "Milton's Confession of Faith" reveals in Milton a very wideacquaintance with the ideas which I have been tracing, and shows by avast number of quotations how frequently the poet used these ideassympathetically. 

[5] Francis Quarles' "My Beloved is Mine. "

[6] George Herbert's poem "Man. "

[7] Francis Quarles' "Light. "

[8] _Centuries of Meditations_ (London, 1908), iii. 16. For details ofhis life and for the story of the discovery of his writings, see theIntroduction to _The Poetical Works of Thomas Traherne_ (1903) byBertram Dobell. 

[9] Traherne's pom "Wonder, " iii. 

[10] _Centuries of Meditations_, iii. 1, 2 and 3. 

[11] "Wonder, " i. 

[12] "The Salutation"

[13] Vaughan's "The Retreat. "

[14] Traherne's "The Approach. "

[15] _Ibid. _

[16] _Centuries of Meditations_, iii. 8. 

[17] _Ibid. _

[18] "Dumbness. "

[19] "The Preparative. "

[20] _Centuries of Meditations_, iii. 46. 

[21] _Ibid. _ ii. 81. See also ii. 70 and 83. 

[22] _Centuries of Meditations_, ii. 92. 

[23] _Ibid. _ iv. 70. 

[24] _Ibid. _ i. 19, and iv. 81. 

[25] _Ibid. _ ii. 23. 

[26] "My Spirit. "

[27] "Fullness. "

[28] "The Choice. "

[29] _Centuries of Meditations_, ii. 17. 

[30] _Ibid. _ ii. 1 and 17. 

[31] _Ibid. _ ii. 6. 

[32] _Ibid. _ i. 26. 

[33] _Ibid. _ i. 25 and 27. 

[34] _Centuries of Meditations_, i. 28-31. 

[35] _Centuries of Meditations_, iii. 7 and 3. 

[36] _Ibid. _ iii. 11-13. 

[37] _Centuries of Meditations_, i. 59. 

[38] _Ibid. _ i. 67 and 62. 

[39] _Ibid. _ i. 60. 

[40] _Ibid. _ iv. 59. 

[41] _Ibid. _ iv. 28. See also iv. 31. 

[42] _Ibid. _ i. 86. 

[43] _Centuries of Meditations_, iv. 2. 

[44] _Ibid. _ iv. 95. 

[45] _Christian Ethics_, chapter on "Charity. "

[46] _Centuries of Meditations_, iv. 9. 

[47] _Centuries of Meditations_, iv. 37. 

[48] _Ibid. _ iv. 38. 

[49] _Ibid. _ iv. 93. 

[50] Vaughan's poem, "The World. "

[51] _Centuries of Meditations_, v. 7-8. 

[52] Traherne's poem, "Thoughts. "

{336}

CHAPTER XVIII

CONCLUSION

Few words are needed in conclusion to point out the historicalsignificance of the movement which we have been studying, and to indicateits connection with the rise and development of seventeenth centuryQuakerism. These chapters have presented sufficient historical evidenceto show that from the very beginning of the Reformation there appeared agroup of men who felt themselves commissioned, like the prophets of old, to challenge the theological systems of the Reformers, and to cry againstwhat proved to be an irresistible tendency toward the exaltation of formand letter in religion. They were men of intense religious faith, ofmarked mystical type, characterized by interior depth of experience, butat the same time they were men of scholarship, breadth and balance. 

Their central loyalty was to the invisible Church which in theirconception was the Body of Christ, forever growing and expanding throughthe ages under the guidance of the ever-present Spirit; and they esteemedbut lightly the established Churches which seemed to them formed notafter the pattern in the mount but after very earthly and politicalmodels. Challenging, as they did, the formulated doctrines of theReformation, the type of Church which was being substituted for the RomanCatholic Church, and the entire body of ceremonial and sacramentalpractices which were being put in place of the ancient sacraments of theChurch, these "prophets" found themselves compelled to discover thefoundations {337} for a new type of Church altogether, and to feel theirway down to a new and fundamental basis of religious authority. Thatwould be a momentous task for any age, or for any spiritual leaders, andwe must not demand the impossible of these sixteenth centurypathbreakers. What they did do consistently and well was to proclaim thespiritual character of God as revealed in Christ, the native capacity ofthe human soul for God, the intimate and inherent relationship of thedivine and human, the progressive revelation of God in history, thepriority of the inward Word, the august ethical aspect which must attachto any religion adequate for the growing race, and the folly of losingthe heart and spirit of Christianity in contentions over external, temporal, and pictorial features of it. 

They themselves were not founders of sects or churches. Their solemission was the propagation of a message, of a body of truth and ofspiritual ideals. They were from the nature of the case destined to bevoices crying in a wilderness-world, and they were obliged to trust theirprecious cause to the contagion of their word and life and truth. TheQuakers of the seventeenth century are obviously one of the greathistorical results of this slowly maturing spiritual movement, and theyfirst gave the unorganized and inarticulate movement a concrete body andorganism to express itself through. The modern student, who goes to theoriginal expositions of Quakerism to find what the leaders of thismovement conceived their message and their mission to be, quicklydiscovers that they were not radical innovators setting forth novel andstrange ideas, but that they were on the contrary the bearers, theinterpreters, the living embodiment of ideas which have now becomefamiliar to the reader of these chapters. 

No one has given us a clearer statement of George Fox's mission and ofthe creation of the new "Society" than has the writer of the "Epistle tothe Reader" in Fox's strange book _The Great Mystery of the Great Whore_(1659). This "Epistle to the Reader" was {338} written by EdwardBurrough and was printed, also under the same title, in Burrough's_Works_ in 1672. [1] In this striking document the writer gives hisaccount of the existing Church, and over against this dark background hesets God's new Reformation that is just beginning, of which he feelshimself to be the divinely sent herald and prophet. "As our minds becameturned, and our hearts inclined to the Light which shined in every one ofus, " he writes, "we came to know the perfect estate of the Church; herestate before the apostles' days, and in the apostles' days and since thedays of the apostles. And her present estate we found to be as a womanwho had once been clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, whobrought forth Him that was to rule the nations; but she [the Church] wasfled into the wilderness, and there sitting desolate, in her place thatwas prepared of God for such a season, in the very end of which season, when the time of her sojourning was towards a full end, then _we_[Friends] were brought forth. "[2]

In the Light which broke in upon them, he says, they saw that "the worldwas in darkness" and that "anti-Christ was set up in the temple of God, ruling over all, having brought nations under his power, and having setup his government over all for many ages; even since the days of theapostles and true churches hath he reigned. ~. ~. ~. As for the ministry, first, looking upon it with a single eye in the Light of the Spirit ofGod which had anointed us, we beheld it clearly _not to be of Christ, norsent of Him, nor having the commission, power, and authority of Christ, as His ministry had in the days of true churches; but in all things, asin call, practice, maintenance, {339} and in everything else, in fruitsand effects we found it to disagree, and to be wholly contrary to thetrue ministry of Christ in the days of the apostles_. "[3] His chargeagainst the ministers of his day is one now very familiar to us: "Youpreach to people what you have studied out of books and old authors, andwhat you have noted down you preach by an hour-glass and not as theSpirit of God gives you utterance. You preach other men's words whichyou have collected. "[4] The "call" to ministry, he urges, is based uponlearning acquired in schools, colleges, and universities, and is not ofthe Spirit, and ministers' lives are obvious signs that they are not inthe true "apostolic succession. "[5] "As for all churches (so called), "he continues, "we beheld you all in the apostasy and degeneration fromthe true Church, not being gathered by the Spirit of the Lord, noranointed thereby as the true members of Christ ever were, but to be informs of righteousness without power, and imitations without life. Allthe practices of religion we beheld to be without power and life. ~. ~. ~. We beheld all professions [of religion] to be but as coverings offig-leaves, while the [inner] nature stood uncondemned and notcrucified. "[6]

He insists that no true and radical reformation of the Church has takenplace, that the churches of his day still bear the marks of apostasy asdid the churches before the Reformation occurred: "Do not professors andsects of people have the form without the power of godliness? Are notall people still covetous and earthly-minded, and given to the world, andproud and vain, even such as profess religion? Are not professors ascovetous and proud as such as do not profess? Are they not given to theworld, and doth it not show that they are not changed nor translated?And is it not manifest that they have taken up the _form_ of theapostles' and Christ's words and practices, and are without the {340}life, and not guided by the Spirit of Christ and the apostles in theirpraying and preaching?"[7]

Here, with an air of prophet-like boldness and infallibility, we haveonce again an announcement of the inadequacy of the Reformation, theformal and external character of prevailing types of religion, and theunapostolic nature of the existing churches. The language describing thevisible church is throughout the language of a "Seeker. " "We ceased, " hesays in words that exactly describe the "Seeker, " "from the teachings ofall men, and their words and their worships, and their temples, and alltheir baptisms and churches, and we ceased from our own words andprofessions and practices in religion. ~. ~. ~. We met together often, andwaited upon the Lord in pure silence from our own words, and harkened tothe voice of the Lord and felt His Word in our hearts. "[8]

The striking difference between him and the contemporary "Seeker" lies inthe fact that he profoundly believed, that the time of "apostasy" was nowat an end, that a new "commission" had come, that a real Reformation wasbeing set into operation, and that the apostolic Church--the Church ofChrist, the Church of the Spirit--had appeared as though let down fromheaven. He relates how the "Lord raised us [Friends] up and opened ourmouths in this His Spirit, " and how "the Light of Christ revealed andmade known to us all things that pertain to salvation, redemption, andeternal life, needful for man to know, " and how through the outpouringand anointing of the Spirit "the true Church, " "the true worship, " "thetrue ministry" have come again to the world. He makes such exaltedclaims as these: we received the pouring out of the spirit upon us; thegift of God's eternal Spirit was bestowed upon us as in the days of old;the deep things of God were revealed to us; the Lord Almighty brought usout of captivity and bondage and put an end to sin and death; {341} thebabe of glory was born in us; we entered into ever-lasting union, fellowship, and covenant with the Lord, and we were raised from death toLife. And, finally, he announces the new "commission" in positive wordsof glowing faith: "Then having armed us with power, strength, and wisdomand dominion, according to His mind, and having taught us in all things, and having chosen us unto His work, God put His sword into our and andgave us a perfect _commission_ to go forth in His name and authority, giving us the Word from His mouth what to cut down and what to preserve, and giving us the everlasting gospel to preach. "[9]

In the absolute certainty of his divine "commission, " he challenges theChurches which are defending their authority "with jails and prisons andwhips and stocks and inquisitions--all Cain's weapons"--to a "trial" offaith and spirit and power, like that on Mount Carmel in the days ofElijah, "whether it be they or we that are of the true faith and trueworship of God that the apostles were in. "[10]

There can be no doubt, I think, that the writer of this "Epistle to theReader" in _The Great Mystery_, has come out of the "Seeker" movement, orthat he has "come out" of it only because he believes that he with othershave found what they sought, and are the seed and nucleus of the true, restored, apostolic Church of God. They refuse absolutely to be called asect; and they assume in all their early writings that they are therestored Church of Christ, though they seldom use that word "Church"because in their thought it was a name associated with the "apostasy, "and they preferred to call themselves "the Seed, " or "the Children of theLight. " These were, as I have sufficiently shown, names already in use. 

It is an interesting fact that this "Epistle" dates the beginning of thenew era as 1652--"it is now {342} about seven years since the Lord raisedus up in the North of England and opened our mouths in this HisSpirit"[11]--and that it locates the springing forth of "the Seed" in theNorth of England. It was, we are now well aware, out of theSeeker-groups of the northern counties of England that the new "Society"was actually born, and it grew, like a rolling snowball, as it gatheredin the prepared groups of "Seekers, " both north and south in England, anda little later in America. [12]

The creation of the Quaker "Society" was not the work of any man; thegroups were there before the formative leader appeared on the scene. Infact the very term "Quaker, " which was soon fixed upon the new movementas the popular name for it, had already been in use--at least as far backas 1646--for the members of some of these highly emotional communities. As soon as these groups--intense in their expectations--found a leaderwho was already raised to an impelling conviction of immediate contactwith God and of definite illumination by the living Christ, and possessedof an overmastering _sense of mission_, the effect was extraordinary. The account of what happened is, we may be sure, none too strong: "Thegift of God's eternal Spirit was poured upon us as in days of old, ourhearts were made glad, our tongues were loosed, and we spake with newtongues as the Lord gave us utterance and as His Spirit led us. "[13]Profound psychological experiences occurred; they felt themselvesbaptized together, fused and formed into one group-spirit, swept intotrembling as by a mighty rushing wind, and carried beyond their commonordinary range of thought and power and utterance. Theirgroup-experiences of a common divine Spirit coming upon their lives frombeyond themselves, their discovery that God was in their midst, thatgifts were conferred upon them, and, above all, Fox's compelling sense ofapostolic mission--a conviction which was, as it always is, contagious--were {343} grounds enough to change these Seeker-groups intothe seed and nucleus of a Body possessed of the faith that thelong-expected Church of the Spirit had at last come. They rose to thegroup-consciousness that they were the beginners, in modern times, of aChurch of the spiritual order, and a community-loyalty was born whichgave the movement great conquering power and an amazing capacity forendurance and suffering. 

In Fox we have a person of extraordinary psychical experiences and ofdynamic leadership, and in him the "prophetical" and "enthusiast" traitsof the movement are strikingly in evidence. He reveals in a variety ofways his connections with the great body of spiritual ideas that had beenaccumulating for more than a century before his time, but for the mostpart these influences worked upon him in sub-conscious ways as anatmosphere and climate of his spirit, rather than as a clearly conceivedbody of truth which he got by reading authors and which he apprehendedthrough clear intellectual processes. He can be rightly appreciated onlyas he is seen to be a potent member of an organic group-life which formedhim as much as he formed it. 

The expositions, however, of the more trained and scholarly Quakers showan explicit acquaintance with the writings of these men whom we have beenstudying, and they cannot be adequately understood in isolation. Thefruits of reading and of contact with a wider intellectual world areclearly in evidence, and the ideas and the peculiar phrases of thespiritual reformers "pass and come again" in their voluminous works. Robert Barclay is the chief literary exponent of Quakerism. His range offamiliarity with religious and theological literature is very extensive, and he shows intimate acquaintance with contemporary thought. For him, as for his spiritual predecessors, the existing Church is "in apostasy";it has departed from "the simplicity and purity of the gospel as it wasin the apostles' days. " Christian faith has become "burdened withmanifold inventions and traditions, with various notions and opinions"which {344} have been "substituted instead" of the true religion ofChrist. [14]

The Quaker interpreters all unite in treating "notions and opinions"--or, to use their sweeping phrase, "notional religion"--as barren_substitutes_ for a true religion of spiritual reality, which for them isalways born in a first-hand experience of Christ as the inner spirit andlife and power of one's entire being and activity. A good specimeninstance of this position is found in William Penn's Tract, "A Keyopening the Way to every Capacity, " etc. [15] He says: "It is notOpinion, or Speculation, or Notions of what is true; or Assent to orSubscription of Articles or Propositions, tho' never so soundly worded, that makes a Man a true Believer or a true Christian. " "Phrases ofSchoolmen, " "notions of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, " "conceptions ofman's meer Wit, " "superfining interpretations of Scripture texts, " hedeclares to be very chaffy substitutes for a consciousness of Christ'sLife and Light within, conformity of mind and practice to the will ofGod, and the actual formation of Christ in the inner self. [16] Thefurther Reformation, upon the necessity of which he insists, is one thatwill take Christianity not only beyond and beneath outward ceremonies, but beyond and beneath all formulations of creed and doctrine, and thatwill ground and establish it in the experience and attitude and verifyingpower of the person's life. [17] This is precisely what all these teachersof spiritual religion have all the time been demanding. 

The Quaker view of the moral and dynamic character of saving faith, theview that justification is a vital process and not merely a forensicscheme, is, in heart and essence, indistinguishable from the centralteaching of these spiritual predecessors of the Quakers. No Quaker haspresented this view in a more compact, and at the same time adequate waythan has Barclay in one of his {345} important early Tracts: "The mannerand way whereby Christ's righteousness and obedience, death andsufferings, become profitable unto us and are made ours, is by receivingHim, and becoming one with Him in our hearts, embracing and entertainingthat holy Seed, which as it is embraced and entertained, becometh a holybirth in us~. ~. ~. By which the body of sin and death is done away, and wecleansed, and washed, and purged from our sins, _not imaginarily_, butreally; and we are really and truly made righteous. ~. ~. ~. Christ Himselfrevealed in us, indwelling in us. His life and spirit covering us--thatis the ground of our justification. "[18]

The root principle of Quakerism is belief in a divine Light, or Seed ofGod, in the soul of man. All of the multitudinous Quaker books andtracts bear unvarying testimony to that, and all their contemporaryaccounts make that faith, that principle, their _organizing idea_. Whatthey all say is that there is a Light in man which shines into hisdarkness, reveals his condition to him, makes him aware of evil andchecks him when he is in the pursuit of it; gives him a vision ofrighteousness, attracts him toward goodness, and points him infalliblytoward Christ from whom the Light shines. This Light is pure, immediate, and spiritual. It is of God, in fact is God immanently revealed. [19]

Then, again, the figure is changed and what was called Light is nowcalled "Seed, " and it is thought of as a resident germ of divine Lifewhich, through the active co-operation of the individual, produces a newcreation within, and makes the person through and through of a new naturelike itself. [20] It is also frequently called "the Word of God, " or"Grace of God, " or "That of God in you, " or "Christ within, " or "theSpirit, " or "the Kingdom within you. " "By this Seed, Grace, and Word ofGod, and Light wherewith every one is enlightened, " {346} Barclay says, "We understand a spiritual, heavenly, and invisible Principle in whichGod, as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, dwells; a measure [_i. E. _ aportion] of which divine and glorious Life is in all men as a Seed, whichof its own nature draws, invites, and inclines to God. This some call_vehiculum dei_, or the spiritual Body of Christ, the flesh and blood ofChrist, which came down from heaven, of which all saints do feed and arethereby nourished unto eternal life. "[21] But under whatever name itgoes, it is always thought of as a _saving Principle_. He who says yesresponds, obeys, co-operates, and allows this resident Seed of God, orChrist-Light, to have full sway in him becomes transformed thereby andre-created into likeness to Christ, by whom the inner Seed was plantedand of whose nature it is. The spiritual predecessors of the Quakers, aswe have seen, all held this view with individual variations of phrase andexperience. All the Quaker terms for the _Principle_ were used bySebastian Franck and by Caspar Schwenckfeld; and all the men who taughtthe dynamic process of salvation presuppose that something of the divinenature, as Light or Seed or Spirit, or the resurrected Christ, isdirectly operative upon or within the human soul. That is, salvation isfor them more than a moral change, it is a birth-and-life-process, initiated and carried through by the _real presence_ of the Divine in thehuman. [22]

The Quakers are perhaps somewhat more emphatic than were their spiritualforerunners, with the exception {347} of Schwenckfeld, in theirdeclarations that this Seed, this Light, is not _natural_. "We assert, "William Penn wrote, "the Light of Christ not to be a Natural Light, otherwise than as all men born into the world have a Measure of Christ'sLight, and so in a sense it may be called Natural to all Men. But thisLight is something else than the bare Understanding which Man hath as aRational Creature. "[23] What man does naturally have, in William Penn'sview, is a _capacity_ for the Light, but the Light itself is from asource wholly heavenly and divine. Barclay, in quite Cartesian fashion, interprets it to be "a real spiritual Substance, " "a substantial Seed"from another world, hidden away within man's soul at birth, lying there"like naked grain in stony ground, " until the child is old enough to feelits stirrings and to determine by his own free choices of obedience ordisobedience to its movings whether it shall grow and develop or not. [24]We plainly have here a double world. The once-born man is "natural, "though he carries buried deep in the subsoil of his nature a Seed of God, a germ of Life drawn from the higher, spiritual world. He may live inand under the dominion of either world, but he must choose which it shallbe. By response to and participation with the divine Seed ofradio-active spiritual energy, he can become transformed--utterly andcompletely--into a new nature, and can belong here and now to thespiritual World which Christ by His victorious Life has brought acrossthe chasm and planted in our soil. On the other hand, by negligence orby disobedience he can live a mere empirical, natural life, and keep hisinestimable Seed of God buried and forgotten in a region of himself whichhe seldom or never visits. 

The Quakers, however, as a consequence of their heightenedgroup-consciousness, and as a result of the intense experiences enjoyedin their gatherings, exhibited a far greater degree of _enthusiasm_ thanhad appeared in the earlier exponents of the inner Word; and they showeda heightened element of _prophetism_, both in their faith {348} andpractice. They devoutly believed that in them the prophecy of Jeremiahhad found fulfilment: God had written His Word in their hearts, so thatthey were recipients of His will and His message. The more sure Word ofprophecy, announced by Peter, had come and the Day Star had risen intheir hearts. Their Light was to them not only a principle of connectionwith a higher world, a germ of a new nativity, it was also a principleand basis for continuous revelation, and for definite openings of lightand guidance on all matters that concern present-day life and practice. "The inward command, " Barclay says, "is never wanting in the due seasonto any duty. "[25]

Like their predecessors, they did not slight the importance of theoutward word, the Scriptures. They had an immense reverence for them andwere diligent in the study and skilful in the use of them, though ofcourse they used them in a thoroughly uncritical and unhistorical way, asdid also their opponents. But they would never allow the Scriptures tobe called the Word of God or to be treated as God's only revelation ofHimself to man without a challenge. "The Word of God, " Barclay says, "is, like unto Himself, spiritual, yea, Spirit and Life, and thereforecannot be heard and read with the natural external senses as theScriptures can. " Our Master, he adds, is always with us. "His letter iswrit in our hearts and there we find it. "[26] "There is, " William Penndeclares, "something _nearer to us_ than Scriptures, to wit, the Word inthe heart from which all Scriptures came, " though he is very emphatic inhis claim that Friends never slight the Scriptures and believe in theirdivine authority. [27]

It is not necessary to prolong the exposition of early Quakerism farther. The similarity of its fundamental position with that of the precedingspiritual reformers is perfectly clear. Quakerism is, thus, no isolatedor sporadic religious phenomenon. It is deeply rooted and embedded in afar wider movement that had been {349} accumulating volume and power formore than a century before George Fox became a "prophet" of it to theEnglish people. And both in its new English, and in its earliercontinental form, it was a serious attempt to achieve a more completeReformation, to restore primitive Christianity, and to change the basisof authority from external things, of any sort whatever, to the interiorlife and spirit of man. 

That the _formulation_ of this vast spiritual Reformation, as presentedby the men who are studied in this volume, was adequate, I do not for amoment assert. The views here expounded in their historical setting areplainly hampered by inadequate philosophical and psychologicalpresuppositions. They need reconstructive interpretation and a freshre-reading, in terms of our richer experience, our larger historicalperspective, and our truer psychological conceptions. That work ofreexamination and reinterpretation, especially of the Quaker movement andthe Quaker message, is a part of the task undertaken in the historicalvolumes which follow this one in this series. It must suffice for thepresent to have reviewed here the story and the struggles of these brave, sincere men and their heroic endeavours to proclaim a spiritualChristianity. It has been a privilege to live for a little while withthis succession of high-minded men, to review for our time their type ofspiritual religion, and to retrace their apostolic efforts to bring theworld, with its sins and its tragedies and its inner hungers, back to theFather's Love and to the real presence of the eternal Christ. They mayhave failed in their intellectual formulation, but at least theysucceeded in finding a living God, warm and tender and near at hand, theLife of their lives, the Day Star in their hearts; and their travail ofsoul, their brave endurance, and their loyal obedience to vision havehelped to make our modern world. 

[1] This document, though, as stated above, not written by Fox, had hisapproval, and may be taken as exactly expressing his views and hisposition. Many of the early Quaker books show how remarkable was thecorporate character and the group-spirit of the "Society" at this period. Whatever any individual could contribute was given for the common causeand went into the life of the whole. I have given the passages, which Ihave quoted from this "Epistle, " in modern English. 

[2] _The Great Mystery of the Great Whore_ (London, 1659), p. B1. JacobBoehme had already set Fox the example of calling the existing Church bythis opprobrious name. See _The Threefold Life of Man_, vii. , 56-58. 

[3] _The Great Mystery of the Great Whore_, p. B3. 

[4] _Ibid. _ p. A6. 

[5] _Ibid. _ pp. A5-A7. 

[6] _Ibid. _ p. B4. This is almost word for word Boehme's view. 

[7] _The Great Mystery of the Great Whore_, p. C3. 

[8] _Ibid. _ p. B1. 

[9] _The Great Mystery of the Great Whore_, p. B2. I have taken someliberty in correcting the grammatical form of the passage quoted, but theoriginal sense is preserved. 

[10] _Ibid. _ p. C2. 

[11] _The Great Mystery of the Great Whore_, p. B. 

[12] For evidence of Seeker-groups in America, see my _Quakers in theAmerican Colonies_. 

[13] _The Great Mystery of the Great Whore_, pp. B1-B2. 

[14] Preface to _A Catechism and Confession of Faith_. 

[15] _Works_ (London, 1726), ii. P. 781. 

[16] _Ibid. _ ii. Pp. 781-783. 

[17] "Salvation lieth not in literal but in experimentalknowledge. "--Barclay's _Apology_, Props. V. And VI. Sec. 25. 

[18] Barclay, "Truth cleared of Calumnies, " _Works_ (London, 1691), i. Pp. 1-48. 

[19] This view appears _passim_ in the works of Isaac Penington. 

[20] See Penington's Tract, "Concerning the Seed of God, " _Works_(edition of 1761), ii. Pp. 593-607. 

[21] _Apology_, Props. V. And VI. Sec. 13. This passage could be exactlyparalleled in the writings of Schwenckfeld. 

[22] It is interesting to see how closely William Law, the great exponentof "Spiritual" Christianity in the eighteenth century, carrying on thistrain of thought in another channel, approaches the Quaker position:"Thou needest not run here or there saying, 'Where is Christ?' Thouneedest not say, 'Who shall ascend into heaven, that is, to bring Christdown from above?' or, 'Who shall descend into the deep, to bring upChrist from the dead?' For, behold, the Word, which is the Wisdom ofGod, is in thy heart. It is there as a bruiser of Thy serpent, as aLight unto thy feet and Lanthorn unto thy paths; it is there as an HolyOil, to soften and overcome the wrathful fiery properties of thy nature, and change them into the humble meekness of Light and Love; it is thereas a speaking Word of God in thy soul; as soon as thou art ready to hear, this eternal, speaking Word will speak wisdom and peace in thy inwardparts, and bring forth the birth of Christ, with all His holy nature, spirit, and temper within thee. "--"Spirit of Prayer, " _Works_, vii. P. 69. 

[23] _Works_, ii. P. 780. 

[24] _Apology_, Props. V. And VI. Sec. 13. 

[25] "Truth Cleared of Calumnies, " _Works_, i. P. 13. 

[26] _Ibid. _ i. Pp. 13-15. 

[27] _Works_, ii. P. 782. 

{351}

 INDEX

 Abrahams, Galenus, 118, 120-121 and George Fox, 122-123 discussion with Penn and Keith, 122 Acontius, J. , 115 Agrippa of Nettesheim, Cornelius, 55 _n. _, 136-137 Althamer, A. , 48 Ambrose, Saint, 267 Anabaptism-- characteristics of, 17-18, 28, 31, 81 _n. _, 112, 267 _n. _ attacked by Franck, 48 Schwenckfeld and, 80 Coornhert and, 112 Giles Randall and, 254 Anabaptists, xv divisions among, 33 Anderdon, John-- on Behmenists, 227, 231-232 Antinomianism, 238, 241, 254, 263 Antinomians, xv Aristotle, 211 Arminius, J. -- controversy over views of, 114 and Coornhert, 107 and Whichcote, 289, 294 and Culverwel, 289 Arnold, Gottfried-- on Entfelder, 39 on Schwenckfeld, 64 _n. _ on Arminius, 107 _n. _ on Boreel, 118 _n. _ Astrology, 134, 137 as used by Weigel, 148-150 as used by Tentzel, 150 _n. _ Aubrey, John-- on Traherne, 328 Augsburg-- Anabaptist Synod in, 20, 33 Augustine, Saint, 6, 9, 246, 267 theology of, 22, 204 Automatism-- of Jacob Boehme, 162, 207

 Baader, F. Von-- on Boehme, 151 _n. _, 153 _n. _ Baillie, Robert-- on Anabaptism, 254 _n. _ on Giles Randall, 256 _n. _; 262 Balling, Peter, 123-124, 128 influence of Cartesianism on, 124, 128, 130 Barclay, Robert (of Ury), 123 influence of Cartesianism on, 124, 347 on divine Seed in man, 283, 345-346, 347 teaching of, 343, 344-345, 348 Barclay, Robert-- on Boehme's influence on Quakers, 220 _n. _ Barneveldt, John of, 114 _n. _ Baxter, Richard-- on Behmenists, 227 on Vane, 271, 274 on Sterry, 280 Behmen, Jacob, 155 _n. _ (_see_ Boehme) Behmenists, 227-234 and Quakers, 231-233 Bellers, John-- on John Everard, 253 _n. _ "Bellius, Martinus, " 93, 95 Bernard, Saint, 6, 267 Bewman, Jacob, 220 Beza, T. , 95, 290, 294 Bible, translations from-- by Denck, 21 by Castellio, 90, 92 by de Valdès, 237 by Rous, 267 Boehme, Jacob, 43 _n. _, 139 life and character of, 151-171, 208 vision of, 148 _n. _, 158, 159-161 mysticism of, 154, 159, 201-206 automatism of, 162, 207 symbolism of, 173 view of man, xxx view of God, xli _n. _, 35 n; 174-177 views on salvation, 170, 190-198, 289, 309 views on the universe, 150 _n. _, 159-160, 172-189 writings of, 151 _n. _, 161, 165 _n. _ in England, 208-220 influence on-- George Fox, 165 _n. _, 170 _n. _; 221-227, 338 _n. _, 339 _n. _ Quakers, 220, 233 Seekers, 220 Isaac Newton, 181 _n. _, 234 John Milton, 234 William Law, 153 _n. _, 179, 234 Sir Harry Vane, 275 and the Behmenists, 227-234 and B. Whichcote, 289, 302 _n. _ Boethius, 105 Boreel, Adam, 117-120 Borellists-- views of, 119-120 Bosanquet, Bernard, xxxi _n. _ Bourne, Benjamin-- on Randall, 256 n; 257 Boutroux, Émile-- on Boehme, 151 _n. _, 183 _n. _ Breen, Daniel van, 117 Brooks, Thomas-- on Everard, 241 Brothers of the Common Life, 4 Broussoux, Émile-- on Castellio, 88 _n. _ Browne, Sir Thomas, 275 Browning, Robert-- on Paracelsus, 138 Bucer, Martin, 47 Buisson, F. -- on Castellio, 88 _n. _ Bünderlin, Johann-- life of, 32-34, 40 teaching of, 34-39, 69, 76, 169, 190 writings of, 34 _n. _ a mystic, 35 Franck's opinion of, 48 Buonarotti, Michael Angelo, 237 Burnet, Bishop G. -- on Vane, 272 on Cambridge Platonists, 289-290 Burrough, Edward-- on mission of "the Children of Light, " 337-341

 Cabala, the-- teaching of, 134-136 Caird, Edward-- on Cartesianism, 125 _n. _ Calvin, xlix, 121 relations with Castellio, 89-91, 93, 96 influence on Cambridge Platonists, 290, 294, 295 Calvinism-- in Holland, 106 in England, 279 and Arminianism, 114 Campanus, Johann, 48, 59 Carlyle, Thomas-- on Rous, 267 Castellio, Sebastian-- life, 88-93, 97 teachings of, 90, 91, 93-102, 107 writings, 90, 92-94, 96, 97, 98, 99 _n. _, 101, 103 _n. _ _nom-de-plume_ of, 93, 103 _n. _ as a Reformer, 103 influence in England, 103 _n. _, 243 on Van der Kodde brothers, 115 on Boreel, 118 Caton, William-- on Castellio, 103 _n. _ Charles II. -- on Vane, 272 "Children of the Light, " 132, 221, 260, 277, 341 Chillingworth, William, 291 Christ-- in a Faith religion, xxxix-xliv as viewed by-- Denck, 25 Bünderlin, 37 Entfelder, 41, 42 Spiritual Reformers, 44, 337 Franck, 54, 61 Schwenckfeld, 65, 69, 70 Castellio, 99-101 teachers of "Nature Mysticism, " 134 Weigel, 142-144 Boehme, 183, 185 _n. _, 191, 193-194 John Sparrow, 216 John Everard, 244, 250 Pascal, 250 _n. _ Francis Rous, 269-270 Peter Sterry, 284 John Smith, 316 Thomas Traherne, 332 Chrypffs, Nicolaus (_see_ Cusa) Church, the-- historical conception of, xlix as conceived by-- Montanists, the, xiii Protestant Reformers, l Luther, 8, 121 Denck, 38 Bünderlin, 38 Entfelder, 41 Spiritual Reformers, l, 45 Franck, 58-59, 145, 199 Schwenckfeld, 78-80, 85 Seekers, 84, 86, 340 Collegiants, 84 Borellists, 120 Abrahams, 120-121, 122 Weigel, 145, 147 Boehme, 169-170, 199-201, 226 George Fox, 200, 226, 339-340 Church, interim, (_see also Sttilstand_)-- Coornhert and, 113 Cicero, 105 Clarendon, Earl of-- on Vane, 271, 279 Clement of Alexandria, xxxix, 267 Colet, John, 236 Collegiants, the-- and the _Stillstand_, 68 _n. _ Schwenckfeld and, 84 history of, 113-124 influence of Descartes and Spinoza on, 123 _seq. _ Colonna, Vittoria, 237 Comans, Michael, 117 Commonwealth, English-- Reformation in, 266 Rous in, 268 Vane in, 271-272 Puritans in, 290 Conscience, liberty of-- taught by-- Castellio, 93-96 Coornhert, 106 Boreel, 118 Vane, 273, 275 Sterry, 286 William Caton on, 103 _n. _ in Holland, 104 dangers of, 320 Coornhert, D. V. -- life, 105-108 writings, 105, 106 teachings, 106, 108-113 and Calvinism, 106, 111 and Van der Kodde brothers, 115 and Adam Boreel, 118 Cotton, John, 292 "Covenant of Grace, " 274 "Covenant of Works, " 274, 309 Crashaw, Richard, 322 Crautwald, Valentine, 67 _n. _, 81 Cromwell, Oliver, 268, 271, 272, 274, 275, 280 Cudworth, Ralph, 280, 290 Culverwel, Nathaniel, 319 on Arminius, 289 Cunitz, M. , 47 _n. _ Curio, Valentin, 18 Cusa, Nicholas of, 3, 4 translated into English by Everard, 243, 256, 260 published by Randall, 256, 260

 Dante, xxiii, 171, 174 Dell, William, l, 267 _n. _ Denck, Hans, 48 life of, 18-21 writings of, 22 _n. _ teaching of, xxx, 21-30, 69, 76, 242-243 not an Anabaptist, 18 begins "Spiritualist" movement, 132, 139, 169, 190 Everard's translation of, 242 Denqui, John, 242 _n. _ Descartes, R. -- philosophy of, 117, 123-125, 128 and Cambridge Platonists, 291 Deussen, Paul-- on Boehme, 151 _n. _, 153 _n. _ Dilthey, Wilhelm-- on justification, 8 _n. _ Dionysius, the Areopagite, 236, 239 his conception of God, xxvii, 247 translation of, by Everard, 243 influence on Rous, 267 on Sterry, 280 Dobell, Bertram-- on Traherne, 324 _n. _; 327 Döllinger, Johann-- on Schwenckfeld, 64 _n. _ _Dompeldoop_, 116 Donne, John, 322 Dort, Synod of, 114 Dürer, Albrecht, 48

 Ecke, Karl-- on Schwenckfeld, 64 _n. _ Eckhart, Meister, 3, 4, 239, 243 his conception of God, xxvi, xxvii, 247 Ederheimer, Edgar-- on Boehme, 151 _n. _, 153 _n. _ Edward VI. Of England, 92 Ellington, Francis-- on Boehme, 221 Ellistone, John, 213 translates Boehme into English, 213, 217, 221, 234 _n. _ views of, 217-220, 222 Emmanuel College, 279, 290, 291, 306 Endern, Carl von, 162 _n. _, 165 England-- influence in-- of Castellio, 103 _n. _ of Schwenckfeld, 84, 87, 103 _n. _ of Weigel, 139, 141, 146, 148, 150 of Boehme, 208-234 of Spiritual Reformers, 235, 251, 252, 267, 288 of de Valdès, 237-238 Quakers in, 132, 221, 227, 337 Reformation spirit in, 266-267 religious upheaval in, 320 Entfelder, Christian-- life of, 39, 40 writings, 40 teaching, 40-43, 69, 169, 190 "Enthusiasm, " 238 "Enthusiasts, " xv, 31, 48 Erasmus, 34, 51, 55 _n. _, 92, 105 Christian Humanist, 1 _n. _, 3, 47 quoted on toleration, 93 Erbkam, H. W. -- on Schwenckfeld, 64 _n. _ Erigena, 3 Etherington, John-- on Randall, 255 Everard, John-- life of, 239-241, 289 translations by, 241-243, 250 _n. _, 256, 260 Sermons, 241 teaching, 243-252 and Randall, 243 _n. _, 256, 260 Evil (_see_ Sin)

 Faith-- definition of, xxxix in "spiritual" religion, xv as an approach to religion, xxxviii-xlv magic reliance on, 75 Confessions of, 118 Confessions of, source of divisions, 115 view of, held by-- Luther, xxxix, 5-11, 75 Schwenckfeld, 75, 77-78 Castellio, 100 Coornhert, 109-110 Weigel, 146 Boehme, 195-198 de Valdès, 236, 237 John Smith, 316 Quakers, 344 Familism, 238, 241, 254, 255, 256 _n. _. , 258, 263, 267 _n. _ Faust, xxiii Ferrar, Nicholas, 237, 238 Ficino, Marsilius, 134, 235-236 influence on Sterry, 280 Fox, George, 328 mission of, 337-34l, 349 character, 343 conception of the Church, 200, 226, 339-341 and Abrahams, 122-123 and Boehme, 165 _n. _, 170 _n. _, 221-227, 338 _n. _, 339 _n. _ and Justice Hotham, 210 and Henry Vane, 278 France-- Castellio on conditions in, 101-102 Francis of Assisi-- and Schwenckfeld, 65 Franck, Sebastian, 139 Humanist and Mystic, 46, 55, 105 life of, 47-52, 92 writings, 49, 51 teachings, 49, 50, 52-63, 69, 93, 199, 242, 243, 247, 346 on the _Stillstand_, 86 quoted by William Caton, 103 _n. _ translated by Everard, 242, 243 influence on-- Coornhert, 107 Boreel, 118 Weigel, 145, 146 _n. _, 148 Boehme, 154, 169, 190 Franckenberg, Abraham von-- on Boehme, 156, 165 Frecht, Martin, 47 Freedom-- views on, of-- Spiritual Reformers, xlix Hans Denck, 22, 23 Bünderlin, 35 Luther, 70 Schwenckfeld, 70, 72 Castellio, 93-96, 107 Coornhert, 106, 113 Randall, 258-259 Vane, 273, 275 Freedom of conscience in Holland, 104 Frettwell, Ralph, 232, 233 Furley, Benjamin, 128 _n. _ collection of books, 258 _n. _

 Gairdner, W. H. J. , xxvii _n. _ _Gangraena_, Edwards'-- on Giles Randall, 254, 256 _n. _, 257, 262 Gataker, Thomas-- on Giles Randall, 254 ft. Gerson, 6 Gichtel, J. G. -- on Boehme, 153 _n. _ Gnosticism-- view of man in, xii, xiii seven qualities in, 180 _n. _ God-- as conceived-- in a Faith religion, xliv by Reason, xxxv-xxxviii by Spiritual Reformers, xlvii, 44 by Mystics, xxiv, xxvii-xxviii, 247 by Luther, 10, 11 by Denck, 22-26 by Bünderlin, 35-37 by Entfelder, 40 by Castellio, 99 by Descartes, 125 by Spinoza, xxviii, 126-127 by Boehme, 35 _n. _, 174-177 in _The Light on the Candlestick_, 130 in the Cabala, 134-135 by Justice Hotham, 210 by Everard, 246-248 by Randall, 260-261, 262 Goeters, W. -- on Collegiants, etc. , 104 _n. _ "Gomarists, " 114 Gonzaga, Giulia, 237 Goodwin, John-- on Randall, 257 Grace-- salvation by, 75, 99 "Covenant of, the, " 274 as conceived by-- the Remonstrants, 114 Boehme, 170, 191 Gregory of Nazianzen, 267 Gregory of Nyssa, 267 Gregory Thaumaturgus, 307 Grocyn, 236 Grotius, Hugo, 114 _n. _ Grützmacher, R. H. -- on Schwenckfeld, 64 _n. _ on Boehme, 168

 Hagen, Carl-- on Bünderlin, 34 _n. _ Haldane, E. S. -- on Descartes, 124 _n. _ Hales, John, 291 Harford, Rapha-- on Everard, 240, 241 Harless, von-- on Boehme, 151 _n. _ Harnack, A. -- on Luther, 15 on Irenaeus, 71 _n. _ Hartmann, Franz-- on Boehme, 151 _n. _ Hartranft, C. D. -- editor of _Corpus Schwenchfeldianorum_, 64 _n. _ Heaven-- as conceived by-- Spiritual Reformers, xlviii Weigel, 147 Boehme, 179, 186-188, 289, 302 _n. _, 312, 334 Milton, 187 _n. _ Everard, 252 Whichcote, 289, 301-302, 312 John Smith, 312-313 Thomas Traherne, 334-335 Heberle-- on Denck, 17 _n. _ Hegel, G. W. F. -- on nature of consciousness, xxxii on Boehme, 151 _n. _, 195 _n. _ Hegler, A. -- on Franck, 48 _n. _ Hell-- as conceived by-- Spiritual Reformers, xlviii Weigel, 147 Boehme, 179, 186-188, 289, 302 _n. _, 312, 334 Milton, 187 _n. _ Whichcote, 289, 301-302, 312 John Smith, 312-313 Thomas Traherne, 334-335 Heppe, H. -- on Collegiants, 104 _n. _ Heraclitus, 63 Herbert, George, 237, 322 "Hermes Trismegistus, " 53, 136 _n. _, 210 translated by Everard, 243 Hetzer, Ludwig, 19, 21 Hill, Thomas, 291 Hinkelmann, Dr. , 167 Hobbes, Thomas, 291 Hoffman, Melchior, 33 Holland-- Collegiants in, 68 _n. _, 84, 86, 113-124 William Caton in, 103 _n. _ disciples of Castellio in, 102, 103 religious liberty in, 104 Calvinism in, 106 Hotham, Charles-- on Boehme, 209, 211, 221 Hotham, Durant-- on Boehme, 209-210, 211, 221, 222 and George Fox, 210 views of, 211-212 Howgil, Francis, 231 Hübmaier, Balthasar, 40 Hügel, Friedrich von, xlii Humanists-- finding a new world, 1-3 view of man, 2, 4, 19, 69 view of "Hermes Trismegistus, " 243 in England, 235-236 influence on-- Spiritual Reformers, xxx, 289 Denck, 18, 19 Franck, 46, 47 Castellio, 89 Coornhert, 105-106 Cambridge Platonists, 289 Thomas Traherne, 323 Hutchinson, Anne, 274 Hutten, Ulrich von, 47 Hylkema, C. B. -- on Collegiants, 104 _n. _ on Boreel, 118 _n. _

 _Imitation of Christ, The_, 4, 267 Immortality-- John Smith on, 314 Independency, 268 Inquisition, Spanish, 106 Irenaeus, 71 Israel, A. -- on Weigel, 140 _n. _

 Jarrin, Charles-- on Castellio, 88 _n. _ Job, xxiii Joris, David, 108 Justification-- mediaeval conception of, 8 _n. _ as conceived by-- Luther, 8 _n. _, 19, 74 Schwenckfeld, 75, 77 John Smith, 310 the Quakers, 344

 Keith, George, 122, 233 Keller, L. -- on Denck, 17 _n. _, 18 _n. _ Kempis, Thomas à, 267 Kessler, J. , 18 _n. _ Kober, Dr. Tobias, 165 Kodde, Giesbert Van der-- founder of Collegiants, 115-116 Kodde, John Van der, 115, 117 Kodde, William Van der, 115 Kolde, Th. , 20 _n. _

 Ladders, mystical, xxiii _n. _ Langcake, Thomas, 234 _n. _ "Latitude-men, " 279, 288-291 Law, William-- on Boehme, 153 _n. _, 179, 234 on Inner Word, 346 _n. _ Leade, Jane, 228, 230, 232 _n. _, 233 Lee, Francis, 230-231, 233 Letter, the-- _versus_ the Spirit in-- Denck, 28-29 Bünderlin, 36-39 Entfelder, 41-43 Schwenckfeld, 72-74 Franck, 60-62, 154, 245, 317 Castellio, 101 Coornhert, 108-109 _The Light on the Candlestick_, 130 Weigel, 148 Boehme, 169-170, 201 John Ellistone, 217-218 Everard, 241, 245-246, 251 Randall, 263 Rous, 269 Vane, 276 Sterry, 285 John Smith, 316-318 Liegnitz Pastors, 67 _n. _ _Life and Light of a Man in Christ Jesus, The_, 263-265 "Light, Children of the, " 132, 221, 260, 277, 341 Light, Inward, 129-132 (_see_ Inward Word) _Light on the Candlestick, The_, 123, 128 teaching of, 128-132 circulated as Quaker Tract, 128 Linacre, Thomas, 236 Loofs, F. -- on Luther, 13 Lucifer, 178, 185, 192, 234 Luther, Martin-- child of the people, 4, 9 influence of mystics on, 6, 7, 9 influence of Humanists on, 7, 8 discovers way of Faith, xxxix, 5-8, 15 theology of, 9-14, 19, 70, 76 as a Reformer, 14-16, 12l quoted on Toleration, 93 influence on-- Franck, 47 Schwenckfeld, 65-69 Boehme, 154

 Magic-- in use of words, xi as an aspect of-- the Sacraments, 13 Justification, 75 Sacerdotalism, 79 Superstition, 309 in the Cabala, 135 in Agrippa of Nettesheim, 136 in Paracelsus, 137 Man-- as conceived by-- Gnostics, xii, xiii the psychologist, xvii the mystics, xxvi, 70 the Spiritual Reformers, xxx-xxxii, xlviii, 337 the Humanists, 2, 4, 19, 69 Luther, 9, 11-12, 70 Denck, xxx, 21-23 Bünderlin, 35, 36 Franck, 53-55 Schwenckfeld, 54, 70, 77, 269 Castellio, 99 Coornhert, 106 Remonstrants, 114 Descartes, 124-125 Spinoza, 127 author of _The Light on the Candlestick_, 130-131 exponents of "Nature Mysticism, " 133 Agrippa of Nettesheim, 137 Paracelsus, 138 Weigel, 142-145 Boehme, xxx, 184-186, 188, 190-191 Charles Hotham, 211 John Ellistone, 218, 219 John Sparrow, 218, 219 Everard, 248-250 Rous, 268 Vane, 276-277 Sterry, xxx, 283 Robert Barclay, 283, 347 Cambridge Platonists, 290 Whichcote, 296-297 John Smith, 310-311 English poets, 322, 323 Traherne, 327, 328-329 the Quakers, 347 Mann, Edward, 233 _n. _ Martensen, H. L. -- on Boehme, 151 _n. _ Martyr, Peter, 236 Massachusetts-- religious controversies in, 273-274 McGiffert, A. C. -- on Luther, 15 Mennonites, 115 views of, 116 and Collegiants, 116, 120 Mildmay, Sir Walter, 279 Millennium, the-- Vane on, 275, 277-278 Milton, John-- on heaven and hell, 187 _n. _ on strange sects, 214 on Vane, 271 on Inward Word, 321 influence of Boehme on, 234 and Sterry, 281 and Quakers, 321 Ministry-- must be divinely ordained, 79 in interim-Church, 113 among Mennonites, 116 among Collegiants, 115, 117 as conceived by-- Weigel, 146-147 de Valdès, 237 George Fox, 226, 338-339 Montanists establish a "spiritual" church, xiii "Montfort, Basil, " 93 More, Henry, 118, 280, 319 More, Sir Thomas, 236 "Morning Meeting, " the, of London Friends, 232-233 Münzer, Thomas-- views on Inward Word, 19 Mysticism-- characteristics of, xix-xxi, 223 limitations of, xxii-xxix negative way of, xxv-xxviii in "spiritual" religion, xv the basis of life, 3, 4 a pathway to God, 133 of Bünderlin, 35 of Entfelder, 41 of Franck, 46, 55, 62, 155 of Coornhert, 108 of Spinoza, 123, 125 of Ficino, 134 of Paracelsus, 138 of Weigel, 141, 155 of Boehme, 154-155, 159, 201-206 of Randall, 258 of Vane, 273 of English poets, 323 of Traherne, 333-334 "Mysticism, Nature, " 133-139, 148, 154, 180 _n. _ Mystics-- conception of-- man, 70 salvation, 75 the universe, 155 God, xxiv, xxvii-xxviii, 246-247 influence on-- Luther, 6, 7, 9 new views, 136 _n. _ Coornhert, 108 Boreel, 118 Everard, 247 Rous, 267 Sterry, 280 Cambridge Platonists, 289

 "Nature Mysticism, " 133-139, 148, 154, 180 _n. _ Neo-Platonism, 134, 136 _n. _ Neo-Pythagoreanism, 134 Newton, Sir Isaac-- influence of Boehme on, 181 _n. _, 234 Nicholas, Henry, 108 Nicoladoni, A. , 21 on Bünderlin, 33 _n. _ Norris, John, 319 Novalis-- on Boehme, 153 _n. _

 Oaths-- views on-- of Mennonites, 116 of Collegiants, 116 Ochino, Bernardino, 236, 237, 238 OEcolampadius, 18, 21, 34, 137 Oporin, Humanist printer, 92 Origen, 267, 307

 Paracelsus, 137-139 teaching of, 159 _n. _, 184 symbolism of, 173 _n. _ influence on-- Weigel, 148, 150 _n. _ Tentzel, 150 _n. _ Boehme, 154, 174, 175 _n. _ Parker, Alexander, 233 _n. _ Pascal, xxx _n. _, 94, 250 _n. _, 261 _n. _ Patrick, Simon (S. P. )-- on "Latitude-Men, " 288 _n. _, 290 on John Smith, 305 _n. _, 306-308, 319 Paul St. -- use of word "spiritual, " xi Penington, Isaac, xix, xxi, 345 _n. _ Penn, William-- and Abrahams, 122 teaching of, 344, 347, 348 Pennsylvania-- migration of Schwenckfelders to, 83 Penny, A. J. -- on Boehme, 151 _n. _ Pepys, Samuel-- on Vane, 272 Perfection, doctrine of-- John Sparrow on, 216-217 Randall on, 254, 255, 259 Perkins, 294 Personality, xlix, 8 Pfeiffer, F. -- on Eckhart, xxvi _n. _, xxvii _n. _ Pflug, Julius, 34 Philadelphian Society, the, 230, 23l, 233 Philosophy-- Greek, 134 in England, 235-236, 288, 295 Arabian, 134 Pico of Mirandola, 134 Pirkheimer, 47 Plato, xxxiv, 53, 134, 211, 268 influence on-- Ficino, 235-236 Peter Sterry, 280 Cambridge Platonists, 289, 290 Traherne, 323 Platonists, Cambridge, 279, 280, 288-291, 319, 334 Plotinus, 3, 53, 211, 236, 239, 280, 289, 290, 323 Poiret, Peter-- on Boehme, 153 _n. _ Pordage, John, 227-230 on Quakers, 230 _n. _ Pordage, Samuel-- on John Sparrow, 217 _n. _ Predestination, 99 as viewed by-- Spiritual Reformers, xlix Coornhert, 111 Remonstrants, 114 Boehme, 164, 204 Presbyterianism, 268, 28l Principles, Three-- in Boehme's universe, 183 Proclus, 280 Psalms, translated by Rous, 267 Puritans, 279, 290, 291 Pythagoras, 210

 Quakers, the-- precursors of, xxxii, 31, 83, 116, 123, 132, 146, 263, 264 _n. _, 283, 337, 346, 348 circulate _The Light on the Candlestick_, 128 influence of Boehme on, 220-227, 233 _n. _, 338 _n. _ influence of Everard on, 252 _n. _ and the Behmenists, 231-233 mission of, 337-341 organization of, 341-343 views of, 343-348 Qualities, Seven-- in Jacob Boehme, 180-183, 191 in Gnosticism, alchemy, etc. , 180 _n. _ Quarles, Francis, 322, 323

 Randall, Giles-- and Everard, 243 _n. _, 256, 260 life of, 253-254 teaching, 254, 255, 260-263 translations, 255-256, 258, 260, 261 Randall, John, 253 Ranterism, 31, 210, 241, 267 _n. _ among Anabaptists, 33 Ranters, 320 Raphael, 176 Reason-- in "spiritual" religion, xv as an approach to religion, xxxii-xxxviii use of, for-- Luther, 12 Franck, 55 Castellio, 98, 101 Coornhert, 108 Ficino, 235-236 Rous, 268 Durant Hotham, 210, 211 Whichcote, 295, 300 _n. _ Reformation, the-- divisions in, 1, 31, 49, 88, 98-99, 169 character of, 43-44, 66-67 how to be carried out, 82, 112 false course of, 97, 121 in England, 266-267 Spiritual Reformers and, xiv-xv, xlvi, 336-337, 349 Reformer, a-- types of, 14-16 Denck as, 29 Bünderlin as, 43-45 Entfelder as, 43-45 Franck as, 46 Schwenckfeld, 64, 65, 75, 139 Castellio as, 103 Reformers, Spiritual-- type of religion, xxix-xxxii, xlvi-li views of early, 43-45, 76, 133 views brought into England, 235 mission of, 336-337, 349 and Spinoza, 127 and Weigel, 139, 148 and the Cambridge Platonists, 288-290 influence of, on-- Coornhert, 107 Everard, 239, 251-252 Randall, 255 Vane, 273 Milton, 321 Traherne, 323 Quakerism, 336-337, 348-349 Reforms, Economic and Social, 4 Religion, First-hand-- Faith as, xlv in "Covenant of Grace, " 274 as taught by-- Denck, 26-27 Bünderlin, 37-39 Entfelder, 42 Franck, 45, 58 Schwenckfeld, 71-72 Spiritual Reformers, 76 Castellio, 90, 100 Coornhert, 109 Weigel, 141 Boehme, 154, 170-171, 192 _seq. _ Durant Hotham, 212 John Ellistone, 217-218 de Valdès, 237 Everard, 244 Rous, 267 Vane, 272, 274 Whichcote, 296, 297-299, 300-301, 322 John Smith, 308, 310, 311-312, 318, 322 English poets, 322-323 Religion of lay type-- Humanism and, 3, 4, 8 found in Schwenckfeld Societies, 82-83 in Collegiant Societies, 115-117, 120 in Congregational Church government, 268 Religion, rational type of, xxxii-xxxviii Religion, "spiritual, " xlvi in Montanism, xiii in Gnostic sects, xii during Reformation period, xiv-xv three tendencies in, xv, xxix, xlv-xlvi Religion, study of, xv-xix Remonstrants, the-- views of, 114 Reuchlin, J. , 47 forerunner of Reformation, 134 Richter, Gregorius-- and Boehme, 162-164, 166-167, 168 Rieuwertz, John, 128 Roehrich, Gustave-- on Denck, 17 _n. _ Roth, F. -- on Schwenckfeld Societies, 83 _n. _ Rous, Francis-- life, 267-268, 270 writings, 268 teaching, 268-271 Rues, S. F. -- on Collegiants, 123 _n. _ Rutherford, Samuel-- on Schwenckfeld, 87 on de Valdès, 238 on Randall, 254, 258, 262, 263 "Rynsburgers, " 114 (_see_ Collegiants)

 Sabbath, the-- names for, 264 _n. _ true, for Coornhert, 111 Sachs, Hans, 47 Sacraments, the use of-- as taught by-- Luther, 12-14, 19 Denck, 27 Bünderlin, 37, 39 Entfelder, 41-43 Franck, 59 Schwenckfeld, 67-69, 80-82, 86, 270

 Castellio, 101 Coornhert, 110-112 Collegiants, 116 Borellists, 120 Weigel, 142, 147 Boehme, 201 Behmenists, 232-233 Jane Leade, 232 _n. _ Everard, 251 Randall, 254, 255 Vane, 273 Seekers, 273 Whichcote, 302-303 Salter, Dr. Samuel-- on Whichcote, 291 _n. _ Saltmarsh, John, 267 _n. _ Salvation-- by Faith, xlii-xliv by works, xlvi, 75 view of, as held by-- Protestant Reformers, xlvi Spiritual Reformers, xlvii-xlix, 44, 76 historic Church, 75, 99 Mystics, 75 Luther, 10-12, 76 Denck, 25-27, 28, 243 Bünderlin, 36-38 Entfelder, 42 Franck, 54-55 Schwenckfeld, 70-72, 74-78, 285 Irenaeus, 70 Castellio, 98, 100 Coornhert, 110 Remonstrants, 114 Weigel, 141 Boehme, 170, 190-198, 289 de Valdès, 236, 237 Everard, 250 Sterry, 285 Whichcote, 289, 293, 301 John Smith, 311-312 Traherne, 332-333 Quakers, 345, 346-347 Sampson, Alden-- on Milton, 321 _n. _ Schellhorn, J. G. , 66 _n. _ Schleiermacher, Friedrich, xxxii Schmalkald League, 69 Schneider, Walter-- on Adam Boreel, 118 _n. _ Schweinitz, Sigismund von, 167, 168 Schweizer, A. -- on Castellio, 88 _n. _ Schwenckfeld, Caspar, 48 as a Reformer, 64, 65, 75, 139 life, 65-69 teaching, 54, 66, 67, 69-87, 154, 269, 285, 346, 347 writings, 64 _n. _, 70 _n. _ organizes Societies, 82-83 appearance of views in England, 84, 87, 103 _n. _ influence on-- Weigel, 142, 148 Boehme, 154, 156 _n. _, 190 Scriptures, the-- views on, as held by-- Luther, 12 Denck, 28, 29, 242 Bünderlin, 36 Entfelder, 42 Spiritual Reformers, 44, 251 Franck, 58, 60, 6l, 243 Schwenckfeld, 73 Castellio, 101 Coornhert, 108 Borellists, 120 Boehme, 169, 170, 225 John Sparrow, 215, 216, 225 George Fox, 225 Everard, 245, 251 Randall, 255 Rous, 269 Whichcote, 300 John Smith, 317 Quakers, 348 Scultetus, B. , 163 _n. _ Seekers, the-- and the _Stillstand_, 68 _n. _ view of the Church, 84, 86, 340 view of sacraments, 273 Schwenckfeld and, 84 among the Collegiants, 117, 120, 122 in England, 122, 267 _n. _ Boehme of the type of, 159 Boehme's influence on, 220-221 Vane one of the, 273 and the Quakers, 340-342 Seidemann, J. R. -- on Münzer, 19 _n. _ Servetus, 93, 96 Sewel, William-- on Abrahams, 122 _n. _ "Signature, " 174, 183, 222, 223 Silesius, Angelus, 244 _n. _ Simons, Menno, 112, 121 Sin-- views of, as held by-- Franck, 62 Schwenckfeld, 70 Castellio, 99 Remonstrants, 114 Boehme, 154, 155, 177-179, 188-189, 191 John Sparrow, 216, 217 Sterry, 284 Whichcote, 301-302 John Smith, 312-313 Traherne, 331-332 Slee, J. C. Van-- on Collegiants, 114 _n. _ Smith, John-- life, 305-306 character, 305, 306-308, 318 teaching, 308-318, 322 Societies-- organized by Schwenckfeld, 82-83 of Collegiants, 115-117, 119-120, 123 Society of Friends-- organized by George Fox, 337, 341-343 Socrates, xxxiii _n. _, 211 Sopingius, G. , 114 Sparrow, John-- translates Boehme into English, 213-221, 222, 234 _n. _ views of, 214-217, 225 Spinoza, B. -- mysticism of, xxviii, 123, 125 Philosophy of, 125 and the Spiritual Reformers, 127 and the Collegiants, 123, 128 Spiritual, the word-- Paul's use of, xi in Johannine writings, xii among Gnostics, xii Montanists, xiii Spiritual Reformers, xiv-xv "Spiritualists, " 12, 31, 48 Spruyt, David, 120 Steiner, R. -- on Boehme, 151 _n. _ Sterry, Peter-- life, 279-281 writings, 281 teachings, xxx, xxxiv, 281-287 _Stillstand_, the-- Schwenckfeld and, 67, 86, 273 Franck and, 86 revived by Collegiants and Seekers, 68 _n. _ Vane adopts type of, 273 Stoddart, A. M. -- on Paracelsus, 137 _n. _ Stoicism, 134 Stoupe-- on Collegiants, 119 Strobel, G. T. -- on Münzer, 19 _n. _ Sub-conscious, the, xxviii-xxix Swinburne, A. C. , 173

 Tauler, xxvi, 3, 4, 6, 19, 141, 239, 243, 253 _n. _, 267 his conception of God, 247 Taylor, Jeremy, 291 Taylor, Thomas-- on Boehme, 220 "Temperature, " 178, 181, 185 Tentzel, A. , 242 use of astrology by, 150 _n. _ _Theologia Germanica_, xxvi _n. _, 4, 6, 239, 263 translated by-- John Theophilus (Castellio), 103 _n. _, 243, 256 Everard, 243 Randall, 256-257, 258 influence on Weigel, 141 Theophilus, John (Castellio), 103 _n. _, 243 Thornton, William, 220 Tilken, Balthazar, 170 Traherne, Thomas-- life, 323-324, 327, 328 writings, 327 teaching, 322, 324-327, 328-335 Trithemius, 137 Troeltsch, E. -- on Luther, 15 _n. _ on Franck, 47 _n. _ on Schwenckfeld, 64 _n. _ Tuckney, Dr. Anthony, 279, 291 correspondence with Whichcote, 292-296, 302 Tulloch, John-- on Cambridge Platonists, 303 _n. _, 305 Tully, 290 Turner, Wyllyam, 84

 Underhill, Evelyn, x Universe, the-- as conceived-- in a rational religion, xxxii-xxxviii by Bünderlin, 35 by Entfelder, 40 in "Nature Mysticism, " 133 in the Cabala, 135 by Agrippa of Nettesheim, 137 by Paracelsus, 138-139 by Weigel, 148 by Boehme, 150 _n. _, 159-160, 172-189 by John Sparrow, 214 by John Ellistone, 219 by Everard, 248 by Vane, 276-278 by Sterry, 282 by John Smith, 314-316 by Traherne, 329-331 Vadian, 21 Valdès, Alfonso de, 236 Valdès, Juan de-- life, 236-237 teaching, 237 influence in England, 237-238 Vane, Sir Harry-- life, 271-274 teaching, 274 and George Fox, 278 and Sterry, 280 Vaughan, Henry, 322, 326, 335 Veesenmeyer-- on Bünderlin, 33 _n. _ on Entfelder, 40 Vermigli, Pietro Martire, 236, 237, 238

 Wallace, William, xxxvii Walther, Dr. B. , 165 Walton, Christopher-- on Boehme, 151 _n. _, 179 _n. _ on Jane Leade, 230 War-- views of Collegiants on, 117 views of Boehme on, 199 Ward, George-- on Boehme, 234 _n. _ Ward, James, xxxvi Warmund, Church of, 115-116 Weigel, Valentine-- life, 139-140, 148 _n. _ teaching, 141-150 writings, 141, 145, 148 influence on Boehme, 139, 148, 150 _n. _, 154, 156 _n. _, 169, 190 influence in England, 139, 141, 146, 148, 150 Weissner, Dr. Cornelius, 163, 165 Whichcote, Benjamin-- life, 279, 289, 291-293 teaching, 293-304 and Dr. Tuckney, 292-295 and John Smith, 306 Whitaker, Richard-- on Boehme, 208 _n. _ Wilcox, Ella Wheeler, xxxviii Williams, Roger-- on Vane, 275 Winstanley, Gerard, 267 _n. _, 334 Winthrop, John, 274, 275 Word of God, Inward-- as taught by-- the Spiritual Reformers, xxx, xxxviii, li, 32, 44, 337 Thomas Münzer, 19 Ludwig Hetzer, 19 Denck, 24, 27, 28-30, 243 Bünderlin, 36-39 Entfelder, 41 Franck, 53, 56-58, 346 Schwenckfeld, 66, 72, 346, 347 Castellio, 101 Coornhert, 108-109 _The Light on the Candlestick_, 129-132 Weigel, 147 Boehme, 169 John Sparrow, 214-216 George Fox, 215 John Ellistone, 218 de Valdès, 238 Everard, 246, 251-252 Randall, 263 Rous, 268-269 Vane, 276, 279 Milton, 321 William Law, 346 _n. _ root principle of Quakerism, 345, 348 Wordsworth, William, xxiii, xxxv Worthington, John-- on John Smith, 306, 307

 Zwickau Prophets, 12 Zwingli, 121