{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_24934/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_24934","id":"gutenberg_24934","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24934","summary":null,"tags":["Category: History - Modern (1750+)","Category: History - Religious","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Mysticism","Reformers"],"text":"E-text prepared by Al Haines\n\n\n\nTranscriber's note:\n\n   Page numbers in this book are indicated by numbers enclosed\n   in curly braces, e.g. {99}.  They have been located where page\n   breaks occurred in the original book.\n\n\n\n\n\nSPIRITUAL REFORMERS IN THE 16TH & 17TH CENTURIES\n\nby\n\nRUFUS M. JONES, M.A., D.Litt.\n\nProfessor Of Philosophy, Haverford College, U.S.A.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nMacMillan and Co., Limited\nSt. Martin's Street, London\n1914\n\nCopyright\n\n\n\n\n_OTHER VOLUMES IN THIS SERIES_\n\n_EDITED By RUFUS M. JONES_\n\n\nSTUDIES IN MYSTICAL RELIGION.  (1908.)\n  By Rufus M. Jones.\n\nTHE QUAKERS IN THE AMERICAN COLONIES.  (1911).\n  By Rufus M. Jones, assisted by Isaac Sharpless and Amelia M. Gummere.\n\nTHE BEGINNINGS OF QUAKERISM.  (1912.)\n  By William Charles Braithwaite.\n\nTHE SECOND PERIOD OF QUAKERISM.  (_In preparation._)\n  By William Charles Braithwaite.\n\nTHE LATER PERIODS OF QUAKERISM.  (_In preparation._)\n  By Rufus M. Jones.\n\n\n\n\n{v}\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nIn my _Quakers in the American Colonies_ I announced the preparation of\na volume to be devoted mainly to Jacob Boehme and his influence.  I\nsoon found, however, as my work of research proceeded, that Boehme was\nno isolated prophet who discovered in solitude a fresh way of approach\nto the supreme problems of the soul.  I came upon very clear evidence\nthat he was an organic part of a far-reaching and significant\nhistorical movement--a movement which consciously aimed, throughout its\nlong period of travail, to carry the Reformation to its legitimate\nterminus, the restoration of apostolic Christianity.  The men who\noriginated the movement, so far as anything historical can be said to\nbe \"originated,\" were often scornfully called \"Spirituals\" by their\nopponents, while they thought of themselves as divinely commissioned\nand Spirit-guided \"Reformers,\" so that I have with good right named\nthem \"Spiritual Reformers.\"\n\nI have had two purposes in view in these studies.  One purpose was the\ntracing of a religious movement, profoundly interesting in itself, as a\ngreat side current of the Reformation.  The other purpose was the\ndiscovery of the background and environment of seventeenth century\nQuakerism.  There can be little doubt, I think, that I have here found\nat least one of the great historical sources of the Quaker movement.\nThis volume, together with my _Studies in Mystical Religion_, will at\nany rate {vi} furnish convincing evidence that the ideas, aims,\nexperiences, practices, and aspirations of the early Quakers were the\nfruit of long spiritual preparation.  This movement, as a whole, has\nnever been studied before, and my work has been beset with\ndifficulties.  I have been aided by helpful monographs on individual\n\"Reformers,\" written mainly by German and French scholars, who have\nbeen duly credited at the proper places, but for the most part my\nmaterial has been drawn from original sources.  I am under much\nobligation to my friend, Theodor Sippell of Schweinsberg, Germany.  I\nam glad to announce that he is preparing a critical historical study on\nJohn Everard and the Ranters, which will throw important light on the\nreligious ideas of the English Commonwealth.  He has read my proofs,\nand has, throughout my period of research, given me the benefit of his\nextensive knowledge of this historical field.  I wish to express my\nappreciation of the courtesy and kindness which I have received from\nthe officials of the University Library at Marburg.  William Charles\nBraithwaite of Banbury, England, has given me valuable help.  My wife\nhas assisted me in all my work of research.  She has read and re-read\nthe proofs, made the Index, and given me an immense amount of patient\nhelp.  I cannot close this Preface without again referring to the\ninspiration of my invisible friend, John Wilhelm Rowntree, in whose\nmemory this series was undertaken.\n\n\nHAVERFORD, PENNSYLVANIA,\n\n_January_ 1914.\n\n\n\n\n{vii}\n\nCONTENTS\n\n                                                           PAGE\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\nWHAT IS \"SPIRITUAL RELIGION\" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   xi\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nTHE MAIN CURRENT OF THE REFORMATION  . . . . . . . . . . .    1\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nHANS DENCK AND THE INWARD WORD . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   17\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nTWO PROPHETS OF THE INWARD WORD: BUeNDERLIN AND ENTFELDER     31\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nSEBASTIAN FRANCK: AN APOSTLE OF INWARD RELIGION  . . . . .   46\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nCASPAR SCHWENCKFELD AND THE REFORMATION OF THE \"MIDDLE WAY\"  64\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nSEBASTIAN CASTELLIO: A FORGOTTEN PROPHET . . . . . . . . .   88\n\n\n\n{viii}\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nCOORNHERT AND THE COLLEGIANTS--A MOVEMENT FOR\n  SPIRITUAL RELIGION IN HOLLAND  . . . . . . . . . . . . .  104\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nVALENTINE WEIGEL AND NATURE MYSTICISM  . . . . . . . . . .  133\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nJACOB BOEHME: HIS LIFE AND SPIRIT  . . . . . . . . . . . .  151\n\n\nCHAPTER X\n\nBOEHME'S UNIVERSE  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  172\n\n\nCHAPTER XI\n\nJACOB BOEHME'S \"WAY OF SALVATION\"  . . . . . . . . . . . .  190\n\n\nCHAPTER XII\n\nJACOB BOEHME'S INFLUENCE IN ENGLAND  . . . . . . . . . . .  208\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII\n\nEARLY ENGLISH INTERPRETERS OF SPIRITUAL RELIGION:\n  JOHN EVERARD, GILES RANDALL, AND OTHERS  . . . . . . . .  235\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV\n\nSPIRITUAL RELIGION IN HIGH PLACES--ROUS, VANE, AND STERRY   266\n\n\n{ix}\n\nCHAPTER XV\n\nBENJAMIN WHICHCOTE, THE FIRST OF THE \"LATITUDE-MEN\"  . . .  288\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI\n\nJOHN SMITH, PLATONIST--\"AN INTERPRETER OF THE SPIRIT\"  . .  305\n\n\nCHAPTER XVII\n\nTHOMAS TRAHERNE AND THE SPIRITUAL POETS OF THE\n  SEVENTEENTH CENTURY  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  320\n\n\nCHAPTER XVIII\n\nCONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  336\n\n\nINDEX  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  351\n\n{x}\n\n  Within thy sheltering darkness spin the spheres;\n  Within the shaded hollow of thy wings.\n  The life of things,\n  The changeless pivot of the passing years--\n  These in thy bosom lie.\n  Restless we seek thy being; to and fro\n  Upon our little twisting earth we go:\n  We cry, \"Lo, there!\"\n  When some new avatar thy glory does declare,\n  When some new prophet of thy friendship sings,\n  And in his tracks we run\n  Like an enchanted child, that hastes to catch the sun.\n\n  And shall the soul thereby\n  Unto the All draw nigh?\n  Shall it avail to plumb the mystic deeps\n  Of flowery beauty, scale the icy steeps\n  Of perilous thought, thy hidden Face to find,\n  Or tread the starry paths to the utmost verge of the sky?\n  Nay, groping dull and blind\n  Within the sheltering dimness of thy wings--\n  Shade that their splendour flings\n  Athwart Eternity--\n  We, out of age-long wandering, but come\n  Back to our Father's heart, where now we are at home.\n\n\n  EVELYN UNDERHILL in _Immanence_, p. 82.\n\n\n\n\n{xi}\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\n\nWHAT IS \"SPIRITUAL RELIGION\"\n\nI\n\nThere is no magic in words, though, it must be confessed, they often\nexercise a psychological influence so profound and far-reaching that\nthey seem to possess a miracle-working efficacy.  Some persons live all\ntheir lives under the suggestive spell of certain words, and it\nsometimes happens that an entire epoch is more or less dominated by the\nmysterious fascination of a sacred word, which needs only to be spoken\non the house-top to set hearts beating and legs marching.\n\n\"Spiritual\" has always been one of these wonder-working words.  St.\nPaul, in Christian circles, was the first to give the word its unique\nvalue.  For him it named a new order of life and a new level of being.\nIn his thought, a deep cleavage runs through the human race and divides\nit into two sharply-sundered classes, \"psychical men\" and \"pneumatical\nmen\"--men who live according to nature, and men who live by the life of\nthe Spirit.  The former class, that is psychical men, are of the earth\nearthy; they are, as we should say to-day, _empirical_, parts of a vast\nnature-system, doomed, as is the entire system, to constant flux and\nmutability and eventually to irretrievable wreck and ruin; the natural,\npsychical, corruptible man cannot inherit incorruption.[1]  On the\nother hand, the pneumatical or spiritual man {xii} \"puts on\"\nincorruption and immortality.  He is a member of a new order; he is\n\"heavenly,\" a creation \"not made with hands,\" but wrought out of the\nsubstance of the spiritual world, and furnished with the inherent\ncapacity of eternal duration, so that \"mortality is swallowed up of\nlife.\"[2]\n\nThis word, thus made sacred by St. Paul's great use of it to designate\nthe new race of the saved, was made the bearer in the Johannine\nwritings of a no less exalted message, which has become a living and\nindissoluble part of the religious consciousness of the Christian\nworld.  \"Eternal life\"--or, what in these writings is the same thing,\n\"life\"--comes through the reception of the Spirit, in a birth from\nabove.  \"That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is\nborn of the Spirit is Spirit.\"[3]  When the Spirit comes as the\ninitiator of this abundant life, then we \"know that we abide in Him and\nHe in us, because He hath given us of His Spirit,\" and it becomes\npossible for the Spirit-led person to be guided \"into all the truth,\"\nto \"love even as He loved,\" and to \"overcome the world.\"[4]  Here,\nagain, the human race is divided into those who have \"received of the\nSpirit,\" and those who have not so received; those who are \"born from\nabove\" and those who have had only a natural birth; the twice-born and\nthe once-born; those who are \"of the Spirit,\" _i.e._ spiritual, and\nthose who are \"of this world,\" _i.e._ empirical.\n\nThe Gnostic Sects of the second century had one common link and badge;\nthey all proposed a \"way,\" often bizarre and strange-sounding to modern\nears, by which the soul, astray, lost, encumbered, or imprisoned in\nmatter, might attain its freedom and become _spiritual_.  Most of the\nGnostic teachers, who in their flourishing time were as thick as\nthistle-downs in summer, conceived of man as consisting of two \"halves\"\nwhich corresponded with two totally different world-orders.  There was\nin man, or there belonged to man (1) a visible body, which {xiii} was\nagain dichotomized, and believed to be composed, according to many of\nthe Gnostics, of a subtle element like that of which they supposed Adam\nin his unfallen state was made, which they named the _hylic_ body, and\na sheath of gross earthly matter which they called the _choical_\nbody.[5] There was also (2) another, invisible, \"half,\" generally\ndivided into lower and higher stories.  The lower story, the psychical,\nwas created or furnished by the Demiurge, or sub-divine creator of the\nnatural system, while the top-story, or pneumatical self, was a\n_spiritual seed_ derived from the supreme spiritual Origin, the Divine\nPleroma, the Fulness of the Godhead.  Those who possessed this\nspiritual seed were \"the elect,\" \"the saved,\" who eventually, stripped\nof their sheath of matter and their psychical dwelling, would be able\nto pass all \"the keepers of the way,\" and rise to the pure spiritual\nlife.\n\nThe Montanists launched in the second century a movement, borne along\non a mountain-wave of enthusiasm, for a \"spiritual\" Church composed\nonly of \"spiritual\" persons.  They called themselves \"the Spirituals,\"\nand they insisted that the age or dispensation of the Spirit had now\ncome.  The Church, rigidly organized with its ordained officials, its\nexternal machinery, and its accumulated traditions, was to them part of\nan old and outworn system to be left behind.  In the place of it was to\ncome a new order of \"spiritual people\" of whom the Montanist prophets\nwere the \"first fruits,\"--a new and peculiar people, born from above,\nrecipients of a divine energizing power, partakers in the life of the\nSpirit and capable of being guided on by progressive revelations into\nall the truth.  To be \"spiritual\" in their vocabulary meant to be a\nparticipator in the Life of God, and to be a living member of a group\nthat was led and guided by a continuously self-revealing Spirit.  This\nSpirit was conceived, however, not as immanent and resident, not as the\n{xiv} indwelling and permeative Life of the human spirit, but as\nforeign and remote, and He was thought of as \"coming\" in sporadic\nvisitations to whom He would, His coming being indicated in\nextraordinary and charismatic manifestations.\n\nThis type of \"spiritual religion,\" though eventually stamped out in the\nparticular form of Montanism, reappeared again and again, with peculiar\nlocal and temporal variations, in the history of Christianity.[6]  To\nthe bearers of it, the historic Church, with its crystallized system\nand its vast machinery, always seemed \"unspiritual\" and traditional.\nThey believed, each time the movement appeared, that _they_ had found\nthe way to more abundant life, that the Spirit had come upon them in a\nspecial manner, and was through them inaugurating a higher order of\nChristianity, and they always felt that their religion of direct\nexperience, of invading energy, of inspirational insights, of\ncharismatic bestowals, and of profound emotional fervour was distinctly\n\"spiritual,\" as contrasted with the historic Church which claimed\nindeed a divine origin and divine \"deposits,\" but which, as they\nbelieved, lacked the continuous and progressive leadership of the\nSpirit.  They were always very certain that their religion was\ncharacteristically \"spiritual,\" and all other forms seemed to them\ncold, formal, or dead.  In their estimates, men were still divided into\nspiritual persons and psychical persons--those who lived by the \"heart\"\nand those who lived by the \"head.\"\n\nParallel with the main current of the Protestant Reformation, a new\ntype of \"spiritual religion\" appeared and continued to manifest itself\nwith mutations and developments, throughout the entire Reformation era,\nwith a wealth of results which are still operative in the life of the\nmodern world.  The period of this new birth was a time of profound\ntransition and ferment, and a bewildering variety of roads was tried to\nspiritual Canaans and new Jerusalems, then fondly believed to {xv} be\nnear at hand.  It is a long-standing tragedy of history that the right\nwing of a revolutionary or transforming movement must always suffer for\nthe unwisdom and lack of balance of those who constitute the left, or\nextreme radical, wing of the movement.  So it happened here.  The\nnobler leaders and the saner spirits were taken in the mass with those\nof an opposite character, and were grouped under comprehensive labels\nof reproach and scorn, such as \"Antinomians,\" \"Enthusiasts,\" or\n\"Anabaptists,\" and in consequence still remain largely neglected and\nforgotten.\n\nThe men who initiated and guided this significant undertaking--the\nexhibition in the world of what they persistently called \"spiritual\nreligion\"--were influenced by three great historic tendencies, all\nthree of which were harmoniously united in their type of Christianity.\nThey were the Mystical tendency, the Humanistic or Rational tendency,\nand the distinctive Faith-tendency of the Reformation.  These three\nstrands are indissolubly woven together in this type of so-called\nspiritual Religion.  It was an impressive attempt, whether completely\nsuccessful or not, to widen the sphere and scope of religion, to carry\nit into _the whole of life_, to ground it in the very nature of the\nhuman spirit, and to demonstrate that to be a man, possessed of full\nlife and complete health, is to be religious, to be spiritual.  I\npropose, as a preliminary preparation for differentiating this special\ntype of \"spiritual religion,\" to undertake a study, as brief as\npossible, of these three underlying and fundamental strands or\ntendencies in religion which will, of course, involve some\nconsideration of the inherent nature of religion itself.\n\nFor my present purpose it is not necessary to study the twilight\nhistory of religion in primitive races nor to trace its origins in the\ncradle-stage of human life.  Anthropologists are rendering a valuable\nservice in their attempts to explore the baffling region of primitive\nman's mind, and they have hit upon some very suggestive clues, though\nso far only tentative ones, to the psychological experiences and\nattitudes which set man's feet on the {xvi} momentous religious trail.\nAt every stage of its long and devious history, religion has been _some\nsort of life-adjustment to realities which were felt to be of supreme\nimportance either to the individual or to the race_, and it becomes\nthus possible for the scientific observer to note a developmental\nprocess and to discover a principle which links it in with a universal\nscheme of evolution.\n\nBut religion can never be adequately treated either in terms of racial\norigins or of biological history, though there can be no doubt whatever\nthat there are genetic and biological factors to be considered.  Nor,\nagain, can religion be adequately and exhaustively dealt with by the\npsychological method of investigation.  The psychological studies of\nreligion in recent years have greatly enriched our knowledge of the\nrange and scope and power of man's psychic nature and functions, of his\ninstincts, desires, valuations, needs, yearnings, beliefs, and modes of\nactivity and behaviour, and particularly of the important influence\nwhich the social group has exercised and still exercises in the\nfurtherance of religious attitudes and ideals.  But the psychological\nmethod has obvious and inherent limitations.  Like any other natural\nscience, psychology is limited to description and causal explanation of\nthe phenomena of its special field, which in this case is states of\nconsciousness.  It does not pretend, or even aspire, to pronounce upon\nthe ultimate nature of consciousness, nor upon the moral significance\nof personality.  Psychology is as empirical as any other science.  It\nmodestly confines its scope of research to what _appears_ in finite and\ndescribable forms.  It possesses no ladder by which it can transcend\nthe empirical order, the fact-level.  The religion which the\npsychologist reports upon is necessarily stripped of all transcendental\nand objective reference.  Its wings are severely clipped.  It is only\none of man's multitudinous _reactions_ in the presence of the facts of\nhis time and space world.  It is nakedly subjective and _works_, not\nbecause there is Something or Some One beyond, which answers it, and\ncorresponds with its up-reach, but only {xvii} because undivided\nfaith-attitudes always liberate within the field of consciousness\nenergy for life-activity.\n\nWe need not blame the psychologist for this radical reduction of the\nage-long pretensions of religion.  If he is to bring religion over into\nthe purview of the scientific field, he can do nothing else but reduce\nit.  Science can admit into its world nothing that successfully defies\ndescriptive treatment.  The poet may know of flowers which \"can give\nthoughts that do often lie too deep for tears,\" but science discovers\nno such flowers in its field.  Its flowers are amazingly complex, but\nthey call for no handkerchief.  They are merely aggregations of\ndescribable parts, each of which has well-defined functions.  The \"man\"\nwhom science studies is complicated almost beyond belief.  He is an\naggregation of trillions of cells.  He is such a centre of vibrations\nthat a cyclone is almost a calm compared to the constant cyclic storms\nwithin the area of man's corporeal system.  His \"mental states\" have\ntheir entries and exits before \"the foot-lights of consciousness\" and\nexhibit a drama more intricate than any which human genius has\nconceived.  But each \"state\" is a definite, more or less describable,\n_fact_ or _phenomenon_.  For science, \"man's\" inner life, as well as\nhis corporeal bulk, is an aggregate of empirical items.  No loophole is\nleft for freedom--that is for any novel undetermined event.  No\nshekinah remains within for a mysterious \"conscience\" to inject into\nthis fact-world insights drawn from a higher world of noumenal, or\nabsolute, reality.  \"Man\" is merely a part of the naturalistic order,\nand has no way of getting out of the vast net in which science catches\nand holds \"all that is.\"\n\nThere is, I repeat, no ground for blaming the psychologist for making\nthese reductions.  His science can deal only with an order of facts\nwhich will conform to the scientific method, for wherever science\ninvades a field, it ignores or eliminates every aspect of novelty or\nmystery or wonder, every aspect of reality which cannot be brought\nunder scientific categories, _i.e._ every aspect which cannot be\ntreated quantitatively and causally and {xviii} arranged in a congeries\nof interrelated facts occurring according to natural laws.  The only\ncogent criticism is that any psychologist should suppose that his\nscientific account is the \"last word\" to be spoken, that his reports\ncontain all the returns that can be expected, or that this method is\nthe only way of approach to truth and reality.  Such claims to the\nrights of eminent domain and such dogmatic assertions of exclusive\nfinality always reveal the blind spot in the scientist's vision.  He\nsees steadily but he does not see wholes.  He is of necessity dealing\nwith a reduced and simplified \"nature\" which he constantly tends to\nsubstitute for the vastly richer whole of reality that boils over and\ninundates the fragment which submits to his categories.  We do well to\ngather in every available fact which biology or anthropology or\npsychology can give us that throws light on human behaviour, or on\nprimitive cults, or on the richer subjective and social religious\nfunctions of full-grown men.  But the interior insight got from\nreligion itself, the rich wholeness of religious experience, the\ndiscovery within us of an inner nature which defies description and\nbaffles all plumb-lines, and which _can draw out of itself more than it\ncontains_, indicate that we here have dealings with a type of reality\nwhich demands for adequate treatment other methods of comprehension\nthan those available to science.\n\nIn the old Norse stories, Thor tried to empty the famous drinking-horn\nin the games of Utgard, but to his surprise he found that, though the\nhorn looked small, he could not empty it, for it turned out that the\nhorn was immersed in the limitless and bottomless ocean.  Again he\ntried to lift a small and insignificant-looking animal, but, labour as\nhe might, he could not lift it, for it was grown into, and was organic\nwith, the whole world, and could not be raised without raising the very\nground on which the lifter stood!  Somewhat so, the reality of religion\nis so completely bound up with the whole personal life of man and with\nhis conjunct life in the social group and in the world of nature; it\nis, in short, so much an {xix} affair of man's whole of experience, of\nhis spirit in its undivided and synthetic aspects, that it can never be\nadequately dealt with by the analytic and descriptive method of this\nwonderful new god of science, however big with results that method may\nbe.\n\nThe interior insight, the appreciation of religion, the rich and\nconcrete whole of religious consciousness, is, and will always remain,\nthe primary way to the _secret_ of religion--religion in its \"first\nintention\"--as the experience of time-duration is the only possible way\nto the elemental meaning of time.  It has in recent years in many\nquarters become the fashion to call this \"interior insight,\" this\nappreciation of religion from within, \"mysticism\"; and to assume that\nhere in mysticism we come upon the very essence of religion.  This\nconclusion, however, is as narrow and as unwarranted as is the\ntruncation of religion at the hands of science.  The mystical element\nin religion is only one element in a vastly richer complex, and it must\nnot be given undue emphasis and imperial sway in the appreciation of\nthe complete whole of \"spiritual religion.\"  We must, too, carefully\ndiscriminate _mystical experience_ from the elaborate body of doctrines\nand theories, historically known as \"mysticism,\" which is as much an\n_ism_ as are the other typical, partial, and more or less abstract\nformulations of religion.\n\nMysticism for the mystic himself is characterized by a personal\nexperience through which the ordinary limitations of life and the\npassionate pursuits of the soul are transcended, and a self-evident\nconviction is attained that he is in communion, or even in union, with\nsome self-transcending Reality that absolutely satisfies and is what he\nhas always sought.  \"This is He, this is He,\" the mystic exclaims:\n\"There is no other: This is He whom I have waited for and sought after\nfrom my childhood!\"[7]\n\nThe experience is further characterized by the inrush {xx} of new\nenergies as though a mysterious door had been pushed open--either out\nor in--admitting the human spirit to wider sources of life.  \"Fresh\nbubblings from the eternal streams of Life flowing into the soul\" is\nthe way the recipient often describes it.  All the deep-lying powers of\nthe inward self, usually so divergent and conflicting--the foreground\npurposes defeated by background inhibitions, and by doubts on the\nborder,--become liberated and unified into one conscious life which is\nnot merely intellectual, nor merely volitional, nor solely emotional,\nbut an undivided whole of experience, intensely joyous, enriched with\ninsight and pregnant with deeds of action.  As in lofty experiences of\nappreciation of beauty, or of music, or when the chords of life are\nswept by a great love, or by a momentous moral issue, the spirit rises\nin mystical experience to a form of consciousness which no longer marks\nclock-time and succession of events, whether outward or inward.  It may\nafterwards take hours or days or weeks or even years to spread out and\nreview and apprehend and adjust to the experience--\"the opening,\" to\nuse George Fox's impressive word--but while it is _there_ it is held in\none unbroken synthetic time-span.  It is, to revive a scholastic\nphrase, a _totum simul_, an all-at-once experience, in which parts,\nhowever many, make one integral whole, as in a melody or in a work of\nart; so that the mystic has a real experience of what we try to express\nby the word Eternity.  It feels as though the usual insulations of our\nown narrow personal life were suddenly broken through and we were in\nactual contact with an enfolding presence, life-giving, joy-bringing,\nand light-supplying.\n\nIn instances where the intensity is great, unusual psychological\nphenomena appear.  Sometimes voices are heard, or sounds \"like a mighty\nrushing wind\"; sometimes there are automatic visions of light, or of\nforms or figures, as, for instance, of Christ, or of a cross; sometimes\nautomatic writing or speaking attends the experience; sometimes there\nare profound body-changes of a temporary, or even permanent character;\nsometimes there {xxi} is a state of swoon or ecstacy, lasting from a\nfew seconds to entire days.  These physical phenomena, however, are as\nspiritually unimportant and as devoid of religious significance as are\nthe normal bodily resonances and reverberations which accompany, in\nmilder degrees, all our psychic processes.  They indicate no high rank\nof sainthood and they prove no miracle-working power.  The significant\nfeatures of the experience are the consciousness of fresh springs of\nlife, the release of new energies, the inner integration and\nunification of personality, the inauguration of a sense of mission, the\nflooding of the life with hope and gladness, and the conviction,\namounting in the mind of the recipient to certainty, that God is found\nas an environing and vitalizing presence--as the recipient already\nquoted reports his conviction: \"I have met with my God; I have met with\nmy Saviour.  I have felt the healings drop upon my soul from under His\nwings.\"[8]\n\nIf _everybody_ had experiences of that sort there would be no more\ndoubt of the existence of an actual spiritual environment in vitalizing\ncontact with the human spirit than there now is of an external world\nwith which we correspond.  There is _a priori_ no reason against the\nreality of such an inner spiritual universe.  It is precisely as\nconceivable that constructive and illuminating influences should stream\ninto our inner selves from that central Light with which our inmost\nself is allied, as that objects in space and time should bombard us\nwith messages adapted to our senses.  The difference is that we all\nexperience the outer environment and only a few of us experience the\ninner.  The mystic himself has no doubt--_he sees_, but he cannot give\nquite his certainty of vision to any one else.  He cannot, like \"the\nweird sisters\" of Greek story, lend out his eye for others to see with.\nHe can only talk about, or write about, what he has seen, and his words\nare often words of little meaning to those who lack the vision.\n\n{xxii}\n\nII\n\nBut the very characteristics of mystical religion which give it its\nself-evidence and power at the same time mark limits to its scope and\nrange.  It is and must be primarily and essentially first-hand\nexperience, and yet it is an experience that is by no means universal.\nIt is not, so far as we can see from the facts at hand, an experience\nwhich attaches to the very nature of consciousness as such, or indeed\none which is bound to occur even when the human subject strains forward\nall the energies of his will for the adventure, or when by strict\nobedience to the highest laws of life known to him he _waits_ for the\nhigh visitation.  Some aspect is involved over which the will has no\ncontrol.  Some other factor is implied besides the passion and the\npurity of the seeking soul.  The experience \"comes,\" as an inrush, as\nan emergence from the deeper levels of the inner life, but the glad\nrecipient does not know how he secured the prize or how to repeat the\nexperience, or how to tell his friend the way to these \"master moments\"\nof blessedness.\n\nThere are numerous persons who are as serious and earnest and\npassionate as the loftiest mystical saint, and who, in spite of all\ntheir listening for the inner flow of things, discover no inrushes,\nfeel no invasions, are aware of no environing Companion, do not even\nfeel a \"More of Consciousness conterminous and continuous with their\nown.\"  Their inner life appears impervious to divine bubblings.  The\nonly visitants that pass over the threshold of their consciousness are\ntheir own mental states, now bright and clear, now dim and strange, but\nall bearing the brand and mark of temporal origin.  This type of\nexperience must not, therefore, be insisted on as the only way to God\nor to the soul's homeland.  Spiritual religion must not be put to the\nhazard of conditions that limit its universality and restrict it to a\nchosen few.  To insist on mystical experience as the only path to\nreligion would involve an \"election\" no less inscrutable and {xxiii}\npitiless than that of the Calvinistic system--an \"election\" settled for\neach person by the peculiar psychic structure of his inner self.[9]\n\nThere is another limitation which must always attach to religion of the\npurely mystical type.  In so far as it is an _experience_ of the inward\ntype, it is indescribable and incommunicable.  That does not mean or\nimply any lessened value in the experience itself, it only means that\nit is very difficult to mint it into the universal coinage of the\nworld.  The recovery of faith, after some catastrophic bankruptcy of\nspiritual values, as with Job or Dante or Faust, cannot be described in\nanalytic steps.  The loss of faith in the rationality of the universe,\nthe collapse of the \"beautiful world\" within, can be told step by step;\nthe process of integration and reconstruction, on the other hand,\nalways remains somewhat of a mystery, though it is plain enough that a\nnew and richer inner world has been found.  So, too, with Mysticism.\nThe experience itself may, and often does, bring to the recipient an\nindubitable certainty of spiritual realities, revealing themselves\nwithin his own spirit, and, furthermore, it is often productive of\npermanent life-results, such as augmented conviction, heightened tone\nof joy, increased unification of personality, intense moral passion and\nlarger conquering power, but he, nevertheless, finds it a baffling\nmatter to draw from his mystical experience concrete information about\nthe nature and character of God, or to supply, from the experience\nalone, definite contributions that can become part of the common\nspiritual inheritance of the race.\n\n                                 The soul\n  Remembering how she felt, but _what_ she felt\n  Remembering not, retains an obscure sense\n  Of possible sublimity.[10]\n\n\n{xxiv}\n\nThere can be, I think, no doubt that the persons whom we call mystics\nhave enormously added to the richness of our conception of God, or that\nthey have made impressive contributions to the capital stock of our\nreligious knowledge.  But I question whether these increments of\nknowledge can be fairly traced to \"information\" which has entered the\nworld through the secret door of mystical \"openings.\"  The conception\nof God by which we live, and our knowledge of eternal life, are in the\nmain not formed of the material which has mysteriously dropped into the\nworld by means of \"sudden incursions,\" or \"oracular communications\"\nthrough persons of extraordinary psychical disposition.  What we get\nfrom the mystic, or from the prophet, is not his \"experience\" but his\ninterpretation, and as soon as he begins to _interpret_, he does so by\nmeans of the group-material which the race has gathered in its\ncorporate experience through the ages.  The valuable _content_ of his\nmessage, so far as he succeeds in delivering one, the ideas with which\nhis words are freighted, bear the marks of the slow accumulations of\nspiritual experience, and they reveal the rich and penetrative\ninfluence of the social group in which the mystic's inner life formed\nand ripened.  They have a history as all ideas do.\n\nThe real fact of the matter is, that the great mystics are religious\ngeniuses.  They make their contribution to religion in ways similar to\nthose in which the geniuses in other fields raise the level of human\nattainments and achievements.  They swiftly seize upon and appreciate\nthe specific achievements of the race behind them; they are profoundly\nsensitive to the aspirations of their time and to the deep-lying\ncurrents of their age; they are suggestible in an acute degree, through\nheightened interest, to certain ideas or truths or principles which\nthey synthesise by such leaps of insight that slow-footed logic seems\nto be transcended.  Then these unifying and intensifying experiences to\nwhich they are subject give them irresistible conviction, \"a surge of\ncertainty,\" a faith of the mountain-moving order, and an increasing\n{xxv} dynamic of life which, in the best cases, is manifest in thoughts\nand words and deeds.  Their mystical experience seldom supplies them\nwith a new intellectual content which they communicate, but their\nexperience enables them rather to _see_ what they know, to get\npossession of themselves, and to fuse their truth with the heat of\nconviction.  The mystical experience is thus a way of heightening life\nand of increasing its dynamic quality rather than a way to new\nknowledge.\n\nThe _negative way_, which has been such a prominent and prevailing\ncharacteristic of historical mysticism that many writers have made it\nthe distinct and sufficient differentia of mysticism, has often\nproduced intensity and depth, but it is, nevertheless, a mark of the\nlimitation of this type of religion.  The indescribable and\nundifferentiated character of mystical experience is no doubt partly\nresponsible for the emphatic place which negation has held in\nmysticism.  The experience itself, which seems like \"a flight of the\nalone to the Alone,\" can be told in no words except those of negation.\n\"The mortal limit of the self\" seems loosed, and the soul seems merged\ninto that which it forever seeks but which having found it cannot\nutter.  But the type of metaphysics through which most of the great\nmystics of history have done their thinking and have made their\nformulations is still further responsible for the excessive negativity\nof their systems.\n\nThere is, of course, a negative element or aspect in all genuine\nreligion.  No person can grow rich in spiritual experience or can gain\nan intimate acquaintance with a God of purity and truth without\nnegating the easy ways of instinct, the low pursuits of life which end\nin self, the habits of thought and action which limit and hamper the\nrealization of the diviner possibilities of the whole nature.\nSometimes the eye that hinders must be plucked out or the right hand\ncut off and thrust away for the sake of a freer pursuit of the soul's\nkingdom.  There is, too, a still deeper principle of negativity\ninvolved in the very fibre of personal life itself.  No one can advance\nwithout {xxvi} surrender, no one can have gains without losses, no one\ncan reach great goals without giving up many things in themselves\ndesirable.  There is \"a rivalry of me's\" which no person can ever\nescape, for in order to choose and achieve one typical self another\npossible self must be sternly sacrificed.  In a very real sense it\nremains forever true that we must die to live, we must die to the\nnarrow self in order to be raised to the wider and richer self.\n\nBut the _negative way_ of mysticism is more rigorous and more thorough\nin its negation than that.  Its negations \"wind up the hill all the way\nto the very top.\"  Even the _self_ must be absolutely negated.  \"The\nself, the I, the me and the like, all belong to the evil spirit.  The\nwhole matter can be set forth in these words: Be simply and wholly\nbereft of self.\"  \"The I, the me, and the mine, nature, selfhood, the\nDevil, sin, are all one and the same thing.\"[11]  Not only so, but all\n_desire_ for any particular thing, or any particular experience must be\nutterly extirpated.  \"Whatever Good the creature as creature can\nconceive of and understand is something this or that,\" and therefore\nnot the One Real Good.[12]  \"So long as thy soul has an image, it is\nwithout simplicity, and so long as it is without simplicity it doth not\nrightly love God.\"[13]  \"Divine love can brook no rival.\"  He who seeks\nGod must \"rid himself of all that pertains to the creature.\"  He that\nwould find the absolute Good must withdraw not only beyond all his\nsenses, but beyond all desires, into an inner \"solitude where no word\nis spoken, where is neither creature nor image nor fancy.\"  \"Everything\ndepends,\" Tauler counsels us, \"upon a fathomless sinking into a\nfathomless nothingness. .  . .  God has really no place to work in but\nthe ground where all has been annihilated. . . .  Then when all forms\nhave ceased, in the twinkling of an eye, the man is transformed. . . .\nThou must sink into the unknown and unnamed abyss, and above all ways,\nimages, forms, and above all powers, {xxvii} lose thyself, deny\nthyself, and even unform thyself.\"[14] The moment the will focusses\nupon any concrete aim as its goal, it must thereby miss that Good which\nis above and beyond all particular \"things\" that can be conceived or\nnamed.\n\nBut the _negative way_ winds up farther still.  It ends in the\nabsolutely negative Silent Desert of Godhead \"where no one is at home.\"\nIts way up is the way of abstraction and withdrawal from everything\nfinite.  He whom the soul seeks cannot be found in anything \"here\" or\n\"now\"; He must be \"yonder.\"  \"It is by no means permitted,\" says one of\nthe great experts in negation, \"to speak or even to think anything\nconcerning the super-essential and hidden Deity. . . .  It is a Unity\nabove mind, a One above conception and inconceivable to all\nconceptions, a Good unutterable by word.\"[15]  \"Thou must love God,\"\nEckhart says, \"as not-God, not-Spirit, not-person, not-image, but as He\nis, a sheer, pure, absolute One, sundered from all two-ness and in whom\nwe must eternally sink from nothingness to nothingness.\"[16]  God, the\nGodhead, is thus the absolute \"Dark,\" \"the nameless Nothing,\" an empty\nGod, a characterless Infinite.  \"Why dost thou prate of God,\" Eckhart\nsays, \"whatever thou sayest of Him is untrue!\"  The rapt soul at the\nend of his road, at the top of the hill, only knows that every finite\naccount is false and that the only adequate word is an everlasting Nay.\n\n  Whatever idea your mind comes at,\n  I tell you flat\n  God is _not_ that.[17]\n\n\nThe great mystics have always saved themselves by neglecting to be\nconsistent with this rigorous negation and abstraction.  In their\npractice they have cut through their theory and gone on living the rich\nconcrete life.  {xxviii} But the theory itself is a false theory of\nlife, and it leads only to a God of abstraction, not to the God of\nspiritual religion.  The false trail, however, is to be charged, as I\nhave said, not so much to mystical experience as to the metaphysics\nthrough which the mystics, not only of Christian communions, but of\nother faiths, were compelled to do their thinking.  There was no other\nway of thinking known to them except this way of negation.  The\nInfinite was the not-finite; the Absolute was precisely what the\ncontingent was _not_.  The perfect was free of every mark of\nimperfection.  Behind all manifestations was the essential Substance\nwhich made the manifestations.  The completely Real was above all\nmutation and process.  \"For one to assign,\" therefore, \"to God any\nhuman attributes,\" as Spinoza, the supreme apostle of this negative way\nhas said, \"is to reveal that he has no true idea of God.\" It has taken\nall the philosophical and spiritual travail of the centuries to\ndiscover that there may be a concrete Infinite, an organic Absolute, an\nimmanent Reality, and that the way to share in this comprehending Life\nis at least as much a way of affirmation as of negation, a way that\nleads not into \"the Dark\" but into the Light, and not into a\n\"fathomless nothing,\" but into an abundant and radiant life.\n\nMysticism, as a type of religion, has further staked its precious\nrealities too exclusively upon the functions of what to-day we call the\nsub-conscious.  Impressed with the divine significance of \"inward\nbubblings,\" the mystic has made too slight an account of the testimony\nof Reason and the contribution of history.  The subconscious functions\nare very real and very important aspects of personal life, and can\nnever again be ignored in any full account of personality.  They\ninfluence every thought, feeling, attitude, volition, opinion, mood,\nand insight, and are thus operative in all the higher as well as in all\nthe lower phases of human life and character.  Metaphorically, but only\nmetaphorically, we speak of the sub-conscious as a vast zone, an\nindefinable margin, surrounding the narrow focus of attention, and we\nmay {xxix} figuratively, but only figuratively, call it the subliminal\n\"region\" where all our life-gains, and often the gains of the race, are\ngarnered.  The contributions from this mental underworld are\ninestimable--we could not be men without them--but this subconscious\nzone is a source of things bad as well as good, things silly as well as\nthings wise, of rubbish as well as of treasures, and it is diabolical\nas well as divine.  It seems in rare moments to connect, as though it\nwere a hidden inland stream, with the \"immortal sea which brought us\nhither,\" and we feel at times, through its incomes, as though we were\naware of _tides_ from beyond our own margin.  And, in fact, I believe\nwe are.\n\nBut obviously we cannot assume that whatever comes spontaneously out of\nthe subconscious is divinely given.  It mothers strange\noffspring--Esaus as well as Jacobs; its openings, its inrushes, its\nbubblings must be severely tested.  Impulses of many sorts feel\ncategorically imperative, but some call to deeds of light and some to\ndeeds of darkness.  They cannot be taken at their face value; they must\nbe judged in some Court which is less capricious and which is guided by\na more universal principle--something _semper et ubique_.  A spiritual\nreligion of the full and complete type will, I believe, have inward,\nmystical depth, it will keep vitalized and intensified with its\nexperiences of divine supplies, and of union and unification with an\nenvironing Spirit, but it must at the same time soundly supplement its\nmore or less capricious and subjective, and always fragmentary,\nmystical insights with the steady and unwavering testimony of Reason,\nand no less with the immense objective illumination of History.\n\n\n\nIII\n\nThe men whom I am here calling Spiritual Reformers are examples of this\nwider synthesis.  They all read and loved the mystics and they\nthemselves enjoyed times of direct refreshment from an inward Source of\nLife, but {xxx} they were, most of them, at the same time, devoted\nHumanists.  They shared with enthusiasm the rediscovery of those\ntreasures which human Reason had produced, and they rose to a more\nvirile confidence in the sphere and capacity of Reason than had\nprevailed in Christian circles since the days of the early Greek\nFathers.  They took a variety of roads to their conclusion, but in one\nway or another they all proclaimed that deep in the central nature of\nman--an inalienable part of Reason--there was a Light, a Word, an Image\nof God, something permanent, reliable, universal, and unsundered from\nGod himself.  They all knew that man is vastly more than \"mere man.\"\nHans Denck, one of the earliest of this group of Spiritual Reformers,\ndeclared that there is a _witness to God_ in the soul of every man, and\nthat without this inward Word it would be as impossible to bring men to\nGod by outward means as it would be to show sunlight to eyeless men.\nHe anticipated the great saying of Pascal in these words, \"Apart from\nGod no one can either seek or find God, for he who seeks God already in\ntruth has Him.\"[18]  \"We are,\" says Jacob Boehme, who belongs in this\nline of Spiritual Reformers, \"of God's substance: we have heaven and\nhell in ourselves.\"[19]  There is in us, Peter Sterry says, a _unity of\nspirit_ which holds all things together in an _at-once_ experience, \"a\nspire-top of spirit where all things meet and sit recollected and\nconcentred in an unfathomed Depth of Life.\"[20]  Most of these men were\nin revolt against scholasticism and all its works.  They speak often\nvery slightingly of \"Reasoning,\" the attempt to find a way to ultimate\nRealities by logical syllogisms, but they, nevertheless, believed great\nthings of man's rational and moral nature.  They are often confused and\ncloudy in their explicit accounts of this ultimate moral and rational\nnature.  They everywhere indicate the conceptual limitations {xxxi}\nunder which even those who were the most emancipated from tradition\nwere compelled to do their thinking in that age.  They could not break\nthe age-long spell and mighty fascination with which the Adam story and\nthe Garden of Eden picture had held the Christian world.  They were\nconvinced, however, that the Augustinian interpretation of the fall,\nwith its entail of an indelible taint upon the race forever, was an\ninadequate, if not an untrue account, though they could not quite\narrive at an insight which enabled them to speak with authority on the\nfundamental nature of man.  But with an instinct that pointed right,\nthey took Adam as a type of the unspoiled man, and they saw writ large\nin him the possibilities and potentialities of man.  What had been\noriginally possible in Adam became, according to their thought, actual\nrealization in Jesus Christ--the form and type of man, the true Head of\nthe race--and in spite of the havoc and spoiling, which sin had\nwrought, that original possibility, that divine potentiality, still\nreappears in every child, who comes now, as Adam did, made in the image\nof God, with the breath of God in him, and with creative freedom of\nwill to settle his own destiny.  Some of the Reformers whom I am here\nstudying centre this image of God, this immense divine potentiality, in\nthe ideal man, in man as God conceives him in his perfect state, or as\nGod by His Grace intends him to be, and they do not go the whole bold\nway of asserting that this man we know, this man who lives in time and\nspace, who loves and sins and suffers, has and always has, in the very\nstructure of his inmost moral and rational being, a divine, unlost,\ninalienable, soul-centre which is unsundered from God, and bears\neternal witness to our origin from Him, our potential likeness to Him,\nand our capacity to receive illumination from Him.[21]  But this latter\n{xxxii} bolder view of the inherent greatness of man's essential nature\nis the prevailing tendency of these men.  They are thus the forerunners\nof the Quaker faith that there is something of God in man, and they\ncontinue the direct line, which goes back for ancestry to the Socratic\nmovement in philosophy of those who find God involved and implicated in\nthe nature of normal self-consciousness and in the idea of the Good\ntoward which we live.[22]\n\nMystics and prophets, as Seely well says in _Ecce Homo_, seem to\nthemselves to \"discover truth not so much by a process of reasoning as\nby _an intense gaze_, and they announce their conclusions with the\nvoice of a herald, using the name of God and giving no reasons.\"  The\nrational way of approach is different.  It seeks to draw out by a\nprocess of rational argument what is involved in the outer or inner\nfacts that are present to consciousness.  It does not claim the power\nto make bricks without clay, to construct its conclusions out of\nnothing.  Its only legitimate field is that of interpreting experience.\nThere have always been men who were religious because they could not\nhelp being religious, because a Universe without God seemed to them\nutterly irrational and unthinkable.  Schleiermacher is only one witness\nin a long and impressive succession of thinkers that have insisted that\n\"consciousness of God and self-consciousness are inseparable.\"[23]  It\nis obvious even to the unmetaphysical person that self-consciousness\nalways presupposes and involves something prior to one's own existence\nand some reality transcending the reality of one's own self.  The\nfinite is intelligible only through the infinite, the temporal only\nthrough the eternal.  We cannot think at all without appealing to some\n_permanent more of reality_ than is just now given in our particular\nfinite experience, and no matter how far one travels on the road of\nknowledge one always finds it still necessary to make reference to _a\ntranscending more_.  \"All consciousness is,\" as Hegel {xxxiii} showed\nin 1807, in his philosophical Pilgrim's Progress, the _Phenomenology of\nSpirit_, \"an appeal to more consciousness,\" and there is no rational\nhalting-place short of a self-consistent and self-explanatory spiritual\nReality, which explains the origin and furnishes the goal of all that\nis real.\n\nOn the other hand, there have always been men who have not granted any\nsuch compelling implications to self-consciousness.  They have\nmaintained that \"finites\" are forever \"finites,\" and that there are no\nbridges that carry us from our finite \"nows\" and \"heres\" to an infinite\nReality.  The infinite Reality, they all admit, is conceivable; it is\n\"an idea\" to which any mind can rise by normal processes of thought,\n\"but,\" so they say, \"an _idea_ of an infinite Reality, an Infinite\nmerely conceived in the mind, is different, by the whole width of the\nsky, from an actual objective infinite Reality that is _there_, and\nthat contains inherently all that our hearts seek in God.\"\n\nIt is quite true, of course, that the presence of \"an idea\" in our mind\ndoes not of itself prove the existence of a corresponding objective\nreality _out there_ in a world independent of our mind.  There is most\nassuredly no way of bridging \"the chasm\" between mind and an objective\nworld beyond and outside of mind, when once the \"chasm\" is assumed.\nBut the fundamental error lies in the assumption of any such \"chasm.\"\nThe \"chasm\" which yawns between the inner and outer world is of our own\nmaking.  Whenever we know anything, wherever there is knowledge at all,\nthere is a synthetic indivisible whole of experience in which a subject\nknows an object.  Subject and object cannot be really sundered without\nputting an instant end to knowledge--leaving \"a bare grin without a\nface!\"  The only way we know anything is that we know we know it in\nexperience.  We do not ever succeed in proving that objects exist _out\nthere_ in the world beyond us exactly correspondent to these ideas in\nour minds.  That is a feat of mental gymnastics quite parallel to that\nof \"finding\" {xxxiv} the self with which we do the seeking.  The\ncrucial problem of knowledge is not to discover a bridge to leap the\nchasm between the mind within and the world beyond.  It is rather the\nproblem of finding a basis of verifying and testing what we know, and\nof making knowledge a consistent rational whole.\n\nThe method of testing and verifying any fact of truth which we have on\nour hands, is always to organize it and link it into a larger whole of\nknowledge which we ourselves, or the wider group of persons in which we\nare organic members, have verified, and to see that it fits in\nconsistently into this larger whole, and in this rational process we\nalways assume, and are bound to assume, some sort of Reality that\ntranscends the fleeting and temporal, the caprice of the moment, the\nwill of the subject, the here and the now.  The mind that knows and\nknows that it knows must, as Plato centuries ago declared, rise from\nthe welter and flux of momentary seemings to true Being, to the\neternally Real,[24] and the knowledge process of binding fragments of\nexperience into larger wholes and of getting articulate insight into\nthe significance of many facts grasped in synthetic unity--in the\n\"spire-top of spirit,\" as Sterry puts it--carries the mind steadily and\nirresistibly on to an infinitely-inclusive and self-explanatory\nspiritual Whole, which is always implied in knowledge.  Some reference\nto the _permanent_ is necessary in judging even the fleetingness of the\n\"now,\" some confidence in the eternally true is essential for any\npronouncement upon the false, some assurance of the infinite is\npresupposed in the endless dissatisfaction with the finite, some appeal\nto a total whole of Reality is implicated in any assertion that _this\nfact here and now_ is known as real.  Any one who feels the full\nsignificance of what is involved in knowing the _truth_ has a coercive\nfeeling that Eternity has been set within us, that our finite life is\ndeeply rooted in the all-pervading Infinite.\n\nThe great thinkers of the first rank who have undertaken to sound the\nsignificance of rational knowledge, {xxxv} and who have appreciated the\nmeaning of the synthetic unity of the knowing mind and the world of\nobjects that submit to its forms of thought, have recognized that there\nmust be some deep-lying fundamental relation between the mind that\nknows and the world that is known, some Reality common to both outer\nand inner realms.  They have, almost without exception, found\nthemselves carried along irresistibly to an ultimate Reality that is\nthe ground and explanation of all the fragmentary facts of experience,\nand without which nothing can be held to be permanent or rational--\n\n        Something far more deeply interfused,\n  Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,\n  And the round ocean and the living air,\n  And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;\n  A motion and a Spirit, that impels\n  All thinking things, all objects of all thought,\n  And rolls through all things.[25]\n\n\nThe technical logical formulation of arguments to _prove_ the existence\nof God as objectively real--arguments from causality, ontological\narguments, and arguments from design--all of which assume a \"chasm\"\nbetween the knower and the object known, seem to us perhaps on critical\nanalysis thin and insufficient.  The bridge of formal logic seems too\nweak to carry us safely over from a finite here to an infinite yonder,\nfrom a contingent fact to an Absolute Reality, from something given\n_in_ consciousness to Something existent outside and beyond it; but it\nis an impressive and significant fact that all finite experience, both\nof inner and outer events, involves a More yet, that we cannot think\nfinite and contingent things without rational appeal to Something\ninfinite and necessary, that human experience cannot be rationally\nconceived except as a fragment of a vastly more inclusive Experience,\nalways recognized within the finite spirit, that unifies and binds\ntogether into one self-explanatory whole all that is absolutely Real\nand True, and this is Reason's conviction of God.\n\n{xxxvi}\n\nWhen once the conviction is _felt_ and the rational postulate of God is\nmade, it immediately verifies its practical value in the solution of\nour deepest problems.  A happy illustration of the practical value and\nverifying evidence of the rational postulate of God has been given by\nJames Ward: \"Suppose,\" he says, \"that the earth were wrapt in clouds\nall day while the sky was clear at night, so that we were able to see\nthe planets and observe their movements as we do now, though the sun\nitself was invisible.  The best account we could give of the planetary\nmotions would still be to refer them to what for us, in accordance with\nour supposition, would only be an imaginary focus [or centre of\nphysical energy], but one to which was assigned a position identical\nwith the sun's [present] position.\"[26]  This assumption would at once\nunlock the mystery and account for the varying movements of these\nvisible bodies and the more rigorously the hypothesis were applied, the\nmore exactly it would verify itself.  So, too, with Reason's sublime\nventure of faith.  The nature of self-consciousness demands the\npostulate, and once it is made it _works_.\n\nThe same result follows any attempt adequately to account for the moral\nimperative--the will to live the truly good life.  The moral will turns\nout always to be imbedded in a deeper, richer, more inclusive Life than\nthat of the fragmentary finite individual.  There is a creative and\nautonomous central self in us which puts before us ideals of truth and\nbeauty and goodness that are nowhere to be \"found\" in this world of\nsense-facts, and that yet are more real and august than any things our\neyes see or our hands handle.  Our main moral problem is not to adjust\nour inner ideals to our environment, but rather to compel the\nenvironment to level up to our ideals.  The world that ought to be\nmakes us forever dissatisfied with the world that is, and sets us with\na fixity of purpose at the task of realizing the Kingdom which might\npossibly be, which we know ought to be, and which, therefore, has our\nloyal endeavour that it {xxxvii} shall be, regardless of the cost in\npain and sacrifice.  Man, as William Wallace has put it, \"projects his\nown self-to-be into the nature he seeks to conquer.  Like an assailant\nwho should succeed in throwing his standard into the strong central\nkeep of the enemy's fortress, and fight his way thereto with assured\nvictory in his eyes of hope, so man with the vision of his soul\nprognosticates his final triumph.\"[27]  But if the life of moral\nendeavour is to be essentially consistent and reasonable there must be\na world of Reality that transcends this realm of empirical, causal, and\nutilitarian happenings.  Struggle for ends of goodness must be at least\nas significant in function as struggle for existence; our passion for\nwhat ought to be must have had birth in an inner eternal environment at\nleast as real as that which produced our instincts and appetite for the\nthings by which we live in time.  If the universe is through and\nthrough rational, there must be some personal Heart that _cares_; some\nmoral Will that guarantees and backs our painful strivings--our\ngroaning and travailing--to make what ought to be come into play here\nin the world which is.  This postulate is Reason's faith in God, and\nagain it _works_.\n\nThe evolution of life--if it is evolving as we believe it is,\nand if it is to be viewed with rational insight as an upward\nprocess--irresistibly involves and implies some sort of fundamental\nintelligence and conscious purpose, some Logos steering the mighty\nmovement.  We have outgrown crude arguments from \"design,\" and we\ncannot think of God as a foreign and external Creator, working as a\nPotter on his clay; but it is irrational to \"explain\" a steadily\nunfolding movement, an ever-heightening procession of life, by\n\"fortuitous variations,\" by \"accidental\" shifts of level, or even by a\nblind _elan vital_.  If there is an increasing purpose and a clearly\nculminating drama unfolding in this moving flood of life, then there is\nsome Mind that sees the way, and some Will that directs the march of\nLife.  And this confidence of ours in some divine Event to which the\nwhole creation moves, {xxxviii} this insight that there must be a\nsignificant and adequate explanation for the immanent teleology and\nbeauty with which our universe is crammed, is, once more, Reason's\npostulate of God.  There is something in us, indissoluble from Reason\nitself--a Light, a Word, a Witness as these Spiritual Reformers\ninsisted--which links us in all the deeper processes of\nself-consciousness with _That Which Is_ and without which \"knowledge\"\nwould be a mere flux of seemings, a flight of _seriatim_ items.\n\n\n\nIV\n\n  When this world's pleasures for my soul sufficed,\n  Ere my heart's plummet sounded depths of pain,\n  I called on reason to control my brain,\n  And scoffed at that old story of the Christ.\n\n  But when o'er burning wastes my feet had trod,\n  And all my life was desolate with loss,\n  With bleeding hands I clung about the cross,\n  And cried aloud, \"Man needs a suffering God.\"[28]\n\n\nThere can be no doubt that the compulsions and implications of rational\ninsight have brought multitudes of men to God, have given them an\nunescapable conviction of His reality, and have swayed their wills to\nlive in conformity to His perfect Goodness; and it is also true that\nwhen for any cause this clue of rationality is missed or lost, men\nflounder about in the fog and pass through periods of inward tragedy\namounting often to despair.  But the approach of Reason still leaves\nmuch to be desired.  It points to something deeper than the transitory\nflux of things, it raises our minds to some sort of ultimate and\nself-explanatory Reality, it compels the conviction that there is an\nall-inclusive Logos--Mind or Spirit--that explains what is and what\nought to be, and what in the unfolding course of things is to be; but\nit does not bring us to a personal God who is our loving Friend and the\n{xxxix} intimate Companion of our souls, it does not help us solve the\nmystery of human suffering that lies heavily upon our lives, and it\ndoes not bring to our spirits _the saving reinforcement of personal\nLove_ that must be a central feature of a spiritual and adequate\nreligion.\n\nThere is still another way of approach to a Religion for mature minds\nwhich has been no less universally operative and no less dynamic in its\ntransforming effects upon human lives than either of the two tendencies\nso far considered--I refer to the way of Faith.  By Faith I mean the\nsoul's moral or appreciative apprehension of God as _historically\nrevealed_, particularly as revealed in the personal life of Jesus\nChrist.  This Faith-way to God cannot be wholly separated--except by an\nartificial abstraction--from the inward way of mysticism, or from the\nimplications of Reason.  It is no blind acceptance of traditional\nopinions, no uncritical reliance on \"authority,\" or on some mysterious\ninfallible oracle.  It is the spiritual response--or \"assent,\" as\nClement of Alexandria called it--the moral swing of our inmost self, as\nwe catch insights of a loving Heart and holy Will revealed through the\nwords and lives and sufferings of saints and prophets, who have lived\nby their vision of God, and supremely revealed in the Life and Love,\nthe Passion and the Triumphs of that Person whose experience and\ncharacter and incarnation of life's possibilities seem at last adequate\nfor all the needs--the heights and the depths--of this complex life of\nours.\n\nIt was Luther's living word which first brought the momentous\nsignificance of Faith to clear consciousness in the sixteenth century.\nBut the new way of Faith meant many and discordant things, according to\nthe preparation of the ears of those who heard.  It spoke, as all\nPentecosts do, to each man in his own tongue.  To those who came to the\nLutheran insight with a deep hunger of spirit for reality and with\nminds liberated by Humanistic studies, the Faith-message meant new\nheavens and a new earth.  It was a new discovery of God, and a new\nestimate of man.  They suddenly caught {xl} a vision of life as it was\ncapable of becoming, and they committed their fortunes to the task of\nmaking that possible world real.  By a shift of view, as revolutionary\nas that from Ptolemaic astronomy to the verifiable insight of\nCopernicus, they passed over from the dogma of a Christ who came to\nappease an angry God, and to found a Church as an ark of safety in a\ndoomed world, to the living apprehension of a Christ--verifiable in\nexperience--who revealed to them, in terms of His own nature, an\neternally tender, loving, suffering, self-giving God, and who made them\nsee, with the enlightened eyes of their heart, the divine possibilities\nof human life.  Through this insight, they were the beginners of a new\ntype of Christianity, which has become wide-spread and impressive in\nthe modern world, a type that finds the supreme significance of\nChrist's Life in His double revelation of the inherent nature of God,\nand the immense value and potentiality of man, and that changes the\nemphasis from schemes of salvation to interpretations of life, from the\nmagic significance of doctrine to the incalculable worth of the moral\nwill.\n\nThese men were weak in historical sense, and, like everybody else in\ntheir generation, they used Scripture without much critical insight.\nBut they hit upon a principle which saved them from slavery to texts,\nand which gave them a working faith in the steady moral and spiritual\ndevelopment of man.  I mean the principle that this Christ whom they\nhad discovered anew was an eternal manifestation of God, an immanent\nWord of God, a Spirit brooding over the world of men, as in the\nbeginning over the face of the waters, present in the unfolding events\nof history as well as in the far-away \"dispensations of Grace.\"  As a\nresult, they grew less interested in the problem that had fascinated so\nmany mystics, the problem of the super-empirical evolution of the\ndivine Consciousness; the super-temporal differentiation of the unity\nof the Godhead into a Father and Son and self-revealing Holy Ghost; and\nthey tried rather to appreciate and to declare the concrete revelation\nthrough Christ, and {xli} the import of His visible and invisible\npresence in the world.[29]\n\nThis approach of Faith, this appreciation of the nature of God as He\nhas been unveiled in the ethical processes of history, especially in\nthe Person of Christ, and in His expanding conquest of the world, must\nalways be one of the great factors of spiritual religion.  The profound\nresults of higher criticism, with its stern winnowings, have brought us\nface to face with problems unknown to the sixteenth and seventeenth\ncenturies.  So much of what seemed the solid continent of historical\ntruth has weathered and crumbled away that some have wondered whether\nany irreducible nucleus would remain firm and permanent above the flood\nof the years, and whether the religion of the future must not dispense\nwith the historical element, and the Faith-aspect that goes with it,\nand rest wholly upon present inward experience.\n\nThere are, however, I believe, no indications worth considering, of the\ndisappearance of Jesus Christ from human history.  On the contrary, He\nholds, as never before, the commanding place in history.  He still\ndominates conscience, by the moral sway of His Life of Goodness, as\ndoes no other Person who has ever lived; and by the attractive power of\nHis life and love He still sets men to living counter to the strong\nthrust of instinct and impulse as does no one else who has ever touched\nthe springs of conduct.  The Faith-aspect is still a very live element\nin religion, and it is, as it has been so often before, precisely the\naspect which supplies concrete body and filling and objective ethical\ndirection to our deep sub-conscious yearnings and strivings and\nexperiences.\n\nOnce at least there shone through the thin veil of matter a personal\nLife which brought another kind of world than this world of natural law\nand utilitarian aims full into light.  There broke through here in the\nface of Jesus {xlii} Christ a revelation of Purpose in the universe so\nfar beyond the vague trend of purpose dimly felt in slowly evolving\nlife that it is possible here to catch an illuminating vision of what\nthe goal of the long drama may be--the unveiling of sons of God.  Here\nthe discovery can be made that the deepest Reality toward which Reason\npoints, and which the mystical experience _feels_, is no vague\nSomething Beyond, but a living, loving Some One, dealing with us as\nPerson with person.  In Him there comes to focus in a Life that we can\nlove and appreciate a personal character which impresses us as being\nabsolutely good, and as being in its inexhaustible depth of Love and\nGrace worthy to be taken as the revelation of the true nature of the\nGod whom all human hearts long for.  And finally through this personal\nrevelation of God in Christ there has come to us a clear insight that\npain and suffering and tragedy can be taken up into a self-chosen Life\nand absorbed without spoiling its immense joy, and that precisely\nthrough suffering-love, joyously accepted, a Person expressing in the\nworld the heart of God may become the moral and spiritual Saviour of\nothers.  As von Hugel has finely said: \"A Person came and lived and\nloved, and did and taught, and died and rose again, and lives on by His\npower and His Spirit forever within us and amongst us, so unspeakably\nrich and yet so simple, so sublime and yet so homely, so divinely above\nus precisely in being so divinely near that His character and teaching\nrequire, for an ever fuller yet never complete understanding, the\nvarying study, and different experiments and applications, embodiments\nand unrollings of all the races and civilizations, of all the\nindividual and corporate, the simultaneous and successive experiences\nof the human race to the end of time.\"[30]\n\nThe only salvation worth talking about is that which consists of an\ninner process of moral transformation, through which one passes over\n\"the great divide\" from a life that is self-centred and dominated by\nimpulse and sin to a life that is assured of divine forgiveness, that\nhas {xliii} conceived a passion for a redeemed inward nature, that is\nconscious of help from beyond its own resources, and that is dedicated\nto the task of making moral goodness triumph over the evil of the\nworld.  Any experience which brings to the soul a clear vision of the\nmoral significance of human life, and that engenders in us a practical\ncertainty that God is working with us in all our deepest undertakings,\ntends to have saving efficacy and to bring about this inward\ntransformation.  But nowhere else in the universe--above us or within\nus--has the moral significance of life come so full into sight, or the\nreality of actual divine fellowship, whether in our aspirations or in\nour failures, been raised to such a pitch of practical certainty as in\nthe personal life and death and resurrection and steady historical\ntriumph of Jesus Christ.  He exhibits in living fulness, with\ntransforming power, a Life which consciously felt itself one with the\nheart and will of God.  He reveals the inherent blessedness of\nLove--even though it may involve suffering and pain and death.  He\nshows the moral supremacy, even in this imperfect empirical world, of\nthe perfectly good will, and He impresses those who _see_ Him--see Him,\nI mean, with eyes that can penetrate through the temporal to the\neternal and find His real nature--as being the supreme personal\nunveiling of God, as worthy to be our Leader, our Ideal Life, our\ntypical personal Character, and strong enough in His infinite Grace and\ndivine self-giving to convince us of the eternal co-operation of God\nwith our struggling humanity, and to settle our Faith in the essential\nSaviourhood of God.\n\nHe who sees _that_ in Christ has found a real way to God and has\ndiscovered a genuine way of salvation.  It is the way of Faith, but\nFaith is no airy and unsubstantial road, no capricious leap.  There is\nno kind of aimful living conceivable that does not involve faith in\nsomething trans-subjective--faith in something not given in present\nempirical experience.  Even in our most elementary life-adjustments\nthere is something operative in us which far underlies our conscious\nperceiving and {xliv} the logic of our conclusions.  We are moved, not\nalone by what we clearly picture and coldly analyse, but by deep-lying\ninstincts which defy analysis, by background and foreground fringes of\nconsciousness, by immanent and penetrative intelligence which cannot be\nbrought to definite focus, by the vast reservoirs of accumulated wisdom\nthrough which we _feel_ the way to go, though we can pictorially\nenvisage no \"spotted trees\" that mark the trail.\n\nThis religious and saving Faith, through which the soul discovers God\nand makes the supreme life-adjustment to Him, is profoundly moral and,\nin the best sense of the word, rational.  It does not begin with an\nassumption, blind or otherwise, as to Christ's metaphysical nature, it\ndoes not depend upon the adoption of systematically formulated\ndoctrines; it becomes operative through the discovery of a personal\nLife, historically lived--and continued through the centuries as a\ntransforming Spirit--rich enough in its experience to exhibit the\ninfinite significance of life, inwardly deep enough in its spiritual\nresources to reveal the character of God, and strong enough in\nsympathy, in tenderness, in patience, and in self-giving love to beget\nforever trust and confidence and love on the part of all who thus find\nHim.\n\nThe God whom we learn to know in Christ--the God historically\nrevealed--is no vague first Cause, no abstract Reality, no all-negating\nAbsolute.  He is a concrete Person, whose traits of character are\nintensely moral and spiritual.  His will is no fateful swing of\nmechanical law; it is a morally good will which works patiently and\nforever toward a harmonized world, a Kingdom of God.  The central trait\nof His character is Love.  He does not become Father, He is not\nreconciled to us by persuasive offerings and sacrifices.  He is\ninherently and by essential disposition Father and the God of all\nGrace.  He is not remote and absentee--making a world \"in the\nbeginning,\" and leaving it to run by law, or only occasionally\ninterrupting its normal processes--He is immanent Spirit, working\nalways, the God of beauty and organizing purpose.  He {xlv} is Life and\nLight and Truth, an Immanuel God who can and does show Himself in a\npersonal Incarnation, and so exhibits the course and goal of the race.\nThe way of Faith is a way to God, and the religion of this type is as\nproperly _a first-hand religion_ as that of any other type.\n\nI have, of course, by no means exhausted the types of mature religion.\nThere are other ways of approach to God, other roads by which the soul\nfinds the way home--\"On the East three gates; on the North three gates;\non the South three gates; and on the West three gates\"--and they will\ncontinue to be sacred ways--_viae sacrae_--for those who travel them\nand thus find their heart's desire.  What we should learn from this\nbrief study is that religion is too rich and complex an experience to\nbe squeezed down to some one isolated aspect of life or of\nconsciousness.  There are many ways to God and any way that actually\nbrings the soul to Him is a good way, but the best way is that one\nwhich produces upon the imperfect personal life the profoundest saving\neffects, the most dynamic moral reinforcement, and which brings into\nsway over the will the goal of life most adequate for men like us in a\nsocial world like ours.\n\nFor most of us no one way of approach--no single type of religion--is\nquite sufficient for all the needs of our life.  Most of us are\nfortunate enough to have at least moments when we feel in warm and\nintimate _contact_ with a divine, enwrapping environment more real to\nus than things of sense and of arithmetic, and when the infinite and\neternal is no less, but immeasurably more, sure than the finite and\ntemporal.  Most of us, again, succeed, at least on happy occasions of\nmental health, in finding rational clues which carry us through the\nmaze of contingency and clock-time happenings, through the\nimperfections of our slow successive events, to the One Great Now of\nperfect Reality which explains the process, and we attain to an\nintellectual love of God.  And in spite of the literary difficulties of\nprimitive narratives and of false trails which the historical Church\nhas again and again taken, almost any serious, earnest soul to-day\n{xlvi} may find that divine Face, that infinitely deep and luminous\nPersonality who spoke as no man ever spake, who loved as none other\never loved, who saw more in humanity than anybody else has ever seen,\nand who felt as no other person ever has that He was one in heart and\nmind and will with God; and having found Him, by a morally responsive\nFaith which dominates and transforms the inward self, one has found God\nas Companion, Friend, and Saviour.  Where all these ways converge, and\na soul enjoys the privilege of mystical contact, the compulsion of\nrational insight, and the moral reinforcement of personal Faith in\nChrist, religion comes to its consummate flower, and may with some\nright be called \"spiritual Religion.\"\n\n\n\nV\n\nThe most radical step which these spiritual Reformers took--the step\nwhich put them most strikingly out of line with the main course of the\nReformation--was their break with Protestant Theology.  They were not\nsatisfied with a programme which limited itself to a correction of\nabuses, an abolition of mediaeval superstitions, and a shift of\nexternal authority.  They were determined to go the whole way to a\nReligion of inward life and power, to a Christianity whose only\nauthority should be its dynamic and spiritual authority.  They placed\nas low an estimate on the saving value of orthodox systems of\ntheological formulation as the Protestant Reformers did on the saving\nvalue of \"works.\"  To the former, salvation was an affair neither of\n\"works\" nor of what they called \"notions,\" _i.e._ views, beliefs, or\ncreeds.  They are never weary of insisting that a person may go on\nendless pilgrimages to holy places, he may repeat unnumbered\n\"paternosters,\" he may mortify his body to the verge of\nself-destruction, and still be unsaved and unspiritual; so, too, he may\n\"believe\" all the dogma of the most orthodox system of faith, he may\ntake on his lips the most sacred words of sound doctrine, and yet be\nutterly alien {xlvii} to the kingdom of God, a stranger and a foreigner\nto the spirit of Christ.  They were determined, therefore, to go\nthrough to a deeper centre and to make only those things pivotal which\nare absolutely essential to life and salvation.\n\nThey began their reconstruction of the meaning of salvation with (1) a\nnew and fresh interpretation of God, and (2) with a transformed\neschatology.  As I have already said, they re-discovered God through\nChrist, and in terms of His revelation; and coming to God _this way_,\nthey saw at once that the prevailing interpretations of the atonement\nwere inadequate and unworthy.  God, they declared, is not a Suzerain,\ntreating men as his vassals, reckoning their sins up against them as\ninfinite debts to be paid off at last in a vast commercial transaction\nonly by the immeasurable price of a divine Life, given to pay the debt\nwhich had involved the entire race in hopeless bankruptcy.  Nor, again,\nin their thought is He a mighty Sovereign, meting out to the world\nstrict justice and holding all sin as flagrant disloyalty and appalling\nviolation of law, never to be forgiven until the full requirements of\nsovereign justice are met and balanced and satisfied.  All this seemed\nto them artificial and false.  Salvation, as they understand it, cannot\nbe conceived as escape from debt nor as the satisfaction of justice,\nsince it is a personal life-relationship with a personal God who is and\nalways was eternal Love.  God's universe, both outer and inner, is\nloaded with moral significance, is meant for discipline, and therefore\nit has its stern aspects and drives its lessons home with the\nunswerving hammer of _consequences_.  But in the personal Heart of the\nuniverse, Love and Tenderness and Sympathy and Forgiveness are supreme,\nand every process and every instrument of salvation, in the divine\npurpose, is vital, ethical, spiritual.\n\nGod has shown Himself as Father.  He has revealed the immeasurable\nsuffering which sin inflicts on love.  To find the Father-Heart; to cry\n\"Abba\" in filial joy; to die to sin and to be born to love, is to be\nsaved.  Jacob Boehme gave this new conception of God, and its bearing\n{xlviii} on the way of salvation, the most adequate expression that was\ngiven by any of this group, but all these so-called spiritual Reformers\nherein studied had reached the same insight at different levels of\nadequacy.  Their return to a more vital conception of salvation, with\nits emphasis on the value of personality, brought with it, too, a new\nhumanitarian spirit and a truer estimate of the worth of man.  As they\nre-discovered the love of God, they also found again the gospel of love\nand brotherhood which is woven into the very tissue of the original\ngospel of divine Fatherhood.\n\nTheir revised eschatology was due, at least partly, to this altered\naccount of the character of God, but it was also partly due to their\nprofound tendency to deal with all matters of the soul in terms of life\nand vital processes.  Heaven and Hell were no longer thought of as\nterminal places, where the saved were everlastingly rewarded and the\nlost forever punished.  Heaven and Hell were for them inward\nconditions, states of the soul, the normal gravitation of the Spirit\ntoward its chosen centre.  Heaven and Hell cease, therefore, to be\neschatological in the true sense of the word; they become present\nrealities, tendencies of life, ways of reacting toward the things of\ndeepest import.  Heaven, whether here or in any other world, is the\ncondition of complete adjustment to the holy will of God; it is joy in\nthe prevalence of His goodness; peace through harmonious correspondence\nwith His purposes; the formation of a spirit of love, the creation of\nan inward nature that loves what God loves and enjoys what He enjoys.\n\nHell, here or elsewhere, is a disordered life, out of adjustment with\nthe universal will of God; it is concentration upon self and self-ends;\nthe contraction of love; the shrinking of inward resources; the\nformation of a spirit of hate, the creation of an inward nature that\nhates what God loves.  Hell is the inner condition inherently attaching\nto the kind of life that displays and exhibits the spirit and attitude\nwhich must be overcome before God with His purposes of goodness can be\n{xlix} ultimately triumphant and all in all.  Salvation, therefore,\ncannot be thought of in terms of escape from a place that is dreaded to\na place that is desired as a haven.  It is through and through a\nspiritual process--escape from a wrongly fashioned will to a will\nrightly fashioned.  It is complete spiritual health and wholeness of\nlife, brought into operation and function by the soul's recovery of God\nand by joyous correspondence with Him.\n\nHere is the genuine beginning in modern times of what has come to be\nthe deepest note of present-day Christianity, _the appreciation of\npersonality as the highest thing in earth or heaven_, and the\ninitiation of a movement to find the vital sources and resources for\nthe inner kindling of the spirit, and for raising the whole personal\nlife to higher functions and to higher powers.\n\nPutting the emphasis, as they did, on personal religion, _i.e._ on\nexperience, instead of on theology, they naturally became exponents of\nfree-will, and that, too, in a period when fore-ordination was a\ncentral dogma of theology.  This problem of freedom, which is as deep\nas personality itself, always has its answer \"determined\" by the point\nof approach.  For those who _begin_ with an absolute and omnipotent\nGod, and work down from above, the necessarian position is determined.\nTheir answer is: \"All events are infallibly connected with God's\ndisposal.\" For those who start, however, from actual experience and\nfrom the testimony of consciousness, freedom feels as certain as life\nitself.  Their answer is: \"Human will is a real factor in the direction\nof events and man shapes his own destiny toward good or evil.\"\nCalvin's logic is irresistible if his assumptions are once granted.\nThese spiritual Reformers, however, were untouched by it, because they\nbegan from the interior life, with its dramatic movements, as their\nbasal fact, and man as they knew him was free.\n\nThis spiritual movement involved, as a natural development, an entire\nshift from the historical idea of the Church as an authoritative and\nsupernatural instrument of salvation, to a Church whose authority was\nentirely vital, {l} ethical, spiritual, dynamic.  The Church of these\nspiritual Reformers was a Fellowship, a Society, a Family, rather than\na mysterious and supernatural entity.  They felt once again, as\npowerfully perhaps as it was possible in their centuries to feel it,\nthe immense significance of the Pauline conception of the Church as the\ncontinued embodiment and revelation of Christ, the communion of saints\npast and present who live or have lived by the Spirit.  Through this\nspiritual group, part of whom are visible and part invisible, they held\nthat the divine revelation is continued and the eternal Word of God is\nbeing uttered to the race.  \"The true religion of Christ,\" as one of\nthese spiritual teachers well puts it, \"is written in the soul and\nspirit of man by the Spirit of God; and the believer is the only book\nin which God now writes His New Testament.\"[31]  This Church of the\nSpirit is always being built.  Its power is proportional to the\nspiritual vitality of the membership, to the measure of apprehension of\ndivine resources, to the depth of insight and grasp of truth, to the\nprevalence of love and brotherhood, to the character of service, which\nthe members exhibit.  It possesses no other kind of power or authority\nthan the power and authority of personal lives formed into a community\nby living correspondence with God, and acting as human channels and\norgans of His Life and Spirit.  Such a Church can meet new formulations\nof science and history and social ideals with no authoritative and\nconclusive word of God which automatically settles the issue.  Its only\nweapons are truth and light, and these have to be continually\nre-discovered and re-fashioned to fit the facts which the age has found\nand verified.  Its mission is _prophetic_.  It does not dogmatically\ndecide what facts must be believed, but it sees and announces the\nspiritual significance of the facts that are discovered and verified.\nIt was, thus, in their thought a growing, changing, ever-adjusting\nbody--the living body of Christ in the world.  To the Protestant\nReformers this spiritual ideal presented \"a Church\" so shorn and\nemasculated as to be {li} absolutely worthless.  It seemed to them a\npropaganda which threatened and endangered the mighty work of\nreformation to which they felt themselves called, and they used all the\nforces available to suppress and annihilate those of this other \"way.\"\n\nNearly four hundred wonderful years have passed since the issue was\nfirst drawn, since the first of these spiritual prophets uttered his\nmodest challenge.  There can be no question that the current of\nChristian thought has been strongly setting in the direction which\nthese brave and sincere innovators took.  I feel confident that many\npersons to-day will be interested in these lonely men and will follow\nwith sympathy their valiant struggles to discover the road to a genuine\nspiritual religion, and their efforts to live by the eternal Word of\nGod as it was freely revealed as the Day Star to their souls.\n\n\n\n[1] 1 Cor. xv. 50.\n\n[2] 2 Cor. v. 1-4.\n\n[3] John iii. 6.\n\n[4] 1 John iv. 13; John xiii. 34 and xvi. 13; 1 John iv. 4.\n\n[5] They found their authority for this outer sheath of body in the\ntext which says: \"The Lord God made for Adam and for his wife coats of\nskins, and clothed them.\"--Gen. iii. 21.\n\n[6] Many of these historical reappearances are considered in my\n_Studies in Mystical Religion_.\n\n[7] Isaac Penington, \"A True and Faithful Relation of my Spiritual\nTravails,\" _Works_ (edition of 1761), i. pp. xxxvii.-xxxviii.\n\n[8] Isaac Penington's _Works_, i. pp. xxxvii.-xxxviii.\n\n[9] The exact and sharply-defined \"ladders\" of mystic ascent which form\na large part of the descriptive material in books on Mystical Religion\nare far from being universal ladders.  Like creeds, or like religious\ninstitutions, they powerfully assist certain minds to find the way\nhome, but they seem unreal and artificial to many other persons, and\nthey must be considered only as symbolisms which speak to the condition\nof a limited number of spiritual pilgrims.\n\n[10] Wordsworth's \"Prelude,\" Bk. ii.\n\n[11] _Theologia Germanica_, chaps. xxii. and xliii.\n\n[12] _Ibid._ chap. liii.\n\n[13] _Meister Eckhart_, Pfeiffer, p. 320. 20.\n\n[14] Tauler's Sermons.  See especially Sermons IV. and XXIII. in\nHutton's _Inner Way_.\n\n[15] _The Divine Names_ of Dionysius the Areopagite, chap. i. sec. i.\n\n[16] _Meister Eckhart_, Pfeiffer, p. 320. 25-30.\n\n[17] Quoted in W. H. J. Gairdner's _The Reproach of Islam_, p. 151.\n\n[19] Denck's _Was geredet sey, dass die Schrift_, B. 2.  Pascal's\nsaying is: \"Comfort thyself; thou wouldst not be seeking Me hadst thou\nnot already found Me.\"--Le Mystere de Jesus, sec. 2.\n\n[19] _The Threefold Life of Man_, xiv. 72.\n\n[20] Sterry's _Rise, Race, and Royalty of the Kingdom of God in the\nSoul of Man_, p. 24.\n\n[21] \"The finite individual soul seems naturally to present a double\naspect.  It looks like, on the one hand, a climax or concentration of\nthe nature beneath it and the community around it, and, on the other\nhand, a spark or fragment from what is above and beyond it.  It is\ncrystallized out of the collective soul of nature or society, or it\nfalls down from the transcendental soul of heaven or what is above\nhumanity.  In both cases alike it has its share of divinity.\"--Bernard\nBosanquet, _The Value and Destiny of the Individual_ (London, 1913), p.\n1.\n\n[22] The way to the world of Perfect Reality, Socrates says in the\n_Theaetetus_, consists in likeness to God, nor is there, he adds,\nanything more like God than is a good man.--_Theaetetus_ 176 A and B.\n\n[23] Schleiermacher's _Glaubenslehre_.\n\n[24] _Republic_ vii. 518 B.\n\n[25] Wordsworth's \"Tintern Abbey.\"\n\n[26] _Realm of Ends_, p. 230.\n\n[27] _Lectures and Addresses_, p. 193.\n\n[28] Ella Wheeler Wilcox, _Poems of Life and Moments_.\n\n[29] Jacob Boehme, however, shows this fascination for the\nsuper-empirical at its height and culmination.  It was an attempt,\nthough a bungling attempt, to pass from an abstract God to a God of\n_character_, and it was a circuitous way of getting round the problem\nof evil.\n\n[30] _Mystical Elements of Religion_, i. p. 26.\n\n[31] William Dell's sermon on \"The Trial of Spirits,\" _Works_, p. 438.\n\n\n\n\n{1}\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nTHE MAIN CURRENT OF THE REFORMATION\n\nI\n\nOne of the greatest tragedies in Christian history is the division of\nforces which occurred in the Reformation movements of the sixteenth\ncentury.  Division of forces in the supreme spiritual undertakings of\nthe race is of course confined to no one century and to no one\nmovement; it is a very ancient tragedy.  But the tragedy of division is\noften relieved by the fact that through the differentiation of opposing\nparties a vigorous emphasis is placed upon aspects of truth which might\notherwise have been allowed to drop out of focus.  This\nsixteenth-century division is peculiarly tragic, because through the\nsplit in the lines the very aspects of truth which were most needed to\ngive the movement a steady increment of insight and power were lost in\nthe din and confusion of party warfare.\n\nThere was a short but glorious period--the years from 1517 to\n1523--during which it seemed as though the spiritual and intellectual\ntravail of the three preceding centuries was to consummate in the birth\nof a movement that would draw together and unify all the liberating\nforces which had slowly become available.  The Humanists of the\nRenaissance, no less than Columbus, were finding a new world.[1]  They\nhad boldly travelled out beyond the {2} boundaries which the medieval\nmind had set to human interests, and had discovered that man was more\nthan the abstract being whose \"soul\" had alone concerned ecclesiastics\nand schoolmen.  Man, the Humanists saw, is possessed in his own right\nof great powers of reason.  He is a creative and autonomous being, he\nhas vast capacities for life and enjoyment to which the Church had\nfailed to minister.  They stood amazed at the artistic and literary\nculture, the political and intellectual freedom and the great richness\nof life which the newly discovered classical literature revealed as\nhaving existed in the pre-Christian world, and at the wonderful\ncomprehension of life revealed in the Gospels.  With commendable\npassion they proposed to refresh and reshape the world through the new\nmodels, the new ideals, and the new spirit which they had discovered.\nFirst of all they would wipe out the old Augustinian cleavage which had\ncarried its sharp dualism wherever it ran.  They would no longer\nrecognize the double world scheme--a divine realm set over against an\nundivine realm, the \"sacred\" set over against the \"secular,\" the\nspiritual set over against the natural, the Church set against the\nworld, faith set in contrast to reason, the spirit pitted against the\nflesh, \"the other world\" put in such light that \"this world\" by\ncontrast lay dull in the shadow.  Those who were broadened and\nliberated by the new learning found not only a new world in classical\nliterature, but they also found a new gospel in the Gospel.  As they\nstudied the New Testament documents themselves and became freed from\nthe bondage of tradition they discovered that the primitive message\ndealt with life and action rather than with theology.  They found the\nkey to the Gospel in the Sermon on the Mount, and in the Parables of\nJesus, and they shifted the emphasis from doctrine to ethics.  This\nchange of emphasis quite naturally involved another change.  It brought\nman into greater prominence, and the Church as an ecclesiastical system\ninto less prominence; for life, they discovered, was settled in the\nteaching of Christ by the {3} attitude of the will and by the formation\nof character, rather than by the mediation of a priesthood external to\nman.  \"I wish,\" Erasmus wrote to Capito in 1518, \"that there could be\nan end of scholastic subtleties, or, if not an end, that they could be\nthrust into a second place and Christ be taught plainly and simply.\nThe reading of the Bible and the early Fathers will have this effect.\nDoctrines are taught now which have no affinity with Christ, and only\ndarken our eyes.\"[2]  Again in 1521 he wrote to a friend, words which\nappear again and again in his letters: \"It would be well for us if we\nthought less about our dogmas and more about the gospel,\"[3] or, as he\noften puts it, \"if we made less of dogmatic subtleties and more of\nScripture.\"  So far as Humanism was a religious force it was pushing\ntoward a religion of the lay-type, with man himself--man with his\nmomentous will--as the centre of interest.\n\nAnother important influence was slowly but pervasively filtering down\ninto the life of the people and preparing the way for a religion of\ngreater personal vitality and spiritual inwardness; I mean the\ntestimony of the great mystics.  One has only to study the life and\nwritings of such a scholar as Nicolaus Chrypffs--generally called\nCusanus, or Nicholas of Cusa--who died shortly before Luther was\nborn,[4] to see what a live force the mystical teaching was even in\nthis period of Renaissance.  God is for him, as for his great masters,\nPlotinus, Erigena, Eckhart, and Tauler, the infinite and indescribable\nsubsoil of the universe, in whose Reality all the roots of life and all\nthe reality of things are grounded.  The soul, by nature spiritual and\nimmortal, at its apex rises above the contradictions which lower\nknowledge everywhere meets and comes into possession, by a \"learned\nignorance,\" of Truth itself and into an unspeakable union with God.\nBut it was not merely among scholars like Nicholas that mysticism\nformed the elemental basis of life and thought; it had, through the\ncircles of the {4} \"Brothers of the Common Life,\"[5] and through such\nmasterpieces as the _Imitation of Christ_, the _Theologia Germanica_,\nand the Sermons of Eckhart and of John Tauler, become a part of the\nspiritual atmosphere which serious-minded men breathed.  Every one of\nthe men who belong in my list of \"Spiritual Reformers\" read and loved\n\"the golden book of German Theology,\" and most of them knew the other\nwritings of the great fourteenth-century mystics.  There are\nunmistakable evidences of a subtle formative influence from these rich\nsources, which explains the simultaneous sporadic outbreak of similar\nviews in widely sundered places.\n\nThere was, thus, abroad at the opening of the Reformation a deep\nyearning among serious people for a religion of inward experience, a\nreligion based not on proof-texts nor on external authority of any\nkind, but on the native capacity of the soul to seek, to find and to\nenjoy the living God who is the Root and Sap of every twig and branch\nof the great tree of life.  The general trend of this mystical\ntendency, as also of the Humanistic movement, was in the direction of\nlay-religion, and both movements alike emphasized the inherent and\nnative capacity of man, whose destiny by his free choice is in his own\nhands.\n\nThere were, too, at work many other deep-lying tendencies away from the\nbondage and traditions of the past; aspiration for economic and social\nreforms to liberate the common people and give them some real chance to\nbe persons--tendencies which all the Reformers treated in this book\ndeeply felt and shared.\n\nAll these movements toward intellectual, spiritual, and social freedom\nseemed at first to find their champion in the dynamic hero, whose\nninety-five theses on the door at Wittenberg shook the world awake in\n1517.  He was by birth and spirit a child of the people--\"ein Kind des\nVolkes\"--and he seemed to be a prophet, divinely called to voice their\ndumb aspirations.  He possessed, {5} like all great prophets, a\nstraightforward moral honesty and sincerity, an absolute fearlessness,\na magnetic and commanding personality, an unusual mastery of the\nvernacular speech, and an abundant power of pathos, humour, and satire.\nAll the world loves a hero who can say in the face of real danger, \"I\nwould go forward to Worms if there were as many devils there as there\nare tiles on the roof!\" or again, \"I would go to Leipzig if it rained\nDuke Georges for nine days running!\"[6]\n\nHe had, too, unusual religious depth and power which sprang, as in the\ncase of the great mystics, from a profound inward experience.  Luther,\nlike St. Paul and St. Augustine, and many another spiritual guide of\nthe race, came upon his supreme insights in sudden epoch-making\nrevelations or illuminations by which he found himself on a new level,\nwith the line of march shifted and all values altered.  His conversion\nand dedication to religion was an instance of this type.  So, too, was\nhis discovery of the way of Faith.  Legend has very likely coloured our\naccounts of this experience, but for purposes of valuation it is of\nlittle moment to us whether the dynamic flash came to him in his cell\nat Wittenberg as he was studying the Epistle to the Romans, or whether\nit came while he was climbing the penitential stairway in Rome.[7] When\nall legendary coverings are stripped away we have left an inner event\nof the first importance, a _live idea_ bursting into consciousness like\na new star on the field of vision.  By processes much deeper and richer\nthan those of logical argument, his mind leaped to the certainty of\ninfinite grace and forgiving love in God as revealed in Christ.  In a\nword, this baffled and despairing monk, striving in vain to heap up\nmerits enough to win {6} divine favour, suddenly discovered a new God\nwho filled his whole world with a new light and freedom and joy.  His\nname for this discovery was Faith [\"Glaube\"], but Faith in its first\nintention for Luther meant a personal experience or discovery of God,\nbrought into full view and clear apprehension in Christ.  \"No one can\nunderstand God or God's Word,\" Luther once wrote, \"unless he has it\nrevealed immediately [\"on Mittel\"] by the Holy Ghost, but nobody can\nreceive anything from the Holy Ghost unless he experiences it.  In\nexperience the Holy Ghost teaches as in His own school, outside of\nwhich nothing of value can be learned.\"[8]\n\nNot only was Faith for Luther thus possessed of a mystical character as\nan inward discovery and as a personal experience which laid hold on God\nimmediately, but it also owed its illuminating birth in his\nconsciousness largely to the influence of the writings and the lives of\nthe mystics.  However suddenly the \"revelation\" seemed to burst into\nhis mind, there had nevertheless been a long period of psychological\ngestation and preparation for it before the epoch-making moment finally\ncame.  He had already in his early convent days come under the spell of\nSt. Augustine, St. Bernard, Gerson, and many another guide into the\ndeep regions of inward personal religion, and his intimate friend, the\nVicar-general Staupitz, had been to him in some sense a personal\nembodiment of this type of religion.  But the German mystics of the\nfourteenth century, with their mighty experience and their\nextraordinary depth, carried him still farther in this direction.  He\nwas so enthusiastic over that beautiful anonymous classic of mystical\nreligion, the _Theologia Germanica_, that he twice edited and published\nit, declaring in his Preface that he had learned from it \"more of what\nGod and Christ and man and all things are\" than from any other book\nexcept the Bible and St. Augustine.  John Tauler, the great Dominican\npreacher of Strasbourg, impressed him no less profoundly.  \"Neither in\nthe Latin nor the German language,\" he {7} wrote to Spalatin in 1516,\n\"have I ever found purer or more wholesome teaching, nor any that so\nagrees with the Gospel.\"  Both these great teachers of spiritual\nreligion helped him to see that complete confidence in and surrender to\nthe will of God is salvation--\"Put off thy own will and there will be\nno hell.\"\n\nIn Luther's earlier writings we come frequently upon passages which\nreveal the way in which experience still saturates Faith for him, and\nwhich exhibit the mystical depth of his Christianity at this period.\nCommenting on the phrase, \"Christ liveth in me\" (Gal. ii. 20), in his\n_Commentary on Galatians_[9] he says, \"He [Christ] is my form, my\nfurniture, and perfection, adorning and beautifying my faith as the\ncolour, the clear light, the whiteness, do garnish and beautify the\nwall.  Thus are we constrained grossly to set forth this matter.  For\nwe cannot _conceive_ that Christ is so nearly joined and united unto us\nas the colour or whiteness is unto the wall.  But Christ thus joined\nand united unto me and abiding in me, liveth this life in me which now\nI live; yea, Christ Himself is this life which now I live.  Wherefore\nChrist and I in this behalf are both one.\"[10]  And in a famous passage\nin the tract \"On Christian Liberty,\" he declares that \"Faith has the\nincomparable grace of uniting the soul to Christ as bride to husband,\nso that the soul possesses whatever Christ Himself possesses.\"\n\nNot only was this Luther of the early period the hero of the people and\nthe prophet of a deep and inward religion, he seemed also to have\nfound, even more emphatically than had the Humanists, a far-reaching\nprinciple of individualism which took the key from the Church and put\nit into the hands of the Christian man himself.  Salvation in its\nessence, he sees, is conferred upon no one from without.  The soul is\ndependent for it upon no organization, no traditions, no dogma, no\nsacred performances.  It is a transaction between the {8} individual\nsoul and God, and the person who lays hold on God in living faith\nthereby has salvation, assurance, and joy.  With this principle of\nindividualism there came naturally to Luther a new conception of the\nChurch altogether.[11]  It was for him, in ideal at least, a community\nor congregation [\"Gemeinde\"] of believers, each member a spiritual\npriest, ministering to the spiritual and social life of all: \"I believe\nthat there is on earth, wide as the world is, not more than one holy\nuniversal Christian Church, which is nothing else than the community or\nassembly of the saints. . . .  I believe that in this community or\nChristendom, all things are common, and each one shares the goods of\nthe others and none calls anything his own.  Therefore all the prayers\nand good works of the entire community help me and every believer, and\nsupport and strengthen us at every time in life and in death.\"[12]\n\nThis ideal of a priesthood of believers, ministering to each other in\nmutual service and practising neighbourly love in daily life, would, if\nit had been actually carried into effect, have marked a great step in\nthe direction in which the Humanists were going, namely, the transfer\nof the emphasis from dogma to life, from doctrine to ethics, from\necclesiasticism to personality.  Luther's great discovery that personal\nfaith is the only thing which counts toward God, and that love and\nservice are the only things in the human sphere which have religious\nsignificance would have introduced, if it had been put full into play,\na new era of personal freedom and a new stage in the progress of the\nKingdom of God as a world-wide brotherhood of men engaged in mutual\nservice.\n\n\n{9}\n\nII\n\nBut the young Luther of these glowing ideals is not the actual Luther\nof the Protestant Reformation, any more than the Augustine of the\nmighty spiritual experiences portrayed in the _Confessions_ is the St.\nAugustine of history.  The historical Luther had the hero-spirit in him\nin high degree; he had mystical depth and inward experience as we have\nseen, and he possessed the prophetic power of vision and forereach\nwhich makes him often seem far in advance of his time; but these\ndynamic traits were more than overbalanced by his fundamentally\nconservative disposition and by his determination not to go faster or\nfarther than he could carry Germany, especially the nobility, with him.\nHe was, in a very real sense, a child of his time, a product of\nmedieval Europe, and he never succeeded in liberating himself from the\ntight swaddling-bands in which his youth was wrapped.  He could not\ncomprehend, as we shall see, the bold spirits who were dedicated to the\ntask of reinterpreting Christianity in terms of the new age; he loved\nthe old, in so far as it seemed to him unspoiled by apostacy and\ncorruption, and he naturally kept reverting to the ancient dogma and\nthe accepted theology of the old Church instead of leading the way into\na fresh, vital, spiritual form of Christianity adapted to the social\naspiration of the time.\n\nIn spite of the fact that Luther knew and loved the German mystics and\nhad himself received a powerful inward experience of Christ as the\nbridegroom of his soul--an experience which quickened all the forces of\nhis will and raised him to the rank of a world-hero--nevertheless his\nnormal tendency was toward a non-mystical type of Christianity, toward\na Christianity thoroughly based on Scripture, logically constructed out\nof concepts of the nature of God and Man, so ancient, sacred, and\northodox, that they seemed to him axioms of theology and capable of\nbeing formulated into a saving {10} system of truth, as universal and\nas unalterable as the multiplication table.\n\nHowever unconscious Luther himself may have been of the shift of\nemphasis that was taking place in him as the movement progressed, the\nhistorical observer has no difficulty in noting the change from the\nLuther who is endeavouring to sound the deeps of life itself, and whose\nreligion is the creation of the inward stream of life within him; and\nthe Luther who wanders far afield from experience, draws curious\nconclusions from unverified concepts, piles text on text as though\nheaven could be scaled by another Pelion on Ossa, and once more turns\nreligion back to the cooled lava-beds of theology.  He never could\nsucceed in getting the God of his heart's glowing faith into the\ntheologies which he laboriously builded.  As soon as he started\nconstructing he invariably fell back upon the building-material which\nhad already been quarried, and which lay at hand.  His experimental\nFaith discovered a God of all Grace, but his inherited _concept_ of\nGod, the God of the Old Testament and of theology, was vastly\ndifferent, and remained to the end unrevolutionized by his heart's\ninsight.  This background conception of God comes to extreme expression\nin his _De servo arbitrio_ [\"The Unfree Will\"] of 1525: \"This is the\nacme of faith, to believe that God who saves so few and condemns so\nmany is merciful; that He is just who at His own pleasure has made us\nnecessarily doomed to damnation, so that . . . He seems to delight in\nthe tortures of the wretched and to be more deserving of hatred than of\nlove.  _If by any effort of reason I could conceive how God, who shows\nso much anger and harshness, could be merciful and just, there would be\nno need of faith._\"  There could, in his thought, be no salvation for\nman, no hope, and no joy, until some way of escape was found from the\nstern judgments of this angry and wrathful God.  This way of escape is\nfound in what Luther calls \"the Word of God,\" by which he means \"the\nGospel of God concerning His Son, incarnate, suffering, risen, and\nglorified.\"[13] {11} This Word of God is for him the sum total of \"the\npromises that God is _for us_\": \"the pure Gospel\" of a pardoning,\nforgiving God; the revelation in the Cross of Christ that no self-merit\ncounts or is needed, but that on Christ's account God forgives the\nsinner and bestows His Grace upon him.\n\nSpeaking theologically, Faith consists in believing in the God whom\nChrist has historically revealed--believing without any doubt that He\nwill be and will do to us according to the things which are said of Him\nin \"the Word of God.\"  It must be said that for Luther himself, Faith\nwas an \"active, powerful thing,\" \"a deliberate confidence in the grace\nof God,\" which made him \"joyous and intrepid\" and \"for which he could\ndie a thousand deaths\";[14] but there was always an irresistible\ntendency in the Lutheran teaching for faith to drop to the lower level\nof doctrine, and to consist in the acceptance of a scheme of\njustification.\n\nThis tendency was, I say, easy and irresistible just because Luther did\nnot normally and naturally think of God as being inherently and\nessentially loving, gracious, tender, and forgiving, that is to say,\n_fundamentally a Father_ and in his deepest nature like the self-giving\nChrist.  For him, as for so many other theologians, God _becomes_\nforgiving and gracious on account of Christ's merit and righteousness\nand thus no longer imputes sin to us.  Because of what Christ did, God\nnow beholds us with an attitude of mercy, grace, and forgiveness, and,\non condition of our faith, imputes to us the righteousness of Christ.\nSalvation is, thus, a plan by which we escape from the God of justice\nand wrath and have our dealings with a God who has become merciful\nbecause our sin has been balanced off by somebody else's merit and\nrighteousness.\n\nNot only did Luther continue this medieval fiction of God's nature and\ncharacter, he had also always in mind a fictitious and constructed\n\"man.\"  Man for him is a being devoid of \"merit,\" a creature whose\npersonal {12} goodness in and of itself is of no value.  Even Faith\nitself, by which salvation is received, is not an attitude or function\nof man's own will or reason.  It is, like everything else connected\nwith salvation, something divinely given, supernaturally initiated, a\nwork of God, an _opus operatum_--\"Mit unserer Macht ist nichts\ngethan\"--and therefore \"faith\" and \"reason\" belong in totally different\ncompartments of the human being.  Nor, furthermore, when he is absorbed\nwith his system, is salvation ever synonymous for him with an\ninwardly-transformed and spiritually-renewed self.  Salvation means for\nhim _certainty of divine favour_.  It does not inherently carry with it\nand involve in its intrinsic meaning a new life, a joyous adjustment of\nwill to the Will of God.  If man is to attain to a moral transformation\nof life, he must receive an added gift of supernatural grace, that is,\nthe power of sanctification through the Holy Spirit.  This conception\nmade it impossible for him to look for the coming of a divine kingdom\nby slow processes now at work in the world.\n\nLuther did not intend to make the \"Word of God\" synonymous with the\nScriptures, and in his great Prefaces to St. Paul's _Epistles_ he does\nnot identify the two.  The Word of God is, as we have seen, the\nrevelation, the message, the gospel, of Grace through Christ Jesus,\nwherever expressed, enunciated, or preached.  But the pledged Word of\nGod found in the Scriptures seemed to him the main miracle of the ages,\nand as, in his contests with Zwickau \"Prophets,\" \"Anabaptists,\" and\n\"Spiritualists,\" he found himself forced to produce a fixed touchstone\nof faith and a solid authority to take the place left vacant by the Old\nChurch, he swung naturally toward the dogma of the absolute authority\nof Scripture, and he laid, without wishing to do so, the foundation for\nthe view of the second generation of Protestantism, that the infallible\nScripture is God's final communication to helpless man, and is the\nultimate and only basis of authority in religion.\n\nHis conception of the sacraments in like manner, {13} because of his\ncrude supernaturalism and his inadequate intellectual and spiritual\npenetration, drifted to a semi-medieval view.  He intended to transform\nthese ceremonies and to have them fit \"the pure Word of God.\"  In his\nprimary _intention_ they were to be no longer objective works of grace,\nbut were to have a subjective value only, a faith-significance.  They\nwere to be conceived as pictorial, symbolic ways of learning the one\nimportant truth of salvation--God's grace and forgiveness; for God\ndeigns, he said, to speak to his immature creatures by signs and\npictures.  But the imperial sway of the past powerfully moved him; his\nown conservative disposition carried him along paths which an\nenlightened reason would not have taken, and the heat of the\ncontroversy often blinded him to some of the precious truths that had\nseemed clear to him in the creative period of Faith.  In the bitter\ncontroversy with the \"spiritual prophets\" on the question of\nsacraments, he wrote words which seem strangely out of harmony with his\nearlier views and with his own experience: \"External things in religion\nmust precede internal experiences which come through [_i.e._ are\nmediated by] external things, for God has resolved to give nobody the\ninternal gifts except through the external things.  He will give nobody\nthe Spirit and Faith without the use of external word and sign.\"[15]\nWithout meaning to surrender the precious jewel of a religion\nspiritually grounded, he once more introduced \"the awful mystery\" of\nthe sacraments, and opened the door for the conception of the rite as\nan _opus operatum_--a grace of God objectively real.  He retained\ninfant baptism as _an efficacious act_, and, obsessed as he was by the\nliteral words, _Hoc est corpus_--\"this is my body\"--he went back into\nthe abandoned path of scholasticism,[16] and restored the mysterious\nand miraculous real presence of Christ in the Eucharist.[17]  It is\ntrue, as Loofs has said, that {14} \"Luther re-discovered Christianity\nas religion,\" but it is also unfortunately true as well that he lacked\nthe insight, faith, and boldness of spirit to trust the people of his\nage and of the future with \"Christianity as religion,\" and instead gave\nthem a Christianity theologically constructed, deeply marred with\nresidual superstitions and mysteries, and heavily laden with the\ninheritances of dark and medieval ages.\n\n\n\nIII\n\nThere are two types of religious genius, both of which play great roles\nin history.  There is first the genius who, inspired by the ideal of\nsome earlier prophet, or made wise because he has himself discovered\nthe trend of celestial currents, sees through the complex and tangle of\nhis time, and forecasts a truth which all men in a happier coming age\nwill recognize.  When he has once seen it, this vision transforms all\nhis ideas and aims, and spoils forever for him all meaner gains, all\nhalf truths, all goods which must be won through surrender of a\npossible better.  He will be obedient to that vision regardless of all\ncost.  He will bear witness to the full light which he has seen even\nthough he can compel nobody else in the heedless world of his\ngeneration to see it.  He may only cry in the wilderness, but at all\nevents he will _cry_, and he will cry of that highest thing his heart\nknows.\n\nThere is, on the other hand, the genius who understands his own age\nlike an open book.  He is almost hypersensitive to the movings of his\ntime.  He feels the silent yearnings and strivings of the dumb\nmultitudes about him; he anticipates in his thought what the rest are\nincipiently thinking--he is the clear voice and oracle of the spirit of\nhis age.  He knows to a nicety how far his contemporaries will allow\nthemselves to be carried.  {15} He will not over-hurry, he will not\noutrun their possible speed, and he will sacrifice everything to carry\nhis epoch with him toward the goal which he sees.  He is contented to\nkeep his roots deep in the past, and he tempers all his creative\ninsights with a judicious mixture of the experience of the past and the\nideas which time has made sacred.  He will not satisfy the idealist who\nwants leaps, and he will not please the radical in any period; but if\nhe is brave, wise, and sincere, and, withal, possessed of rare gifts of\ninterpretation and unusual powers of leadership, he may be able to\nshape the course of history no less effectively, perhaps more surely,\nthan the genius who insists upon an immediate march straight across\ncountry to Canaan the moment he glimpses it from his Pisgah.\n\nLuther was a reformer of this second type.  He was beset by very real\nlimitations.  Dr. McGiffert does not overstate the facts when he says:\n\"He cared little for clearness and consistency of thought.  A\nsatisfactory and adequate world-view was not of his concern.  Of\nintellectual curiosity he had scarcely any; of interest in truth for\ntruth's sake none at all. . . .  He remained entirely without\nintellectual difficulties, finding no trouble with the most extreme\nsupernaturalism.\"[18]  In many respects, as Harnack has insisted, his\nChristianity was a \"medieval phenomenon.\"[19]  Only in one thing was he\nsupremely the master of his age and the hero of a new time--in his\ndiscovery of a way of Faith which makes a man \"intrepid\" even in the\nwreck of worlds and \"in a thousand deaths.\"  On the lower levels of\nlife, where most of his work was done, he was strangely under the sway\nof the past, a distruster of reason, a restorer of ancient doctrine, a\nconservative in thought and action, a friend of rulers, a guardian, as\nfar as he could be, of the _status quo_--a leader who anathematized\nradicals and enthusiasts and who staved off and postponed for nearly\nfour hundred years the truly liberating and thoroughly {16} adequate\nreformation.  He was determined to be the repairer of the \"Old Church,\"\nnot the builder of a \"New Church,\" and he was resolved not to travel\nfarther nor faster than the substantial men of his time considered safe\nand wise.\n\nBut less was perhaps more.  There will at least always be those who\nthink that the sinuous way of progress is the most certain way of\nadvance.  The slow incline, the gradual spiral, each wind of the curve\n\"ever not quite\" the old level--that is the most approved method of\nleaving an outworn past and of moving forward into a new stage of\nhistory.  It may be so.  It certainly is true that through Luther's\n_insight_ new reliance upon God came to men, new energy of faith was\nwon, and by his work of repair, conservative and cautious though it\nwas, in the long sweep of time a liberated Christianity has come, a\nvital social gospel has become effective, and great vistas of progress\nare opening out before the Church of Christ.  But it is impossible to\nforget that other group--those men of the other type--who even in\nLuther's day saw the way straight across into Canaan, the men who saw\ntheir vision fade away unrealized, and who failed to behold the fruit\nof their spiritual travail largely because Luther misunderstood them,\nrefused to give them aid and comfort, and finally helped to marshal the\nforces which submerged them and postponed their victory.  We may not\nblame him, but it is not fair to these heroic souls that they should\nlonger lie submerged in the oblivion of their defeat.  I shall try in\nthese pages to bring up into the light the principles and ideas which\nthey proclaimed to Europe, perhaps ahead of their time.\n\n\n\n[1] In the South the movement showed a tendency to drift back into a\nrefined paganism.  In the North, however, it was deeply Christian in\ninterest, in feeling, and in its moral aspirations.  Erasmus was by far\nthe greatest figure and the most influential person in the group of\nHumanists of this latter type.\n\n[2] Epistle CCVII.\n\n[3] Epistle DLXXXVII.\n\n[4] 1401-1464.\n\n[5] Nicholas belonged to one of these circles.  \"The Brethren of the\nCommon Life\" are treated in my _Studies in Mystical Religion_, chap.\nxiv.\n\n[6] Letter to the Elector Frederick, March 5, 1522.\n\n[7] The story that Luther, climbing the _Scala Santa_ in 1510, suddenly\nwas impressed by the words, \"The just shall live by faith,\" is based on\na reminiscence of Luther's son Paul.  Luther's own reference to the\nascent of the _Scala Santa_ makes no allusion to any such experience.\nHe merely says that when he reached the top of the stairs, which he\nclimbed in the hope of getting the soul of an ancestor out of\nPurgatory, he thought to himself, \"Who knows whether this prayer will\navail?\"  Luther began his lectures on _Romans_ in 1515, and his dynamic\nexperience probably belongs near this date.\n\n[8] Preface to the _Magnificat_ written in 1521.\n\n[9] First given as Lectures in 1516-17, and published in 1519.\n\n[10] A _Commentary on St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians_.\n\n[11] Dilthey says in _Archiv fuer Geschichte der Philosophie_, Bd. v.\nHeft 3, p. 358: \"The Justification of which the medieval man had inward\nexperience was the descending stream of objective forces upon the\nbeliever from the transcendental world, through the Incarnation, in the\nchannels of the ecclesiastical institutions, priestly consecration,\nsacraments, confession, and works.  It was something which took place\nin connection with a super-sensible regime.  The Justification by faith\nof which Luther was inwardly aware was the personal experience of the\nbeliever standing in the continuous line of Christian fellowship, by\nwhom assurance of the Grace of God is experienced in response to\npersonal faith, an experience derived from the appropriation of the\nwork of Christ.\"\n\n[12] _Saemmtliche Werke_ (Erlangen edition), xxii. p. 20.\n\n[13] On Christian Liberty, _Primary Works_, p. 106.\n\n[14] See his Preface to _The Epistle to the Romans_.\n\n[15] _Wider die himlichen Propheten vom Sacrament_, ii. Anno 1525.\n\n[16] See P. Loofs, _Dogmengeschichte_ (Vierte Auflage, 1906), pp.\n752-755.\n\n[17] In his instructions to Melanchthon for the Cassel Conference with\nButzer in 1534, Luther said, \"In and with the bread, the body of Christ\nis truly partaken of, accordingly all that takes place actively and\npassively in the bread takes place actively and passively in the body\nof Christ and the latter is distributed, eaten and masticated with the\nteeth.\"\n\n[18] McGiffert, _Protestant Thought before Kant_ (1911), p. 20.  See\nalso the same view in Troeltsch, _Protestantisches Christentum und\nKirche in der Neuzeit_ (2nd Auflage), p. 481.\n\n[19] _History of Dogma_, vii. p. 169.\n\n\n\n\n{17}\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nHANS DENCK AND THE INWARD WORD[1]\n\nHans Denck has generally been enrolled among the Anabaptists, and it is\npossible to use that name of scorn with such a latitude and looseness\nthat it includes not only Denck but all the sixteenth-century exponents\nof a free, inward religion.  Anabaptism has often been treated as a\nsort of broad banyan-tree which flourished exuberantly and shot out\nfar-reaching branches of very varied characters, but which held in one\norganic unity all the branches that found soil and took root.  A name\nof such looseness and covering capacity is, however, of little worth,\nand it would promote historical accuracy if we should confine the term\nto those who opposed infant baptism and who insisted instead upon adult\nbaptism, not as a means of Grace, but as a visible sign of the covenant\nof man with God.  The further characteristic marks which may be\nselected to differentiate Anabaptism from other movements of the period\nare:\n\n1.  The treatment of the Gospel as a new law to be literally followed\nand obeyed by all who are to have the right to be called \"saints.\"\n\n2.  The true Church is a _visible_ Church, the community of the saints,\nfounded by covenant, with adult baptism as its sign, formed exactly on\nthe pattern of the apostolic {18} Church and preserved in strict purity\nby rigorous church discipline; and\n\n3.  The denial to magistrates of all power to persecute men for their\nfaith and doctrine on the ground that the Gospel gives them no such\nauthority--its great commandment being love.[2]\n\nHans Denck, though in his early period of activity closely identified\nwith this movement and regarded as one of its chief leaders in Germany,\ndoes not properly belong, however, to the banyan-tree of Anabaptism.\nHis writings reveal ideas and tendencies of such enlarged scope that it\nappears clear that he had discovered and was teaching another type of\nChristianity altogether.[3]  He is the earliest exponent in the\nsixteenth century of a fresh and unique type of religion, deeply\ninfluenced by the mystics of a former time, but even more profoundly\nmoulded by the new humanistic conceptions of man's real nature.\n\nThere are few biographical details of Denck's life available.  He was,\nmost probably, a native of Bavaria,[4] and he was born about the year\n1495.  He studied in the University of Ingolstadt, where he was\nadmitted among the baccalaureates in 1517.[5]  In the year 1520 we\ncatch a glimpse of him in close association with the Humanists of\nAugsburg.[6]  In 1522 he was at work in Basle as proof-reader for the\nfamous publisher, Valentin Curio, and was living in intimate fellowship\nwith the great scholar OEcolampadius, whose lectures on the Prophet\nIsaiah he heard.[7]  In the autumn of the same year, on the\nrecommendation of OEcolampadius, he was appointed Director of St.\nSebald's School in Nuremberg, which was then the foremost seat of\nlearning in that city, {19} a great centre of classical humanistic\nstudies.  During the first period of his life in Nuremberg he was\nclosely identified with the Lutheran movement, but he soon shifted his\nsympathies, and aligned himself with the radical tendencies which at\nthis period were championed in Nuremberg by Thomas Muenzer, who, in\nspite of his misguided leadership and fanatical traits, had discovered\na genuine religious principle that was destined to become significant\nin safer hands.[8]  Muenzer read Tauler's sermons from his youth up; in\nhis own copy of these sermons, preserved in the library at Gera, a\nmarginal note says that he read them almost continually, and that here\nhe learned of a divine interior Teaching.  It was Muenzer's teaching of\nthe living Voice of God in the soul, his testimony to the reality of\nthe inner heavenly Word, which God Himself speaks in the deeps of man's\nheart, that won the Humanist and teacher of St. Sebald's School to the\nnew and perilous cause.  He also formed a close friendship with Ludwig\nHetzer, who, like Muenzer, taught that the saving Word of God must be\ninward, and that the Scriptures can be understood only by those who\nbelong to the School of Christ.  Having once caught the _idea_ from\nthese impassioned leaders, Denck proceeded directly to work it out and\nto develop its implications in his own fashion.  He was himself sane,\nclear-minded, modest, sincere, far-removed from fanaticism, and eager\nonly to find a form of religion which would fit the eternal nature of\nthings on the one hand, and the true nature of man on the other--man, I\nmean, as the Humanist conceived him.[9]\n\nAlready in this Nuremberg period, Denck became fully convinced that\nLuther's doctrine of sin and justification was an artificial\nconstruction--_Einbildung_--and that his conception of Scripture and\nthe Sacraments was destined to clamp the new-found faith in iron bonds,\ntie it to outworn tradition, and make it incapable of a progressive\n{20} and vital unfolding.  He declared in his testimony or \"confession\"\nto the city council of Nuremberg in 1524, that although he had not yet\na full experience of the inward, powerful Word of God, he distinctly\nfelt its life as an inner witness which God had planted within him, a\nspark of the Divine Light breaking into his own soul, and in the\nstrength of this direct experience he denied the value of external\nceremonies, and declared that even the Bible itself cannot bring men to\nGod without the assistance of this inner Light and Spirit.[10]\n\nAs a result of this change of attitude, the schoolmaster of St.\nSebald's was banished from the city of Nuremberg, January 21, 1525, and\nfrom this time until his early death he was homeless and a wanderer.\nHe spent some months--between September 1525 and October 1526--in\nAugsburg endeavouring to organize and direct the rapidly expanding\nforces of the liberal movement.  He was during these months, and\nespecially during the period of the great Anabaptist synod which was\nheld at this time in Augsburg, endeavouring to give the chaotic\nmovement of Anabaptism a definite direction, with the main emphasis on\nthe mystical aspect of religion.  He hoped to call a halt to the vague\nsocialistic dreams and the fanatical tendencies that put the movement\nin constant jeopardy and peril, and he was striving to call his\nbrotherhood to an inner religion, grounded on the inherent nature of\nthe soul, and guided by the inner Word rather than on \"a new law\" set\nforth in the written word.  There were, however, too many eddies and\ncurrents to be mastered by one mind, too many varieties of faith to be\nunified under one principle, and Denck's own view was too intangible,\ninward, and spiritual, to satisfy the enthusiasm either of the seething\nmasses or of {21} the leaders who saw a new Jerusalem just ready to\ncome down out of heaven from God.[11]\n\nAfter the Augsburg period, Denck spent some time in Strasbourg, where\nhe gained many followers.  Capito bears testimony at this time to the\npurity of Denck's life, to his moderation and goodwill, and to the\nimpressive effect of his preaching and teaching upon the people of the\ncity.[12]  Vadian, the Humanist and reformer of St. Gall, too, in spite\nof his disapproval of some of Denck's ideas, speaking of him in\nretrospect after his death, called him \"a most gifted youth, possessed\nof all excellencies.\"  But his teaching was too strange and unusual to\nbe allowed currency even in free Strasbourg.  After being granted a\npublic discussion he was ordered to leave the city forthwith.  During a\nshort stay in Worms, following the Strasbourg period, in collaboration\nwith Ludwig Hetzer, they brought to a successful conclusion a German\ntranslation of the Prophets from the Hebrew, a work which Hetzer had\nbegun.  This important piece of scholarly work was published under the\ntitle, _Alle Propheten nach hebraeischer Sprache verteutscht_, in Worms,\nApril 3, 1527, and had a wide circulation and use, its main demerit\nbeing that it had been done by \"Anabaptists.\"\n\nPursued on every hand, hunted from place to place, he finally sought\npeace and shelter with his old friend, the teacher who had first\ninspired him in his youth, OEcolampadius, and here in Basle in a quiet\nretreat, he died of the plague in November 1527, hardly more than\nthirty-two years of age.[13]\n\nWe must now turn to the little books of this persecuted and homeless\nHumanist to see what his religious teaching really was, and to discover\nthe foundation principle which lay at the root of all the endeavours of\nthis period to launch a Christianity grounded primarily on the {22}\nfundamental nature of man.[14]  Denck writes like a man with a\nmessage--straight to the mark, lucid, vivid, and intense.  He believes\nwhat he says and he wants others to see it and believe it.  His\nwritings are entirely free from the controversial temper, and they\nbreathe throughout the spirit of tolerance and charity.  He knows when\nto stop, and brings his books to an end as soon as he has made his\npoints clear.  The fundamental fact of man's nature for Denck is\npersonal _freedom_.  Starting with no theological presuppositions he is\nunder no obligation to make the primary assumption common to all\nAugustinian systems that man is devoid of any native capacities which\nhave to do with spiritual salvation.  He begins instead with man as he\nknows him--a sadly marred and hampered being, but still possessed of a\npotentially Divine nature, and capable of co-operating, by inward\nchoices and decisions, with the ceaseless effort of God to win him\ncompletely to Himself.  His little book, _What does it mean when the\nScripture says God does and works Good and Evil_, is throughout a\nprotest against the idea of \"election,\" which, he says, involves \"a\nlimitation of the Love of God,\" and it is a penetrating account of the\nway in which man by his free choices makes his eternal destiny.[15]\n\"God compels nobody, for He will have no one saved by compulsion.\"[16]\n\"God has given freewill to men that they may choose for themselves,\neither the good or the bad.  Christ said to His disciples, 'Will ye\n{23} go away?' as though He would say, 'You are under no\ncompulsion.'\"[17]  \"God,\" he says again in the _Widerruf_, \"forces no\none, for love cannot compel, and God's service is, therefore, a thing\nof complete freedom.\"[18]\n\nIt is freedom, too, which explains the fact of sin.  God is in no way\nthe author of sin; He is wholly good; He can do nothing but what is\ngood; He ordains no one to sin; He is the instigator of no evil at all.\nAll the sin and moral evil of the world have come from our own evil\nchoices and purposes.  \"The thing which hinders and has always hindered\nis that our wills are different from God's will.  God never seeks\nHimself in His willing--we do.  There is no other way to blessedness\nthan to lose one's self-will.\"[19]  \"He who surrenders his\nselfishness,\" he says in another treatise, \"and uses the freedom which\nGod has given him, and fights the spiritual battle as God wills that\nsuch battles are to be fought and as Christ fought His, can in his\nmeasure be like Christ.\"[20]  The whole problem of salvation for him\nis, as we shall see, to bring about such a transformation in man that\nsin ceases, and the least thing thought, said, or done out of harmony\nwith the will of God becomes bitter and painful to the soul.[21]  \"To\nbe a Christian,\" he once wrote, \"is to be in measure like Christ, and\nto be ready to be offered as He gave Himself to be offered.  I do not\nsay that we _are_ perfect as Christ was, but I say rather that we are\nto seek the perfection which Christ never lost.  Christ calls Himself\nthe Light of the world, but He also tells His disciples that _they_ too\nare the light of the world.  All Christians in whom the Holy Ghost\nlives--that is all real Christians--are one with Christ in God and are\nlike Christ.  They will therefore have similar experiences, and what\nChrist did they will also do.\"[22]\n\nNot only is there a power of free choice in the soul; there is as well\nan elemental hunger in man which pushes him Godward.  \"God,\" he often\nsays, \"can give only {24} to those who hunger.\"  In a very great\npassage which reminds one of Pascal he says: \"The kingdom of God is in\nyou and he who searches for it outside himself will never find it, for\n_apart from God no one can either seek or find God, for he who seeks\nGod, already in truth has Him_.\"[23]  He says nearly the same thing\nagain in the little book, _Vom Gesetz Gottes_: \"He who does not know\nGod from God Himself does not ever know Him.\"  This central insight of\nDenck's religious faith that God and man are not completely sundered,\nbut meet, as he says,[24] in the deeps of ourselves, is grounded upon\nthe fact of experience that there is within us a supra-individual\nReality which becomes revealed to us sometimes as a Light, sometimes as\na Word, sometimes as a Presence or environing Spirit.  This testimony\nis Denck's main contribution, and we must next see how he sets it\nforth.  There is, he says, a witness in every man.  He who does not\nlisten to it blinds himself, although God has given him originally a\ngood inward eyesight.  If a man will keep still and listen he will hear\nwhat the Spirit witnesses within him.  Not only in _us_ but in the\nheathen and in Jews this witness is given, and men might be preached to\noutwardly forever without perceiving, if they did not have this witness\nin their own hearts.[25]  The Light shines, the invisible Word of God\nis uttered in the hearts of all men who come into the world, and this\nLight gives all men freedom and power to become children of God.[26]\nThere is both an inward principle of revelation which he calls _das\ninnere Wort_, and a principle of active power which he calls _die Kraft\ndes Allerhoechsten_ (the power of the Highest), not two things, but one\nreality under two aspects and two names, and he insists that he who\nturns to this Divine, spiritual reality, which is one with God, and\nobeys it and loves its leading has already found God and has come to\nhimself.  \"Oh, who will give me a voice,\" he writes, \"that I may cry\naloud to the whole world that God, the all highest, is in the deepest\nabyss {25} within us and is waiting for us to return to Him.  Oh, my\nGod, how does it happen in this poor old world, that Thou art so great\nand yet nobody finds Thee, that Thou callest so loudly and nobody hears\nThee, that Thou art so near and nobody feels Thee, that Thou givest\nThyself to everybody and nobody knows Thy name!  Men flee from Thee and\nsay they cannot find Thee; they turn their backs and say they cannot\nsee Thee; they stop their ears and say they cannot hear Thee!\"[27]\n\nThis self-giving nature of God is everywhere taken for granted--it is\njust _that_ which he feels that Christ has once for all made sun-clear,\nand it is because He is essentially self-giving that God pours out His\nlife and love upon us as He does His sunshine upon the grass and\nflowers.  \"The Word of God is with thee before thou seekest; He gives\nbefore thou hast asked; He opens to thee before thou hast knocked.\" God\nlike a Father deals with His wayward children.  \"Oh, blessed is the\nman,\" he writes, \"who in his need finds the love of God and comes to\nHim for forgiveness!\"[28]  No one of us who has been washed from his\nsins, he beautifully says, ought to eat a piece of bread without\nconsidering how God loves him and how he ought to love God, who in\nJesus Christ His Son laid aside His right to Divinity that His love\nmight appear complete.[29]  \"It has pleased the eternal Love,\" he\nwrites, \"that that Person in whom Love was shown in the highest degree\nshould be called the Saviour of His people.  Not that it would be\npossible for human nature to make anybody saved, but God was so\ncompletely identified in Love with Him that all the Will of God was the\nwill of this Person, and the sufferings of this Person were and counted\nas the sufferings of God Himself.\"[30]\n\nChrist is for him the complete manifestation of life and the perfect\nexhibition or unveiling of God's love, and he who appreciates this\nlove, feels its attraction, and lives a life which corresponds to his\nsoul's insight, becomes {26} himself Christlike, forsakes sin and self,\nand enters upon a life of salvation.  \"All who are saved,\" he says,\n\"are of one spirit with God, and he who is the foremost in love is the\nforemost of those who are saved.\"[31]  \"He who gets weary of God has\nnever found Him,\" while the person who has found Him in this love-way\nwill be ready and willing to give up even his own salvation and accept\ndamnation for the love of God, since he knows in his heart that \"God is\nso wholly good that He can give to such a man only what is highest and\nbest, and that is Himself!\"[32]  That is to say, he who is willing to\nbe damned for the love of God never will be damned!\n\nBut salvation must never be conceived as something which is the result\nof a transaction.  It is from beginning to end a life-process and can\nin no way be separated from character and personal attitude of will.\n\"He who depends on the merit of Christ,\" he says, \"and yet continues in\na fleshly, wicked life, regards Christ precisely as in former times the\nheathen held their gods.  He who really believes that Christ has saved\nhim can no longer be a servant of sin, for no one believes rightly\nuntil he leaves his old life.\"[33]  \"It is not enough,\" he elsewhere\nwrites, \"that God is in thee; thou must also be in God, that is,\npartake of the life of God.  It does not help to have God if thou dost\nnot honour Him.  It is no avail to call thyself His child _if thou dost\nnot behave thyself like a child_!\"[34]  He insists that no one can be\n\"called righteous\" or be \"counted righteous\" until he actually _is_\nrighteous.  Nothing can be \"imputed\" to a man which is not ethically\nand morally present as a living feature of his character and conduct.\nNo one, he truly says, can know _Christ as a means of salvation_ unless\nhe follows Him in his life.  He who does not witness to Christ in his\ndaily walk grows into a different person from the one he is called to\nbe.[35]  The person who lives on in sin does not really know God, and,\n{27} to use his fine figure; is like a man who has lost his home and\ngone astray, and does not even know that he is _at home_, when his\nFather has found him and has welcomed him back, but still goes on\nhunting for home and for Father, since he does not recognize his home\nor his Father when he has found them![36]\n\nSalvation, then, for Hans Denck is wholly an inward process, initiated\nfrom above through the Divine Word, the Christ, whom we know outwardly\nas the historical Person of the Gospel, and whom we know inwardly as\nthe Revealer of Light and Love, the Witness in us against sin, the\nVoice of the Father to our hearts, calling us home, the Goal of our\nspiritual quest, the Alpha and the Omega of all religious truth and all\nspiritual experience.  The Way to God, he says, is Christ inwardly and\nspiritually known.[37]  But however audible the inner Word may be;\nhowever vivid the illumination; however drawing the Love, there is\nnever compulsion.  The soul itself must hear and see and feel; must say\nyes to the appeal of Love, and must co-operate by a continuous\nadjustment of the personal will to the Will of God and \"learn to behave\nas a child of God.\"\n\nHaving reached the insight that salvation is entirely an affair of the\nspirit, an inward matter, Denck loosened his hold upon the external\nthings which had through long centuries of history come to be\nconsidered essential to Christianity.  Sacraments and ceremonies\ndropped to a lower level for him as things of no importance.  With his\ncharacteristic breadth and sweetness, he does not smite them as an\niconoclast would have done; he does not cry out against those who\ncontinue to use them.  He merely considered them of no spiritual\nsignificance.  \"Ceremonies,\" he writes in his dying confession, \"in\nthemselves are not sin, but whoever supposes that he can attain to life\neither by baptism or by partaking of bread, is still in\nsuperstition.\"[38]  \"If all ceremonies,\" he adds, \"were lost, little\nharm would come of it.\"[39] {28} He appeals to Christians to stop\nquarrelling over these outward and secondary matters, and to make\nreligion consist in love to neighbour rather than in zeal for outward\nceremonies.  He laid down this great principle: \"All externals must\nyield to love, for they are for the sake of love, and not love for\ntheir sake.\"[40]\n\nHe was, consistently with his fundamental ideas, profoundly opposed to\nevery tendency to make Christianity a legal religion.  His friends, the\nAnabaptists, were inclined to turn the Gospel of Christ into \"a new\nlaw,\" and to make religion consist largely in scrupulous obedience to\nthis perfect law of life.  To all this he was radically alien, for it\nwas, he thought, only another road back to a religion of the letter,\nwhile Christ came to call us to a religion of the spirit.  \"He who has\nnot the Spirit,\" he wrote, \"and who fails to find Him in the\nScriptures, seeks life and finds death; seeks light and finds darkness,\nwhether it be in the Old or in the New Testament.\"[41]  \"He who thinks\nthat he can be _made truly righteous_ by means of a Book is ascribing\nto the dead letter what belongs to the Spirit.\"[42]  He does not\nbelittle or undervalue the Scriptures--he knew them almost by heart and\ntook the precious time out of his brief life to help to translate the\nProphets into German--but he wants to make the fact forever plain that\nmen are saved or lost as they say _yes_ or _no_ to a Light and Word\nwithin themselves.  \"The Holy Scriptures,\" he writes in his dying\ntestimony, \"I consider above every human treasure, but not so high as\nthe Word of God which is living, powerful, and eternal, for it is God\nHimself, Spirit and no letter, written without pen or paper so that it\ncan never be destroyed.  For that reason, salvation is not bound up\nwith the Scriptures, however necessary and good they may be for their\npurpose, because it is impossible for the Scriptures to make good a bad\nheart, even though it may be a learned one.  A good heart, however,\nwith a Divine Spark in it is improved by everything, and to such the\nScriptures will bring blessedness {29} and goodness.\"[43]  The\nScriptures--the external Word--as he many times, in fact somewhat\ntediously, declares, are witnesses and pointers to the real and\nmomentous thing, the Word which is very near to all souls and is\nwritten in the heart, and which increases in clearness and power as the\nwill swings into parallelism with the will of God, and as the life\ngrows in likeness to the Divine image revealed in Christ.  This inward\nlife and spiritual appreciation do not give any ground for relaxing the\nmoral obligations of life.  No fulfilling of the law by Christ, no\nvanishing of the outward and temporal, furnish any excuse to us for\nslacking a jot or tittle of anything which belongs to the inherent\nnature of moral goodness.  \"Christ,\" he says, \"fulfilled the law, not\nto relieve us of it, but to show us how to keep it in truth.  The\nmember must partake of what the Head partakes.\"[44]  _To love God alone\nand to hate everything that hinders love_ is a principle which, Denck\nbelieves, will fulfil all law, ancient or modern.[45]\n\nSuch were the ideas which this young radical reformer, dreamer perhaps,\ntried to teach his age.  The time was not ripe for him, and there was\nno environment ready for his message.  He spoke to minds busy with\ntheological systems, and to men whose battles were over the meaning of\ninherited medieval dogma.  He thought and spoke as a child of another\nworld, and he talked in a language which he had learned from his heart\nand not from books or from the schools.  It is \"the key of David,\" he\nsays, that is, an inward experience, which unlocks all the solid doors\nof truth, but there were so few about him who really had this \"key\"!\nHis task, which was destined to be hard and painful, which was in his\nlifetime doomed to failure, was not self-chosen.  \"I opened my mouth,\"\nhe says, \"against my will and I am speaking to the world because God\nimpels me so that I cannot keep silent.  God has called me out and\nstationed me at my post, and He knows whether good will come of it or\nnot.\"[46]\n\n{30}\n\nIt is not often that a man living in the atmosphere of seething\nenthusiasm, pitilessly pricked and goaded by brutal and unfeeling\npersecutors, compelled to hear his precious truth persistently called\nerror and pestilent heresy, keeps so calm and sane and sure that all\nwill be well with him and with his truth as does Denck.  \"I am heartily\nwell content,\" is his dying testimony, \"that all shame and disgrace\nshould fall on my face, if it is for the truth.  It was when I began to\nlove God that I got the disfavour of men.\"[47]  He confesses that he\nhas found it difficult to \"keep a gentle and a humble heart\" through\nall his work among men, to \"temper his zeal with understanding,\" and to\n\"make his lips say always what his heart meant,\"[48] but he did, at\nleast, succeed in loving God and in hating everything that hindered\nlove.  In an epoch in which the doctrine was new and revolutionary, he\nsucceeded in presenting the principle of the Inward Word as the basis\nof religion without giving any encouragement to libertinism or moral\nlaxity, for he found the way of freedom to be a life of growing\nlikeness to Christ, he held the fulfilling of the law to be possible\nonly for those who accept the burdens and sacrifices of love, and he\ninsisted that the privileges of blessedness belong only to those who\n_behave like sons_.\n\n\n\n[1] The best studies on Denck are Heberle's articles in _Theol. Studien\nund Kritiken_ (1851), Erstes Heft, and (1855) Viertes Heft.  Gustave\nRoehrich's _Essai sur la vie, les ecrits et la doctrine de Jean Denk_\n(Strasbourg, 1853).  Ludwig Keller's _Ein Apostel der Wiedertaeufer_\n(Leipzig, 1882).  The last two books must, however, be followed with\nmuch caution.\n\n[2] One branch of the Anabaptists held that the \"saints\" may, however,\nrightly use the sword to execute the purposes of God upon the godless,\nand to hasten the coming of the Thousand Years' Reign of the Kingdom.\n\n[3] I have included him, in my _Studies in Mystical Religion_ (1908),\namong the Anabaptists, but he can be called one only by such a loose\nuse of the word that it ceases to have any _definite_ significance.\n\n[4] See J. Kessler's _Sabbata_ (1902), p. 150.\n\n[5] L. Keller, _Johann von Staupitz_, p. 207.\n\n[6] _Ibid._ p. 208.\n\n[7] OEcolampadius' Letter to Pirkheimer, April 25, 1525.\n\n[8] Georg Theodor Strobel, _Leben, Schriften und Lehren Muenzers_\n(Nuernberg, 1795); J. R. Seidemann, _Thomas Muenzer_ (Dresden, 1842).\n\n[9] A contemporary chronicle calls Denck a scholar, eloquent, modest\nand, withal, learned in Hebrew.--Kessler's _Sabbata_, p. 150.\n\n[10] This \"Confession\" is in the archives of Nuremberg, and has been\nextensively used in Keller's _Ein Apostel der Wiedertaeufer_, see\nespecially pp. 49-62.  See also Th. Kolde, _Kirchengeschichtliche\nStudien_ (1888), p. 231 f.  In this connection much interest attaches\nto a passage in a letter which Luther wrote to Johann Brismann,\nFebruary 4, 1525.  He says: \"Satan has carried it so far that in\nNuremberg some persons are denying that Christ is anything, that the\nWord of God is anything, that the Eucharist is anything, that\nMagistracy is anything.  They say that only God is.\"\n\n[11] See Nicoladoni's _Johannes Buenderlin von Linz_ (Berlin, 1893), p.\n114.\n\n[12] Letter of Capita to Zwingli, December 26, 1526.\n\n[13] Kessler says that OEcolampadius in a Christian spirit was with him\nat his death.  _Op. cit._ p. 151.\n\n[14] The little books of Denck from which I shall extract his teaching\nare: (1) _Vom Gesetz Gottes_ (\"On the Law of God\"), printed without\nplace or date, but probably published in 1526.  I have used the copy in\nthe Koenigliche Bibliothek in Berlin, sig. Co. 2152.  (2) _Was geredet\nsey doss die Schrift sagt Gott thue und mache guts und boeses_ (\"What\ndoes it mean when the Scripture says God does and works Good and\nEvil\"), 1526.  Copies of this are to be found in the University Library\nof Marburg, also in the Koenigliche Bibliothek of Dresden.  (3)\n_Widerruf_ (\"Confession \"), 1527.  I have used the copy in the\nKoenigliche Bibliothek in Dresden sig. Theol. Cathol. 817  (4) _Ordnung\nGottes und der Creaturen Werck_ (\"The Divine Plan and the Work of the\nCreature\"), 1527, in the above library in Dresden.  (5) _Wer die\nWarheif warlich lieb hat_, etc., no date (\"Whoever really loves the\nTruth,\" etc.), and (6) _Von der wahren Liebe_ (\"On the True Love\"),\n1527.  This last tract has been republished in America by the\nMennonitische Verlagshandlung, Elkhart, Indiana, 1888.\n\n[15] \"To hear the Word of God,\" he elsewhere says, \"means life; to hear\nit not means death.\"--_Ordnung Gottes_, p. 17.\n\n[16] _Was geredet sey_, p. C.  (The paging is by letters.)\n\n[17] _Was geredet sey_, B. 3.\n\n[18] _Widerruf_, sec. iv.\n\n[19] _Was geredet sey_, B.\n\n[20] _Ibid._ B. 5.\n\n[21] _Venn Gesetz Gottes_, p. 15.\n\n[22] _Was geredet sey_, B. 6.\n\n[23] _Was geredet sey_, B. 2.\n\n[24] _Ibid._ B. 5.\n\n[25] _Ibid._ B. 1 and 2.\n\n[26] _Ordnung Gottes_, p. 7.\n\n[27] _Vom Gesetz Gottes_, p. 27.\n\n[28] _Was geredet sey_, D. 1 and 2.\n\n[29] _Vom Gesetz Gottes_, p. 33.\n\n[30] _Van der wahren Liebe_ (Elkhart reprint), p. 7.\n\n[31] _Van der wahren Liebe_ (Elkhart reprint), p. 8.\n\n[32] _Vom Gesetz Gottes_, p. 19.\n\n[33] _Widerruf_, ii.\n\n[34] _Was geredet sey_, B. 1.\n\n[35] _Ibid._ D.\n\n[36] _Was geredet sey_, A. 4 and 5.\n\n[37] _Ibid_. B. 3.\n\n[38] _Widerruf_, vii.\n\n[39] _Ibid._ vii.\n\n[40] _Vom Gesetz Gottes_, p. 33.\n\n[41] _Ibid._ p. 22.\n\n[42] _Ibid._ p. 21.\n\n[43] _Widerruf_, i.\n\n[44] _Vom Gesetz Gottes_, p. 9.\n\n[45] _Ibid._ p. 12.\n\n[46] _Was geredet sey_, Preface.\n\n[47] _Widerruf_, Preface.\n\n[48] _Ibid._, Preface.\n\n\n\n\n{31}\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nTWO PROPHETS OF THE INWARD WORD: BUNDERLIN AND ENTFELDER\n\nI\n\nThe study of Denck in the previous chapter has furnished the main\noutlines of the type of Christianity which a little group of men,\nsometimes called \"Enthusiasts,\" and sometimes called \"Spirituals,\" but\nin reality sixteenth-century Quakers, proclaimed and faithfully\npractised in the opening period of the Reformation.  They differed\nfundamentally from Luther in their conception of salvation and in their\nbasis of authority, although they owed their first awakening to him;\nand they were not truly Anabaptists, though they allied themselves at\nfirst with this movement, and earnestly laboured to check the ominous\nsigns of Ranterism and Fanaticism, and the misguided \"return\" to\nmillennial hopes and expectations, to which many of the Anabaptist\nleaders were prone.\n\nThe inner circle of \"Spirituals\" which we are now engaged in\ninvestigating was never numerically large or impressive, nor was it in\nthe public mind well differentiated within the larger circle of\nseething ideas and revolutionary propaganda.  The men themselves,\nhowever, who composed it had a very sure grasp of a few definite,\ncentral truths to which they were dedicated, and they never lost sight,\nin the hurly-burly of contention and in the storm of persecution, of\nthe goal toward which they were bending their steps.  They did not\nendeavour {32} to found a Church, to organize a sect, or to gain a\npersonal following, because it was a deeply settled idea with them all\nthat the true Church is invisible.  It is a communion of saints,\nincluding those of all centuries, past and present, who have heard and\nobeyed the divine inner Word, and through co-operation with God's\ninward revelation and transforming Presence have risen to a mystical\nunion of heart and life with Him.  Their apostolic mission--for they\nfully believed that they were \"called\" and \"sent\"--was to bear witness\nto this eternal Word within the soul, to extend the fellowship of this\ninvisible Zion, and to gather out of all lands and peoples and visible\nfolds of the Church those who were ready for membership in the one\nfamily and brotherhood of the Spirit of God.  They made the mistake,\nwhich has been very often made before and since, of undervaluing\nexternal helps and of failing to appreciate how important is the\nvisible fellowship, the social group, working at common tasks and\nproblems, the temporal Church witnessing to its tested faith and\nproclaiming its message to the ears of the world; but they did\nnevertheless perform a very great service in their generation, and they\nare the unrecognized forerunners of much which we highly prize in the\nspiritual heritage of the modern world.\n\nThe two men whose spiritual views we are about to study are, I am\nafraid, hardly even \"names\" to the world of to-day.  They were not on\nthe popular and winning side and they have fallen into oblivion, and\nthe busy world has gone on and left them and their little books to lie\nburied in a forgotten past.  They are surely worthy of a resurrection,\nand those who take the pains will discover that the ideas which they\npromulgated never really died, but were quick and powerful in the\nformation of the inner life of the religious societies of the English\nCommonwealth, and so of many things which have touched our inner world\nto-day.\n\nJohann Buenderlin, like his inspirer Denck, was a scholar of no mean\nrank.  He understood Hebrew; he knew the Church Fathers both in Greek\nand Latin; he {33} makes frequent reference to Greek literature for\nillustration, and he was well versed in the dialectic of the schools,\nthough he disapproved of it as a religious method.[1]  He was enrolled\nas a student in the University of Vienna in 1515, under the name of\nJohann Wunderl aus Linz, Linz being a town of Upper Austria.  After\nfour years of study he left the University in 1519, being compelled to\nforgo his Bachelor's degree because he was too poor to pay the required\nfee.[2]  The next five years of his life are submerged beyond recovery,\nbut we hear of him in 1526 as a preacher in the service of Bartholomaeus\nvon Starhemberg, a prominent nobleman of Upper Austria, and he was at\nthis time a devout adherent of the Lutheran faith.  He was in Augsburg\nthis same year, 1526, at the time of the great gathering of\nAnabaptists, and here he probably met Hans Denck, at any rate he\ntestified in 1529 before the investigating Judge in Strasbourg that he\nreceived adult baptism in Augsburg three years before.  He seems to\nhave gone from Augsburg to Nikolsburg, where he was present at a public\nDiscussion in which a definite differentiation appeared between the\nmoderate and the radical, the right and left, wings of the Anabaptists.\nBuenderlin took part in this Discussion on the \"moderate\" side.  He\nremained for some time--perhaps two years--in Nikolsburg and faced the\npersecution which prevailed in that city during the winter of\n1527-1528.  The next year he comes to notice in Strasbourg where, for a\nlong time, a much larger freedom of thought was allowed than in any\nother German city of the period.  The great tragedy which he had to\nexperience was the frustration of the work of his life by the growth\nand spread of the Ranter influence in the Anabaptist circles, through\nthe leadership of Melchior Hoffman and others of a similar spirit.  He\nloved freedom, and here he saw it degenerating into license.  He was\ndevoted to a religion of experience and of inner authority, and now\n{34} he saw the wild extremes to which such a religion was exposed.  He\nwas dedicated to a spiritual Christianity, and now he was compelled to\nlearn the bitter lesson that there are many types and varieties of\n\"spiritual religion,\" and that the masses are inclined to go with those\nwho supply them with a variety which is spectacular and which produces\nemotional thrills.  Our last definite information concerning Buenderlin\nshows him to have been in Constance in 1530, from which city he was\nexpelled as a result of information against the \"soundness\" of his\ndoctrine, furnished in a letter from OEcolampadius.  From this time he\ndrops completely out of notice, and we are left only with conjectures.\nOne possible reference to him occurs in a letter from Julius Pflug, the\nHumanist, to Erasmus in 1533.  Pflug says that a person has newly\narrived in Litium (probably Luetzen) who teaches that there are no words\nof Christ as a warrant for the celebration of the Sacrament of the\nSupper, and that it is to be partaken of only in a spiritual way.  He\nadds that God had intervened to protect the people from such heresy and\nthat the heretic had been imprisoned.  The usual penalty for such\nheresy was probably imposed.  This description would well fit Johann\nBuenderlin, but we can only guess that he was the opponent of the\nvisible Sacrament mentioned in the letter which Erasmus received in\n1533.[3]\n\nBuenderlin's religious contribution is preserved in three little books\nwhich are now extremely rare, the central ideas of which I shall give\nin condensed form and largely in my own words, though I have faithfully\nendeavoured to render him fairly.[4]  His style is difficult, {35}\nmainly because he abounds in repetition and has not learned to write in\nan orderly way.  I am inclined to believe that he sometimes wrote, as\nhe would no doubt preach, in a prophetic, rapturous, spontaneous\nfashion, hardly steering his train of thought by his intellect, but\nletting it go along lines of least resistance and in a rhythmic flood\nof words; his central ideas of course all the time holding the\npredominant place in his utterance.  He is essentially a mystic both in\nexperience and in the ground and basis of his conception of God and\nman.  This mystical feature is especially prominent in his second book\non why God became incarnate in Christ, and I shall begin my exposition\nwith that aspect of his thought.\n\nGod, he says, who is the eternal and only goodness, has always been\ngoing out of Himself into forms of self-expression.  His highest\nexpression is made in a heavenly and purely spiritual order of angelic\nbeings.  Through these spiritual beings He objectifies Himself, mirrors\nHimself, knows Himself, and becomes revealed.[5]  He has also poured\nHimself out in a lower order of manifestation in the visible creation\nwhere spirit often finds itself in opposition and contrast to that\nwhich is not spirit.  The highest being in this second order is man,\nwho in inward essence is made in the image and likeness of God, but\nbinds together in one personal life both sensuous elements and divine\nand spiritual elements which are always in collision and warfare with\neach other.  Man has full freedom of choice and can swing his will over\nto either side--he can live upward toward the divine goodness, or he\ncan live downward toward the poor, thin, limiting isolation of\nindividual selfhood.  But {36} through the shifting drama of our human\ndestiny God never leaves us.  He is always within us, as near to the\nheart of our being as the Light is to the eye.  Conscience is the\nwitness of His continued Presence; the drawing which we feel toward\nhigher things is born in the unlost image of God which is planted in\nour nature \"like the tree of Life in Eden.\"  He pleads in our hearts by\nHis inner Word; He reveals the goodness of Himself in His vocal\nopposition to all that would harm and spoil us, and He labours\nunceasingly to be born in us and to bring forth His love and His\nspiritual kingdom in the domain of our own spirits.  The way of life is\nto die to the flesh and to the narrow will of the self, and to become\nalive to the Spirit and Word of God in the soul, to enter into and\nparticipate in that eternal love with which God loves us.  This central\nidea of the double nature of man--an upper self indissolubly linked\nwith God and a lower self rooted in fleshly and selfish desires--runs\nthrough all his writings, and in his view all the processes of\nrevelation are to further the liberation and development of the higher\nand to weaken the gravitation of the lower self.\n\nHis first book deals with God's twofold revelation of\nHimself--primarily as a living Word in the soul of man, and secondarily\nthrough external signs and events, in an historical word, and in a\ntemporal incarnation.  With a wealth and variety of expression and\nillustration he insists and reiterates that only through the\ncitadel--or better the sanctuary--of his inner self can man be\nspiritually reached, and won, and saved.  Nobody can be saved until he\nknows himself at one with God; until he finds his will at peace and in\nharmony with God's will; until his inward spirit is conscious of unity\nwith the eternal Spirit; in short, until love sets him free with the\nfreedom and joy of sons of God.  Priests may absolve men if they will,\nand ministers may pronounce them saved, but all _that_ counts for\nnothing until the inward transformation is a fact and the will has\nfound its goal in the will of God: \"Love must bloom and the spirit {37}\nof the man must follow the will of God written in his heart.\"[6]\n\nAll external means in religion have one purpose and one function; they\nare to awaken the mind and to direct it to the inward Word.  The most\nstartling miracle, the most momentous event in the sphere of temporal\nsequences, the most appealing account of historical occurrences can do\nnothing more than give in parable-fashion hints and suggestions of the\nreal nature of that God who is eternally present within human spirits,\nand who is working endlessly to conform all lives to His perfect type\nand pattern.  In the infant period of the race, both among the Hebrews\nand the Gentile peoples, God has used, like a wise Teacher, the symbol\nand picture-book method.  He has disciplined them with external laws\nand with ceremonies which would move their child-minded imaginations;\nbut all this method was used only because they were not ripe and ready\nfor the true and higher form of goodness.  \"They used the face of Moses\nuntil they could come to the full Light of the truth and righteousness\nof God, for which all the time their spirits really hungered and\nthirsted.\"[7]  The supreme instance of the divine pictorial method was\nthe sending of Christ to reveal God visibly.  Before seeing God in\nChrist men falsely thought of Him as hostile, stern, and wrathful; now\nthey may see Him in this unveiling of Himself as He actually is,\neternally loving, patiently forgiving, and seeking only to draw the\nworld into His love and peace: \"When the Abba-crying spirit of Christ\nawakens in our hearts we commune with God in peace and love.\"[8]  But\nno one must content himself with Christ after the flesh, Christ\nhistorically known.  That is to make an idol of Him.  We can be saved\nthrough Him only when by His help we discover the essential nature of\nGod and when He moves us to go to living in the spirit and power as\nChrist Himself lived.  His death as an outward, historical fact does\nnot save us; it is the supreme expression of His limitless love and the\ncomplete dedication {38} of His spirit in self-giving, and it is\neffective for our salvation only when it draws us into a similar way of\nliving, unites us in spirit with Him and makes us in reality partakers\nof His blood spiritually apprehended.  Christ is our Mediator in that\nHe reveals the love of God towards us and moves our will to appreciate\nit.[9]\n\nEvery step of human progress and of spiritual advance is marked by a\npassage from the dominion of the external to the sway and power of\ninward experience.  God is training us for a time when images, figures,\nand picture-book methods will be no longer needed, but all men will\nlive by the inward Word and have the witness--\"the Abba-crying\nvoice\"--in their own hearts.  But this process from outward to inward,\nfrom virtue impelled by fear and mediated by law to goodness generated\nby love, gives no place for license.  Buenderlin has no fellowship with\nantinomianism, and is opposed to any tendency which gives rein to the\nflesh.  The outward law, the external restraint, the discipline of fear\nand punishment are to be used so long as they are needed, and the\nwritten word and the pictorial image will always serve as a norm and\nstandard, but the true spiritual goal of life is the formation of a\nrightly fashioned will, the creation of a controlling personal love,\nthe experience of a guiding inward Spirit, which keep the awakened soul\nsteadily approximating the perfect Life which Christ has revealed.\n\nThe true Church is for Buenderlin as for Denck, the communion and\nfellowship of spiritual persons--an invisible congregation;\never-enlarging with the process of the ages and with the expanding\nlight of the Spirit.  He blames Luther for having stopped short of a\nreal reformation, of having \"mixed with the Midianites instead of going\non into the promised Canaan,\" and of having failed to dig down to the\nfundamental basis of spiritual religion.[10]\n\nIn his final treatise[11] he goes to the full length of the implication\nof his principle.  He recounts with luminous {39} simplicity the\nmystical _unity_ of the spiritual Universe and tells of the divine\npurpose to draw all our finite and divided wills into moral harmony\nwith the Central Will.  Once more religion is presented as wholly a\nmatter of the inward spirit, a thing of insight, of obedience to a\nliving Word, of love for an infinite Lover, the bubbling of living\nstreams of water in the heart of man.  He declares that the period of\nsigns and symbols and of \"the scholastic way of truth\" is passing away,\nand the religion of the New Testament, the religion of life and spirit,\nis coming in place of the old.  As fast as the new comes ceremonies and\nsacraments vanish and fall away.  They do not belong to a religion of\nthe Spirit; they are for the infant race and for those who have not\noutgrown the picture-book.  Christ's baptism is with power from above,\nand He cleanses from sin not with water but with the Holy Ghost and the\nburning fire of love.  As soon as the spiritual man possesses \"the key\nof David,\" and has entered upon \"the true Sabbath of his soul,\" he\nholds lightly all forms and ceremonies which are outward and which can\nbe gone through with in a mechanical fashion without creating the\nessential attitude of worship and of inner harmony of will with God:\n\"When the Kingdom of God with its joy and love has come in us we do not\nmuch care for those things which can only happen outside us.\"[12]\n\n\n\nII\n\nChristian Entfelder held almost precisely the same views as those which\nwe have found in the teaching of Buenderlin.  He has become even more\nsubmerged than has Buenderlin, and one hunts almost in vain for the\nevents of his life.  Hagen does not mention him.  Gruetzmacher in his\n_Wort und Geist_ never refers to him.  The great _Realencyklopaedie fur\nprotestantische Theologie und Kirche_ has no article on him.  Gottfried\nArnold in his {40} _Kirchenund Ketzer-Historien_ merely mentions him in\nhis list of \"Witnesses to the Truth.\"  The only article I have ever\nfound on him is one by Professor Veesenmeyer in Gabler's _N. theol.\nJournal_ (1800), iv. 4, pp. 309-334.\n\nHe first appears in the group of Balthasar Huebmaier's followers and at\nthis period he had evidently allied himself with the Anabaptist\nmovement, which gathered into itself many young men of the time who\nwere eager for a new and more spiritual type of Christianity.  Huebmaier\nmentions Entfelder in 1527 as pastor at Ewanzig, a small town in\nMoravia, where, as he himself later says, he diligently taught his\nlittle flock the things which concerned their inner life.  In the\neventful years of 1520-1530 he was in Strasbourg in company with\nBuenderlin,[13] and in this latter year he published his first book,\nwith the title: _Von den manigfaltigen in Glauben Zerspaltungen dise\njar erstanden_.  (\"On the many Separations which have this year arisen\nin Belief.\")  A second book, which is also dated 1530, bears the title:\nVon waren Gotseligkayt, etc.  (\"On true Salvation.\")  He wrote also a\nthird book, which appeared in 1533 under the title: _Von Gottes und\nChristi Jesu unseres Herren Erkandtnuss_, etc.  (\"On the Knowledge of\nGod and Jesus Christ our Lord.\")\n\nHis style is simpler than that of Buenderlin.  He appears more as a man\nof the people; he is fond of vigorous, graphic figures of speech taken\nfrom the life of the common people, much in the manner of Luther, and\nhe breathes forth in all three books a spirit of deep and saintly life.\nHis fundamental idea of the Universe is like that of Buenderlin.  The\nvisible and invisible creation, in all its degrees and stages, is the\noutgoing and unfolding of God, who in His Essence and Godhead is one,\nindivisible and incomprehensible.  But as He is essentially and\neternally Good, He _expresses_ Himself in revelation, and goes out of\nUnity into differentiation and multiplicity; but the entire spiritual\nmovement of the universe is back again toward the fundamental Unity,\nfor Divine Unity is both the Alpha and the Omega of the {41} deeper\ninner world.  His main interest is, however, not philosophical and\nspeculative; his mind focuses always on the practical matters of a true\nand saintly life.  Like his teacher, Buenderlin, his whole view of life\nand salvation is mystical; everything which concerns religion occurs in\nthe realm of the soul and is the outcome of direct relations between\nthe human spirit and the Divine Spirit.  In every age, and in every\nland, the inner Word of God, the Voice of the Spirit speaking within,\nclarifying the mind and training the spiritual perceptions by a\nprogressive experience, has made for itself a chosen people and has\ngathered out of the world a little inner circle of those who know the\nTruth because it was formed within themselves.  This \"inner circle of\nthose who know\" is the true Church: \"The Church is a chosen, saved,\npurified, sanctified group in whom God dwells, upon whom the Holy Ghost\nwas poured out His gifts and with whom Christ the Lord shares His\noffices and His mission.\"[14]\n\nThere is however, through the ages a steady ripening of the Divine\nHarvest, a gradual and progressive onward movement of the spiritual\nprocess, ever within the lives of men: \"Time brings roses.  He who\nthinks that he has all the fruit when strawberries are ripe forgets\nthat grapes are still to come.  We should always be eagerly looking for\nsomething better.\"[15]  There are, he says, three well-marked stages of\nrevelation: (1) The stage of the law, when God, the Father, was making\nHimself known through His external creation and by outward forms of\ntraining and discipline; (2) the stage of self-revelation through the\nSon, that men might see in Him and His personal activity the actual\ncharacter and heart of God; and (3) the stage of the Holy Spirit which\nfills all deeps and heights, flows into all lives, and is the One God\nrevealed in His essential nature of active Goodness--Goodness at work\nin the world.  Externals of every type--law, ceremonies, rewards and\npunishments, {42} historical happenings, written Scriptures, even the\nhistorical doings and sufferings of Christ--are only pointers and\nsuggestion-material to bring the soul to the living Word within, \"to\nthe Lord Himself who is never absent,\" and who will be spiritually born\nwithin man.  \"God,\" he says, \"has once become flesh in Christ and has\nrevealed thus the hidden God and, as happened in a fleshly way in Mary,\neven so Christ must be spiritually born in us.\"  So, too, everything\nwhich Christ experienced and endured in His earthly mission must be\nre-lived and reproduced in the life of His true disciples.  There is no\nsalvation possible without the new birth of Christ in us, without\nself-surrender and the losing of oneself, without being buried with\nChrist in a death to self-will and without rising with Him in joy and\npeace and victory.[16]  He who rightly loves his Christ will speak no\nword, will eat no bit of bread, nor taste of water, nor put a stitch of\nclothes upon his body without thinking of the Beloved of his\nsoul. . . .  In this state he can rid himself of all pictures and\nsymbols, renounce everything which he possesses, take up his cross with\nChrist, join Him in an inward, dying life, allow himself, like grain,\nto be threshed, winnowed, ground, bolted, and baked that he may become\nspiritual food as Christ has done for us.  Then there comes a state in\nwhich poverty and riches, pain and joy, life and death are alike, when\nthe soul has found its sabbath-peace in the Origin and Fount of all\nLove.[17]  His first book closes with a beautiful account of the return\nof the prodigal to His Father and to His Father's love, and then he\nbreaks into a joyous cry, as if it all came out of his own experience:\n\"Who then can separate us from the Love of God?\"\n\nThose who rightly understand religion and have had this birth and this\nSabbath-peace within themselves will stop contending over outward,\nexternal things, which make separations but do not minister to the\nspirit; they will give up the Babel-habit of constructing theological\n{43} systems,[18] they will pass upward from elements to the essence,\nthey will stop building the city-walls of the Church out of baptism and\nthe supper, which furnish \"only clay-plastered walls\" at best, and they\nwill found the Church instead upon the true sacramental power of the\ninward Spirit of God.[19]  The true goal of the spiritual life is such\na oneness with God that He is in us and we in Him, so that the inner\njoy and power take our outer life captive and draw us away from the\nworld and its \"pictures,\" and make it a heartfelt delight to do all His\ncommandments and to suffer anything for Him.[20]\n\nHere, then, in the third decade of the sixteenth century, when the\nleaders of the Reformation were using all their powers of dialectic to\nformulate in new scholastic phrase the sound creed for Protestant\nChristendom, and while the fierce and decisive battle was being waged\nover the new form in which the Eucharist must be celebrated, there\nappeared a little group of men who proposed that Christianity should be\nconceived and practised as _a way of living_--nothing more nor less.\nThey rejected theological language and terminology root and branch.\nThey are as innocent of scholastic subtlety and forensic conceptions as\nthough they had been born in this generation.  They seem to have wiped\ntheir slate clean of the long line of Augustinian contributions, and to\nhave begun afresh with the life and message of Jesus Christ, coloured,\nif at all, by local and temporal backgrounds, by the experience of the\nearlier German mystics who helped them to interpret their own simple\nand sincere experiences.  They are as naive and artless as little\nchildren, and they expect, as all enthusiasts do in their youth, that\nthey have only to announce their wonderful truths and to proclaim their\n\"openings\" in order to bring the world to the light!  They go to the\nfull length of the implications of their {44} fresh insight without\never dreaming that all the theological world will unite, across the\nyawning chasms of difference, to stamp out their \"pestilent heresy,\"\nand to rid the earth of persons who dare to question the traditions and\nthe practices of the centuries.\n\nInstead of beginning with the presupposition of original sin, they\nquietly assert that the soul of man is inherently bound up in the Life\nand Nature of God, and that goodness is at least as \"original\" as\nbadness.  They fly in the face of the age-long view that the doctrine\nof Grace makes freewill impossible and reduces salvation wholly to a\nwork of God, and they assert as the ineradicable testimony of their own\nconsciousness that human choices between Light and Darkness, the\npersonal response to the character of God as He reveals Himself, the\nco-operation of the will of man with the processes of a living and\nspiritual God are the things which save a man--and this salvation is\npossible in a pagan, in a Jew, in a Turk even, as well as in a man who\nranges himself under Christian rubrics and who says paternosters.  They\nreject all the scholastic accounts of Christ's metaphysical nature,\nthey will not use the term Trinity, nor will they admit that it is\nright to employ any words which imply that God is divided into\nmultiform personalities; but nevertheless they hold, with all the\nfervour of their earnest spirits, that Christ is God historically and\nhumanly revealed, and that to see Christ is to see the true and only\nGod, and to love Christ is to love the Eternal Love.\n\nIn an age which settled back upon the Scriptures as the only basis of\nauthority in religious faith and practice, they boldly challenged that\ncourse as a dangerous return to a lower form of religion than that to\nwhich Christ had called men and as only legalism and scribism in a new\ndress.  They insisted that the Eternal Spirit, who had been educating\nthe race from its birth, bringing all things up to better, and who had\nused now one symbol and now another to fit the growing spiritual\nperception of men, is a real Presence in the deeps of men's {45}\nconsciousness, and is ceaselessly voicing Himself there as a living\nWord whom it is life to obey and death to disregard and slight.  Having\nfound this present, immanent Spirit and being deeply convinced that all\nthat really matters happens in the dread region of the human heart,\nthey turned away from all ceremonies and sacraments and tried to form a\nChurch which should be purely and simply a Communion of saints--a\nbrotherhood of believers living in the joy of an inward experience of\nGod, and bound together in common love to Christ and in common service\nto all who are potential sons of God.\n\n\n\n[1] See Veesenmeyer's article on Buenderlin in _N. lit. Anzeiger_ for\nAugust 1807, P. 535.\n\n[2] The details of his life here given have been gathered mainly from\nthe excellent monograph on _Johannes Buenderlin_ by Dr. Alexander\nNicoladoni.  (Berlin, 1893.)\n\n[3] This incident is given in Dr. Carl Hagen's _Deutschlands\nliterarischt und religioese Verhaeltnisse im Reformalionszeitalter_,\n1868, iii. p. 310.\n\n[4] The books are:--\n\n(1) _Ein gemayne Berechnung ueber der Heiligen Schrift Inhalt_, etc.\n(\"A General Consideration of the Contents of Holy Scripture.\")  Printed\nin Strasbourg in 1529.\n\n(2) _Aus was Ursach sich Gott in die nyder gelassen und in Christo\nvermenschet ist_, etc., 1529.  (\"For what cause God has descended here\nbelow and has become incarnate in Christ.\")\n\n(3) _Erklaerung durch Vergleichung der biblischen Geschrift, doss der\nWassertauf sammt andern aeusserlichen Gebraeuchen in der apostolischen\nKirchen geubet, on Gottes Befelch und Zeugniss der Geschrift, von\netlichen dieser Zeit wider efert wird_, etc., 1530.  (\"Declaration by\ncomparison of the Biblical Writings that Baptism with Water, together\nwith other External Customs practised in the Apostolic Church, have\nbeen reinstated by some at this time without the Command of God or the\nWitness of the Scriptures.\")\n\nThese three books can be found bound in one volume, with writings of\nDenck and others, in the Koenigliche Bibliothek in Dresden.  There is\nalso a copy of his third book in Utrecht.  Besides using the books\nthemselves I have also used the monograph by Nicoladoni and the study\nof Buenderlin in Hagen, _op. cit._ iii. pp. 295-310.\n\n[5] This idea is reproduced and greatly expanded in the writings of the\nfamous Silesian Mystic, Jacob Boehme.\n\n[6] _Ein gemayne Berechnung_, p. 57.\n\n[7] _Ibid._ p. 14.\n\n[8] _Ibid._ p. 221.\n\n[9] _Ein gemayne Berechnung_, pp. 218-221, freely rendered.\n\n[10] _Ibid_. pp. 30-34.\n\n[11] _Erklaerung durch Vergleichung._\n\n[12] _Aus was Ursach_, p. 33.  These phrases, \"Key of David\" and\n\"Sabbath Rest for the Soul,\" occur in the writings of all the spiritual\nreformers.\n\n[13] See _N. lit. Anzeiger_ (1807), p. 515.\n\n[14] Entfelder to his brethren at the end of his first book: _Von\nZerspaltungen_.\n\n[15] Vorrede to _Von Zerspaltungen_.\n\n[16] _Von waren Gotseligkayt_, pp. 18-21.\n\n[17] See especially _Von Zerspaltungen_, pp. 6-8.\n\n[18] This \"Babel-habit of constructing theological systems\" is\nconstantly referred to by Jacob Boehme, as we shall see.  I believe\nthat Boehme had read both Buenderlin and Entfelder.\n\n[19] See _Von Zerspaltungen_, passim, especially p. 17.\n\n[20] _Von waren Gotseligkayt_, p. 13.\n\n\n\n\n{46}\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nSEBASTIAN FRANCK: AN APOSTLE OF INWARD RELIGION\n\nSebastian Franck is one of the most interesting figures in the group of\nGerman Reformers, a man of heroic spirit and a path-breaking genius,\nthough for many reasons his influence upon his epoch was in no degree\ncomparable with that of many of his great contemporaries.  No person,\nhowever great a genius he may be, can get wholly free from the\nintellectual climate and the social ideals of his period, but\noccasionally a man appears who has the skill and vision to hit upon\nnascent aspirations and tendencies which are big with futurity, and who\nthereby seems to be far ahead of his age and not explicable by any\nlineage or pedigree.  Sebastian Franck was a man of this sort.  He was\nextraordinarily unfettered by medieval inheritance, and he would be able\nto adjust himself with perfect ease to the spirit and ideas of the modern\nworld if he could be dropped forward into it.\n\nHe is especially interesting and important as an exponent and interpreter\nof a religion based on inward authority because he unites, in an unusual\nmanner, the intellectual ideals of the Humanist with the experience and\nattitude of the Mystic.  In him we have a Christian thinker who is able\nto detach himself from the theological formulations of his own and of\nearlier times, and who could draw, with breadth of mind and depth of\ninsight, from the wells of the great original thinkers of all ages, and\nwho, besides, in his own deep and serious soul could feel the inner flow\nof central realities.  He was no doubt {47} too much detached to be a\nsuccessful Reformer of the historical Church, and he was too little\ninterested in external organisations to be the leader of a new sect; but\nhe was, what he aspired to be, a sincere and unselfish contributor to the\nspread of the Kingdom of God, and a significant apostle of the invisible\nChurch.[1]\n\nSebastian Franck was born in 1499 at Donauwuerth in Schwabia.  He began\nhis higher education in the University of Ingolstadt, which he entered\nMarch 26, 1515.  He went from Ingolstadt to Heidelberg, where he\ncontinued his studies in the Dominican College which was incorporated\nwith the University.  Here he was associated in the friendly fellowship\nof student life with two of his later opponents, Martin Frecht and Martin\nBucer, and here he came under the influence of Humanism which in the\nscholarly circles in Heidelberg was beginning to take a place along with\nthe current Scholasticism of the period.  While a student in Heidelberg\nhe first heard Martin Luther speak on the insufficiency of works and on\nfaith as the way of salvation, and though he must have felt the power of\nthis great personality and the freshness of the message, he was not yet\nripe for a radical change of front.[2]  He seems to have felt through\nthese student years that a new age was in process of birth, but though he\nwas following the great events he remained to the end of his University\nperiod an adherent of the ancient Church and was ordained a priest about\nthe year 1524; but very soon after he went over to the party of Reform,\nand was settled as a reforming preacher in the little church at\nGustenfelden near Nuremberg.  During this period he came into close and\nintimate relation with the powerful humanistic spirit of that important\ncity.  Hans Sachs was already a person of fame and influence in\nNuremberg, and here he became acquainted with the writings of the most\nfamous humanists of the day--Erasmus, Hutten, Reuchlin, Pirkheimer, {48}\nAlthamer and others.  In 1528 he married Ottilie Behaim, a woman of rare\ngifts, whose brothers were pupils of Albrecht Duerer, and who were\nthemselves in sympathy with the freer tendencies of the time as expressed\nby the Anabaptists.  Franck, however, though sympathizing with the\naspirations of the Anabaptists for a new age, did not feel confidence in\ntheir views or their methods.  His first literary work was a translation\ninto German of Althamer's _Diallage_, which contained an attack from the\nLutheran point of view upon the various Enthusiasts of the period,\nespecially the Anabaptists.  In his original preface to this work Franck,\nthough still in most respects a Lutheran, already reveals unmistakable\nsigns of variation from the Wittenberg type, and he is plainly moving in\nthe direction of a religion of the spiritual and mystical type freed from\nthe limitations of sect and party.  Even in this formative stage he\ninsists that the Spirit, and not commentaries, is the true guide for the\ninterpretation of Scripture; he already contrasts Spirit and letter,\nouter man and inner man, and he here lays down the radical principle,\nwhich he himself soon put into practice, that a minister of the Gospel\nshould resign his charge as soon as he discovers that his preaching is\nnot bearing spiritual fruit in the transformation of the lives of his\ncongregation.[3]\n\nSometime before 1530 Franck had come into intimate connection with Denck,\nBuenderlin, Schwenckfeld, and other contemporary leaders of the\n\"Spiritual\" movement, and their influence upon him was profound and\nlasting, because their message fitted the aspirations which, though not\nyet well defined, were surging subconsciously in him.[4]  There are\nthroughout his writings very clear marks of Schwenckfeld's influence upon\nhim, but Buenderlin especially spoke to his condition and helped him\ndiscover the road which his feet were seeking.  In an important letter\nwhich Franck wrote to Johann Campanus in 1531, he calls Buenderlin a\nscholar, a {49} wonderfully reverent man, dead to the world, powerful in\nthe Scriptures, and mightily gifted with an enlightened reason; and this\nletter shows that he himself has been moving rapidly in the direction in\nwhich Buenderlin and Denck were travelling, though neither now nor at any\ntime was Franck a mere copier of other men's ideas.[5]  \"We must\nunlearn,\" he writes, \"all that we have learned from our youth up from the\npapists, and we must change everything we have got from the Pope or from\nLuther and Zwingli.\"  He predicts that the external Church will never be\nset up again, \"for the inward enlightenment by the Spirit of God is\nsufficient.\"\n\nIn his _Tuerkenchronik_, or \"Chronicle and Description of Turkey,\"\npublished in 1530, he had already declared his dissatisfaction with\nceremonies and outward forms of any sort, his refusal to be identified\nwith any existing, empirical Church, his solemn dedication to the\ninvisible Church, and his determination to be an apostle of the Spirit.\n\"There already are in our times,\" he writes, \"three distinct Faiths,\nwhich have a large following, the Lutheran, Zwinglian and Anabaptist; and\na _fourth_ is well on the way to birth, which will dispense with external\npreaching, ceremonies, sacraments, bann and office as unnecessary, and\nwhich seeks solely to gather among all peoples an invisible, spiritual\nChurch in the unity of the Spirit and of faith, to be governed wholly by\nthe eternal, invisible Word of God, without external means, as the\napostolic Church was governed before its apostasy, which occurred after\nthe death of the apostles.\"[6]\n\nThe year that dates his autobiographical letter to Campanus saw the\npublication in Strasbourg of Franck's best-known literary work:\n_Chronica, Zeitbuch und Geschichtsbibel_ (\"A Universal Chronicle of the\nWorld's History from the Earliest Times to the Present\").[7]  It has {50}\noften been pointed out that much of the material of this great Chronicle\nis taken over from earlier Chroniclers, especially from the Nuremberger\nSchedel, and it is furthermore true that Franck's _Book of the Ages_\ncontains large tracts of unhistorical narrative, set forth after the\nmanner of Chroniclers without much critical insight, but the book,\nnevertheless, has a unique value.  It abounds in Franck's peculiar irony\nand paradox, and it unfolds his conception of the spiritual history of\nthe race, under the tuition of the Divine Word.  At the beginning are\npatriarchs living in the dawn of the world under the guidance of inward\nvision, and at the end are saints and heretics, whom Franck finds among\nall races, bravely following the same inward Light, now after the ages\ngrown clearer and more luminous, and sufficient for those who will\npatiently and faithfully heed it, while the real \"heretics\" for him are\n\"heretics of the letter.\"  \"We ought to act carefully before God\"--this\nis Franck's constant testimony--\"hold to God alone and look upon Him as\nthe cause of all things, and we ought always in all matters to notice\nwhat God says in us, to pay attention to the witness of our hearts, and\nnever to think, or act, against our conscience.  For everything does not\nhang upon the bare letter of Scripture; everything hangs, rather, on the\nspirit of Scripture and on a spiritual understanding of the inner meaning\nof what God has said.  If we weigh every matter carefully we shall find\nits true meaning in the depth of our spiritual understanding and by the\nmind of Christ.  Otherwise, the dead letter of Scripture would make us\nall heretics and fools, for everything can be bedecked and defended with\ntexts, therefore let nobody confound himself and confuse himself with\nScripture, but let every one weigh and test Scripture to see how it fits\nhis own heart.  If it is against his conscience and the Word within his\nown soul, then be sure he has not reached the right meaning, according to\nthe mind of the Spirit, for the Scriptures must give witness to the\nSpirit, never against it.\"[8]\n\n{51}\n\nThe _Chronica_ naturally aroused a storm of opposition against this bold\nadvocate of the inner Way.  Even Erasmus, who had been canonized in\nFranck's list of heretics, joined in the outcry against the chronicler of\nthe world's spiritual development.  His book was confiscated, he was\ntemporarily imprisoned, and for the years immediately following he was\nnever secure in any city where he endeavoured to pursue his labours.  He\nsupported himself and his family, now by the humble occupation of a\nsoap-boiler, now by working in a printing-house, sometimes in Strasbourg,\nsometimes in Esslingen, and sometimes in Ulm, only asking that he \"might\nnot be forced to bury the talent which God had given him, but might be\nallowed to use it for the good of the people of God.\"\n\nIn 1534 his _Weltbuch_ appeared from a press in Tuebingen, and the same\nyear he published his famous _Paradoxa_, which contains the most clear\nand consistent exposition of his mystical and spiritual religion.  Other\nsignificant books from his pen are his translation of Erasmus' _Moriae\nEncomion_ (\"Praise of Folly\"), with very important additions; _Von der\nEitelkeit aller menschlichen Kunst und Weisheit_ (\"The Vanity of Arts and\nSciences\"), following the treatise by Agrippa von Nettesheim; _Von dem\nBaum des Wissens Gutes und Boeses (\"Of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good\nand Evil\");[9] the _Germaniae Chronicon_ (\"Chronicle of Germany\"), 1538;\n_Die guldin Arch_ (\"Golden Arch\"), 1538; and _Das verbuetschiert mit 7\nSiegeln verschlossene Buch (\"The Seven-sealed Book\"), 1539.\n\nThe closing years of his life were passed in Basle, where he peacefully\nworked at his books and at type-setting, while the theologians fired\ntheir paper guns against him, and here in Basle he \"went forth with God\"\non his last journey to find a safe and quiet \"city with foundations,\"\nprobably about the end of the year 1542.  Three years before his {52}\ndeath he had written in his \"Seven-sealed Book\" of the soul's journey\ntoward God in these words: \"The longer one travels toward the city he\nseeks the nearer and nearer he comes to the goal of his journey; exactly\nso is it with the soul that is seeking God.  If he will travel away from\nhimself and away from the world and seek only God as the precious pearl\nof his soul, he will come steadily nearer to God, until he becomes one\nspirit with God the Spirit; but let him not be afraid of mountains and\nvalleys on the way, and let him not give up because he is tired and\nweary, _for he who seeks finds_.\"[10]  \"The Sealed Book\" contains an\n\"apology\" by Franck which is one of the most touching and one of the most\nnoble documents from any opponent of the course which the German\nReformation was taking.  \"I want my writings accepted,\" he declares,\n\"only in so far as they fit the spirit of Scripture, the teaching of the\nprophets, and only so far as the anointing of the Word of God, Christ the\ninward Life and Light of men, gives witness to them. . . .  Nobody is the\nmaster of my faith, and I desire to be the master of the faith of no one.\nI love any man whom I can help, and I call him brother whether he be Jew\nor Samaritan. . . .  I cannot belong to any separate sect, but I believe\nin a holy, Christlike Church, a fellowship of saints, and I hold as my\nbrother, my neighbour, my flesh and blood, all men who belong to Christ\namong all sects, faiths, and peoples scattered throughout the whole\nworld--only I allow nobody to have dominion over the one place which I am\npledged to the Lord to keep as pure virgin, namely my heart and my\nconscience.  If you try to bind my conscience, to rule over my faith, or\nto be master of my heart, then I must leave you.  Except _that_,\neverything I am or have is thine, whoever thou art or whatever thou\nmayest believe.\"[11]\n\nIt was Franck's primary idea--the principle to which he was dedicated and\nfor which he was content to suffer, {53} in the faith that men in future\ntimes would come to see as he did[12]--that man's soul possesses a native\ncapacity to hear the inward Word of God.  He often calls Plato and\nPlotinus and \"Hermes Trismegistus\" his teachers, who \"had spoken to him\nmore clearly than Moses did\"[13] and, like these Greek teachers of the\nnature of the soul's furnishings, he insisted that we come \"not in entire\nforgetfulness and not in utter nakedness,\" but that there is a divine\nelement, an innermost essence in us, in the very structure of the soul,\nwhich is the starting-point of all spiritual progress, the mark of man's\ndignity, the real source of all religious experience, and the eternal\nbasis of the soul's salvation and joy.  He names this inward endowment by\nmany names.  It is the Word of God (\"Wort Gottes\"), the Power of God\n(\"Kraft Gottes\"), Spirit (\"Geist\"), Mind of Christ (\"Sinn Christi\"),\nDivine Activity (\"goettliche Wirkung\"), Divine Origin (\"goettlicher\nUrsprung\"), the inward Light (\"das innere Licht\"), the true Light (\"das\nwahre Licht\"), the Lamp of the soul (\"das innere Ampellicht\").  \"The\ninward Light,\" Franck says in the _Paradoxa_, \"is nothing else than the\nWord of God, God Himself, by whom all things were made and by whom all\nmen are enlightened.\"  It is, in Franck's thought, not a capricious,\nsubjective impulse or vision, and it is not to be discovered in sudden\necstatic experiences; nor, on the other hand, is the divine Word, for\nFranck, something purely objective and transcendent.  It is rather a\ncommon ground and essence for God and man.  It is God in His\nself-revealing activity; God in His self-giving grace; God as the\nimmanent ground of all that is permanently real, and at the same time\nthis divine endowment forms the fundamental nature of man's soul--\"Gottes\nWort ist in der menschlichen Natur angelegt\"[14]--and is the original\nsubstance of our being.  Consciousness of God and consciousness of self\nhave one fundamental source in this deep where God and man are\nunsundered.  \"No man can see or know himself unless he sees and knows, by\nthe Light and Life that is {54} in him.  God the eternally true Light and\nLife; wherefore nobody can ever know God outside of himself, outside that\nregion where he knows himself in the ground of himself. . . .  Man must\nseek, find, and know God through an interrelation--he must find God in\nhimself and himself in God.\"[15]  This deep ground of inner reality is in\nevery person, so far as he is a person; it shines forth as a steady\nillumination in the soul, and, while everything else is transitory, this\nWord is eternal and has been the moral and spiritual guide of all peoples\nin all ages.\n\nFranck thus differs in a vital point from Schwenckfeld.  The latter\nstarts with man as utterly lost and devoid of any inherent goodness.  By\na sudden, supernatural event, at a temporal moment, divine forces break\ninto the soul from without and supply it with a revitalizing energy.\nMan--lost, fallen, sin-blasted and utterly helpless--is by a divine and\nheavenly creative movement _made_ a new Adam.  For Franck, the soul has\nnever lost the divine Image, the pearl of supreme price, the original\nelement which is God Himself in the soul.  We are all, in the deepest\ncentre of our being, like Adam, possessed of a substantial essence, not\nof earth, not of time and space, not of the shadow but of the eternal,\nspiritual, and heavenly type.  It may become overlaid with the rubbish of\nearth, it may long lie buried in the field of the human heart, it may\nremain concealed, like the grain of radium in a mass of dark pitchblende,\nand be forgotten, but we have only to return home within ourselves to\nfind the God who has never been sundered from us and who could not leave\nus without leaving Himself.  We do not need to cross the sea to find Him,\nwe do not need to climb the heavens to reach Him--the Word is nigh thee,\nthe Image is in thy heart, turn home and thou shalt find Him.[16]\n\nThe bottomless and abysmal nature of the human soul comes first into\nclear revelation in the Person of Christ, who is, Franck declares, truly\nand essentially both God and Man.  In Christ the invisible, eternal, {55}\nself-existent God has clothed Himself with flesh and become Man, has made\nHimself visible and vocal to our spiritual eyes and ears, and in Christ\nGod has given us an adequate goal and norm of life, a perfect pattern\n(\"Muster\") to walk by and to live by.  Here we can see both the character\nof God and the measure of His expectation for us.  But we must not stop\nwith the Christ after the flesh, the Christ without.  He first becomes\nour life and salvation when He is born within us and is revealed in our\nhearts, and has become the Life of our lives.  We must eat His body,\ndrink His blood until our nature is one with His nature and our spirit\none in will and purpose with His spirit.[17]\n\nFranck belongs in many respects among the mystics, but with peculiar\nvariations of his own from the prevailing historical type of mysticism.\nHe is without question saturated with the spirit of the great mystics; he\napproves their inner way to God and he has learned from them to view this\nworld of time and space as shadow and not as reality.  No mystic,\nfurther, could say harsher things than he does of \"Reason.\"[18]  Human\nreason--or more properly \"reasoning\"--has for him, as for them, a very\nlimited area for its demesne.  It is a good guide in the realm of earthly\naffairs.  It can deal wisely with matters that affect our bodily comfort\nand our social welfare, but it is \"barren\" in the sphere of eternal\nissues.  It has no eye for realities beyond the world of three\ndimensions.  It goes blind as soon as it tries to speculate about God.\nHe looks for no final results in spiritual matters from intellectual\ndialectics, whether they be of the old scholastic type, or of the new\ntype of speculations, formulations and subtleties of the Protestant\ntheologians.\n\nFranck always comes back to _experience_ as his basis of religion, as his\nway to truth and to divine things.  \"Many,\" he says, \"know and teach only\nwhat they have picked up and gathered in, without having experienced it\n{56} in the deeps of themselves.\"[19]  \"He who wishes to know what is in\nthe Temple must not stand outside, merely hearing people read and talk\nabout God.  _That_ is all a dead thing.  He must go inside and have the\nexperience for himself (\"selbst erfahren\").  Then first everything\nsprings into life.\"[20]  But \"experience\" with him does not mean\nenthusiastic visions and raptures.  He puts as little value on ecstasies\nand emotional vapourings as he does on dialectic.  Ecstasies lead men as\noften on false trails as on right tracks.  They supply no criterion of\ncertitude; they furnish no concrete ideas or ideals to live by; but still\nfurther, they do not bring all the deep-lying powers of the soul into\nplay as any true source of religion must do.  _He_ is striving to find a\nfoundation-principle for the spiritual life which shall not be capricious\nor sporadic, and which shall not be confined to one aspect of the inner\nself, but which shall burn on as a steady illumination in the soul and be\nthe basis of all moral activity and all spiritual development.  He finds\nthis principle, as we have seen, in the Word of God, which is a divine\nreality, an eternal and self-existent activity, opening upward into all\nthe resources of God, and at the same time forming the fundamental nature\nand ground-structure of the soul.  A person may live--many persons do--in\nthe outer region of the self, using the natural instincts with which he\nis supplied, pursuing the goals of life which appeal to common sense and\nsteering the earthly course by custom and by reason, but it is always\npossible to have a wider range of experience, to live in deeper currents,\nand to draw upon a _profounder source of insight_.  This deeper\nexperience--which is the basis of Franck's mysticism and, for him, the\nvery heart of any genuine religion--consists of a personal discovery of\nthis eternal Word of God within and an irradiation of the whole being\nthrough the co-operation of the will with it.  The will is king in\nman,[21] and can open or shut the gate which leads to life.  It can make\nits world good or it {57} can make it evil; just as out of one and the\nsame flower the bee gets honey and the spider poison.[22]  It can swing\nover its allegiance to God the Spirit of truth, or to the god of the\nworld who is anti-Christ.\n\nThis experience of the Word of God which is thus brought about by the\nwill of man--by an innermost personal choice--affects, Franck insists,\nall the faculties of the inner life.  Reason now becomes illumined with a\nLight which it never had until the gate into its deeper region was\nopened.  Now, through co-operation with the Spirit of God, reason becomes\ncapable of higher processes, and can deal with divine things because it\nhas actual _data_ to work upon.  The emotions, too, are no longer blind\nand instinctive, they no longer carry the will whither it would not.\nThey are now the overflow of an inner experience which is too rich and\nfull for expression,[23] which transcends the intellectual apprehension\nof it, but they are spiritualized and controlled from within.  The moral\nlife is especially heightened, and this is for Franck one of the main\nevidences that a divine source has been tapped.  The discovery of the\nWord of God creates and constructs an autonomous \"kingdom of the\nconscience\" (\"Reich des Gewissens\"), gives us \"a thousand-fold witness of\nGod,\" and becomes to us the tree of life and the tree of knowledge.[24]\n\nIn his little book on \"the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil\"--a\nbook which was destined to have a far-reaching influence--he declares\nthat the Garden-of-Eden story is a mighty parable of the human soul.  All\nthat is told in the Genesis account is told of what goes on in the\nmysterious realm within us.  It is told as though it were an external\nhappening, it is in reality an internal affair.  The Paradise and the\nFall, the Voice of God and the tempting voice of the serpent, the Tree of\nLife and the Tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil, are all in our own\nhearts as they were in the heart of Adam.  Heaven and Hell are there.\nThe one stands fully revealed in the triumphant Adam, who is Christ; the\nother is {58} exhibited in its awfulness in the disobedient Adam of the\nFall.\n\nAs fast as the life comes under the sway of the \"kingdom of conscience\"\nand a solid moral character is formed, the inner guidance of the Word of\nGod becomes more certain and more reliable.  Only the good person has a\nsure and unerring perception of the truth, just as only the scientist\nsees the laws of the world, and as only the musician perceives the\nharmony of sounds.  Not only must all spiritual experience be subject to\nthe moral test, it must further be tested by the Light of God in other\nmen and in history, and by the _spirit of Scripture_, which is the\nnoblest permanent fruit of the Eternal Word.  Every person must _prove_\nthe authority of his religion.  He must have his heart conquered and his\nmind taken captive and his will directed by his truth so that he would be\nready to face a thousand deaths for it,[25] and he must, through his\ntruth and insight, come into spiritual unity and co-operation with all\nwho form the invisible Church.\n\nThe invisible Church forms the central loyalty of Franck's fervent soul.\n\"The true Church,\" he writes, \"is not a separate mass of people, not a\nparticular sect to be pointed out with the finger, not confined to one\ntime or one place; it is rather a spiritual and invisible body of all the\nmembers of Christ, born of God, of one mind, spirit, and faith, but not\ngathered in any one external city or place.  It is a Fellowship, seen\nwith the spiritual eye and by the inner man.  It is the assembly and\ncommunion of all truly God-fearing, good-hearted, new-born persons in all\nthe world, bound together by the Holy Spirit in the peace of God and the\nbonds of love--a Communion outside of which there is no salvation, no\nChrist, no God, no comprehension of Scripture, no Holy Spirit, and no\nGospel.  I belong to this Fellowship.  I believe in the Communion of\nsaints, and I am in this Church, let me be where I may; and therefore I\nno {59} longer look for Christ in lo heres or lo theres.\"[26]  This\nChurch, which the Spirit is building through the ages and in all lands,\nis, once more, like the experience of the individual Christian, entirely\nan inward affair.  \"Love is the one mark and badge of Fellowship in\nit.\"[27]  No outward forms of any sort seem to him necessary for\nmembership in this true Church.  \"External gifts and offices make no\nChristian, and just as little does the standing of the person, or\nlocality, or time, or dress, or food, or anything external.  The kingdom\nof God is neither prince nor peasant, food nor drink, hat nor coat, here\nnor there, yesterday nor to-morrow, baptism nor circumcision, nor\nanything whatever that is external, but peace and joy in the Holy Spirit,\nunalloyed love out of a pure heart and good conscience, and an unfeigned\nfaith.\"[28]\n\nIn his Apology he says that he has withdrawn \"from all theological\ndisputations, from all sectarian statements of creed, from baptism and\nall ceremonies,\" and \"I stand now,\" he adds, \"only for what is\nfundamental and essential for salvation\"--that is, vital participation in\nthe Life of God revealed in the soul.[29]  \"I am looking,\" he writes in\nthe opening of the _Paradoxa_, \"for no new and separate Church, no new\ncommission, no new baptism, no new dispensation.  The Church has already\nbeen founded on Christ the Rock, and since the outward keys and\nsacraments have been misused and have gone by, He now administers the\nsacraments inwardly in spirit and in truth.  He baptizes His own, even in\nthe midst of Babylon, and feeds them with His own body, and will do so\nunto the end of the world.\"[30]\n\nIn a letter to Campanus he says, \"I am fully convinced [by a study of the\nearly Church Fathers] that, after the death of the apostles, the external\nChurch of Christ, with its gifts and sacraments, vanished from the earth\nand withdrew into heaven, and is now hidden in spirit and in truth, and\nfor these past fourteen hundred years {60} there has existed no true\nexternal Church and no efficacious sacraments.\"[31]\n\nHis valuation of Scripture fits perfectly into this religion of the\ninward life and the invisible Church.  The true and essential Word of God\nis the divine revelation in the soul of man.  It is the _prius_ of all\nScripture and it is the key to the spiritual meaning of all Scripture.\nTo substitute Scripture for the self-revealing Spirit is to put the dead\nletter in the place of the living Word, the outer Ark in place of the\ninner sanctuary, the sheath in place of the sword, the horn-pane Lantern\nin place of the Light.[32]  This letter killed Christ in Judea; it is\nkilling Him now.  It has split the Church into fragments and sects and is\nsplitting it now.[33]  It always makes a \"Babel\" instead of a Church.  It\nkept the Pharisees from seeing Moses face to face; it keeps men now from\nseeing the Lord face to face.[34]  Franck insists that, from its inherent\nnature, a written Scripture cannot be the final authority in religion:\n(_a_) It is outward, external, while the seat of religion is in the soul\nof man.  (_b_) It is transitory and shifting, for language is always in\nprocess of change, and written words have different meanings to different\nages and in different countries, while for a permanent religion there\nmust be a living, eternal Word that fits all ages, lands, and conditions.\n(_c_) Scripture is full of mystery, contradiction, and paradox which only\n\"The key of David\"--the inner experience of the heart--can unlock.\nScripture is the Manger, but, unless the Holy Spirit comes as the day\nstar in the heart, the Wise man will not find the Christ.[35]  (_d_)\nScripture at best brings only knowledge.  It lacks the power to deliver\nfrom the sin which it describes.  It cannot create the faith, the desire,\nthe love, the will purpose which are necessary to win that which the\nScriptures portray.  No book--no amount of \"ink, paper, and letters\"--can\nmake a man good, since religion is not knowledge, but a way of living, a\n{61} transformed life, and _that_ involves an inward life-process, a\nresident creative power.  \"In Pentecost all books are transcended.\"[36]\n\nAs Franck pushes back through \"the ink, paper, and letters of Scripture\"\nto the Spirit and Truth which these great writings reveal, when they are\nread and apprehended in the light of an inward spiritual experience, so,\ntoo, he is always seeking, _through_ the historical Christ, to find the\nEternal Christ--the ever-living, ever-present, personal Self-Revelation\nof God.  He says, in his \"Seven-Sealed Book,\" \"I esteem Christ the Word\nof God above all else, for without Him there is no salvation, and without\nHim no one can enjoy God.\"[37]  \"Christ,\" he says in the _Paradoxa_, \"has\nbeen called the Image, the Character, the Expression of God, yes, the\nGlory and Effulgence of His Splendour, the very Impression of His\nSubstance, so that in Him God Himself is seen and heard and known.  For\nit is God Himself whom we see and hear and perceive in Christ.  In Him\nGod becomes visible and His nature is revealed.  Everything that God is,\nor knows, or wills, or possesses, or can do, is incarnated in Christ and\nput before our eyes.  Everything that can be said of God can as truly be\nsaid of Christ.\"[38]\n\nBut this Christ, who is the very Nature and Character of God made visible\nand vocal, is, as we have seen, not limited to the historical Person who\nlived in Galilee and Judea.  He is an eternal Logos, a living Word,\ncoming to expression, in some degree, in all times and lands, revealing\nHis Light through the dim lantern of many human lives--a Christ reborn in\nmany souls, raised again in many victorious lives, and endlessly\nspreading His Kingdom through the ever-widening membership of the\ninvisible Church.[39]  Without this eternal revelation of Himself in a\nspiritual Fellowship of many members, God would not be God, as a Vine\nwould not be a Vine without branches; and contrariwise there could be no\nspiritual humanity without the inward immanent {62} presence of this\nSelf-Revealing God in Christ.[40]  As in Palestine, so everywhere,\nChrist--not only Christ after the flesh, but after the Spirit--is a\ncrucified Christ.  Only those can open the Sealed Book--can penetrate the\ndivine Revelation--who bear the mark of the Cross on their forehead, who\nhave eaten the flesh and drunk the blood of the suffering and crucified\nChrist, who have discovered that the Word of God is eternally a Word of\nthe Cross.[41]  God is nearest to us when He seems farthest away.  He was\nnearest to Christ when He was crying: \"My God, why hast Thou forsaken\nme?\"  So, too, now he who is nearest to the cross is nearest to God, and\nwhere the flesh is being crucified and the end of all outward things is\nreached, _there God is found_.[42]\n\nSin means, for Franck as for all mystics of his type, the _free choice_\nof something for one's private and particular self in place of life-aims\nthat fulfil the good of the whole and realize the universal Will of God.\nTo live for the flesh instead of for the spirit, to pursue the aims of a\nnarrow private self where they conflict with the spirit of universal\nlove, to turn from the Word of God in the soul to follow the idle voices\nof the moment--that is the very essence of sin.  It is not inherited, it\nis self-chosen, and yet there is something in our disposition which sets\nitself in array against the divine revelation within us.  The Adam-story\nis a genuine life-picture.  It is a chapter out of the book of the ages,\nthe life of humanity.  We do not sin and fall because he did; we sin and\nfall because we are human and finite, as he was, and choose the darkness\ninstead of the Light, prefer Satan to God, pursue the way of death\ninstead of the way of Life, as he did.[43]\n\nThis will be sufficient to show the essential character of the religion\nof this lonely man and to present the main tendencies of his bold and\nindependent thought.  He had no desire to be the head of a party; he was\ntoo remote {63} from the currents of evangelical Christianity to impress\nthe common people whom he loved, and he was too radical a thinker to lead\neven the scholars who had become liberated from tradition by their\nhumanistic studies and by historical insight.  He was a kind of\nsixteenth-century Heraclitus, seeing the flow and flux of all things\ntemporal, finding paradox and contradiction everywhere, discovering life\nto be a clash of opposites, with its \"way up\" and its \"way down,\" on the\nsurface a pessimist, but at the heart of himself an optimist; and\nfinally, beneath all the folly of history and all the sin and stupidity\nof human life, seeing with the eye of his spirit One Eternal Logos who\nsteers all things toward purpose, who suffers as a Lamb slain for the\nflock, who reveals His Truth and Life in the sanctuary of the soul, and\nwho through the ages is building an invisible Church, a divine Kingdom of\nmany members, in whom He lives as the Life of their lives.\n\n\n\n[1] Troeltsch calls him a \"literarischer Prophet der alleinigen\nErloesungskraft des Geistes und des inneren Wortes,\" _Die Soziallehren_,\np. 886.\n\n[2] See article by M. Cunitz in _Nouvelle Revue de Theologie_, vol. v. p.\n361.\n\n[3] See Alfred Hegler's _Geist und Schrift bei Sebastian Franck_\n(Freiburg), 1892, pp. 28-48.\n\n[4] See next chapter for an account of Caspar Schwenckfeld.\n\n[5] This Letter to Campanus, written originally in Latin, is extant in a\nDutch translation, \"Eyn Brieff van Sebastiaen Franck van Weirdt,\ngeschreven over etlicken jaren in Latijn, tho synen vriendt Johan\nCampaen.\"  See Hegler, _op. cit._ pp. 50-53.\n\n[6] _Chronica und Beschreibung der Tuerkey_ (Nurnberg, 1530), K. 3 b.\n\n[7] My copy is the first edition, printed in Strasbourg by Balthasser\nBeck, 1531.\n\n[8] _Chronica_, p. 452 b.\n\n[9] These three books were included in a volume entitled _Die vier\nkronbuechlein_ (1534).\n\n[10] _Das verbuetschterte Buch_, p. 5.\n\n[11] Pp. 5-8 of the Apologia to _Das verbuetschierte Buch_.\n\n[12] See _Apologia_, p. 2.\n\n[13] _Ibid._ p. 3.\n\n[14] Hegler, _op. cit._ p. 98.\n\n[15] _Die guldin Arch_, Preface 3b-4a.\n\n[16] _Paradoxa_, sec. 101.\n\n[17] _Paradoxa_, sec. 99 and 138.\n\n[18] Franck translated both Erasmus' _Praise of Folly_ and Agrippa's\n_Vanity of Arts and Sciences_.\n\n[19] _Moriae Encomion_, p. 149.\n\n[20] _Paradoxa_, Vorrede, sec. 13.\n\n[21] _Moriae Enc._ p. 97b.\n\n[22] _Paradoxa_, sec. 29.\n\n[23] _Moriae Enc._ p. 93a.\n\n[24] _Paradoxa_, sec. 63.\n\n[25] _Moriae Enc._ p. 110.  For the testing of the Word, see Hegler, _op.\ncit._ pp. 117-119.\n\n[26] _Paradoxa_, Vorrede, sec. 8.\n\n[27] _Paradoxa_, sec. 9.\n\n[28] _Ibid._ sec. 45.\n\n[29] _Das verbuetschierte Buch_, Apology, p. 11.\n\n[30] _Paradoxa_, Vorrede, sec. 8.\n\n[31] This Letter is preserved in J. G. Schellhorn's _Amoenitates\nliterariae_ (1729), xi. pp. 59-61.\n\n[32] _Paradoxa_, Vorrede, sec. 4.\n\n[33] _Ibid._ sec. 6.\n\n[34] _Ibid._ sec. 2.\n\n[35] See _Das verbuetschierte Buch_, passim.\n\n[36] Quoted from Hegler, _op. cit._ p. 104.\n\n[37] _Das verbuetschierte Buch_, p. 3.\n\n[38] _Paradoxa_, sec. 101.\n\n[39] _Ibid._ sec. 101.\n\n[40] _Paradoxa_, sec. 8.\n\n[41] _Das verbuetschierte Buch_, pp. 6-9, and _Paradoxa_, sec. 41.\n\n[42] _Paradoxa_, sec. 41 and 42.\n\n[43] _Moriae Enc._ p. 111.  _Paradoxa_, passim, especially sec. 28-32.\nSee also Hegler _op. cit._ pp. 127-136.\n\n\n\n\n{64}\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nCASPAR SCHWENCKFELD AND THE REFORMATION OF THE \"MIDDLE WAY\"[1]\n\nAmong all the Reformers of the sixteenth century who worked at the\nimmense task of recovering, purifying, and restating the Christian\nFaith, no one was nobler in life and personality, and no one was more\nuncompromisingly dedicated to the mission of bringing into the life of\nthe people a type of Christianity winnowed clean from the husks of\nsuperstition and tradition and grounded in ethical and spiritual\nreality, than was Caspar Schwenckfeld, the Silesian noble.  No one, to\na greater degree than he, succeeded in going behind, not only\nScholastic formulations but even behind Pauline interpretations of\nChrist, to Christ Himself.  The aspects of the Christ-life which\npowerfully moved him were very different from {65} those which moved\nFrancis of Assisi three centuries earlier, but the two men had this\nmuch in common--they both went to Jesus Christ for the source and\ninspiration of their religion, they both lived under the spell of that\ndominating Personality of the Gospels, they both felt the power of the\nCross and saw with their inner spirits that the real healing of the\nhuman soul and the eternal destiny of man were indissolubly bound up\nwith the Person of Christ.[2]  Here again, as in the early years of the\nthirteenth century, there came a gentle Reformer of religion, who would\nuse no compulsion but love, who knew how to suffer patiently with his\nLord, and whose entire programme was the restoration of primitive\nChristianity, though of necessity it would be restored, if at all, in\nterms of the spiritual ideals of the sixteenth century, as the\nChristianity of St. Francis had been in terms of thirteenth-century\nideals.\n\nCaspar Schwenckfeld was born of a noble family in the duchy of\nLiegnitz, in Lower Silesia, in 1489.  He studied in Cologne, in\nFrankfurt-on-the-Oder, and probably also in the University of Erfurt,\nthough he attained no University degree.  His period of systematic\nstudy being over, about 1511 he threw himself into the life of a\ncourtier, with the prospect of a successful worldly career before him.\nLuther's heroic contest against the evils and corruptions of the Church\nand his proclamation of a Reforming faith shook the prosperous courtier\nwide awake and turned the currents of his life powerfully toward\nreligion.  He deeply felt at this time, what he expressed a few years\nlater, that a new world was coming to birth and the old one dying away.\nTo the end of his days, and in spite of the harsh treatment which he\nlater received from the Wittenberg Reformer, Schwenckfeld always\nremembered that it was the prophetic trumpet-call of Luther which had\nsummoned him to a new life, and he always carried about with him in his\nlong exile--an exile for which Luther was largely responsible--a\nbeautiful respect and {66} appreciation for the man who had first\nturned him to a knowledge of the truth.[3]\n\nFrom the very beginning of his awakening he shows the moral earnestness\nof a prophet, and even in his earliest writings he emphasizes the\ninwardness of true religion and the importance of a personal experience\nof the living, creative Divine Word.[4]  As a result of this passion of\nhis for the formation of moral and spiritual character in the lives of\nthe people, he was very acute and sensitive to note the condition which\nactually existed around him, and he was not long in detecting, much to\nhis sorrow, aspects of weakness in the new type of Christianity which\nwas spreading over Germany.  Even as early as 1524, in _An Admonition\nto all the Brethren of Silesia_[5] he called attention to the\nsuperficiality of the change which was taking place in men's lives as a\nresult of the Reformation--\"the lack of inward grasp\" as he calls\nit--and to the externality of the new Reform, the tendency to stop at\n\"alphabetical promises of salvation.\"  He gives a searching examination\nto the central principles of Luther's teachings and approves of them\nall, but at the same time he points out that little will be gained if\nthey be adopted only as intellectual statements and formulated views.\nHe pleads for a faith in Christ and an appreciation of Him that shall\n\"reach the deep regions of the spirit,\" renew the heart, and produce a\nnew man in the believer--\"the atoning work of Christ must be\nvital\"--and for a type of religion that will involve suffering with\nChrist, real conformity of will to His will, dying to self and rising\nagain with Him, which means that we cannot \"take the {67} cross at its\nsoftest spot.\"[6]  He calls with glowing passion for a radical\ntransformation of personal and social life, and for a serious attempt\nto revive primitive Christianity with its conquering power.\n\nLuther himself was always impressed with the lack of real, intense,\npersonal religion which resulted from the Reformation movement, and he\noften bewailed this lack.  He said once to Schwenckfeld in this early\nperiod, \"Dear Caspar, genuine Christians are none too common.  I wish I\ncould see two together in a place!\"  But with all his titanic power to\nshake the old Church, Luther was not able to sift away the accumulated\nchaff of the ages and to seize upon the inward, living kernel of\nChrist's Gospel in such a real and vivid presentation that men were\nonce again able to find the entire Christ, and were once again lifted\ninto apostolic power through the discovery of Him.  This was the task\nto which Schwenckfeld now felt himself summoned.  It seemed to him that\nthe entire basis of salvation should be grasped in a way quite\ndifferent from Luther's way of formulation, and this called for a\nrestatement of the whole revelation of God in Christ and of the work of\nChrist in the soul of man.[7]\n\nLuther's final break with the spiritual Reformer of Silesia, which\noccurred in 1527, was primarily occasioned by Schwenckfeld's teaching\non the meaning and value of the Lord's Supper, though their difference\nwas by no means confined to that point.  Schwenckfeld's position had\nculminated in 1526 in a suspension of the celebration of the Lord's\nSupper--the so-called _Stillstand_--until a right understanding and\ntrue practice of it according to the will of the Lord should be\nrevealed.[8]  \"We know at present of no apostolic commission,\" he\nwrote, \"nor {68} again do we make any claim to be regarded as apostles,\nfor we have neither received the fulness of the Holy Spirit nor the\napostolic seal for such an office.  We dwell in humility and ascribe\nnothing to ourselves, except that we bear witness to Christ, invite men\nto Christ, preach Christ and His infinite work of salvation, and labour\nas much as we can that Christ may be truly known.\"[9]\n\nInto the bitter controversy over the Sacrament--a controversy between\nnoble and sincere Reformers, which forms the supreme internal tragedy\nof the Reformation--we need not now enter.  We shall in the proper\nplace give Schwenckfeld's position upon it, though only in so far as it\nbelongs in an exposition of his type of spiritual Christianity; but the\nimmediate effect of his position and practices was such a collision\nwith Luther, and the arousal of such hostility on the part of the\nLutherans of Silesia, that the continued pursuit of Schwenckfeld's\nmission in that country became impossible.  He was, however, not\nexpelled by edict, but under compulsion of the existing situation; and\nin order not to be a trouble to his friend, the Duke of Liegnitz, he\nwent in 1529 into voluntary exile, never to return.  For thirty years\nhe was a wanderer without a permanent home on the earth, but he could\nthank his Lord Christ, as he did, for granting him through all these\nyears an inward freedom, and for bringing him into \"His castle of\nPeace.\"  He once wrote: \"If I had wanted a good place on earth, if I\nhad cared more for temporal than for eternal things, and if I would\nhave deserted my Christ, then I might have stayed in my fatherland and\nin my own house, and I might have had the powerful of this world for my\nfriends.\"[10]\n\nHe sojourned for longer or shorter periods in Strasbourg, Augsburg,\nUlm, and other cities, but nowhere was he safe from his enemies, and he\nalways faced the prospect of banishment even from his place of\ntemporary sojourn.  {69} Furious declarations were passed against him\nby the Schmalkald League in 1540, for to his anti-Lutheran views on the\nsacraments he had now added teachings on the nature of Christ which the\ntheologians pronounced unorthodox.  Three years later he sent a\nmessenger to Luther in hope of a friendly understanding.  Luther's\nanswer was brief and final: \"The stupid fool, possessed by the devil,\nunderstands nothing.  He does not know what he is babbling.  But if he\nwon't stop his drivel, let him at least not bother me with the booklets\nwhich the devil spues out of him.\"[11]  At the ministerial Council of\nProtestant States in 1556 Schwenckfeld was denounced in the most\nvituperous language of the period, and the civil authorities were urged\nto proceed against him as a dangerous heretic.  He always had,\nnotwithstanding this pursuit of theological hate, many powerful\nfriends, and a large number of brave and devoted followers who were\nglad to risk goods, home, and life for the sake of what was to them the\nliving Word of God.  He died--or as his friends preferred to say, he\nhad a quiet and peaceful \"home passage\"--at Ulm in 1561.  Of the\npurity, the brave sincerity, the nobility, the outward and inward\nconsistency of his life there is no question.  His enemies had no word\nto say which reflected upon the motives of his heart or upon the\ngenuine piety of his life.  His religion cost him all that he held dear\nin the outer world--he had not taken \"the cross at the softest\nspot\"--and he practised his faith as the most precious thing a man\ncould possess in this world or in any other.\n\nWe must now turn to a study of his type of Christianity, which will be\npresented here not in the order of its historical development, but as\nit appears in perspective in his life and writings.  He does not ground\nhis conception of salvation, his idea of religion _ueberhaupt_, as the\nhumanistic Reformers, Denck, Buenderlin, Entfelder, and Franck, do, on\nthe essentially divine nature of the {70} soul in its deepest\nreality,[12] nor again as the medieval mystics do, on the substantial\npresence within the soul of a divine soul-centre, an unlost and\ninalienable Spark or Image of God which can turn back home and unite\nitself with its Source, the Godhead.  He begins, as Luther does, with\nman \"fallen,\" \"dead in sin,\" by nature \"blind and deaf\" to divine\nrealities.  For him, as for Luther, there exists no _natural_ freedom\nof the will, by which a person can spontaneously and of his own\ninitiative rise up, shake off the shackles of sin, and go to living as\na son of God.  This stupendous event, this absolute shift of the\nlife-level, comes, and can come, he thinks, only through an act of God,\ndirectly, immediately wrought upon the soul.  Salvation must be a\nsupernatural event.  Through this act of God from above there results\nwithin the soul an experience which in every respect is a new creation.\nIt is a cataclysmic event of the same order as the _fiat lux_ of cosmic\ncreation, a rebirth through which the man who has it once again comes\ninto the condition Adam was in before he fell.\n\nEverything which has to do with salvation in Schwenckfeld's\nChristianity goes back to the historical Christ.[13]  Christ is the\nfirst-born of this new creation.  He is the first \"new Adam,\" who by\nHis triumphant life and victorious resurrection has become for ever \"a\nlife-giving Spirit,\" the creative Principle of a new humanity.  In\nChrist the Word of God, the actual Divine Seed of God, became flesh,\nentered into our human nature and penetrated it with Spirit and with\nLife, conquered its stubborn bent toward sin, and transfigured and\ntransformed this human flesh into a divine and heavenly substance.  By\nobedience to the complete will of God, even to the extreme depths of\nsuffering, sacrifice, and death on the Cross for {71} the love of men,\nChrist glorified human flesh, exalted it from flesh to spirit, and in\nHis resurrected heavenly life He is able to unite Himself inwardly with\nthe souls of believers, so that His spiritual resurrected flesh and\nblood can be their food and drink, and He can become the life-giving\nsource of a new order of humanity, the spiritual Head of a new race.\n\"If the soul of man,\" he wrote, \"is to be truly nourished, vitally fed\nand watered, so that it comes into possession of Eternal Life, it must\ndie to its fleshly life and _receive into itself a divine and spiritual\nLife, having its source in the Being of God and mediated to the soul by\nthe living, inward-working Flesh and Blood of Jesus Christ_,\" through\nwhich mediation we come into spiritual union and vital fellowship with\nGod who is Spirit.[14]\n\nSalvation for Schwenckfeld, therefore, is participation in the life of\nthis new creation, this new world-order.  To become a Christian, in his\nsense of the word, is to pass over one of the most decisive watersheds\nin the universe, to go from one kingdom to another kingdom of a higher\nrank.  The _process_--for it is a vital process--is from beginning to\nend in the realm of experience.  By the exercise of faith in the\ncrucified, risen, and glorified God-Man, as the life-giving Spirit,\nreal power from a higher world streams into the soul.  Something\n\"pneumatic,\" something which belongs ontologically to a higher\nspiritual world-order, comes into the person as a divinely bestowed\ngerm-plasm, with living, renewing, organizing power.  As with Irenaeus,\nso with Schwenckfeld, salvation is \"real redemption,\" the \"deification\"\nof mortal man, the actual formation of an immortal nature, the\nrestoration of humanity to what it originally was, through the\nin-streaming life-energy of a mystical Adam-Christ, the Founder and\nHead of a new spiritual race.[15]\n\nBy this incoming spiritual power and life-substance the entire\npersonality of the recipient is affected.  The {72} recreative energy\nwhich pours in transforms both soul and body.  The inner eternal Word\nof God, who became flesh, acts upon the inner nature of man, so that\nthe believing man is changed into something spiritual, divine and\nheavenly, and like Jesus Christ, the incarnated Word of God.[16]  There\ncomes, with this epoch-making experience, a sense of freedom not known\nbefore, a power of control over the body and its appetites, an\nillumination of the intellect, a new sensitiveness of conscience to the\nmeaning of sin, an extraordinary expansion of the vision of the goal of\nlife--which is a full-grown man in Christ,--and an apprehension of the\ngift of the Spirit sufficient for the achievement of that goal.  Not\nleast among the signs of transfiguration and of heightened life is the\nattainment of a joy which spreads through the inward spirit and shines\non the face--a joy which can turn hard exile into a _Ruheschloss_, \"a\ncastle of peace.\"\n\nThose who have experienced this dynamic transfiguration gain thereby\ngifts, capacities, and powers to hear the Word of God within their own\nsouls, and thus this Word, which is the same life-giving Spirit that\nbecame flesh in Christ and that produces the new creation in man,\nbecomes a perpetual inward Teacher in those who are reborn.  \"Precious\ngifts of the Holy Ghost flow from the essential Being of God into the\nheart of the believer.\"  There is, Schwenckfeld holds, a double\nrevelation of God.  The primary Word of God is eternal, spiritual,\ninward.  \"The Word, when spiritual messengers preach or teach, is of\ntwo kinds with a decided difference in their manner of working.  One is\nof God, even is God, and lives and works in the heart of the messenger.\nThis is the inner Word, and is in reality nothing else than the\ncontinued manifestation of Christ.  He is inwardly revealed, and heard\nwith the inward ears of the heart.\"[17]  It is, in fact, God Himself\n_operating_ as Life and Spirit and Light upon the spiritual substance\nof the human soul, first as the Life-Seed which forms the new creation\nin man, and afterwards as the permanent {73} nourishing and tutoring\nSpirit who leads the obedient soul on into all the Truth, and perfects\nit into the likeness and stature of Christ.  \"There is a living, inner\nScripture, written in the believer's heart by the finger of God.\"\n\"This inner Scripture has an active creative power of holiness, and\nmakes holy, living, righteous and saved all those in whose hearts it is\nwritten.\"\n\nThe _divine word_ in the secondary sense is the outward word--the word\nof Scripture.  \"The other word which serves the inner Word with voice,\nsound, and expression is the external word, and is heard by the\nexternal man with his ears of sense, and is written and read in\nletters.  He who has read and heard only that, and not the inner Word,\nhas not heard the Gospel of Christ, the Gospel of Grace, nor has he\nreceived or understood it.\"[18]  It is at best only the witness or\ntestimony which assists the soul to find the real life-giving Word.\nCut apart from the inner spiritual Word, the word of the letter is\n\"dead,\" as the body would be if sundered from the spirit.  \"It paints\ntruth powerfully for the eye, but it cannot bring it into the\nheart.\"[19]  \"The Scriptures cannot bring to the soul that of which\nthey speak.  This must be sought directly from God Himself.\"[20]  In\nhis practical use of Scripture and in his estimate of its importance he\nis hardly behind Luther himself.  \"There is,\" he says, \"no writing on\nearth like the Holy Scriptures.\"[21]  His Christianity is penetrated\nand illuminated at every point by the profound spiritual experiences of\nthe saints of the Bible, and still more by the vivid portraits of\nChrist in the Gospels, by the words from His lips recorded there, and\nby the experiences of the apostles and the development of the primitive\nChurch.  He never doubts or questions the inspiration of the\nScriptures; quite the contrary, he holds that Scripture is \"given by\nGod\" and is an inexhaustible well of inspired truth from which the soul\ncan endlessly draw.  The actual content of Christian faith is supplied\nby the historical revelation; {74} but Schwenckfeld always insists that\nwritten words, however inspired, are still external to the soul, and\nmerely record historical events which have happened to others in other\nages.  \"If man,\" he writes, \"is to understand spiritual things and is\nto know and judge rightly, he must bring the divine Light to the\nScriptures, the Spirit to the letter, the Truth to the picture, and the\nMaster to His created work. . . .  In a word, to understand the\nScriptures a man must become a new man, a man of God; he must be in\nChrist who gave forth the Scriptures.\"[2]  That which is to change the\ninner nature of a man must be something personally experienced and not\nexternal to him; must be in its own nature as spiritual as the soul\nitself is and not material, as written words are.  \"The pen cannot\ncompletely bring the heart to the paper, nor can the mouth entirely\nexpress the well of living water within itself.\"[23]  The Bible leads\nto Christ and bears witness of Him as no other book does, but it is not\nChrist.  And even the Bible remains a closed book until Christ opens\nit.[24]  The Scriptures tell, as no other writings do, of the Word of\nGod and its life-operations in the world, but they are still not the\nWord of God.  The spiritual realities of life cannot be settled by\nlaboriously piling up texts of Scripture, by subtle theological\ndialectic, or by learned exegesis of sacred words.  If these spiritual\nrealities are to become real and effective to us, it must be through\nthe direct relation of the human spirit with the divine Spirit--the\ninward spiritual Word of God.[25]  \"He who will see the truth must have\nGod for eyes.\"[26]\n\nSchwenckfeld's view of the process of salvation and the permanent\nillumination of the reborn soul by a real incoming divine\nsubstance--whether called Word or Seed--is the _dynamic_ feature of his\nChristianity.  He is endeavouring to find a foundation for a religious\nenergism that will avoid the dangers which beset Luther's principle\n{75} of \"justification by faith.\"  From the inception of the\nReformation movement there had appeared a tendency to regard the\nexercise of \"faith\" as all that was required for human salvation.\nLuther did not mean it so, but it was the easy line of least resistance\nto hold that \"faith\" had a magic effect in the invisible realm, that is\nto say: As soon as a person exercised \"faith,\" God counted the \"faith\"\nfor righteousness, and regarded that person as \"justified.\"  The\nimportant operation was thus in a region outside the soul.  The\nmomentous shift was not in the personal character of the individual,\nbut in the way the individual was regarded and valued in the heavenly\nestimates.  It was the discovery of the prevalence of this crude and\nmagical reliance on \"faith\" which first drove Schwenckfeld to a deeper\nstudy of the problems of religion.  It was the necessity that he felt\nto discover some way by which man himself could be actually renewed,\ntransformed, recreated, and _made_ righteous--rather than merely\ncounted or reckoned righteous by some magical transaction--that made\nhim an independent reformer and set him on his solitary way.\n\nTo this deep and central question of religion, How is a human soul\nsaved? there were in Schwenckfeld's day four well-known answers:\n\n(1) There was the answer of the Church in which he was born.  Salvation\nis by Grace, mediated through the sacramental channels of the\nmysterious and divinely founded Church.  Man's part consists in the\nperformance of the \"works\" which the Church requires of him and the\nproper use of the sacramental means of Grace.  Through these\nsacramental channels actual Grace, substantial divine help, comes into\nman and works the miracle of salvation in him.\n\n(2) There was the answer of the great mystics, not always clear and\nsimple, but very profound and significant.  The Ground and the Abyss of\nthe soul is one substance with the eternal and absolute Godhead.\nFinite strivings, isolated purposes, selfish aims, centrifugal pursuits\nare vain and illusory.  We lose our lives in so far as we live {76} in\nself-will and in self-centred joys.  The way home, the way of\nsalvation, is a return to that Ground-Reality from which we have gone\nout--a return to union and oneness of Life with the infinite Godhead.\n\n(3) The third answer is that of Luther: \"Salvation is by faith.\"  This\nseems at first to be a dynamic answer.  It breaks in on the distracted\nworld like a new moral trumpet-call to the soul.  It comes to men like\na fresh Copernican insight which discovers a new religious\nworld-centre.  The soul by its own inward vision, by its moral\nattitude, by the swing of the will, can initiate a new relation with\nGod, and so produce a new inward kingdom.  That, however, is not\nLuther's message.  He could not take that optimistic view of life\nbecause it implied that man has within himself a native capacity for\nGod, and can rise to the vision and attitude which lead to a moral\nrenewal of the self.  Luther never succeeded in clearing his principle\nfrom scholastic complications.  He never put it upon a moral and\ndynamic foundation.  It remains to the last a mysterious principle, and\nwas easily open to the antinomian interpretation, that upon the\nexercise of faith God for Christ's merits \"counts man justified\"--an\ninterpretation dear to those who are slack-minded and prone to forensic\nschemes of salvation.\n\n(4) The fourth view was that of the humanist-spiritual Reformers, men\nof the type of Denck and Buenderlin, who are the precursors of what we\nto-day call the ethical way of salvation.  They assume that salvation\nis from beginning to end a moral process.  God is in essence and nature\na loving, self-revealing, self-giving God, who has in all ages unveiled\nHimself in revelations suited to the spiritual stature of man, has in\nthe fulness of time become incarnate in Christ, and forever pleads with\nmen through His Spirit to come to Him.  Those who see and hear, those\nwho respond and co-operate, _i.e._ those who exercise faith, are\nthereby morally transformed into an inward likeness to Him, and so\nenter upon a life which prefers light to darkness, goodness to sin,\nlove to hate.\n\n{77}\n\nSchwenckfeld was not satisfied with any of these views.  He knew and\nloved the mystics, but he was too much impressed with the mighty Life\nand message of the historical Christ to adopt the mystic's way.  He\nfelt that Lutheran Christianity was too scholastic, too dependent on\nexternals, too inclined to an antinomian use of \"faith.\"  He could not\ngo along the path of the Humanist-Spirituals, for he believed that man\nhad been ruined in the Fall, was too deeply scarred with sin to help\nhimself, was without freewill, was devoid of native capacity for\nspiritual vision and saving faith.  Salvation, if it is to be effected\nat all, must be initiated by Divine Grace and must be accomplished _for\nman_ by God.  But it could be for Schwenckfeld no forensic adjustment,\nno change of reckoning in the heavenly ledgers.  \"Justification,\" he\nonce wrote, \"is not only forgiveness of sins, but it is more, it is the\nactual healing and renewing of the inward man.\"[27]  It must involve a\nreal and radical transformation of man's nature--man must cease from\nsin and the love of it, he must receive from beyond himself a passion\nfor goodness and a power to enable him to achieve it.  The _passion_\nfor goodness, in Schwenckfeld's view, is created through the vision of\nthe God-Man who has suffered and died on the Cross for us, and has been\nglorified in absolute newness of life; and the _power_ for moral\nholiness is supplied to the soul by the direct inflowing of divine\nLife-streams from this new Adam, who is henceforth the Head of the\nspiritual order of humanity, the Life-giving Spirit who renews all who\nreceive Him in faith.  \"Faith,\" he says, \"is a penetrating stream of\nlight flowing out from the central divine Light and Fire, which is God\nHimself, into our hearts by which we are inflamed with love for God and\nfor our neighbour, and by which we see both what we lack in ourselves\nand what can abundantly supply our lack, so that we may be made ready\nfor the Kingdom of God and be prepared to become children of God.\"[28]\n\"Real faith,\" he elsewhere says, \"that is to say, justifying faith, can\ncome from nothing {78} external.  It is a gracious and gratuitous gift\nof God through the Holy Spirit.  It is an emanation [\"Troepflein\"] from\nthe eternal Life of God, and is of the same essence and substance as\nGod Himself.\"[29]  It is, in fact, the Eternal Word of God become vocal\nand vital within the inner region of our own lives.[30]\n\nThe Church, in Schwenckfeld's conception, is this complete spiritual\ncommunity of which Christ is the Head.  \"We maintain,\" he wrote in the\nearly period of his mission, and it remained the settled view of his\nlife, \"that the Christian Church according to the usage of the\nScripture is the congregation or assembly of all or of many who with\nheart and soul are believers in Christ, whose Head is Christ our Lord,\nas St. Paul writes to the Ephesians and elsewhere, and who are born of\nGod's Word alone, and are nourished and ruled by God's Word.\"[31]  \"The\nChristian Church,\" he elsewhere says, \"is the entire community of the\nchildren of God.  It is the actual Body of Christ, the Seed of Abraham,\nthe House of the living God, the Temple of the Holy Spirit.  It has its\nlife and power through the obedience of faith, it manifests to the\nworld the Name of the Lord, the goodness and the glory of Him who\ncalled its members from darkness into His marvellous Light.  Wherever\nsuch a Church is gathered, there also is Christ, its Head, who governs\nit, teaches it, guards and defends it, works in it and pours His Life\ninto its members, to each according to the measure of his living faith.\nThis inward invisible Christ belongs to all ages and all times and\nlands.\"[32]  The Church, in its true life and power, is thus for him a\ncontinuation of the apostolic type.  He had no interest in the\nformation of a sectarian denomination, and he was fundamentally averse\nto a State-Church system.  The true Church community can be identified\nwith no temporal, empirical organization--whether established or\nseparatist.  It is a spiritual invisible community as wide as the\nworld, including all persons in all regions of {79} the earth and in\nall religious communions who are joined in life and spirit to the\nDivine Head.  It expands and is enlarged by a process of organic growth\nunder the organizing direction of the Holy Spirit.  \"As often,\" he\nwrites, \"as a new warrior comes to the heavenly army, as often as a\npoor sinner repents, the body of Christ becomes larger, the King more\nsplendid, His Kingdom stronger, His might more perfect.  Not that God\nbecomes greater or more perfect in His essence, but that flesh becomes\nmore perfect in God, and God dwells in all His fulness in the flesh\ninto which in Jesus Christ He ever more pours Himself.\"[33]  Each soul\nthat enters the _kingdom of experience_ through the work of the\nLife-giving Spirit is builded into this invisible expanding Church of\nthe ages, and is endowed with some \"gift\" to become an organ of the\nDivine Head.  All spiritual service arises through the definite call\nand commission of God, and the persons so called and commissioned are\nrightly prepared for their service, not by election and ordination, but\nby inward compulsion and illumination through the Word of God.  The\npreacher possesses no magical efficacy.  His only power lies in his\nspiritual experience, his clarified vision, and his organic connection\nwith Christ the Head of the Church and the source of its energy.  If\nhis life is spiritually poor and weak and thin, if it lacks moral\npassion and insight, his ministry will be correspondingly ineffective\nand futile, for the dynamic spiritual impact of a life is in proportion\nto its personal experience and its moral capacity to transmit divine\npower.  Here again the emphasis is on the moral aspect of religion as\ncontrasted with the magical.  There can be no severing of the\necclesiastical office or function from the moral character of the\nperson himself.  Schwenckfeld has cut away completely from\nsacerdotalism and has returned, as far as with his limited historical\ninsight he knew how to do it, to the ideal of the primitive Apostolic\nChurch.  The true mark and sign of membership in the community of\nsaints--the invisible Church--is, for him as for St. Paul, {80}\npossession of the mind of Christ, faith, patience, integrity, peace,\nunity of spirit, the power of God, joy in the Holy Ghost, and the\nabounding gifts and fruits of the Spirit.  \"No outward unity or\nuniformity, either in doctrine or ceremonies, or rules or sacraments,\ncan make a Christian Church; but inner unity of spirit, of heart, soul\nand conscience in Christ and in the knowledge of Him, a unity in love\nand faith, does make a Church of Christ.\"[34]  The Church is in a very\ntrue sense bone of Christ's bone and flesh of His flesh, vitalized by\nHis blood, empowered by His real presence, and formed into an organism\nwhich reveals and exhibits the divine and heavenly Life--a world-order\nas far above the natural human life as that is above the plant.\n\nQuite consistently with this spiritual view of religion--this view that\nthe true Church is an invisible Church--Schwenckfeld taught that the\ntrue sacrament is an inner and spiritual sacrament, and not legal and\nexternal like those of the Old Testament.  \"God must Himself, apart\nfrom all external means, through Christ touch the soul, speak in it,\nwork in it, if we are to experience salvation and eternal life.\"[35]\nThe direct incoming of the Divine Spirit, producing a rebirth and a new\ncreation in the man himself, is the only baptism which avails with God\nor which makes any difference in the actual condition of man.  Baptism\nin its true significance is the reception of cleansing power, it is an\ninward process which purifies the heart, illuminates the conscience,\nand is not only necessary for salvation but in fact _is_ salvation.\nChristian baptism is therefore not with water, but with Christ: it is\nthe immersion of the soul in the life-giving streams of Christ's\nspiritual presence.\n\nSchwenckfeld was always kindly disposed toward the Anabaptists, but he\nwas not of them.  He presented a very different type of Christianity to\ntheir type, which he penetratingly criticized, though in a kindly\nspirit.  He did not approve of rebaptism, for he insisted that the\nall-important matter was not how or when water was applied, {81} but\nthe reception of _Christ's real baptism_, an inner baptism, a baptism\nof spirit and power, by which the believing soul, the inner man, is\nclarified, strengthened, and made pure.[36]\n\nHis view of the Lord's Supper in the same way fits his entire\nconception of Christianity as an inward religion.  It was through his\nstudy of the meaning and significance of the Supper that he arrived at\nhis peculiar and unique type of religion.  He began his meditation with\nthe practical test--the case of Judas.  If the bread and wine of the\nLast Supper were identical with the body and blood of Christ, then\nJudas must have eaten of Christ as the other disciples did, and,\nnotwithstanding his evil spirit, he must have received the divine\nnature into himself--but that is impossible.\n\nIn his intellectual difficulty he turned to the great mystical\ndiscourse in the sixth chapter of John, in the final interpretation of\nwhich he received important suggestion and help from Valentine\nCrautwald, Lector of the Dom in Liegnitz.  In this remarkable discourse\nChrist promises to feed His disciples, His followers, with His own\nflesh and blood, by which they will partake of the eternal nature and\nenter with Him into a resurrection life.  The \"flesh and blood\" here\noffered to men cannot refer to an outward sacrament which is eaten in a\nphysical way, because in the very same discourse Christ says that\noutward, physical flesh profits nothing.  It is the Spirit that gives\nlife, and, therefore, the \"flesh and blood\" of Christ must be\nsynonymous with the Word if they are actually to recreate and nourish\nthe soul and to renew and vitalize the spirit of man.\n\nThis feeding and renewing of the soul through Christ's \"flesh and\nblood,\" Schwenckfeld treats, as we have seen, not as a figure or\nsymbol, but as a literal fact of Christian experience.  Through the\nexercise of faith in the person of the crucified, risen, and glorified\nChrist--the creative Adam--incorruptible, life-giving substance comes\ninto the soul and transfigures it.  Something from the divine {82} and\nheavenly world, something from that spiritualized and glorified nature\nof Christ, becomes the actual food of man's spirit, so that through it\nhe partakes of the same nature as that of the God-Man.  Not once or\ntwice, but as a continuous experience, the soul may share this glorious\nmeal of spiritual renewal--this eating and drinking of Christ.\n\nThe external supper--and for that matter the external baptism too--may\nhave a place in the Church of Christ as a pictorial symbol of the\nactual experience, or as a visible profession of faith, but this\noutward sign is, in his view, of little moment, and must not occupy the\nforeground of attention, nor be made a subject of polemic or of\ninsistence.  The new Creation, the response of faith to the living\nWord, the transfiguration of life into the likeness of Christ, are the\nmomentous facts of a Christian experience, and none of these things is\n_mediated_ by external ceremonies.\n\nIt was his ideal purpose to promote the formation of little groups of\nspiritual Christians which should live in the land in quietness, and\nspread by an inward power and inspiration received from above.  He saw\nclearly that no true Reformation could be carried through by edicts or\nby the proclamations of rulers, or by the decision of councils.  A\npermanent work, from his point of view, could be accomplished only by\nthe slow and patient development of the religious life and spiritual\nexperience of the people, since the goal which he sought was the\nformation, not of state-made Churches, but of renewed personal lives,\nawakened consciences, burning moral passion, and first-hand conviction\nof immediate relation with the World of Divine Reality.  To this work\nof arousing individual souls to these deeper issues of life, and of\nbuilding up little scattered societies under the headship of Christ,\nwhich should be, as it were, oases of the Kingdom of God in the world,\nhe dedicated his years of exile.  All such quiet inward movements\nprogress, as Christ foresaw, too slowly and gradually \"for\nobservation\"; but this method of reforming the Church through rebirth\nand the creation of Christ-guided societies {83} accomplished, even\nduring Schwenckfeld's life, impressive results.  There were many, not\nonly in Silesia but in all regions which the missionary-reformer was\nable to reach, who \"preferred salt and bread in the school of Christ\"\nto ease and plenty elsewhere, and they formed their little groups in\nthe midst of a hostile world.  The public records of Augsburg reveal\nthe existence, during Schwenckfeld's life, of a remarkable group of\nthese quiet, spiritual worshippers in that city.  Their leaders were\nmen of menial occupations--men who would have attracted no notice from\nthe officials of city or Church if they had been contented to conform\nto any prevailing or recognized type of religion.  Under the\ninspiration which they received from the writings of Schwenckfeld they\nformed \"a little meeting\"--in every respect like a seventeenth-century\nQuaker meeting--in their own homes, meeting about in turn, discarding\nall use of sacraments, and waiting on God for edification rather than\non public preaching.  They read the books and epistles of Schwenckfeld\nin their gatherings, they wrote epistles to other groups of\nSchwenckfeldians, and received epistles in turn and read them in their\ngatherings.  They objected to any form of religious exercise which\nseemed to them incomprehensible to their spirits and which did not\nspring directly out of the inward ministry of the Word of God.  They\nwere eventually discovered, their leaders banished, their books burned,\nand their little meeting of \"quiet spirituals\" (\"stillen Frommen\") as\nthey called themselves was ruthlessly stamped out.[37]  Societies\nsomething like this were formed in scores of places, and continued to\ncultivate their inward piety in the Fatherland, until harried by\npersecution they migrated in 1734 to Pennsylvania, where they have\ncontinued to maintain their community life until the present day.\n\nBut the most important effect of Schwenckfeld's life and work must not\nbe sought in the history of these {84} visible societies which owed\ntheir origin to his apostolic activity.  His first concern was always\nfor the building of the invisible community of God throughout the whole\nworld--not for the promotion of a sect--and his greatest contribution\nwill be found in the silent, often unnoticed, propagation of his\nspirit, the contagious dissemination of his ideas, the gradual\ninfluence of his truth and insight upon Christian communions and upon\nindividual believers that hardly knew his name.  His correspondence was\nextraordinarily extensive; his books and tracts, which were legion,\nfound eager readers and transmitters, and slowly--too slowly for\nobservation--the spiritual message of the homeless reformer made its\nway into the inner life of faithful souls, who in all lands were\npraying for the consolation of God's new Israel.  Even so early as\n1551, an English writer, Wyllyam Turner, in a book written as \"a\npreservative and treacle against the poyson of Pelagius,\" especially as\n\"renewed\" in the \"furious secte of the Annabaptistes,\" mentions the\n\"Swengfeldianes\" as one of the heads of \"this monstre in many poyntes\nlyke unto the watersnake with seven heads.\"[38]  There is, however,\nslight evidence of the spread of Schwenckfeld's views, whether they be\ncalled \"poyson\" or \"treacle,\" in England during the sixteenth century,\nthough they are clearly in evidence in the seventeenth century.  One of\nthe most obvious signs of his influence in the seventeenth century,\nboth in England and in Holland, appears in the spread of principles\nwhich were embodied in the \"Collegiants\" of Holland and the\ncorresponding societies of \"Seekers\" in England.[39]  The cardinal\nprinciple of these groups in both countries was the belief that the\nvisible Church had become apostate and had lost its divine\nauthoritative power, that it now lacked apostolic ministry and\nefficacious sacraments and \"the gifts of the Spirit\" which demonstrate\nthe true apostolic succession.  Therefore those who held this view,\n\"like doves without their mates,\" were _waiting_ and _seeking_ for the\nappearing of a {85} new apostolic commission, for the fresh outpouring\nof God's Spirit on men, and for the refounding of the Church, as\noriginally, in actual demonstration and power.\n\nIt was a settled view of Schwenckfeld's that the visible Church had\nlost its original power and authority, and he cherished, too, a\npersistent faith and hope that in God's good time it would again be\nrestored to its pristine vitality and its original conquering power.\n\"We ask,\" he writes, \"where in the world to-day there is gathered\ntogether an external Church of the apostolic form and type, and\naccording to the will of Christ.\"[40]  And yet scattered everywhere\nthroughout the world--even in Turkey and Calcutta[41]--God has, he\nsays, His own faithful people, known only to Him, who live Christlike\nand holy lives, whom Christ the living Word, that became flesh,\nbaptizes inwardly with the Holy Spirit and inwardly feeds without\nexternal preaching or sacrament, writes His law in their hearts and\nguides into Eternal Life.[42]  But the time is coming when once more\nthere will be in the world an apostolic and completely reformed Church\nof Christ, His living body and the organ of the Spirit, with divine\ngifts and powers and commission.  In the interim let the chosen\nchildren of God, he writes, rejoice and comfort themselves in this,\nthat their salvation rests neither in an external Church, nor in the\nexternal use of sacraments, nor in any external thing, but that it\nrests alone in Jesus Christ our Lord, and is received through true and\nliving faith.[43]\n\nFor Schwenckfeld himself the important matter was the increase of this\ninward life, the silent growth of this kingdom of God in the hearts of\nmen, the spread of this invisible Church, but his writings plainly\nsuggest that God will eventually restore the former glory to His\nvisible Church.  \"You are,\" he says, in one of his epistles, \"to pray\nearnestly that God will raise up true apostles and preachers and\nevangelists, so that His Church may {86} be reformed in Christ, edified\nin the Holy Ghost, and unified into one, and so that our boasting of\nthe pure preaching of the Gospel and the right understanding and use of\nthe sacraments may be true before God,\"[44] and the time is coming, we\nmay in good faith believe, when the sacraments will be used according\nto the will of Christ, and then there will be a true Christian Church,\ntaught outwardly by apostolic ministers and taught inwardly by the Lord\nHimself.[45]  Fortunately, however, salvation does not depend upon\nanything outward, and during the _Stillstand_ or interim there is no\ndanger to be feared from the intermission of outward ceremonies.[46]\n\nSebastian Franck graphically describes this waiting, seeking attitude\nas well known in his time.  He wrote in his \"Chronicle\" (1531): \"Some\nare ready to allow Baptism and other ceremonies to remain in abeyance\n[\"stilston,\" evidently Schwenckfeld's _Stillstand_] until God gives a\nfurther command and sends true labourers into His harvest-field.  For\nthis some have great longings and yearnings and wish nothing else.\"[47]\nThe intense _expectation_ which the Seekers, both in Holland and\nEngland, exhibit was, of course, a much later development, was due to\nmany influences, and is connected only indirectly with the reforming\nwork and the Gospel message of Schwenckfeld.  It indicates, in the\nexaggerated emphasis of the Seekers, a failure to grasp the deeper\nsignificance of spiritual Christianity as a present reality, and it\nmisses the truth, which the world has so painfully slowly grasped, that\nthe only way to form an apostolic and efficacious visible Church is not\nthrough sudden miracles and cataclysmic \"restorations\" and\n\"commissions,\" but by the slow contagion and conquering power of this\ninward kingdom, of this invisible Church, as it becomes the spirit and\nlife of the outward and visible Church.  This truth the Silesian\nreformer knew full well, and for this reason he was ready at all costs\nto be a quiet apostle of the invisible Community of God and let the\noutward {87} organism and organ of its ministry come in God's own way.\nThe nobler men among the English Seekers, as also among the Dutch\nSocieties, rose gradually to this larger view of spiritual religion,\nand came to realize, as Schwenckfeld did, that the real processes of\nsalvation are inward and dynamic.  Samuel Rutherford is not a very safe\nwitness in matters which involve impartial judgment, or which concern\ntypes of spiritual experience foreign to his own type, but he is\nfollowing a real clew when he connects, as he does, the leaders of\nspiritual, inward religion in his day, especially those who had shared\nthe seeker aspirations, with Schwenckfeld.[48]  Rutherford's account is\nthoroughly unfair and full of inaccuracies, but it suffices at least to\nreveal the fact that Schwenckfeld was a living force in the period of\nthe English Commonwealth, and that, though almost a hundred years had\npassed since his \"home-passage\" from Ulm was accomplished, he was still\nmaking disciples for the ever-enlarging community and household of God.\n\n\n\n[1] The most important material for a study of Schwenckfeld is the\nfollowing:--\n\n_Corpus Schwenckfeldianorum_, edited by C. D. Hartranft.  Published\nLeipzig, vol. i. (1907); vol. ii. (1911); vol. iii. (1913).  Other\nvolumes to follow.\n\n_Schriften von Kaspar Schwenckfeld_, in 4 folio volumes.  Published\nbetween the years 1564-1570.  Indicated in my notes as vol. i., vol.\nii., vol. iii. A, vol. iii. B.  There are, too, many uncollected books\nand tracts, to some of which I refer in footnotes.\n\nKarl Ecke, _Schwenckfeld, Luther, und der Gedanke einer apostolischen\nReformation_ (Berlin, 1911).  Important book, but to be followed with\ncaution.\n\nR. H. Gruetzmacher, _Wort und Geist_ (Leipzig, 1902).\n\nGottfried Arnold, _Kirchen- und Ketzer-Historien_, i. pp. 1246-1299.\n(Edition of 1740.)\n\nH. W. Erbkam, _Geschichte der prolestantischen Sekten im Zeitaller der\nReformation_ (Hamburg und Gotha, 1848), pp. 357-475.\n\nDoellinger, _Die Reformation_, i. pp. 257-280.\n\nErnst Troeltsch, _Die Soziallehren der christlichen Kirchen und\nGruppen_ (Tuebingen, 1912), pp. 881-886.\n\n[2] Christ, Schwenckfeld insisted, is the sum of the whole Bible, and\nto learn to know Christ fundamentally is to grasp the substance of the\nentire Scripture.\n\n[3] He wrote in 1543 to Luther: \"I owe to you in God and the truth all\nhonour, love, and goodwill, because from the first I have reaped much\nfruit from your service, and I have not ceased to pray for you\naccording to my poor powers.\"--_Schriften_, ii. p. 701 d.\n\n[4] In _An Epistle to the Sisters in the Cloister at Naumberg_, written\nprobably in the autumn of 1523, he says: \"A true Christian life in its\nessential requirements does not consist in external appearance . . .\nbut quite the contrary, it does consist in personal trust in God\nthrough an experience of Jesus Christ, which the Holy Ghost brings\nforth in the heart by the hearing of the Divine Word.\"--_Corpus\nSchwenckfeldianorum_, i. p. 118.\n\n[5] _Ermahnung dess Missbrauchs etlicher fuernemsten Artikel des\nEvangelii_ (1524).  _Corpus Schw._ ii. pp. 26-105.\n\n[6] \"Wir greyffen das Creutz noch am waichsten Ort an.\"--_Ermahnung\ndess Missbrauchs_.  Corpus Schw. ii. p. 89.\n\n[7] \"There are now in general two parties that make wrong use of the\nGospel of Christ, one of which turns to the right and the other to the\nleft of the only true and straight way.  The first party is that of the\nPapacy . . . the other party consists of those to whom God has now\ngranted a gracious light--But!\"--_Ermahnung dess Missbrauchs_.\n\n[8] The _Stillstand_ was proposed in a _Circular Letter_ written by\nSchwenckfeld, Valentine Crautwald, and the Liegnitz Pastors, April 21,\n1526.--_Corpus Schwenckfeld_, i. pp. 325-333.\n\n[9] The revival of this idea of a _Stillstand_, that is, of a\nsuspension of certain time-honoured practices of the Church until a\nfurther revelation and new enduement should be granted, will be\nreferred to in later chapters, especially in connection with the\n_Collegiants_ of Holland and the English _Seekers_.\n\n[10] Ecke, _op. cit._ p. 217.\n\n[11] Arnold, _op. cit._ ii. p. 251.  There are many similar references\nto Schwenckfeld in Luther's _Table Talk_, and he usually calls him by\nthe opprobrious name of \"Stenkfeld.\"\n\n[12] \"Ein natuerliches Licht kennt Schwenckfeld nicht.\"--Gruetzmacher,\n_Wort und Grist_ (Leipzig, 1902), p. 168.\n\n[13] The important data for Schwenckfeld's doctrine of Christ and the\nway of salvation will be found in the following writings by him:--\n\n_Von der goettlichen Kindschaft und Herrlichkeit des ganzen Sones\nGottes_ (1538).\n\n_Ermanunge zum wahren und selig machende Erkaenntnis Christi_ (1539).\n\n_Konfession und Erklaerung von Erkaenntnus Christi und seiner goettlichen\nHerrlichkeit_ (1540).\n\n[14] _Schriften_, i. p. 664.  See also p. 662.\n\n[15] For the doctrine of deification in Irenaeus see Harnack, _Hist. of\nDogma_, ii. pp. 230-318.\n\n[16] See _Schriften_, i. p. 768.\n\n[17] _Ibid._ i. p. 767 a.\n\n[18] _Schriften_, i. p. 767 a.\n\n[19] _Die heilige Schrift_. x. d.\n\n[20] _Ibid._ cviii. c.\n\n[21] _Ibid._ ii. b.\n\n[22] _Die heilige Schrift._ vi. and vii.\n\n[23] _Vom Worte Gottes_, xxii. c.\n\n[24] _Die heilige Schrift._ iv. b.\n\n[25] _Catechismus vom Wort des Creuetses, vom Wort Gottes, und vom\nUnderscheide des Worts des Geists und Buchstabens._\n\n[26] _Die heilige Schrift._ iv. c.\n\n[27] _Schriften_, i. p. 725.\n\n[28] _Ibid._ i. p. 634.\n\n[29] _Schriften_, i. p. 380.\n\n[30] See _ibid._ ii. p. 421.\n\n[31] _Corpus Schwenck._ i. p. 295.\n\n[32] _Schriften_, iii. A.\n\n[33] _Schriften_, ii. p. 290.\n\n[34] _Schriften_, ii. p. 785.\n\n[35] _Ibid._ i. p. 768 b.\n\n[36] _Schriften_, i. p. 513.  For a criticism of the legalism of the\nAnabaptists see _ibid._ i. pp. 801-808.\n\n[37] The details are given in Friederich Roth's _Augsburgs\nReformations-Geschichte_ (Muenchen, 1907), iii. p. 245 ff.\n\n[38] _A Preservative or Treacle against the Poyson of Pelagius, etc._\n(1551), A iii.\n\n[39] For a fuller account of the Collegiants see Chap. VII.\n\n[40] _Schriften_, iii. B, p. 572.\n\n[41] _Ibid._ ii. p. 783.\n\n[42] _Ibid._ a. p. 784.\n\n[43] _Ibid._ iii. A, p. 146.\n\n[44] _Schriften_, ii. p. 785.\n\n[45] _Ibid._ ii. p. 783.\n\n[46] _Ibid._ iii. A, p. 74.\n\n[47] Franck's _Chronica_ (1531), p. ccccli.\n\n[48] Rutherford, _A Survey of the Spiritual Antichrist_ (1648), chap. v.\n\n\n\n\n{88}\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nSEBASTIAN CASTELLIO: A FORGOTTEN PROPHET[1]\n\nReformation history has been far too closely confined to a few main\nhighways of thought, and few persons therefore realize how rich in\nideas and how complex in typical religious conceptions this spiritual\nupheaval really was.  The types that prevailed and won their way to\nwide favour have naturally compelled attention and are adequately\nknown.  There were, however, very serious and impressive attempts made\nto give the Reformation a totally different course from the one it\nfinally took in history, and these attempts, defeated by the sweep of\nthe main current, became submerged, and their dedicated and heroic\nleaders became forgotten.  Many of these spiritual ventures which for\nthe moment failed and were submerged are in striking parallelism with\ncurrents of thought to-day, and our generation can perhaps appreciate\nat their real worth these solitary souls who were destined to see their\ncause defeated, to hear their names defamed, and to live in jeopardy\namong the very people whom they most longed to help.\n\nSebastian Castellio is one of these submerged venturers.  While he\nlived he was so absolutely absorbed in the battle for truth that he\ntook no pains at all to acquaint posterity with the details of his\nlife, or to make his name quick and powerful in the ears of men.  When\nhe died {89} and laid down the weapons of his spiritual warfare his\npious opponents thanked God for the relief and did what they could to\nconsign him to oblivion.  But after the long and silent flow of years\nthe world has come up to his position and can appreciate a spirit who\nwas too far in advance of the line of march to be comprehended in his\nlifetime.  He was born in the little French village of St. Martin du\nFresne--not many miles west of Lake Geneva in the year 1515.  The home\nwas pinched with poverty, but somebody in the home or in the village\ndiscovered that little Bastian was endowed with unusual gifts and must\nbe given the chance to realize the life which his youth forecast; and\nthat ancient family sacrifice, which has glorified so many homes of\npoverty, was made here in St. Martin, and the boy, possessed with his\neager passion for knowledge, was started on his course in the College\nde la Trinite in Lyons.  He soon found himself bursting into a new\nworld, the world of classic antiquity, which the Humanists were\nrestoring to the youth of that period, and he experienced that\nemancipating leap of soul and thrill of joy which such a world of\nbeauty can produce upon a lofty spirit that sees and appreciates it.\nSome time during the Lyons period he came also under a still greater\nand more emancipating influence, the divine and simple Christ of the\nGospels, whom the most serious of the Humanists had rediscovered, and\nto whom Castellio now dedicated the central loyalty of his soul.\n\nAt twenty-five years of age, now a splendid classical scholar, radiant\nwith faith and hope and the vision of a new age for humanity which the\nrecovered gospel was to bring in, Castellio went to Strasbourg to share\nthe task of the Reformers and to put his life into the new movement.\nCalvin, then living in Strasbourg, received the brilliant recruit with\njoy and took him into his own home.  When the great Reformer returned\nto Geneva in 1541 to take up the mighty task of his life he summoned\nCastellio to help him, and made him Principal of the College of Geneva,\nwhich Calvin planned to make one of the {90} foremost seats of Greek\nlearning and one of the most illuminating centres for the study of the\nScriptures.  The young scholar's career seemed assured.  He had the\nfriendship of Calvin, he was head of an important institution of\nlearning, the opportunity for creative literary work was opening before\nhim, and he was aspiring soon to fulfil the clearest call of his\nlife--to become a minister of the new gospel.  His first contribution\nto religious literature was his volume of \"Sacred Dialogues,\" a series\nof vivid scenes out of the Old and New Testaments, told in dialogue\nfashion, both in Latin and French.[2]  They were to serve a double\npurpose: first, to teach French boys to read Latin, and secondly, to\nform in them a love for the great characters of the Bible and an\nappreciation of its lofty message of life.  The stories were really\ngood stories, simple enough for children, and yet freighted with a\ndepth of meaning which made them suitable for mature minds.  Their\nsuccess was extraordinary, and their fine quality was almost\nuniversally recognized.  They went through twenty-eight editions in\ntheir author's lifetime, and they were translated into many\nlanguages.[3]  His bent toward a religion of a deeply ethical and\nspiritual type already appears in this early work, and here he\nannounces a principle that was to rule his later life and was to cost\nhim much suffering: \"The friend of Truth obeys not the multitude _but\nthe Truth_.\"\n\nAt the very time this book was appearing, an opportunity offered for\ntesting the mettle of his courage.  One of those ever-recurrent plagues\nthat harassed former ages, before microbes were discovered, fell upon\nGeneva.  The minister, who had volunteered to give spiritual comfort to\nthose who were suffering with the plague in the hospital, was stricken\nwith the dread disease, and a new volunteer was asked for.  The records\nof the city show that Castellio, though not yet ordained, and under no\nobligation to take such risk, offered himself for the {91} hazardous\nservice when the ministers of the city declined it.  The ordination\nthrough human hands was, however, never to come to him, and a harder\ntest of courage than the plague was before him.  In the course of his\nstudies he found himself compelled to take the position that the \"Song\nof Solomon\" was an ancient love poem, and that the traditional\ninterpretation of it as a revelation of the true relation between\nChrist and the Church was a strained and unnatural interpretation.  He\nalso felt that as a scholar he could not with intellectual honesty\nagree with the statement in the Catechism that \"Christ descended into\nHell.\"  Calvin challenged both these positions of Castellio, but his\nopposition to him was clearly far deeper than a difference of opinion\non these two points.  Calvin instinctively felt that the bold and\nindependent spirit of this young scholar, his qualities of leadership,\nand his literary genius marked him out as a man who could not long be\nan easy-minded and supple subordinate.  A letter which Calvin wrote at\nthis time to his friend Viret shows where the real tension lay.\n\"Castellio has got it into his head,\" he writes, \"that I want to rule!\"\nThe great Reformer may not have been conscious yet of such a purpose,\nbut there can be no question that Castellio read the signs correctly,\nand he was to be the first, as Buisson has said, to discover that \"to\nresist Calvin was in the mind of the latter, to resist the Holy\nGhost.\"[4]  Calvin successfully opposed his ordination, and made it\nimpossible for him to continue in Geneva his work as an honest scholar.\nTo remain meant that he must surrender his right of independent\njudgment, he must cease to follow the line of emancipated scholarship,\nhe must adjust his conscience to fit the ideas that were coming to be\ncounted orthodox in the circle of the Reformed faith.  _That_ surrender\nhe could no more make than Luther could surrender to the demands of his\nopponents at Worms.  He quietly closed up his work in the College of\nGeneva and went into voluntary exile, to seek a sphere of life where he\nmight think and speak as {92} he saw the truth and where he could keep\nhis conscience a pure virgin.\n\nHe settled in Basle, where Erasmus had found a refuge, and where, two\nyears before, the exiled and hunted Sebastian Franck, the spiritual\nforerunner of Castellio, had died in peace.  For ten years (1545-1555)\nhe lived with his large family in pitiable poverty.  He read proof for\nthe Humanist printer Oporin, he fished with a boat-hook for drift-wood\nalong the shores of the Rhine,--\"rude labour no doubt,\" he says, \"but\nhonest, and I do not blush for having done it,\"--and he did whatever\nhonest work he could find that would help keep body and soul together.\nThrough all these years, every moment of the day that could be saved\nfrom bread-winning toil, and much of his night-time, went into the\nherculean task to which he had dedicated himself--the complete\ntranslation of the Bible from its original languages into both Latin\nand French.[5]  Being himself one of the common people he always had\nthe interests and needs of the common people in view, and he put the\nBible into current sixteenth-century speech.  His French translation\nhas the marked characteristics of the Renaissance period.  He makes\npatriarchs, prophets, and the persons of the New Testament live again\nin his vivid word-pictures, as the great contemporary painters were\nmaking them live on their canvases.  But that which gave his\ntranslation its great human merit and popular interest was a serious\ndefect in the eyes of the theologians.  It was vivid, full of the\nnative Oriental colour, true in the main to the original, and strong in\nits appeal to religious imagination, but painfully weak in its support\nof the dogmas and doctrines around which the theological battles of the\nReformation were centring.  Still less were the theologians pleased\nwith the Preface of his Latin Bible, dedicated to the boy-king of\nEngland, Edward VI.  Here he boldly insists that the Reformation, {93}\nwherever it spreads, shall champion the principle of _free conscience_,\nand shall wage its battles with spiritual weapons alone.  The only\nenemies of our faith, he says, are vices, and vices can be conquered\nonly by virtues.  The Christ who said if they strike you on one cheek\nturn the other, has called us to the spiritual task of instructing men\nin the truth, and that work can never be put into the hands of an\nexecutioner!  \"I address you, O king,\" he concludes, \"not as a prophet\nsent from God, but as a man of the people who abhors quarrels and\nhatred, and who wishes to see religion spread by love rather than by\nfierce controversy, by purity of heart rather than by external methods.\n. . .  Read these sacred writings with a pious and religious heart, and\nprepare yourself to reign as a mortal man who must give an account to\nimmortal God.  I desire that you may have the meekness of Moses, the\npiety of David, and the wisdom of Solomon.\"[6]\n\nTwo years after this appeal to the new Protestantism to make the great\nventure of spreading its truth by love and persuasion, there came from\nGeneva the decisive answer in the burning of Servetus, followed by the\nfamous _Defence_ before the world, written mainly by Calvin, of the\ncourse that had been taken.  One month later, a brief Latin work\nappeared from the press with the title, _De haereticis, an sint\npersequendi, etc._ (Magdeburgi, 1554), followed in very short time by a\nFrench edition (Rouen, 1554).  The body of the work contained\nimpressive passages in favour of toleration from Church Fathers, from\nLuther, Erasmus, Sebastian Franck, and others, concluding with a\npassage from \"Basil Montfort,\" a name which thinly veils Bastian\nCastellio himself.  The Preface was addressed to the Duke of\nWurtemberg, bore the name of \"Martinus Bellius,\" and was beyond doubt\nwritten by Castellio, who inspired and directed the entire work, in\nwhich he was assisted by a very small group of refugees in Basle of\nsimilar ideas on this subject to his {94} own.  This Preface is one of\nthe mother documents on freedom of conscience, from which in time came\na large offspring, and it is, furthermore, an interesting\ninterpretation of a type of Christianity then somewhat new in the\nworld.  Its simplicity, its human appeal, its restrained emotional\npower, its prophetic tone, its sincerity and depth of earnestness mark\nit as a distinct work of genius, almost in the class with Pascal's\n_Provincial Letters_.\n\n\"If thou, illustrious Prince, had informed thy subjects that thou wert\ncoming to visit them at an unnamed time and had requested them to be\nprepared in white garments to meet thee on thy coming; what wouldst\nthou do, if, on arrival, thou shouldst find that instead of robing\nthemselves in white they had occupied themselves in violent debate\nabout thy person--some insisting that thou wert in France, others that\nthou wert in Spain; some declaring that thou would come on horseback,\nothers that thou would come by chariot; some holding that thou would\ncome with great pomp, others that thou would come without train or\nfollowing?  And what especially wouldst thou say if they debated not\nonly with words but with blows of fist and strokes of sword, and if\nsome succeeded in killing and destroying others who differed from them?\n'He will come on horseback.'  'No, he won't; he will come by chariot.'\n'You lie.'  'No, I do not; _you_ are the liar.'  'Take _that_'--a blow\nwith the fist.  'You take _that_'--a sword-thrust through the body.  O\nPrince, what would you think of such citizens?  Christ asked us to put\non the white robes of a pure and holy life, but what occupies our\nthought?  We dispute not only of the way to Christ, but of His relation\nto God the Father, of the Trinity, of predestination, of free will, of\nthe nature of God, of angels, of the condition of the soul after\ndeath,--of a multitude of matters that are not essential for salvation,\nand _matters, in fact, which never can be known until our hearts are\npure, for they are things which must be spiritually perceived_.\"\n\nWith a striking boldness, but with beautiful simplicity of spirit, he\ndescribes \"an honest follower of Christ\"--and {95} it is himself whom\nhe is describing--\"who believes in God the Father and in His Son Jesus\nChrist, and who wants to do His will, but cannot see that will just as\nothers about him see it, in matters of intellectual formulation and in\nmatters of external practice.\"  \"I cannot,\" he adds, \"do violence to my\nconscience for fear of disobeying Christ.  I must be saved or lost by\nmy own personal faith, not by that of another.  I ask you, whether\nChrist, who forgave those who went astray, and commanded His followers\nto forgive until seventy times seven, Christ who is the final Judge of\nus all, if He were here, would command a person like that to be killed!\n. . .  O Christ, Creator and King of the world,\" he cries out, \"dost\nThou see and approve these things?  Hast Thou become a totally\ndifferent person from what Thou wert?  When Thou wert on earth, nothing\ncould be more gentle and kind, more ready to suffer injuries.  Thou\nwert like a sheep dumb before the shearers.  Beaten, spit upon, mocked,\ncrowned with thorns, crucified between thieves, Thou didst pray for\nthose who injured Thee.  Hast Thou changed to this?  Art Thou now so\ncruel and contrary to Thyself?  Dost Thou command that those who do not\nunderstand Thy ordinances and commandments as those over us require,\nshould be drowned, or drawn and quartered, and burned at the stake!\"\n\nThe Christian world holds this view now.  It is a part of the necessary\nair we breathe.  But at this crisis in modern history it was\nunforgivably _new_.[7]  One man's soul had the vision, one man's entire\nmoral fibre throbbed with passion for it, and his rich intellectual\nnature pleaded for it as the only course of reason: \"To burn a man is\nnot to defend a doctrine, it is to _burn a man_!\"  But it was a voice\ncrying in a wilderness, and from henceforth Castellio was a marked and\ndangerous man in the eyes of all who were opposed to \"Bellianism \"--as\nthe principle of toleration was nicknamed in honour of Martinus\nBellius--and that included almost all the world.  But to the end of his\nlife, and in almost every one of his multitudinous {96} tracts he\ncontinued to announce the principle of religious liberty, and to work\nfor a type of Christianity which depended for its conquering power\nsolely on its inherent truth and on its moral dynamic.\n\nCalvin, who recognized the hand of Castellio in this powerful defence\nof freedom of thought, called his opponent \"a monster full of poison\nand madness,\" and proceeded to demolish him in a Reply.  In his _Contra\nlibellum Calvini_, which is an answer to this Reply, Castellio declares\nthat Calvin's act in burning Servetus was a bloody act, and that now\nhis book is a direct menace to honest, pious people.  \"I,\" he adds,\n\"who have a horror of blood, propose to examine the book.  I do not\ndefend Servetus.  I have never read his books.  Calvin burned them\ntogether with their author.  I do not want to burn Calvin or to burn\nhis book.  I am only going to _answer_ it.\"  He notes that Calvin\ncomplains of \"novelties and innovations,\" a strange complaint, he\nthinks, from a man who \"has introduced more innovations in ten years\nthan the entire Church had introduced in six centuries!\"  All the\nsects, he reminds the great Reformer, claim to be founded on the Word\nof God.  They all believe that their religion is true.  Calvin says\nthat his is _the only true one_.  Each of the others says that his is\nthe only true one.  Calvin says that they are wrong.  He makes himself\n(by what right I do not know) the judge and sovereign arbiter.  He\nclaims that he has on his side the sure evidence of the Word of God.\nThen why does he write so many books to prove what is evident?  The\ntruth is surely not evident to those who die denying that it is truth!\nCalvin asks how doctrine is to be guarded if heretics are not to be\npunished.  \"Doctrine,\" cries Castellio, \"Christ's doctrine means loving\none's enemies, returning good for evil, having a pure heart and a\nhunger and thirst for righteousness.  _You_ may return to Moses if you\nwill, but for us others Christ has come.\"\n\nLove, he constantly insists, is the supreme badge of any true\nChristianity, and the traits of the beatitudes in a person's life are a\nsurer evidence that he belongs in {97} Christ's family, than is the\nfact that he holds current opinions on obscure questions of belief.\n\"Before God,\" he writes in his _Defensio_, a work of the year 1562, to\nthose who wish to hunt him off the face of the earth, \"and from the\nbottom of my heart, I call you to the spirit of love.\"  \"By the bowels\nof Christ, I ask and implore you to leave me in peace, to stop\npersecuting me.  Let me have the liberty of my faith as you have of\nyours.  At the heart of religion I am one with you.  It is in reality\nthe same religion; only on certain points of interpretation I see\ndifferently from you.  But however we differ in opinion, why cannot we\nlove one another?\"\n\nHe was, however, never to have the peace for which he pleaded, and he\nwas never to experience the love and brotherly kindness for which he\nlonged.  Whole sheaves of fiery arrows were shot at him, and in tract\nafter tract he had to see himself called \"monster,\" \"wretch,\" \"dog,\"\n\"pest,\" \"fog-bank,\" and finally to see himself proclaimed to the world\nas a petty thief \"who was supporting himself by stealing wood from his\nneighbours\"!  With beautiful dignity Castellio tells the story of how\nhe fished for public drift-wood on the shores of the Rhine, and how he\nkept his family alive by honest toil, when he was living in pitiable\npoverty, \"to which,\" he says to Calvin, \"everybody knows that thy\nattacks had brought me.\"  \"I cannot conceive how thou of all persons,\nthou who knowest me, can have believed a tale of theft about me, and in\nany case have told it to others.\"[9]\n\nCompelled, as he was, to see the Reformation take what seemed to him\nthe false course--the course of defending itself by persecution, of\nbuttressing itself on election, of elevating, through a new\nscholasticism, doctrine above life,--he turned more and more, as time\nwent on, toward interior religion, the cultivation of an inner\nsanctuary, the deepening of the mystical roots of his life, and the\nperfection of a religion of inner and spiritual life.  \"I have never\ntaken holy things lightly,\" {98} he once wrote, and in the later years\nof what proved to be his brief as well as stormy life, he drew nearer\nto Christ as the Life of his life, and laboured with deepening passion\nto practise and present a religion of veracity, of reality and of\ntransforming power.  \"It is certain,\" he says in his _Contra libellum\nCalvini_, \"that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and there is\nfurthermore no doubt about the worth of love--love to God and love to\nman.  There is no doubt, again, of the worth of forgiveness, of\npatience, of pity, of kindness, and of obedience to duty.  Why leave\nthese sure things and quarrel over inscrutable mysteries?\"\n\nThis point that the things which are essential to salvation are clear\nand luminous is a frequently occurring one in his writings.\nImpenetrable mysteries do not interest him, and he declares with\nreiteration that controversies and divisions are occasioned mainly by\nthe proclamation of dogma on these inscrutable things.  In a remarkable\nwork, which remains still in manuscript--his _De arte dubitandi et\nconfidendi, sciendi et ignorandi_,--he pleads for a religion that fits\nthe facts of life and for the use of intelligence even in these lofty\nmatters of spiritual experience where most astonishing miracles occur.\nHe returns, in this writing, to his old position that the truths which\nconcern salvation are clear and appeal powerfully to human reason.\n\"There are, I know,\" he says, \"persons who insist that we should\nbelieve even against reason.  It is, however, the worst of all errors,\nand it is laid upon me to fight it.  I may not be able to exterminate\nthe monster, but I hope to give it such a blow that it will know that\nit has been hit.  Let no one think that he is doing wrong in using his\nmental faculties.  It is our proper way of arriving at the truth.\"[9]\n\nWithout entering in detail into the bottomless controversy of those\ntimes, let us endeavour to get an adequate view of Castellio's type of\nChristianity, and then we shall be able to form an estimate of the man\nwho in the {99} strong power of his faith stood almost alone as the\ngreat battle of words raged around him.[10]\n\nThose on the other side of the controversy began always from the\nopposite end of the spiritual universe to his point of departure.\n_They_ were fascinated with the mysteries of the Eternal Will, and used\nall the keys of their logic to unlock the mysteries of foreknowledge,\npredestination, and grace which has wrought the miracle of salvation\nfor the elect.  Castellio, on the other hand, in true modern fashion,\nstarts always with the concrete, the near and the known, to work upward\nto the nature of the unknown.  We must, he says, try to discover the\nDivine attributes and the Divine Character by first finding out what\nour own deepest nature implies.  If God is to speak to us it must be in\nterms of our nature.  Before undertaking to fathom with the plummet of\nlogic the unsoundable mystery of foreknowledge, let us see what we can\nknow through a return to the real nature of man as he is, and\nespecially to the real nature of the new Adam who is Christ, the Son of\nGod.  Man, as both Scripture and his own inner self testify, is made\n_in the image of God_, is dowered with freedom to determine his own\ndestiny, may go upward into light, or downward into darkness.  Man thus\nmade, when put to trial, _failed_, followed lower instincts instead of\nhigher, and experienced the awful penalty of sin, namely its cumulative\npower, the tendency of sin to beget sin, and to make higher choices\never more difficult.  Christ, however, the new Adam, has _succeeded_.\nHe has completely revealed the way of obedience, the way in which\nspirit conquers flesh.  He is the new kind of Person who lives from\nabove and who exhibits the cumulative power of goodness.  His victory,\nwhich was won by His own free choice, inspires all men who see it with\nfaith and hope in man's spiritual possibilities.  Castellio declines to\ndiscuss Christ's metaphysical nature, except in so far as His life has\nrevealed {100} it to us.  He sees in Him the Heart and Character of\nGod, the certainty of Divine love and forgiveness, and the way of life\nfor all who desire to be spiritually saved, which means, for him, the\nformation of a new inward self, a purified nature, a morally\ntransformed man, a will which no longer loves or wills sin.  \"Christ\nalone,\" he says, \"can heal the malady of the soul, but He can heal it.\"\n\"There is,\" he says again, \"no other way of salvation for any man than\nthe way of self-denial.  He must put off his old man and put on\nChrist--however much blood and sweat the struggle may cost.\"  Man, he\ninsists, is always wrong when he represents God as angry.  Christ\nshowed that God needed no appeasing, but rather that man needed to be\nbrought back to God by the drawing of Love, and be reconciled to Him.\n\nFaith--which for every prophet of human redemption is the key that\nunlocks all doors for the soul--is for Castellio the supreme moral\nforce by which man turns God's revelations of Himself into spiritual\nvictories and into personal conquests of character.  It is never\nsomething forensic, something magical.  It is, as little, mere belief\nof historical facts and events.  It is, on the contrary, a moral power\nthat moves mountains of difficulty, works miracles of transformation,\nand enables the person who has it to participate in the life of God.\nIt is a passionate leap (\"elan\") of the soul of the creature toward the\nCreator; it is a way of renewing strength in Him and of becoming a\nparticipator in His divine nature.  It is a return of the soul to its\nsource.  It is a _persistent will_, which multiplies one's strength a\nhundredfold, makes Pentecost possible again, and enables us to achieve\nthe goal which the vision of our heart sees.  The only obstacle to this\nall-conquering faith is selfishness, the only mortal enemy is\nself-will.[11]\n\nThere have been, Castellio holds, progressive stages in the Divine\neducation of the race, and in man's apprehension of God.  The mark of\nadvance is always found in the progress from law and letter to spirit,\nand from {101} outward practices and ceremonies to inward experience.\nDivine revelations can always be taken at different levels.  They can\nbe seen in a literal, pictorial, temporal way, or they can be read\ndeeper--by those who are purified by faith and love, and made partakers\nof the self-giving Life of God--as eternal and spiritual realities.\nThe written word of God is the garment of the Divine Thought which is\nthe real Word of God.  It takes more than eyes of flesh to see through\nthe temporal garment to the inner Life and Spirit beneath.  Only the\nperson who has in himself the illumination of the same Spirit that gave\nthe original revelation can see through the garment of the letter to\nthe eternal message, the ever-living Word hidden within.[12]  In the\nChristianity of the full-grown spiritual man, sacraments and everything\nexternal must be used only as pictorial helps and symbolic suggestions\nfor the furtherance of spiritual life.  Within us, as direct offspring\nof God, as image of God, there is a Divine Reason, which existed before\nbooks, before rites, before the foundation of the world, and will exist\nafter books and rites have vanished, and the world has gone to wreck.\nIt can no more be abolished than God Himself can be.  It was by this\nthat Jesus Christ, the Son of God--called, in fact, Logos of God--lived\nand taught us how to live.  It was in the Light of this that He\ntranscended books and rites and declared, without quoting text, \"God is\nSpirit and thou shalt worship God in spirit and in truth.\"  This Reason\nis in all ages the right investigator and interpreter of Truth, even\nthough time changes outward things and written texts grow corrupt.[13]\n\nAs his life was drawing to a close, he sent forth anonymously another\npowerful prophet-call for the complete liberation of mind and\nconscience.  Ten years before the awful deeds of St. Bartholomew's Day,\nhe issued his little French book with the title _Conseil a la France\ndesolee_--Counsel {102} to France in her Distress.  It is a calm and\npenetrating diagnosis of the evils which are destroying the life of\nFrance and working her desolation.  It throbs with noble patriotism and\nis full of real prophetic insight, though he spoke to deaf ears and\nwrote for blind eyes.  The woes of France--her torn and distracted\ncondition--are mainly due to the blind and foolish method of attempting\nto force intelligent men to accept a form of religion which in their\nhearts they do not believe is true.  There can be no united people,\nstrong and happy, until the blunder of compelling conscience entirely\nceases.  He pleads in tenderness and love with both religious parties,\nCatholics and Evangelicals, to leave the outgrown legalism of Moses and\ngo to the Gospels for a religion which leads into truth and freedom.\n\"O France, France,\" he cries--as formerly a greater One had said, \"O\nJerusalem, Jerusalem\"--\"my counsel is that thou cease to compel men's\nconsciences, that thou cease to kill and to persecute, that thou grant\nto men who believe in Jesus Christ the privilege of serving God\naccording to their own innermost faith and not according to some one\nelse's faith.  And you, that are private people, do not be so ready to\nfollow those who lead you astray and push you to take up arms and kill\nyour brothers.  And Thou, O Lord our Saviour, wilt Thou give to us all\ngrace to awake and come to our senses before it is forever too late.\nI, at least, have now done my duty and spoken my word of truth.\"  St.\nBartholomew's Day was the answer to this searching appeal, and the\nland, deaf to the call of its prophet, was to become more \"desolate\"\nstill.\n\nJust as the storm of persecution that had been gathering around him for\nyears was about to burst pitilessly upon him in 1563, he quietly died,\nworn out in body, and \"passed to where beyond these voices there is\npeace.\"  His students in the University of Basle, where, in spite of\nthe opposition from Geneva, he had been Professor of Greek for ten\nyears, bore his coffin in honour on their shoulders to his grave, and\nhis little band of disciples devoted themselves to spreading, in\nHolland and wherever {103} they could find soil for it, the precious\nseed of his truth, which had in later years a very wide harvest.[14]\n\nHe was not a theologian of the Reformation type.  He did not think the\nthoughts nor speak the dialect of his contemporaries.  They need not be\nblamed for thanking God at his death nor for seeing in him an\narch-enemy of their work.  They were honestly working for one goal, and\nhe was as honestly living by the light of a far different ideal.  The\nspiritual discipline of the modern world was to come through their\nlaborious systems, but he, anticipating the results of the travail and\nthe slow spiral progress, and seeing in clear vision the triumph of\nman's liberated spirit, with exuberant optimism believed that the\nreligion of the Spirit could be had for the taking--and he stretched\nout his hand for it!\n\n\"I am,\" he cried out beneath the bludgeons, \"a poor little man, more\nthan simple, humble and peaceable, with no desire for glory, only\naffirming what in my heart I believe; why cannot I live and say my\nhonest word and have your love?\"  The time was not ready for him, but\nhe did his day's work with loyalty, sincerity, and bravery, and seen in\nperspective is worthy to be honoured as a hero and a saint.[15]\n\n\n\n[1] F. Buisson, _Sebastien Castellion, sa vie et son oeuvre_ (Paris,\n1892), 2 vols.; Charles Jarrin, _Deux Oublies_ (Bourg, 1889); Emile\nBroussoux, Sebastien Castellion, sa vie, ses oeuvres, et sa theologie\n(Strasbourg, 1867); A. Schweizer, _Die protestantischen Centraldogmen_\n(Zuerich, 1854), pp. 311-373.\n\n[2] _Dialogi sacri, latino-gallici, ad linguas moresque puerorum\nformandos_.  Liber primus.  Geneve, 1543.\n\n[3] There were at least three English translations--1610, 1715, and\n1743.\n\n[4] Buisson, _op. cit._ i. p. 205.\n\n[5] His Latin Bible appeared in 1551 and the French Bible in 1555.\nDuring this period he also brought out a new edition of his \"Sacred\nDialogues,\" an edition of Xenophon, a translation of the Sibylline\nOracles, a Latin poem on Jonah, and a Greek poem on John the Baptist,\nthe Forerunner.\n\n[6] Calvin, in striking contrast, had written to the same boy-king in\n1548: \"Under the cover of the Gospel, foolish people would throw\neverything into confusion.  Others cling to the superstitions of the\nAntichrist at Rome.  _They all deserve to be repressed by the sword\nwhich is committed to you_.\"\n\n[7] Beza called it \"diabolical doctrine.\"\n\n[8] He selected as the title of this book the opprobrious word which\nCalvin had used in the charge--_Harpago_, _i.e._ \"Boat-hook.\"\n\n[9] This MS. is in the Bibliotheque de l'Eglise des Remontrants in\nRotterdam.  I have used only the extracts given from it in Buisson and\nJarrin.\n\n[10] The main lines of Castellio's Christianity can be found in his\n_Dialogi quatuor_: (i.) De praedestinatione, (ii.) De electione, (iii.)\nDe libero arbitrio, (iv.) De fide (Gouda, 1613) and in his _Scripta\nselecta_.  (1596).\n\n[11] For Faith see _De fide and De arts dub._ ii. 212.\n\n[12] This idea comes out in his Preface to the Bible, in his _Moses\nlatinus_, and in his manuscript work, _De arte dubitandi_.\n\n[13] _De arte dubitandi_.\n\n[14] Under the nom-de-plume of John Theophilus, Castellio translated\nthe _Theologia Germanica_ into Latin, and published it with an\nIntroduction.  His translation carried this \"golden book\" of mystical\nreligion into very wide circulation, and became a powerful influence,\nespecially in England, as we shall see, in reproducing a similar type\nof religious thought.\n\nThe Quaker William Caton, who spent the latter part of his life in\nHolland, cites Castellio seven times in his Tract, _The Testimony of a\nCloud of Witnesses, who in their Generation have testified against that\nhorrible Evil of Forcing of Conscience and Persecution about Matters of\nReligion_ (1662), and he seems very familiar with his writings.  He\nalso cites Schwenckfeld and Franck on pp. 37 and 17 respectively.\n\n[15] Castellio's plea for toleration, _Traite des Heretiques a savoir,\nsi on les doit persecuter_ (Rouen, 1554), has just been reissued in\nattractive form in Geneva, edited by Olivet and Choisy.\n\n\n\n\n{104}\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nCOORNHERT AND THE COLLEGIANTS--A MOVEMENT\n  FOR SPIRITUAL RELIGION IN HOLLAND\n\nThe struggle for political liberty in the Netherlands forms one of the\nmost dramatic and impressive chapters in modern history, but the story of\nthe long struggle in these same Provinces for the right to believe and to\nthink according to the dictates of conscience is hardly less dramatic and\nimpressive.  Everybody knows that during the early years of the\nseventeenth century Holland was the one country in Europe which furnished\ncities of refuge for the persecuted and hunted exponents of unpopular\nfaiths, and that the little band of Pilgrims who brought their precious\nseed to the new world had first preserved and nurtured it in a safe\nasylum among the Dutch; but the slow spiritual travail that won this soul\nfreedom, and the brave work of spreading, on that soil, a religion of\npersonal insight and individual experience are not so well known.[1]  The\ngrowth and development of this great movement, with its numerous\nramifications and differentiations, obviously cannot be told here, but\none or two specimen lines of the movement will be briefly studied for the\nlight they throw upon this general type of religion under consideration,\nand for their specific influence {105} upon corresponding spiritual\nmovements in England and America.\n\nThe silent propagation and germination of religious ideas in lands far\naway from their original habitat, their sudden appearance in a new spot\nlike an outbreak of contagion, are always mysterious and fascinating\nsubjects of research.  Some chance talk with a disciple plants the seed,\nor some stray book comes to the hand of a baffled seeker at the moment\nwhen his soul is in a suggestible state, and lo! a new vision is created\nand a new apostle of the movement is prepared, often so inwardly and\nmysteriously that to himself he seems to be \"an apostle not of men nor by\nman.\"  One of the earliest Dutch exponents and interpreters of this type\nof spiritual religion which we have been studying as a by-product of the\nReformation in Germany, and one who became an apostle of it because at a\ncritical period of his life the seeds of it had fallen into his awakened\nmind, was Dirck Volckertsz Coornhert.[2]\n\nHe was born in Amsterdam in 1522.  He perfected himself as expert in\ncopper-plate engraving and etching, and intended to pursue a quiet career\nin his adopted city of Haarlem, but he found himself disturbed with\n\"intimations clear of wider scope.\"  A keen desire to go back to the\noriginal sources of religious truth and to read the New Testament and the\nFathers in their own tongue induced him to learn Greek and Latin after he\nwas thirty years of age.  He possessed excellent gifts and natural\nabilities of mind, and he soon had an enviable reputation for skill and\nlearning.  Like Sebastian Franck, whom he resembled in many points, he\nwas profoundly interested in history and in the stages of man's\nhistorical development, and, like the former, he undertook the\ntranslation of great masterpieces which expressed the ideas that\npeculiarly suited his own temper of mind, such as Boethius' _Consolation\nof Philosophy_; Cicero, _On Duties_; and Erasmus' _Paraphrases of the New\nTestament_.  He was throughout {106} his life deeply influenced by\nErasmus, and his writings show everywhere a very strong humanistic\ncolouring.  It was no accident that one of his most important literary\nworks was on Ethics (\"Sittenkunst\"), for his primary interest centred in\nman and in the art of living well (\"Die Kunst wohl zu leben\").[3]\n\nAs he developed into independent manhood, he threw himself with great\nzeal into the cause of political freedom for the city of Haarlem, on\naccount of which he suffered a severe imprisonment in the Hague in 1560,\nand at a later time was compelled to flee into temporary exile.  He\nattracted the attention of William of Orange, who discovered his\nabilities and made him Secretary to the States-General in 1572, prized\nhim highly for his character and abilities, commissioned him to write\nimportant state papers, and intrusted very weighty affairs to him.\n\nIn his youth he had been an extensive traveller and had seen with his own\neyes the methods which the Spanish Inquisition employed to compel\nuniformity of faith and, with his whole moral being revolting from these\nunspiritual methods, he dedicated himself to the cause of liberty of\nreligious thought, and for this he wrote and spoke and wrought with a\nfearlessness and bravery not often surpassed.[4]  With this passion of\nhis for intellectual and spiritual freedom was joined a deeply grounded\ndisapproval of the fundamental ideas of Calvinism, as he found it\nexpounded by the preachers and theologians of the Reformed Church in\nHolland.  As a Humanist, he was convinced of man's freedom of will, and\nhe was equally convinced that however man had been marred by a _fall_\nfrom his highest possibilities, he was still possessed of native gifts\nand graces, and bore deep within himself an unlost central being, which\nin all his wanderings joined him indissolubly to God.  On the great\ntheological {107} issues of the day he \"disputed,\" with penetrating\ninsight, against the leading theologians of the Netherlands, and he\nalways proved to be a formidable antagonist who could not be put down or\nkept refuted.  Jacobus Arminius, at the turning of his career, was\nselected by the Consistory to make once for all a refutation of\nCoornhert's dangerous writings.  He, however, became so impressed, as he\nstudied the works which he was to refute, that he shifted his own\nfundamental points of belief, accepted many of Coornhert's views, and\nbecame himself a greater \"heretic\" and a more dangerous opponent of\nCalvinism than the man whom he was chosen to annihilate.[5]\n\nSometime in his religious development--it is impossible to settle\nprecisely when or where--he read the writings of the spiritual Reformers,\nand received from them formative influences which turned him powerfully\nto the cultivation of inward religion for his own soul and to the\nexpression and interpretation of a universal Christianity--a Christianity\nof the inward Word and of an invisible Church.  The lines of similarity\nbetween many of his views and those of Franck are so marked that no one\ncan doubt that he read the books and meditated upon the bold teachings of\nthis solitary apostle of the invisible Church.  In fact he frequently\nmentions Franck by name in his writings and quotes his views.  It is\ncertain, too, that he admired, loved, and translated the writings of\nSebastian Castellio, the French Humanist, first an admirer and then\nopponent of Calvin, pioneer defender of freedom of thought, and exponent\nof inward and spiritual religion of the type of the German Spiritual\nReformers,[6] and it is unmistakable that we have, in this Dutch\nself-taught scholar, a virile interpreter of this same type of\nChristianity, marked with his own peculiar variation, and penetrated with\nthe living convictions of his personal faith and first-hand experience.\nWhile putting emphasis on personal experience and on inward insight he\nnevertheless, like Franck, was suspicious {108} and wary of mystical\n\"enthusiasm\" and of \"private openings.\"  He criticized the \"revelations\"\nof David Joris and Henry Nicholas, and in place of their caprice he\nendeavoured to find the way to a religion grounded in the nature of\nthings and of universal value.  He was deeply read in the Mystics and\nconstantly used their terminology, but he often gave new meaning to their\nwords and pursued quite a different goal from that which absorbs the true\nmystic.\n\nCoornhert makes a sharp distinction between lower knowledge and higher\nknowledge--knowledge proper.  Lower knowledge does not get beyond images\nand copies of true reality.  It is sufficient for man's practical\nguidance in the affairs of this world of space and time, but it becomes\nonly a \"dead knowledge\" when it is applied to matters of eternal moment.\nThe higher knowledge, on the other hand, is knowledge won through direct\nexperience and practice of the will.  This higher knowledge is possible\nfor man because through Reason he partakes of the Word of God which is\nReason itself revealed and uttered, and therefore he may know God and\nknow of his own salvation with a certainty that far transcends the lower\nknowledge which he possesses of external things, or of mere historical\nhappenings.[7]\n\nThis Word of God is eternal, and is the source of all spiritual light and\ntruth that have come to the race in all ages.  Through it the patriarchs\ndiscovered how to live well, even in a world of sin, and through this\nsame Word the prophets saw the line of march for their people, and by the\npower and inspiration of this Word the written word was given as a\ntemporary guidance, as a pedagogical help, as a lantern on men's paths,\nuntil the morning Star, Jesus Christ, the living Word, should rise and\nshine in men's hearts.  The living Word is, thus, vastly different from\nthe written word.  One is essence, the other only image or shadow; one is\neternal, the other is temporal; one is uncreated, the other is made; one\nis the Light itself, the other is the lantern through which the {109}\nLight shines; one is Life itself, the other is only the witness of this\nLife--the finger which points toward it.[8]\n\nTrue religion is distinguished from all false or lower forms of religion\nin this, that true religion is always inward and spiritual, is directly\ninitiated within the soul, is independent of form and letter, is\nconcerned solely with the eternal and invisible, and verifies itself by\nproducing within man a nature like that of God as He is seen in Christ.\nThe \"law\" of true religion is a new and divinely formed disposition\ntoward goodness--a law written in the heart; its temple is not of stone\nor wood, but is a living and spiritual temple, its worship consists\nentirely of spiritual activities, _i.e._ the offering of genuine praise\nfrom appreciative hearts, the sacrifice of the self to God, and the\npartaking of divine food and drink through living communion with Christ\nthe Life.  Religion, of this true and saving sort, never comes through\nhearsay knowledge, or along the channels of tradition, or by a head\nknowledge of texts of the written word.  It comes only with inward\nexperience of the Word of God, and it grows and deepens as the will of\nman lives by the Will of God, and as the kingdom of God comes, not in\nsome far-away Jerusalem, or in some remote realm above the sky, but _in a\nman's own heart_.\n\nThis true and saving religion is begun, and completed, within the soul by\na process which Coornhert names by the great historic word, _faith_.\nFaith is the soul's free assent to the living Word of God as, through\namazing grace, it offers itself to man in the desperate straits of his\nlife.  Man is so made that he perpetually seeks some desired satisfaction\nand, in his restless search for this unattained good, he tries many false\nand specious trails, is endlessly baffled and deceived, and finally\ndiscovers, if he is fortunate enough to come to himself, that he is like\na shipwrecked man on a single plank with sea everywhere about him and no\nhaven in sight.  In this strait the Light, which he has not noted before,\nbreaks in on his darkness, and the way of Grace is presented to him in\n{110} Christ.  He feels himself called to a strange way of finding his\ndesired satisfaction--no longer the way of flesh and worldly wisdom, but\nthe way of the cross, of suffering, and of sacrifice.  Reason,\nenlightened by the Word of God, prompts him to assent; the Scriptures,\nladen with promises, bear their affirmative testimony, and thus he makes\nhis venture of faith, takes the risk of the voluntary sacrifice of his\nown pleasant desires, his preference for ways of ease and comfort, his\nself-will, and makes the bold experiment of trusting the Word of God, as\nit reveals itself to him, and of following Christ.  He finds that his\nfaith verifies itself at every step, his experiment carries him on into\nan experience, his venture brings him to the reality he is seeking.\nEvery stage of this pragmatic faith, which in a word is _obedience to the\nLight_, makes the fact and the meaning of sin clearer, at the same time\nmakes the knowledge of God more real and the nature of goodness more\nplain, and it leads away from a superstition of fear to a religion of\nlove and of joy.[9]\n\nAll other religions, besides this true and inward religion of the spirit,\ncalled by Coornhert \"outer or external religions,\" are considered of\nvalue only as preparatory stages toward the one true religion which\nestablishes the kingdom of God in man's heart.  With this fundamental\nview, he quite naturally regards all external forms and ceremonies as\ntemporary, and he holds that all of them, even the highest of them, are\nnothing else than visible signs, figures, shadows, symbols, pointing to\ninvisible, spiritual, eternal realities, which in their nature are far\ndifferent from the signs and symbols.  The signs and symbols can in no\nway effect salvation; they can at best only suggest to the quickened soul\nthe true realities, to know which is salvation.  The real and availing\ncircumcision, as the spiritual prophets and apostles always knew, was a\ncircumcision of the heart, and not of the flesh, and so, too, the true\nand availing baptism is a baptism into the life, death, and resurrection\nof Christ, {111} and cleanses the soul of its sins and produces \"a good\nconscience toward God\"--the old sinful man is buried and a new and\nChristlike man is raised.  The same transforming effects attach to the\nreal communion in which the finite human spirit feeds upon its true\ndivine food and drink--the Life of Christ given for us.  The real Sabbath\nis not a sacred day, kept in a ceremonial and legal sense, but rather an\ninward quiet, a prevailing peace of soul, a rest in the life of God from\nstress and strain and passion.  The Church has been pitiably torn and\nmutilated by disputes over the genuine form of administering these outer\nceremonies, supposing them to be in themselves sacraments of life.  As\nsoon as they are recognized to be what they really are, only temporary\nsigns and symbols, then the main emphasis can be put where it properly\nbelongs, and where Christ himself always put it, on love and on the\npractice of love.  No ceremony, even though instituted by Christ himself\nand practised with absolute correctness, can make a bad heart good, but\nlove--love which suffers long and is kind--flows only from a renewed and\ntransformed heart which already partakes of the same nature as that which\nwas incarnate in Christ.  Imprisonment, isolation, exile, excommunication\nmay deprive one of the outward ceremonies, but neither death nor life,\nnor any outward circumstance in the universe, need separate the soul from\nthe love of God in Christ, or deprive it of the privilege of loving![10]\n\nCoornhert criticizes the great Reformers for having put far too weighty\nemphasis on externals, and he especially criticizes Calvin for having\ngiven undue prominence to \"pure doctrine\" and to the right use of\nsacraments.  It is impossible, he insists, to establish authoritatively\nfrom Scripture this so-called \"pure doctrine.\"  In fact, many parts of\nScripture are against the doctrine of predestination, and Scripture is\nalways against the doctrine of perseverance in sin.  All speculations\nabout the Trinity, or about the dual nature of Christ, transcend our\nknowledge and should be rejected.  Furthermore {112} there is no\nauthoritative Scripture or revelation for the new forms of the sacrament\nthat have been introduced by the Reformers and are being made essential\nto salvation.  The true Reformation, he thinks, should be devoted to the\nconstruction of the invisible Church, which has existed in all ages of\nthe world, but which is kept from realizing its full scope and power\nbecause the attention of men is too greatly absorbed with signs and\nsymbols and outward things.[11]\n\nFor similar reasons he disapproved of the Anabaptists, even in their\npurified form as worked out under the guidance of Menno Simons.  They\nstill held, as did the reformed churches, that the true Church is a\nvisible church which every one to be a Christian must join, though this\ntrue Church, as they conceive it, consists only of \"saints.\"  They claim\nthe authoritative right to ban all persons who, according to their\nopinion, are not \"saints.\"  This right Coornhert denies.  He further\ndisapproves of their literal interpretations of the Sermon on the Mount,\nand of the obstacles which they put in the way of the free exercise of\nprophecy on the part of the members of the community.  He insists that a\nperson may be a Christian and yet belong to no visible church, if\nmeantime he is a true member of the invisible Communion.  He himself\nrefrained from taking the communion supper, either with Papists,\nLutherans, or Calvinists, because he said they all set the sacrament\nabove the real characteristic mark of Christian membership, which is\nlove, and because there is no divine command, with distinct and\nunambiguous authority, for the efficacious celebration of the sacrament,\nwhich in any case could not be rightly kept so long as sectarian\nhostility and lack of love prevail in the contending visible\nchurches.[12]  Under these circumstances, Coornhert, who was intensely\nconcerned for the sincere, simple-minded souls, perplexed by the maze of\nvarying sects and parties, refused to found a new sect or to head a new\nschismatic movement.  On behalf of those who could not {113} conform, he\npleaded for freedom of conscience and for the right to live in the world\nundisturbed as members of the invisible Church, using or omitting outward\nceremonies as conscience might direct, waiting meantime and seeking in\nquiet faith for the coming of new and divinely commissioned apostles who\nwould _really reform_ the apostate Churches, unite all divided sects, and\ngather in the world a true Church of Christ.[13]\n\nMeantime, while waiting for this true apostolic Church to appear,\nCoornhert approved of the formation of an _interim-Church_.  This Church,\naccording to his programme, would accept as truth, and as true practice,\nanything plainly and clearly taught in the canonical Scripture, but he\nadvised against using glosses and commentaries made by men, since that is\nto turn from the sun to the stars and from the spring to the cistern.\nThis interim-Church was to have no authoritative teachers or preachers.\nIn place of official ministry, the members were to edify one another in\nChristian love, with the reservation that they would welcome further\nillumination out of the Scriptures wherever they have made a mistake or\ngone wrong.  All persons who confess God as Father, and Jesus Christ as\nsent by God, and who in the power of faith abstain from sins, may belong\nto this interim-Church.  For the sake of those who are still weak and\nspiritually immature, he allowed the use of ceremonies in the\ninterim-Church, but all ceremonies are held as having no essential\nfunction for salvation, and the believer is at liberty to make use of\nthem or to abstain from using them as he prefers.[14]\n\n\n\nII\n\nCoornhert's proposed interim-Church, which at best was conceived as only\na temporary substitute for the true apostolic Church, for which every\nspiritual Christian is a \"waiter\" or \"seeker,\" found actual embodiment in\na very interesting movement of the early seventeenth {114} century, known\nin Dutch history as the \"Collegiants\" or \"Rynsburgers,\" which we shall\nnow proceed to study.[15]  The Collegiants had their origin in one of the\nstormiest of the many theological controversies which swept over the\nNetherlands in this critical period of religious history, a controversy\narising over the views taught by Jacobus Arminius (1560-1609).  The Dutch\nProtestants who accepted his views presented a \"Remonstrance\" to the\nStates of Holland and Friesland in 1610, in which they formulated their\ndeparture from strict, orthodox Calvinism.  The \"Remonstrance\" contained\nfive main Articles: (1) that the divine decrees of predestination are\nconditioned and not absolute; (2) that the atonement is in intention\nuniversal; (3) that a man cannot of himself do anything good without\nregeneration; (4) that though the Grace of God is a necessary condition\nof human effort it does not act irresistibly in man; (5) that believers\nare able to resist sin, but are not beyond the possibility of falling\nfrom Grace.  The opponents to these views, often called \"Gomarists,\"\nissued a counter-blast from which they received the name\n\"counter-Remonstrants.\"  The States-General passed an edict tolerating\nboth parties and forbidding further dispute, but the conflict of views\nwould not down.  It spread like a prairie fire, became complicated with\npolitical issues, had its martyrdoms, and produced far-reaching results\nand consequences.[16]  At the Synod of Dort, on April 24, 1619, the\nRemonstrants were declared guilty of falsifying religion and of\ndestroying the unity of the Church, and were deposed from all their\necclesiastical and academic offices and positions.  Two hundred were\ndeposed from the ministerial office for life, and one hundred were\nbanished.\n\nAmong the number of deposed ministers was Christian {115} Sopingius, the\npastor of Warmund, and the \"Remonstrants,\" who formed an important part\nof his congregation, were left without the opportunity of hearing any\nministry of which they approved.  In this strait Giesbert Van der Kodde,\nan Elder in the Warmund church, took a bold step.  He was the son of a\nprosperous farmer who had given his children, John, William, Adrian, and\nGiesbert, an unusually extended education.  All the sons learned Latin,\nItalian, French, and English, while William (known in the scholarly world\nas Gulielmus Coddaeus) was a Hebrew and Oriental scholar of note, and at\nthe age of twenty-six was made Professor of Hebrew in the University of\nLeyden.  They owed the course of their religious development and their\nparticular bent of mind to the writings of men like Sebastian Castellio;\nCoornhert, whose views have been given above; and Jacobus Acontius, the\nItalian humanist, who laid down the principles that no majority can make\na binding law in matters of faith, that only God's Spirit in the hearts\nof men can certify what is the truth, and that \"Confessions of Faith\"\nhave been the ruinous source of endless divisions in the Church.  Deeply\nimbued with the ideas of these spiritual reformers, and in sympathy as\nthey were with many of the views and practices of the Mennonites about\nthem, the Van der Kodde brothers decided, under the leadership of the\nboldest and most conscientious of them, Giesbert, to come together\nwithout any minister and hold a meeting of a free congregational type.\nAt first the meeting was probably held in Giesbert's house, and consisted\nof readings from the Scripture, prayers, and the public utterance of\nmessages of edification by those who formed the group.  A little later a\n\"Remonstrant\" preacher was sent to care for the orphaned Church in\nWarmund, but Giesbert had become satisfied with the new type of meeting,\nand now expressed himself emphatically against listening to preachers who\nlived without working and at the expense of the community, and who\nhindered the free exercise of \"prophecy.\"  Many of the members of the\nChurch did not share these views, but {116} much preferred to have the\ncomfort of a minister, so that a \"separation\" occurred, and Giesbert,\nwith his brothers and fellow-believers, rented a house and perfected\ntheir new type of congregational meeting.  They soon moved their meeting\n(called a \"Collegium,\" _i.e._ gathering) to the neighbouring town of\nRynsburg, where it received additions to its adherents, largely drawn\nfrom the Mennonites, many of whose ideas were strongly impressed upon the\nlittle \"Society,\"--for example, opposition to taking oaths, refusal to\nfight, or even to take measures of self-defence, and rejection of the\nright of magistrates and other political officers to inflict punishment.\nThey also adopted, as the Mennonites did, the Sermon on the Mount as the\nbasis of their ethical standard, which they applied with literalness and\nrigour.  They insisted on simplicity of life, the denial of \"worldly\"\noccupations or professions, plainness of garb, rejection of the world's\netiquette, absence of titles in addressing persons, and equality of men\nand women, even in public ministry.  They introduced the practice of\nimmersion (\"Dompeldoop\") as a mark of initiation into the Society, but\nthey considered true Christian baptism to be with the Spirit and not with\nwater, and they allowed their members a large range of liberty in the use\nor disuse of water baptism, as well as in the form of receiving it.  They\nrejected the Supper as an ecclesiastical ceremony, but they highly prized\nit as an occasion of fellowship and of group worship.  Every person might\nshare the supper with them if he confessed his faith in Christ and were\nnot living in unrepented sin, though they were inclined to exclude\npersons occupying offices which involved the violation of the Sermon on\nthe Mount.  The one essential mark of fellowship was brother-love, which\nwas not to be confined to the narrow limits of the Society, but that\nperson was regarded the truest disciple of Christ who practised the\nneighbour-spirit in the broadest and most effective manner.  They cared\nfor their own sick and poor, and they had a wide sympathy for all\noppressed and suffering people.  They pushed to the farthest limit {117}\ntheir opposition to war and all other forms of destroying human life.\n\nFrom the first there was a decided strain of \"Enthusiasm\" evident in the\nmovement, and a pronounced tendency to encourage a ministry of \"prophetic\nopenings.\"  One of the original members, John Van der Kodde, declared\nthat he should fear the loss of his salvation if he failed in a meeting\nto give utterance to the Word of God revealed to him in his inner being.\nThey encouraged the custom of silent waiting in their gatherings as a\npreparation for \"openings.\"  They proved from the fourteenth chapter of 1\nCorinthians that free prophecy is the highest form of ministry, and they\nheld that God by His grace could pour out His Spirit upon men in the\nseventeenth century as well as in the days of the Apostles and\nEvangelists, who did their mighty work, not as Church officials, but as\nrecipients of gifts from God.  They felt that prayer accompanied by\n_tears_ was true prayer, \"moved\" from above.  They, however, were persons\nof scholarship and refinement, and not tumultuous or strongly emotional,\nbut, on the contrary, they highly valued dignity and propriety of\nbehaviour.\n\nAs the movement spread, _Collegia_, or societies, were formed in Leyden,\nRotterdam, Amsterdam, and in other localities, essentially like the\nmother-society in Rynsburg, but with characteristic variations and with\nparticular lines of local developments.  Once every year they had a large\nyearly meeting in Rynsburg, to which the scattered members came from all\nparts of Holland where there were societies.  As time went on, two marked\nlines of differentiation appeared in the movement, due to the trend of\nthe influence of important leaders, one group emphasizing especially the\n_seeker-attitude_, and the other group receiving its formative influence\nfrom Cartesian philosophy.  Daniel Van Breen, Adam Boreel, and Michael\nComans were the early leaders and pillars of the Amsterdam _Collegium_,\nwhich was begun in 1645, and some years later the group was greatly\nstrengthened by the \"convincement\" of the young Mennonite doctor and\n{118} teacher, Galenus Abrahams, who soon became the most prominent\nCollegiant leader in Holland.\n\nAdam Boreel gave the movement a strong impetus and did much toward\nputting the teachings of Coornhert into practice.  He was born at\nMiddleburg in 1603.  He was a man of good scholarship, being especially\nlearned in Hebrew, and he was thoroughly impregnated with the views of\nthe spiritualistic Humanists of the former century, Franck, Castellio,\nand Coornhert, as well as with the views of the mystics, and he was\nhimself a champion of individual religious freedom.  He held that the\nvisible Church since the apostolic age has been astray and apostate, that\nConfessions of faith, Church officers, and sacraments are without\n\"authority,\" that the uncontaminated teaching of the Holy Scripture is\nthe only safe norm of faith, and that until a true apostolic Church is\nagain established in the world by divine commission, each faithful,\nbelieving Christian should maintain meantime the worship of God in his\nown way and wait in faith for a fuller revelation.[17]  His mystical\npiety appears strongly in his hymns, which are preserved in his complete\nworks.  One of these hymns of Boreel has been very freely translated into\nEnglish \"by a Lover of the Life of our Lord Jesus,\" probably Henry More,\nthe Platonist.  More says that he finds the hymn \"running much upon the\nmortification of our own wills and of our union and communion with God,\"\nand he loves it as a deep expression of his own faith that \"no man can\nreally adhere to Christ, and unwaveringly, but by union to Him by His\nSpirit.\"  I give a few extracts from More's free Translation:\n\n   1.  O Heavenly Light! my spirit to Thee draw,\n       With powerful touch my senses smite,\n       Thine arrows of Love into me throw\n         With flaming dart\n         Deep wound my heart,\n       And wounded seize for ever, as thy right.\n\n{119}\n\n   3.  Do thou my faculties all captivate\n       Unto thyself with strongest tye;\n       My will entirely regulate:\n         Make me thy slave,\n         Nought else I crave\n       For this I know is perfect Liberty.\n\n   5.    O endless good!\n         Break like a flood\n       Into my soul, and water my dry earth,\n\n   6.  That by this mighty power I being reft\n       Of everything that is not One,\n       To Thee alone I may be left\n         By a firm will\n         Fixt to Thee still\n       And inwardly united into one.\n\n  11.  So that at last, I being quite released\n       From this strait-laced Egoity\n       My soul will vastly be increased\n         Into that All\n         Which One we call,\n       And One in itself alone doth All imply.\n\n  12.  Here's Rest, here's Peace, here's Joy and Holy Love,\n       The heaven is here of true Content,\n       For those that seek the things above,\n         Here's the true light\n         Of Wisdom bright\n       And Prudence pure with no self-seeking blent.\n\n  15.  Thus shall you be united with that One,\n       That One where's no Duality,\n       For from that perfect Good alone\n         Ever doth spring\n         Each pleasant thing\n       The hungry soul to feed and satisfy.[18]\n\n\nStoupe, in his _Religion of the Dutch_,[19] gives some interesting\ncontemporary light on this branch of Collegiants whom he calls\n\"Borellists,\" as follows: \"The Borellists had their name from one\nBorrell, the Ringleader of their {120} sect, a man very learned,\nespecially in the Hebrew, Greek, and Latine tongues.  He was brother to\nMonsieur Borrell, ambassador from the States-General to his most\nChristian Majesty.  These Borrellists do for the most part maintain the\nopinions of the Mennonites though they come not to their assemblies.\nThey have made choice of a most austere kind of life, spending a\nconsiderable part of their Estates in almsgiving and a careful discharge\nof all the duties incumbent on a Christian.  They have an aversion for\nall Churches, as also for the use of the Sacraments, publick prayers, and\nall other external functions of God's Service.  They maintain that all\nChurches which are in the world and have been since the death of the\napostles and their first subsequent successors have degenerated from the\npure doctrine which they preached to the world; for this reason, that\nthey have suffered the infallible Word of God contained in the Old and\nNew Testaments to be expounded and corrupted by Doctors who are not\ninfallible and would have their own confessions, their catechisms, and\ntheir Liturgies and their sermons, which are the works of men, to pass\nfor what they really are not, to wit, for the pure Word of God.  They\nhold also that men are not to read anything but the Word of God alone\nwithout any additional application of men.\"\n\nAbrahams (b. 1622) intensified the _seeker_ aspect of the Amsterdam\ngroup, emphasizing the view that the existing Church, even in its best\nform, is only an interim-Church with no saving sacraments and no\ncompelling authority.  His position is expressed in the highly important\n\"Nineteen Articles\" which he, and his fellow-believer, David Spruyt, drew\nup in 1658, and in the further Exposition _Nader Verklaringe_ of 1659.\nThese documents present the apostolic pattern or model as the ideal of\nthe visible Church for all ages.  There neither is nor can be any other\ntrue Church.  It is essentially a Church managed, maintained, and\ngoverned through \"gifts\" bestowed by the Holy Spirit, and in this Church\neach spiritual member takes his part according to the measure of his\nspecial \"gift.\"  This pattern Church, however, {121} _fell away_ and\nbecame corrupted after the death of the apostles, and instead of this\nglorious Church an external Church was established, claiming to possess\nauthoritative officials, saving sacraments, and infallible doctrines, but\nreally lacking the inward power of the apostolic Church, no longer\nfollowing and imitating Christ, on the contrary adopting the world's way\nand the world's type of authority, and destitute of the very mark and\nessence of real Christianity, _the spirit of love_.  Through all the\napostasy of the visible Church, however, an invisible Church has survived\nand preserved the eternal ideal.  It consists of all those, in whatever\nages and lands, who have lived by their faith in Christ, have kept\nthemselves pure and stainless in the midst of a sinful world, have\npractised love, even when they have received the buffets of hate, have\nlived above division and schism and sect, and have steadily believed that\ntheir names were written in heaven and that their Church was visible to\nGod, even though none on earth called them brother, or recognized their\nmembership in the body of Christ.  Some time, in God's good time, that\ninvisible Church, which no apostasy has annulled or destroyed, will\nbecome once again a visible Church, equipped with \"gifted\" teachers and\nwith apostolic leaders as at the first, beautiful once more as a bride\nadorned for her husband, and powerful again as the irresistible sword of\nthe Spirit.\n\nBut the Reformers--Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, and even Menno Simons--have\ntaken an unwarranted course toward the reform and restoration of the\nChurch.  It was within their right and power to _improve_ the unbearable\ncondition of the outward Church, by faithfully following the plain\nteaching of the New Testament, and without usurping authority.  They,\nhowever, have not been satisfied to do what lay within the narrow limits\nof their commission.  They have ambitiously undertaken to set up again an\nauthoritative visible Church, even though they lacked the gifts of the\nSpirit for it, and were without the necessary apostolic commission.  They\ninsisted on their form of sacraments as essential to salvation; they\n{122} drew up their infallible creeds; they set up Church officials who\nwere to rule over other men's faith, and they assumed a certain divine\nright to compel the consciences of their members.  Most of the Reformers\nhave even sanctioned the use of bonds and prisons to secure uniformity of\nfaith!  The primitive apostles claimed no such right and made use of no\nsuch unspiritual methods.  Order is a good thing and is everywhere to be\nsought, but God nowhere has conferred upon the heads of His Church the\nauthority to compel conscience or to force tender souls to submit to a\nsystem which reveals in itself no inherent evidences of divine origin.\n\nThe writers of these Nineteen Articles fail to see anywhere in the world\na divinely established and spiritually endowed Church of Jesus Christ.\nThey are determined to live in purity and love, to avoid dissension and\nstrife, to guard their membership in the invisible Church, and to wait in\nfaith for the outpouring of the Spirit and the bestowal of miraculous\ngifts for the restoration of the Church in its pristine apostolic purity\nand power.  We have thus, here in Holland, an almost exact parallel to\nthe \"Seekers\" who were very numerous in England in the middle decades of\nthe seventeenth century.\n\nWe get a very interesting side-light on Galenus Abrahams in the _Journal_\nof George Fox.  William Penn and George Keith held a \"discussion\" with\nthis famous Collegiant leader in 1677, at which time the latter \"asserted\nthat nobody nowadays could be accepted as a messenger of God unless he\nconfirmed his doctrine by miracle,\"[20] and Fox says that Abrahams was\n\"much confounded and truth gained ground.\"[21]  Fox himself was not\npresent at the \"discussion,\" but he had a personal interview with\nAbrahams at about the same time as the \"discussion.\"  The interview was\nnot very satisfactory.  Fox says that he found this \"notable teacher\"\n\"very high and shy, so that he would not let me touch him nor look upon\nhim, but he bid me keep my eyes off him, for {123} he said they pierced\nhim!\"[22]  But at a later visit, in 1684, Fox found the Collegiant\ndoctor, now venerable with years, \"very loving and tender.\"  \"He\nconfessed in some measure to truth,\" Fox says, \"and we parted very\nlovingly.\"  At a meeting, held in Amsterdam a few weeks later, Abrahams\nwas among the large group of attenders, and \"was very attentive to the\ntestimony of the truth,\" and, when the meeting was over, Fox says, \"he\ncame and got me by the hand very lovingly,\"[23] and seemed no longer\nafraid of the Quaker's \"piercing eyes.\"  In spirit they were very near\ntogether, and with a little more insight on both sides the two movements\nmight have joined in one single stream.  For many years afterwards the\ncommon people, not given to nice distinctions, called the annual\ngathering of the Collegiants at Rynsburg \"the meeting of the Quakers.\"[24]\n\nThe other tendency in the movement, which received its fullest expression\nin the group of Collegiants at Rynsburg and their friends in Amsterdam,\nhad a still greater parallelism with Quakerism, in fact, the most\nimportant book which came from a member of this group--_The Light on the\nCandlestick_--is indistinguishable in its body of ideas from Quaker\nteaching, and differs only in one point, that it reveals a more\nphilosophically trained mind in the writer than does any early Quaker\nbook with the single exception of Barclay's _Apology_.  The author of\n_The Light on the Candlestick_--written originally in Dutch and published\nin 1662 under the title _Lucerna super candelabro_--was probably Peter\nBalling, though the book, with characteristic Collegiant modesty, was\npublished anonymously.  Peter Balling was one of an interesting group of\nscholarly Collegiants who became very intimate friends of Baruch Spinoza,\nand who received from the Jewish philosopher a strong impulse toward\nmystical religion.  Before they became acquainted with the young Spinoza,\nhowever, they had already received through Descartes a powerful\nintellectual awakening, {124} and had discovered that consciousness\nitself, when fully sounded, has its own unescapable evidence of God.  It\nis not possible here to turn aside and study adequately this\nextraordinary philosophical movement known as Cartesianism, beginning in\nDescartes (1596-1650) and culminating in Spinoza (1632-1677), but the\ndistinct religious influence of it is so profoundly apparent, both in\nPeter Balling and in the Quaker apologist Robert Barclay (1648-1690),\nthat a very brief review of the contribution from this source seems\nnecessary.\n\nRene Descartes, like almost every other supreme genius who has discovered\na new way and has forever shifted the line of march for the race, passed\nthrough a momentous inward upheaval, amounting to a conversion\nexperience, and emerged into a new moral and intellectual world.[25]  It\nwas on November 10, 1619, in the midst of a great campaign during the\nopening stages of the Thirty Years' War, in which at this time the young\nFrenchman was a soldier on the Roman Catholic side, that Descartes,\nsitting alone all day in a heated room of some German house, resolved to\nhave done with outworn systems of thought and with tradition, and\ndetermined to make the search for truth the object of his life.[26]  The\nnew scientific method, which was the fruit of his reflections and\nexperiments, and which has since been carried into every field of human\nresearch, does not now concern us.  The feature of his philosophy which\nimpressed these serious seekers after God was his fresh discovery of what\nis involved in the nature of self-consciousness.  Beginning with the bold\nresolution to accept nothing untested, to doubt everything in the\nuniverse that can be doubted, and to receive as truth only that which\nsuccessfully resists every attempt to doubt it, he found one absolutely\nsolid point with which to start, in the self-existence of\nself-consciousness--\"At least I who am doubting am thinking, and to think\nis to exist.\" {125} Pushing his search deeper down to see what is further\ninvolved in the constitution of this self-consciousness, he discovered a\nconsciousness of God--the idea of an infinitely perfect Being--within\nhimself, and this consciousness of God seemed to him to be the underlying\ncondition of every kind of knowledge whatever.  It turns out to be\nimpossible, he believes, to think of the \"finite\" without contrasting it,\nin implication at least, with the \"infinite\" which is therefore in\nconsciousness, just as it is impossible to talk of \"spaces\" without\npresupposing the one space of which given \"spaces\" are parts.  That we\nare oppressed with our own littleness, that we \"look before and after and\nsigh for what is not,\" that we are conscious of finiteness, means that we\npartake in some way of an infinite which reveals itself in us by an\ninherent necessity of self-consciousness.  There are, then, some ideas\nwithin us--at least there is this one idea of an infinitely perfect\nreality--_implanted_ in the very structure of our thinking self, which\ncould have come from no other source but from God, who is that infinitely\nperfect Reality.  Other things may still be doubtful, and a tinge of\nuncertainty may rest upon everything external to the mind that perceives\nthem, but _the soul and God are sure_, and, of these two certainties, God\nis as sure as the soul itself, because an idea of Him is native to the\nsoul as a necessary part of its \"furnishings,\" and is the condition of\nthinking anything at all.[27]\n\nSpinoza, though bringing to his philosophy elements which are foreign to\nDescartes, and though fusing his otherwise mathematical and logical\nsystem with the warmth and fervour of mystical experience that is wholly\nlacking in the French philosopher, carried Cartesianism to its logical\nculmination, and has given the world one of the most impressive\npresentations that ever has been given of the view that all things centre\nin God and are involved in His existence, that it belongs to the very\nnature of the {126} human mind to know God, and that all peace and\nfelicity come from \"the love of an infinite and eternal object which\nfeeds the soul with changeless and unmingled joy.\"  He, too, had his\nconversion-awakening which took him above the love of earthly things, and\nthrough it he found an unvarying centre for his heart's devotion, which\nmade his life, outwardly extremely humble, inwardly one of the noblest\nand most saintly in the history of philosophy.  \"After experience had\ntaught me,\" he writes in the opening of his early _Treatise on the\nImprovement of the Understanding_, \"that all things which are ordinarily\nencountered in common life are vain and futile~.~.~.  I at length\ndetermined to inquire if there were anything which was a TRUE GOOD,\ncapable of imparting itself, and by which alone the mind could be\naffected to the exclusion of all else; whether, indeed, anything existed\nby the discovery and acquisition of which I might have continuous and\nsupreme joy to all eternity,\" and the remainder of his life was\npenetrated by a noble passion for the Eternal, and dedicated to the\ninterpretation of the Highest Good which he had discovered, and which\nhenceforth no rival good was ever to eclipse.  Dr. A. Wolf well says of\nhim: \"His moral ardour seems almost aglow with mystic fire, and if we may\nnot call him a priest of the most high God, yet he was certainly a\nprophet of the power which makes for righteousness.\"[28]  He is giving\nhis own experience in the spiritual principle which he laid down early in\nhis life: \"So long as we have not such a clear idea of God as shall unite\nus with Him in such a way that it will not let us love anything beside\nHim, we cannot truly say that we are united with God, so as to depend\nimmediately on Him.\"[29]\n\nIt is Spinoza's primary principle that the only Reality in the universe\nis an all-inclusive Reality which is the origin, source, and explanation\nof all that is.  All human experience, either of an inward or outward\nworld, if it is to have any meaning and reality at all, involves the\n{127} existence of this inclusive Whole of Reality, that is of God.  It\nbelongs, thus, fundamentally to the nature of human consciousness to know\nGod, for if we did not know Him we should not know anything else.  The\nmoment a \"finite thing\" or a \"finite idea\" is severed from the Whole in\nwhich it has its ground and meaning, it becomes _nothing_; it is \"real\"\nonly so long as it is a part of a larger Reality, and so every attempt to\nunderstand a \"flower in a crannied wall,\" or any other object in the\nuniverse, drives us higher up until we come at last to that which is the\n_prius_ of all being and knowledge, the explanation of all that is.\n\nBut this ultimate Reality up to which all our experience carries us--if\nwe take the pains to think out what is involved in the experience--is no\nmere sum of \"finites,\" no bare aggregation of \"parts,\" no heaped-up\ntotality of separate \"units.\"  It is an Absolute Unity which binds all\nthat is into one living, organic Whole, a Divine Nature,--_natura\nnaturans_ Spinoza calls it,--and which lives and is manifested in all the\nfinite \"parts,\" in so far as they are real at all.  And as soon as the\nmind finds itself in living unity with the eternal Nature of things, and\nviews all things from their centre in God, and sees how all objects and\nevents flow from the eternal Being of God, it is \"led as by the hand to\nits highest blessedness.\"[30]  The complications of Spinoza's system, and\nthe difficulty of finding a \"way down\" from the Absolute Unity of God to\nthe differentiation of the modes of a world--_natura naturata_--here, in\nspace and time, do not now concern us.\n\nThe point of contact between Spinoza and the spiritual movement which we\nare studying is found in his central principles that God is the _prius_\nof all finite reality, that to know things or to know one's own mind\ntruly is to know God, and that a man who has formed a pure love for the\neternal is above the variations of temporal fortune, is not disturbed in\nspirit by changes in the object of his love, but loves with a love which\neternally feeds the soul with joy.\n\n{128}\n\nDuring the most important period of his intellectual and spiritual\ndevelopment, Spinoza spent three years (1660-1663) in the quiet village\nof Rynsburg, living in close and intimate contact with his Collegiant\nfriends.  It was here during these happiest years of his life, in this\nquiet retreat and surrounded with spiritually-minded men with whom he had\nmuch in common, that he wrote his _Short Treatise on God, Man and His\nWell-Being_, as well as his _Treatise on the Improvement of the\nUnderstanding_, which opens with his account of the birth of his own\nspiritual passion.  These intellectual and high-minded Collegiants had\ntheir influence upon the philosopher, and he in turn had a deep influence\nupon them.  Peter Balling translated into Dutch in 1664 Spinoza's version\nof Descartes' _Principia_, and Balling turned to his friend Spinoza for\nconsolation in his great loss occasioned by the death of his child that\nsame year,[31] while the philosopher at his death left all his\nunpublished manuscripts to another life-long intimate Collegiant friend\nof his, John Rieuwertsz.\n\n_The Light on the Candlestick_, to which we shall now turn for the ripest\nideas of the little sect, was written while Spinoza was living among the\nCollegiants in Rynsburg.  It was very quickly discovered by the Quakers,\nwho immediately recognized it as \"bone of their bone,\" and circulated it\nas a Quaker Tract.  It was translated into English in 1663 by B. F.,[32]\nwho published it with this curious title-page: \"The Light upon the\nCandlestick.  Serving for Observation of the Principal things in the Book\ncalled, _The Mystery of the Kingdom of God, &c.  Against several\nProfessors, Treated of, and written by Will Ames_.  Printed in Low Dutch\nfor the Author, 1662, and translated into English by B. F.\"\n\nThe Collegiant author, quite in the spirit and style of Spinoza, urges\nthe importance of discovering a central love for \"things which are\ndurable and incorruptible,\" \"knowing thereby better things than those to\nwhich the {129} multitude are link't so fast with love.\"  We have\noutgrown the \"toyes with which we played as children,\" there is now \"no\ndesire or moving thereunto, because we have found better things for our\nminds\"; so, too, \"all those things in which men, even to old age, so much\ndelight\" would seem like \"toyes\" if they once discovered the true Light\n\"which abides forever unchangeable,\" and if through it they got a sight\nof \"those things which are alone worthy to be known.\"  This \"true and\nlasting change,\" from \"toyes\" to \"the things which are durable and\neternal,\" can come only through an inward conversion.  When a new vision\nbegins from within, then the outward action follows of itself, but no man\nwill part with what he judges best till he sees something better, and\nthen the weaker yields to the stronger without any forcing.[33]  This\nwhole work of conversion, of transformation, of \"lasting change,\" must\nhave its origin in something within ourselves.  We cannot turn from\nbaubles and \"toyes\" and our \"desire for that which is high in the world\"\nuntil a Light from some source plainly shows us an eternal reality for\nwhich we may \"highly adventure the tryal.\"  There is, our author insists,\nonly one place where such a guiding Light could arise, and that is within\nthe soul itself, as an inward and immediate knowledge: \"'Tis not far to\nseek.  We direct thee to within thyself.  Thou oughtest to turn into, to\nmind and have regard unto, that which is within thee, to wit, the Light\nof Truth, the true Light which enlighteneth every man that cometh into\nthe world.  Here 'tis that thou must be and not without thee.  Here thou\nshalt find a Principle certain and infallible, through which increasing\nand going on into, thou mayest at length arrive unto a happy condition.\nOf this thou mayest highly adventure the tryal.  And if thou happenest to\nbe one of those that would know all things before thou dost begin~.~.~.\nknow this, Thou dost therein just as those that would learn to read\nwithout knowing the Letters.  He that will not adventure till he be fully\nsatisfied, shall never begin, much less finish {130} his own salvation.\nWe say then, that we exhort every one to turn unto the Light that's in\nhim.\"[34]\n\nIn true Cartesian fashion, he demonstrates why this Light must have its\nlocus within the soul and not in some external means or medium.  All\nknowledge that God is being revealed in external signs, or through\nexternal means, already presupposes a prior knowledge of God.  We can\njudge no doctrine, no Book to be Divine except by some inward and\nimmediate knowledge of what really is Divine.  Without this Light the\nScriptures are only Words and Letters.  But \"if we experience that the\nBook called the Bible in regard to the Divine doctrine therein comprised\nhath such a harmony with That [in us] by which God is known, that He must\nneeds have been the Author of it, there cannot rationally be any more\npowerful demonstration.\"[35]\n\nThe same principle is true with regard to every conceivable form of\nrevelation which could be made to our outward senses, whether by words,\nor by miracles, or by any other visible \"operations.\"  No finite thing\ncan bring us a knowledge of God unless we already have within us a\nsufficient knowledge of Him to make us able to appreciate and judge the\nDivine character of the particular revelation; that is to say, we must\nalready have God in order either to seek Him or to find Him; or, as\nBalling puts it, \"Unless the knowledge of God precedes, no man can\ndiscern Him.\"  God is, therefore, the prius of all knowledge: \"The\nknowledge of God must first be, before there can be knowledge of any\nparticular things,\"[36] and God must be assumed as present in the soul\nbefore any basis of truth or of religion can be found.  \"The Light is the\nfirst Principle of Religion; for, seeing there can be no true Religion\nwithout the knowledge of God, and no knowledge of God without this Light,\nReligion must necessarily have this Light for its first Principle.\"[37]\n\"Without thyself, O Man,\" he concludes, \"thou hast no {131} means to look\nfor, by which thou mayest know God.  Thou must abide within thyself; to\nthe Light that is in thee thou must turn thee; there thou wilt find it\nand nowhere else.  God is nearest unto thee and to every man.  He that\ngoes forth of himself to any creature, thereby to know God, departs from\nGod.  God is nearer unto every man than himself, because He penetrates\nthe most inward and intimate parts of man and is the Life of the inmost\nspirit.  Mind, therefore, the Light that is in thee.\"[38]\n\nThis Light--the first Principle of all Religion--is also called in this\nlittle Book by many other names.  It is \"the living Word,\" \"the Truth of\nGod,\" \"the Light of Truth\"; it is \"Christ\"; it is the \"Spirit.\"[39]  As a\nDivine Light, it reproves man of sin, shows him that he has strayed from\nGod, accuses him of the evil he commits.  It leads man into Truth, \"even\nthough he has never heard or read of Scripture\"; it shows him the way to\nGod; it gives him peace of conscience in well-doing; and, if followed and\nobeyed, it brings him into union with God, \"wherein all happiness and\nsalvation doth consist.\"[40]  It operates in all men, though in many men\nthere are serious \"impediments\" which hinder its operations--\"the lets to\nit are manifold\"--but as soon as a man turns to it and cleanses his inner\neye--removes the \"lets\"--he discovers \"a firm foundation upon which he\nmay build stable and enduring things: A Principle whereby he may, without\never erring, guide the whole course of his life, how he is to carry\nhimself toward God, his Neighbour and himself.\"[41]  The writer, having\nthus delivered his message, wishes to have it distinctly understood that\nhe is not trying to draw his readers to any new sect, or to any outward\nand visible church.  \"Go to, then, O Man,\" he says, \"whoever thou art, we\nwill not draw thee off from one heap of men to carry thee over unto\nanother, 'tis somewhat else we invite thee to!  We invite thee to\nSomething which may be a means to attain thy own {132} salvation and\nwell-being membership in the invisible Church.\"\n\nSuch is the teaching of this strange little book, written by the friend\nof Spinoza, and revealing the maturest expression of this slowly\ndeveloping spiritual movement, which began with Hans Denck and flowed\nuninterruptedly through many lives and along many channels and burst out\nfull flood in England in \"the Children of the Light,\" who were known to\nthe world as Quakers.\n\n\n\n[1] Three important books on this subject are C. B. Hylkema,\n_Reformateurs_ (Haarlem, 1902); Dr. Heinrich Heppe, _Geschichte des\nPietismus und der Mystik in der reformirten Kirche, namentlich der\nNiederlande_ (Leiden, 1879); and Wilhelm Goeters, _Die Vorbereitung des\nPietismus in der reformierten Kirche der Niederlande_ (Leipzig, 1911).\n\n[2] The biographical details of his life are given in a Preface to the\nthree-volume edition of his collected works, published in Amsterdam in\n1631.\n\n[3] The title of this work is _Zedekunst, dat is, Wellevens Kunst,\nvermits waarheydts kennisse vanden Mensche, vande Zonden ende vande\nDeughden.  Nu aldereerst beschreven in't Neerlandtsch_.  Coornhert's\n_Wercken_ (1631), i. fol. 268-3353.\n\n[4]  Two of his powerful pleas for the freedom of the mind are, _Epitome\nprocessus de occidendis haereticis et vi conscientiis inferenda_ (Gouda,\n1591), and _Defensio processus de non occidendis haereticis_ (Hannover,\n1593).\n\n[5] Gottfried Arnold, _Kirchen- und Ketzer-Historien_, ii. p. 378, sec. 3.\n\n[6] See Chap. VI.\n\n[7] _Zedekunst_, chaps. i. and ii.\n\n[8] _Zedekunst_, chaps. iv. and v.\n\n[9] Wercken, iii. fol. 413-427.  See also \"Hert-Spiegel godlycker\nSchrifturen,\" _Wercken_, i. fol. 1-44.\n\n[10] _Wercken_, iii. fol. 413-427.\n\n[11] See Arnold, _op. cit._ ii. p. 380, sec. 8.\n\n[12] His views in this particular are very similar to those of\nSchwenckfeld.\n\n[13] Arnold, _op. cit_. pp. 381-382.\n\n[14] _Wercken_, i. fol. 554 ff.\n\n[15] The best history of the Collegiants is J. C. Van Sloe's _De\nRijnsburger Collegianten_ (Haarlem, 1895).\n\n[16] One of the most tragic consequences of the controversy was the\nmartyrdom of John of Barneveldt, the political head of the Remonstrants.\nHugo Grotius was thrown into prison, but escaped through the bold\ningenuity of his wife.\n\n[17] Adam Boreel's teaching is set forth in his treatise, _Ad. legem et\ntestimonium_ (Amsterdam, 1643).  Information upon his life and teaching\nis given in Arnold, _op. cit._ ii. 386-387; in Hylkema, _Reformateurs_;\nand in Walter Schneider, _Adam Boreel_ (Giessen, 1911).\n\n[18] Henry More's _Annotations upon the Discourse of Truth_ (London,\n1682), pp. 271-276.\n\n[19] Stoupe, _La Religion des Hollandois_ (Paris, 1673), translated into\nEnglish under the title _The Religion of the Dutch_ (London, 1680).  The\nextract is from p. 82 of the French edition and pp. 26-28 of the English\nedition.\n\n[20] Sewel, _History of the People called Quakers_ (Phila. edition,\n1823), ii. p. 368.\n\n[21] _Journal_, (ed. 1901), ii. p. 310.\n\n[22] _Journal_, ii. p. 401.\n\n[23] _Ibid._ ii. pp. 401-402.\n\n[24] Simeon Friderich Rues, _Mennoniten und Collegianten_ (Jena, 1743),\np. 244.\n\n[25] See E. S. Haldane, _Descartes, His Life and Times_ (1905), pp. 51-53.\n\n[26] The autobiographical account of this experience is given in the\nopening of part ii. of the _Discourse on Method_.\n\n[27] Descartes' famous argument is found in Meditations III. and IV. of\nhis _Meditations on First Philosophy_, first published in 1641.  For an\nilluminating interpretation of the entire movement, see Edward Caird's\nEssay on Cartesianism in _Essays on Literature and Philosophy_ (1892),\nii. pp. 267-383.\n\n[28] Spinoza, _Short Treatise on God, Man, and his Well-Being_, Wolf's\nedition (London, 1910), p. 102.\n\n[29] _Ibid._ p. 40.\n\n[30] _Ethics_, part ii.  Preface.\n\n[31] See Spinoza's _Correspondence_, Letter No. XXX.\n\n[32] Benjamin Furley, a Quaker merchant of Colchester, then living in\nRotterdam.\n\n[33] _The Light upon the Candlestick_, p. 8, freely rendered.\n\n[34] _The Light upon the Candlestick_, pp. 3-4.\n\n[35] _Op. cit._ p. 10.  He uses also the Cartesian argument that there\nmust at least be as much reality in the cause as there is in the effect,\np. 12.\n\n[36] _Op. cit._  p. 12.\n\n[37] _Ibid._ p. 6.\n\n[38] _The Light upon the Candlestick_, pp. 12-13.\n\n[39] _Ibid._ pp. 4 and 9.\n\n[40] _Ibid._ p. 5.\n\n[41] _Ibid._ p. 6.\n\n\n\n\n{133}\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nVALENTINE WEIGEL AND NATURE MYSTICISM\n\nIt is a central idea of mysticism that there is a way to God through\nthe human soul.  The gate to Heaven is thus kept, not by St. Peter or\nby any other saint of the calendar; it is kept by each individual\nperson himself as he opens or closes within himself the spiritual\ncircuit of connection with God.  The door into the Eternal swings\nwithin the circle of our own inner life, and all things are ours if we\nlearn how to use the key that opens, for \"to open\" and \"to find God\"\nare one and the same thing.  The emphasis in \"Nature Mysticism\" lies\nnot so much on this direct pathway to God through the soul as upon the\nsymbolic character of the world of Nature as a visible revelation of an\ninvisible Universe, and upon the idea that man is a microcosm, a little\nworld, reproducing in epitome, point for point, though in miniature,\nthe great world, or macrocosm.  On this line of thought, _everything is\ndouble_.  The things that are seen are parables of other things which\nare not seen.  They are like printed words which _mean_ something\nvastly more and deeper than what the eye sees as it scans mere letters.\nOne indwelling Life, one animating Soul, lives in and moves through the\nwhole mighty frame of things and expresses its Life through visible\nthings in manifold ways, as the invisible human soul expresses itself\nthrough the visible body.  Everything is thus, in a fragmentary way, a\nfocus of revelation for the Divine Spirit, whose garment is this vast\nweb of the visible world.  But man in a very special way, as a complete\nmicrocosm, is a concentrated extract, a {134} comprehensive\nquintessence of the whole cosmos, visible and invisible--an image of\nGod and a mirror of the Universe.\n\nThese views have a very ancient history and unite many strands of\nhistoric thought.  They came to light in the sixteenth century with the\nrevival through Greek literature of Stoic, Neo-Platonic, and\nNeo-Pythagorean ideas.  But the Greek stream of thought as it now\nreappeared was fused with streams of thought from many other\nsources--medieval mysticism, Persian astrology, Arabian philosophy, and\nthe Jewish Cabala, which, in turn, was a fusing of many elements--and\nthe mixture was honestly believed to be genuine, revived Christianity,\nand Christ, as the new Adam, is throughout the central Figure of these\nsystems.\n\nMarsilius Ficino, the Italian Humanist, who translated Plato and the\nwritings of the Neo-Platonists into Latin and so made them current for\nthe readers of the sixteenth century, gave a profoundly mystical\ncolouring to the revived classical philosophy and identified it with\npure and unadulterated Christianity.[1]  His contemporary, Pico of\nMirandola (1463-94), joined the teachings of the Cabala with his\nNeo-Platonized Christianity and so produced a new blend.  Johann\nReuchlin (1455-1522), great German classical and Hebrew scholar, brave\nopponent of obscurantism, forerunner of the Reformation, introduced the\nNeo-Platonic and Cabalistic blend of ideas into German thought.\n\nThe Cabala, it may be said briefly, in the primary meaning of the word,\nis the doctrine received by oral tradition as an important supplement\nto the written Jewish Scriptures, but the Cabala as we know it is an\nesoteric system which was formed under the influence of many streams of\nancient thought-systems, and which came into vogue about the thirteenth\ncentury, though its devout adherents claimed that it had been orally\ntransmitted through the intervening ages from Adam in Paradise.\nAccording to the teaching of the Cabala, the original Godhead, called\n_En-Soph_, the Infinite, is in essence {135} incomprehensible and\nimmutable, and capable of description only in negations.  God, the\nEn-Soph, is above and beyond contact with anything finite, material, or\nimperfect.  It would be blasphemous to suppose that God the infinitely\nperfect, God the absolutely immutable One, by direct act made a world\nof matter or created a realm of existence marked with evil as this\nlower realm of ours is.  Instead of supposing a creative act,\ntherefore, the Cabala supposes a series of emanations, or overflows of\ndivine splendour, arranged in three groups of threes, called\n_Sephiroth_, which reveal all that is revealable in God, and by means\nof which invisible and visible worlds come into being.  These\n_Sephiroth_, or orders of emanation, are _thoughts_ of the Wisdom of\nGod become objectively and permanently real, just because He thought\nthem; and though He is vastly, inexhaustibly more than they, yet He is\nactually immanent in them and the ground of their being.  They are (1)\nthe intelligible world, or world of creative ideas; (2) the world of\nspiritual forms, such as the hierarchies of angels, souls, and the\nentire universe of immaterial beings, the world of astral substance or\nof creative soul-matter; and (3) the natural world, in which the divine\nplan of Wisdom, the creative ideas, and the astral soul become visibly\nand concretely revealed.  Man unites all the worlds in himself, and in\nhis unfallen state as Adam-Cadmon combined all men in one ideal,\nundifferentiated Man.  The visible world is full of hints and symbols\nof the invisible, and the initiated learn to read the _signs_ of things\nseen, the meanings of sacred letters, and so to discover the secrets\nand mysteries of the inner world.  The Cabala is full of unrestrained\noriental imagination, of fancies run riot, and of symbolisms ridden to\ndeath.  Its confusion of style and thought and its predilection for\nmagic unfortunately proved contagious, and played havoc with the\nproductions of those who came under its spell.  Its marvels, however,\npowerfully impressed the minds of its German readers.  Through it they\nbelieved they were privileged to share in mysteries which had been hid\nfrom the creation of the world, and {136} they conceived the idea that\nthey had at last discovered a clue that would eventually lead them into\nall the secrets of the universe.[2]\n\nCornelius Agrippa of Nettesheim (1487-1535) by his writings increased\nthe prevailing fascination for occult knowledge and pushed this\nparticular line of speculation into an acute stage.  He was a man of\nlarge learning and of heroic temper, and, possessed as he was of\nundoubted gifts, in a different period and in a different environment\nhe would, no doubt, have played a notable part in the development of\nhuman thought.  But he became enamoured in his youth with the\nadventurous quest for the discovery of Nature's stupendous secrets, and\nunder the spell of the Cabala, and under the influence of eager\nexpectations entertained in his day by men of rank and learning, that\nfresh light was about to dawn upon the ancient mysteries of the world,\nhe took the false path of magic as the way to the conquest of the great\nsecret.  It was, however, not the crude, cheap magic of popular fancy,\na magic of mad and lawless caprice, to which he was devoted; it was a\nmagic grounded in the nature of the deeper inner world which he\nbelieved was the Soul of the world we see and touch.  The English\ntranslator of Agrippa's _Occult Philosophy_ in 1651 very clearly\napprehended and stated in his quaint \"Preface to the Judicious Reader,\"\nthe foundation idea of Agrippa's magic: \"This is,\" he says, \"true and\nsublime Occult Philosophy--to understand the mysterious influence of\nthe intellectual world upon the celestial world, and of both upon the\nterrestrial world, and to know how to dispose and fit ourselves so as\nto be capable of receiving the _superior operations of these worlds,\nwhereby we may be enabled to operate wonderful things by a natural\npower_.\"[3]  That saying precisely defines Agrippa's faith.  There are,\nhe thinks, {137} three worlds: (1) the Intellectual world; (2) the\nCelestial, or Astral, world; and (3) the Terrestrial world; and man,\nwho is a microcosm embodying in himself all these worlds, may, in the\ninnermost ground of his being, come upon a divine knowledge which will\nenable him to unlock the mysteries of all worlds and to \"operate\nwonderful things.\"  In quite other ways than Agrippa dreamed, science\nhas found the keys to many of these mysteries, and has learned how to\n\"operate wonderful things by a natural power.\"  His enthusiasm and\npassion were right, but he had not learned the slow and patient and\nlaborious way.\n\nA still greater figure in this field of occult knowledge and of nature\nmysticism was the far-travelled man and medical genius, Aureolus\nTheophrastus Bombast, of Hohenheim, generally known as Paracelsus.  He\nwas born in 1493 in the neighbourhood of Einsiedeln, not far from\nZurich, the son of a physician of repute.  He studied in the University\nof Basle, and later was instructed by Trithemius, Abbot of St. Jacobs\nat Wurtzburg, an adept in magic, alchemy, and astrology.  He passed a\nlong period--probably ten years--of his later youth in travel, studying\nhumanity at close range, gathering all sorts of information, forming\nhis theories of diseases and their cure, and learning to know Nature\n\"by treading her Books, through land after land, with his feet,\" which,\nhe once testified, is the only way of knowing her truly.[4]\n\nIn 1525 he settled in Basle, and, on the recommendation of\nOEcolampadius was appointed professor of physic, medicine, and surgery\nin 1527, but his revolutionary teaching and practice, his scorn for\ntraditional methods, his attacks on the ignorance and greed of\napothecaries raised a storm which he could not weather, and he secretly\nleft the city in 1528.  Again he became a wanderer, having\nextraordinary experiences of success and defeat, treating all manner of\ndiseases, writing books on medicine and on the fundamental nature of\nthings, and finally died at Salzburg in Bavaria in 1541.\n\nParacelsus is a strange and baffling character.  He had {138} much of\nthe spirit of the new age, tangled with many of the ideas and fancies\nof his time.  His aspirations were lofty, his medical skill was unique\nfor his day, he was in large measure liberated from tradition, and he\nwas dedicated, as Browning truly represents him, to his mission, but he\nwas still under the spell of \"mystic\" categories, and he still held the\nfaith that Nature's secrets were to be suddenly surprised by an inward\nway and by an inward Light:\n\n  Truth is within ourselves; it takes no rise\n  From outward things, whate'er you may believe.\n  There is an inmost centre in us all,\n  Where truth abides in fulness; and around,\n  Wall upon wall, the gross flesh hems it in,\n  This perfect, clear perception--which is truth,\n  A baffling and perverting carnal mesh\n  Binds it, and makes all error: and, to KNOW,\n  Rather consists in opening out a way\n  Whence the imprisoned splendour may escape,\n  Than in effecting entry for a light\n  Supposed to be without.[5]\n\n\nThere are, again, in his Universe, as in the other occult systems,\nthree elemental worlds--the spiritual or intellectual world, the astral\nworld or universal Soul, and the terrestrial world; and all three\nworlds are man's \"mothers.\"  Man is a quintessence of all the elements,\nvisible and invisible.  He has a spiritual essence within him which is\nan emanation of God; he has an astral-soul essence, from the Soul of\nthe world; and he partakes, too, of the material and earthly world.\nHis supreme aim in life should be to establish, or rather re-establish,\na harmony between his own little world and the great Universe, so that\nall the worlds have their right proportions in him, and so that through\nhis highest essence he can win the secrets of the lower worlds--the\nastral and the material.  To accomplish _that_ is to be spiritual, to\nbecome like Adam, {139} a paradisaical Man, or like Christ the new\nAdam.  Even the lowest world is penetrated with the spiritual \"seed\" or\n\"element.\"  The very basic substances of which it is composed--sulphur,\nmercury, and salt--are in essence spiritual principles, elemental\nforces, rather than crude matter, and the lower world is written over,\nlike a palimpsest, with \"signatures\" of the divine world to which it\nbelongs.  All doors into all the worlds of God open to faith and\nprayer, and he who subordinates lower elements in himself to higher has\npower and potency in all realms.\n\nBut far more important for the development of spiritual religion, and\nfar more important as a living link between Reformers like Denck,\nSchwenckfeld, and Franck of the sixteenth century, and Jacob Boehme and\nthe spiritual interpreters of the English Commonwealth, was Valentine\nWeigel, Pastor of Zschopau.  Like so many of the men who figure in\nthese chapters, he is little known, seldom read, not a quick and\npowerful name in the world, but he is worth knowing, and he was the\nbearer of a burning and kindling torch of truth.  He was born at\nNaundorf, a suburb of Grossenhain, District of Meissen, in 1533.  He\nreceived the Bachelor's and Master's degree of the University of\nLeipzig, and he pursued his studies still further in the University of\nWittenberg, his study-period having continued until 1567.  In the\nautumn of that year he was ordained and called to be Pastor of\nZschopau, where he passed as a minister his entire public life, which\ncame to a peaceful end in 1588.  He was an ideal pastor and true\nshepherd of his flock--loving them and being beloved by them.  His\nministry was fresh and vital, and made his hearers _feel_ the presence\nand the power of the Spirit of God.\n\nThere was, so far as I can discover the facts, only one blemish on his\nreally beautiful character.  He lacked that robust, unswerving\nconscience which compels a man who sees a new vision of the truth to\nproclaim it, to champion it, and to suffer and even die for it when it\ncomes into collision with views which his own soul has outgrown.  {140}\nWeigel was resolved not to have his heart's deepest faith, his mind's\nmost certain truth, known, at least during his lifetime, by the persons\nwho were the guardians of orthodoxy.  He signed the \"Confessions\" of\nhis time as though they expressed his own convictions; he counted it a\nduty of the first importance to guard his pastoral flock from the\ndistractions and assaults of heresy-hunters, and he left his matured\nand deeply meditated views for posterity to discover.  How far he was\npersonally timid cannot now be determined.  It would seem, however,\nfrom his own words,[6] that he was especially concerned for the safety\nand welfare of his own flock, who would suffer if he were cried down as\nan enthusiast or a spiritual prophet.  But even so, it is very doubtful\nif any man can rightly permit anything on earth to take precedence to\nhis own loyalty to the vision of truth which his soul sees.  As a\nresult, however, of the course he took, he died in good odour of\nsanctity, and the epigones of that day had no suspicion of the ideas\nthat were swarming in the mind of the quiet Pastor of Zschopau, or of\nthe mass of manuscripts proclaiming his faith in the inner Word which\nhe was leaving behind him, to fly over the world like the loose leaves\nof the Sibyl.\n\nHis writings were not printed until 1609 and onwards, and as his\ndisciples went on producing writings, somewhat in the style and spirit\nof the master who inspired them, the list of books in Weigel's name is\nconsiderably larger than the actual number of manuscripts extant at his\ndeath in 1588.  It is not always easy to distinguish the\npseudo-writings from the genuine ones, but there is a vividness and\npregnancy of style, a spiritual depth and power in the earlier writings\nwhich are lacking in the later group, and there is an emphasis on the\nmagical and occult in the secondary writings that is largely absent in\nthe primary ones.[7]  The most important of his books will be referred\nto and quoted from as I present his type of religion and his message,\nbut I shall draw especially upon his little {141} book, _Von dem Leben\nChristi, das ist, vom wahren Glauben_ (\"On the Life of Christ, or True\nFaith\"), as it is the one of Weigel's writings which, in English\ntranslation, most deeply influenced kindred spirits in the English\nCommonwealth.[8]\n\nHis spiritual conception of Christianity was formed and fed by the\nsermons of Tauler, and by that little book which was \"the hidden Manna\"\nfor all the spiritual leaders of these two centuries--the _German\nTheology_.  Weigel edited it with an introduction.  He calls it \"a\nprecious little book,\" \"a noble book\"; but he tells his readers that\nthey can understand it and find it fruitful only if they read it \"with\na pure eye\" and with \"the key of David,\" _i.e._ with a personal\nexperience.  But while he loved the golden book of mysticism and the\nsermons of the great Strasbourg preacher, and was led by the hand of\nthese guides, he drew also from many other sources and finally arrived\nat a type of religion, still interior and personal, but less negative\nand abstract than that of the fourteenth-century mystics, and more\npenetrated and informed with the presence of the Christ of the Gospels.\nHe insists always that in the last analysis it is Christ in us that\nsaves us, but it was Christ in the flesh, the Christ of Galilee and\nGolgotha, that revealed to men the way to apprehend the inward and\neternal Christ of God.  \"The indwelling Christ,\" he wrote, \"is all in\nall.  He saves thee.  He is thy peace and thy comfort.  The outward\nChrist, the Christ in the flesh, and according to the flesh, cannot\nsave thee in an external way.  He must be in thee and thou must abide\nin Him.  Why then did He become man and suffer on the Cross?  There are\nmany reasons why, but it was especially that God by the death and\nsuffering of Christ might take the wrath and hostility out of _our_\nhearts, on account of which we falsely conceive of God as a wrathful\nenemy to us.  He had to deal that way with poor blind men like us and\nso reconcile us with Himself.  {142} There was no need of it on His\npart.  He was always Love and He always loved us, even when we were\nenemies to Him, but we should never have known it if God had not\ncondescended to show Himself to us in His Son and had not suffered for\nus.\"[9]\n\nWeigel everywhere maintains Christ's double identity--an identity with\nGod, so that in Christ we see God; and an equal identity with man, so\nthat Christ is man revealed in his fulfilled possibilities.  In Him God\nand man are _one_.  In this deep-lying and fundamental idea of his\nentire Christianity he was undoubtedly influenced, profoundly\ninfluenced, by Schwenckfeld.  He presents in chapter i. of his _Life of\nChrist_ the Schwenckfeldian view that Christ is God and Man in _one_.\nBut He is Man not in the crass, crude and earthly form: He is not\ncomposed of mortal and earthly substance as our \"Adamical bodies\" are.\nHe is wholly and absolutely composed of heavenly, spiritual, divine\nsubstance.  His flesh and blood are as divine and spiritual in origin\nas is His spirit, so that His resurrection and ascension are the normal\noutcome of His nature.  It was as natural for Him to rise into life and\nto ascend into glory as it is for heavy things to fall.  But that\ndivine, spiritual, heavenly nature, which appeared in Him, is the true,\noriginal, consummate nature of Man.  Man, as we know him, is cloudy, or\neven muddy, with a vesture of decay, but that is not a feature of his\n_real_ nature--either in its original or its potential form--and all\nwho \"put on Christ,\" all who have \"Christ in them,\" become one flesh\nwith Him and gain an indestructible and permanent inward substance like\nHis.\n\nConsistently with this view, Weigel declares that here lies the\nsignificance of Christ's saying, \"I am Bread\"; \"I am Meat and Drink.\"\nThe only adequate Supper of the Lord, he says, is real feeding upon His\nspiritual, life-giving flesh and blood, so that Salvation is not tied\nto external sacraments, but stands only in the faith that Christ feeds\nus with Himself.[10]  There are, he proceeds to show, two radically\ndiverse natures, the traits and {143} characteristics of which he\narranges in opposing pairs, in two parallel columns as follows:\n\n  A.  The Nature of Christ and           B.  The nature of Adam and\n      of those who live in Him               those who live by him,\n      and by Him.                            _i.e._ those who live the\n                                             natural, earthly life.\n\n  1.  This  Nature  turns  from          1.  This nature turns from God\n      creatures to God.                      to creatures.\n\n  2.  This Nature hates itself and       2.  This nature loves itself\n      loves others.                          more than it loves God or\n                                             others.\n\n  3.  This Nature abhors all it          3.  This nature delights only\n      itself does or omits.                  in itself and in things of\n                                             self.\n\n  4.  This Nature seeks to lose          4.  This nature seeks itself in\n      self.                                  everything.\n\n  5.  This Nature denies self.           5.  This nature cleaves to self.\n\n  6.  This Nature patiently bears        6.  This nature thrusts the\n      the Cross.                             Cross away.\n\n\n 15.  This Nature desires to be         15.  This nature desires to be\n      conformed to Christ and                equal with God without\n      His Cross in all things.               any humility at all.[11]\n\n\nChrist is thus for Weigel entirely a new order of Being--the Beginner\nof a new race.  Adam had in himself all the possibilities which Christ\nrealized, but the former failed and the latter succeeded and so has\nbecome the Head of a divine and heavenly type of humanity.  By \"a new\nnativity,\" a rebirth from above, any man in the world who wills it in\nliving faith may be a recipient of the divine-principle, the\nChrist-Life, and may thereby be raised to membership in the Kingdom of\nthe Christ-Humanity, which is as far above the Adam-Humanity as the\nflower is above the soil from which it first sprang.  When Christ is\nformed within and the Humanity which He produces appears in the world,\nthen a new way of living comes into operation.  Love is the supreme\n\"sign\" of the new type or order.  \"The man who has the Christ-Life in\nhim does not quarrel; he does not go to law for temporall goods; he\ndoes not kill; he lets his coat and cloke go rather than oppose\nanother.\"[12]  \"If Christ were of the seed of Adam, He would have the\n{144} nature and inclinations of Adam.  He would hang thieves, behead\nadulterers, rack murderers with the wheel, kill hereticks, and put\ncorporeally to death all manner of sinners; but now He is tender, kind,\nloving.  He kills no one.  The Lamb kills no woolf.\"[13]  Weigel goes\nthe whole bold way in his revolt from legalism, and he accepts the\nprinciple of love as a structural principle of the society which Christ\nis forming in the world: \"Where the Life of Christ is, there is no\nwarre made with corporall weapons.\"  \"The world wars but Christ doth\nnot so.  His warfare is spiritual.\"  \"He that maketh warre is no\nChristian but a woolf, ana belongs not to the sheepfold nor hath he\nanything to expect of the Kingdom of God, nor may the warrs of the Old\nTestament, of the time of darknesse serve his turne, for Christians\ndeal not after a Mosaicall, earthly fashion, but they walke in the Life\nof Christ, without all revenge.\"  \"We walk no longer under Moses but\nunder Christ.\"[14]\n\nThe Christian man, however, even with his new \"nativity\" and with his\nre-created spirit of love, differs in one respect from Christ.  Christ\nis wholly heavenly, His Nature is woven throughout of spiritual and\ndivine substance.  There is no rent nor seam in it.  Man, on the other\nhand, is double, and throughout his temporal period he remains double.\nBy his new \"nativity\" man can become inwardly spirit though he remains\noutwardly composed of flesh.[15]\n\nBefore the \"fall\" Adam was unsundered from God.  It was sin which made\nthe cleft or rent which separated God and man.  Through Christ, the new\nand heavenly Adam, the _junction_ may be formed again in man's inner\nself, and once again God and man in us may be unsundered.  The flesh is\nnot destroyed, but it ceases to be the dominating factor.  It serves\nnow merely as the \"habitation\" of an invisible spirit, and it exists\nfor the spirit, not the spirit for it.[16]  Not only is the body a\n{145} \"habitation\" for the Christ-formed soul, but the world now\nbecomes to the enlightened soul an Inn for a transient guest rather\nthan a permanent abiding-place: \"like as in an Inne there is meat set\nbefore the guest and bedding is allowed to him, even so Christians are\nin this world guests and their country is above.\"  \"It is not fitting\nfor a guest that comes into an Inne, where nothing is his own, that he\nshould appropriate things to himself and quarrel about them!\"[17]\n\nAs fast as Christ is formed within, as the Life of one's life, the\nbeliever attains thereby a peace and a power which make the \"rent\"\nbetween flesh and spirit ever less disturbing, though it still remains\nuntil the fleshly tabernacle dissolves.  The goal of the spiritual life\nhere on earth is the attainment of \"the silent Sabbath of the soul,\" in\nwhich God becomes so completely the soul's sufficiency that the flesh\nhas little scope or sway any more, and there is no longer need of\nfurious struggle against it, \"like a serpent between two rocks, trying\nto pull off his old skin!\"[18]  In his _Heavenly Jerusalem in Us_, he\nsays: \"It is an attribute of God that He is the Eternal Peace which is\nlonged for by us men, but found by few because they do not _mind\nChrist_, who is the Way.  God has not grounded either thy Peace or thy\nSalvation on thy running hither and yon, nor on thy works and thy\ncreaturely activities, but on an inner calm and quiet, on a Sabbath of\nthe soul, in which thou canst hear, with the simple and the\ntender-minded, what the Lord is saying and doing.\"[19]\n\nIn close conformity to the teaching of Sebastian Franck,[20] Weigel\nthinks of the Church of God as an invisible Assembly of all true\nBelievers in the entire world, united, not outwardly but inwardly, in\nthe unity of the Spirit and by the bond of Love and Peace.  There are\nfor him, as for Franck and other \"Spirituals,\" two kinds of churches:\n(1) The church composed of a visible group, {146} \"to be pointed out\nwith the finger,\" located in a definite country, allied with a temporal\ngovernment, held together by a body of doctrine, \"tied to\" certain\nsacraments and possessed of force to constrain men, by \"carnall\nperswasions,\" to conform.[21]  Then there is (2) the real Church of\nGod, \"the upper Jerusalem,\" a body visible in no one locality, but\ndispersed over the earth like wheat in chaff, held together by no\ndeclarations of doctrine, tied to no sacraments, dependent on no\nearthly Lieutenant or Vice-gerent, and on no university-trained\nDoctors, which recognizes Prince and Ploughman alike, and secures its\nunity through Christ and through the invisible cement of Love.  \"To\nthis Assembly,\" writes Weigel, \"doe I stick; in this holy Church doe I\nrejoice to be. . . .  Jesus Christ is my Head, my Teacher.  He is\neverywhere with me and in me, and I in Him.  Although the Protestants\nshould chase me amongst Papists or Atheists, yet I should still be in\nthe holy Church and should have all the heavenly Gifts common to all\nBelievers, and although the Papists should banish me into Turkey, yet\neven there should I be in the holy Church.\"[22]\n\nNo book appeared in England before 1648--the date of the translation of\nWeigel's _Life of Christ_--which more closely approached the Quaker\nposition.  That religion must have an inward seat and origin; that\ndivine things must be learned of God, are taken as axiomatic truths\nthroughout this book.  If a man is to _see_, he must have eyes of his\nown; if he is to teach, he must have the Word of God within him.\nPeople say that \"there can be no true Faith without outward preaching\nministry.\"  That is not so, Weigel declares.  The way to heaven is open\nto hungry penitent souls everywhere, although, as is the case with\ninfants, they may hear no sermons at all: \"Faith comes by inward\nhearing.  Good books, outward verbal ministry have their place, they\ntestify to the real Treasure, they are witnesses to the inner Word\nwithin us, but Faith is not tied to books; it is a new nativity which\n{147} cannot be found in a book.  He who hath the inward Schoolmaster\nloseth nothing of his Salvation although all preachers should be dead\nand all books burned.\"[23]  Many take great pains to be baptized, and\n\"to hear sermons of their hired priests,\" and to use the Lord's Supper,\nand to read theological books, who, nevertheless, show no \"spiritual\nprofit\" therefrom.  The reason is that \"Truth runs into no one by a\npipe!\"[24]  \"In the Church of men--the man-made Church--the\nmeasuring-line,\" or standard, he says, is the written Scripture,\naccording to one's own interpretation, or according to books, or\naccording to University men; but in the true Church the measuring-reed\nis the inward Word, the Spirit of Christ, within the believer.  Those\nwho are in the Universities and Churches of men have Christ in their\nmouths, and they have a measuring-reed by their side--the inhabitants\nof God's Church on the other hand have the Life of Christ and the\ntesting-standard within themselves.[25]  Those who are \"nominal\nprofessors\" hang salvation on a literal knowledge of the merit secured\nby Christ's death; the true believer knows that salvation is never a\npurchase, is never outwardly effected, but is a new self, a new spirit,\na new relation to God: \"Man must cease to be what he is before he can\ncome to be another kind of person.\"[26]  Outward baptism and external\nsupper may, if one wishes, be used as symbols of the soul's supreme\nevents, but they cannot rightly be thought of as effecting any change\nof themselves in the real nature of the man; only Christ the\nLife-bringer, only the resident work of God within the soul, can\nproduce the transformation from old self to new self.  \"Salvation is\nnot tyed to sacraments.\"[27]\n\nIt is a well-settled view of Weigel's that Heaven and Hell are\nprimarily in the soul of man.  He says, in _Know Thyself_, that both\nthe Trees of Paradise are in us; and in his _Ort der Welt_ he declares\nthat \"the Eternal Hell of the lost will be their own Hell.\"[28]  And in\nhis _Christliches {148} Gespraech_ he insists that the holy Spirit, the\npresent Christ, does not need to _come down_ from Heaven to meet with\nus, for when He is in our hearts there then is Heaven.[29]  No person\ncan ever be in Heaven until Heaven is in him.\n\nIn _Der gueldene Griff_ and elsewhere Weigel works out a very\ninteresting theory of knowledge, which fits well with the inwardness of\nhis religious views.  He holds that in sense perception the percipient\nbrings forth his real _knowledge_ from within.  The external \"object,\"\nor the outward stimulus, is the soliciting occasion, or suggestion, or\nthe sign for the experience, but what we see is determined from within\nrather than from without.  All real knowledge is in the knower.  Both\nexternal world and written scriptures are in themselves _shadows_ until\nthe inward spirit interprets them, and through them comes to the Word\nof God which they suggest and symbolize.\n\nWeigel plainly arrived at his ground ideas under the formative\ninfluence of Schwenckfeld and Franck, but he also reveals, especially\nin his conception of the deeper inner world and of the microcosmic\ncharacter of man, the influence of Paracelsus and of the nature mystics\nof his time.  He was himself, in turn, a most important influence in\nthe development of the religious ideas of Jacob Boehme, and he is\nhistorically one of the most significant men of the entire spiritual\ngroup before the great Silesian mystic.[30]\n\nThis chapter cannot come to a proper close without some consideration\nof a Weigelean book which was translated into English in 1649, under\nthe title, \"_Astrologie Theologized_: That the Inward man by the Light\nof Grace, through possession and practice of a holy life, is to be\nacknowledged and live in us: which is the only means to keep the true\nSabbath in inward holinesse.\" {149} The anonymous translator ascribes\nthe book to Weigel.  It is, in fact.  Part Two of [Greek] _Gnothi\nSeauton_, but it is uncertain whether it was written by Weigel himself.\nBut whether written by Weigel or later by one of his school, it is a\ngood illustration of the way in which mystically inclined Christians of\nthat period endeavoured to make spiritual conquest of the prevailing\nAstrology and, through its help, to discover the nature of the inner,\nhidden universe.  Astrology, this little book declares, is \"conversant\nwith the secrets of God which are hidden in the natural things of\ncreation.\"  It is the science of reading the unseen through the seen,\nfor, according to the teaching of this book, everything visible is an\nunveiling of something invisible.  Man--who is a centre of the whole\nuniverse, who has in himself elements of all the worlds, inner and\nouter--\"is created to be a visible Paradise, Garden, Tabernacle,\nMansion, House, Temple and Jerusalem of God.\"  All the wisdom, power,\nvirtue, and glory of God are hidden and are slumbering in man.  There\nis nothing so near to man as God is--\"He is nearer to us than we are to\nourselves\"[31]--and the only reason we do not find Him and know Him and\nopen out our life _interiorly_, so that the true Sabbath comes to the\nsoul, is due to our \"vagabond and unquiet ways of keeping busy with our\nown will, outside our internal country.\"  If I could desist from the\nthings with which I vex and worry myself, and study to be at rest in my\nGod who dwells with me; if I could accustom my mind to spiritual\ntranquillity and cease to wander in a maze of thoughts, cares, and\naffections; if I could be at leisure from the external things and\ncreatures of this world, and chiefly from myself; if, in short, I might\n\"come into a plenary dereliction of myself,\" I should at once \"begin to\nsee and know of the most present habitation of God in me and so I\nshould eat of the Tree of Life in the midst of the Paradise, _which\nParadise I myself am_, and be a Guest of God.\"[32]  Adam, who was \"the\nProtoplast\" and begetter of all men, and who, like everything else in\nthe universe, was \"double,\" {150} allowed himself to live toward the\noutward instead of toward the inward, permitted the seed of the serpent\nto grow in him instead of the divine seed, and so came under the\ndominance of the natural, elemental world, with its \"lesser light\" of\nknowledge and with its \"tree of death.\"  But the Paradise, with its\ngreater Light of Wisdom and with its Tree of Life, is always near to\nman and can be repossessed and regained by him.  The outer elements,\nand the astral world with its visible stars, _rule_ no one, determine\nno one.  Each man's \"star\" is in his own breast.  It lies in his own\npower to \"theologize his astrologie,\" to turn his universe into\nspiritual forces.  By \"a new nativity,\" initiated by obedient response\nto the inward Light--the spiritual Star, not of earth and not of the\nastral universe, but of God the indwelling Spirit--he may put on the\nnew man, created after the likeness of God, and become the recipient of\nheavenly Wisdom springing up within him from the Life of the Spirit.[33]\n\nThere can be no question in the mind of any one who is familiar with\nthe literature and religious thought of seventeenth-century England,\nthat the ideas set forth in this chapter exerted a wide and profound\ninfluence, and were a part of the psychological climate of the middle\ndecades of that century.  The channel here indicated was only one of\nthe ways through which these ideas came in.  In due time we shall\ndiscover other channels of this spiritual message.\n\n\n\n[1] Ficino is dealt with at greater length in Chapter XIII.\n\n[2] The Cabala was, as I have tried to make clear, only one of the\ninfluences which produced this new intellectual climate.  The\nrediscovered \"Hermes Trismegistus,\" the mystically coloured Platonism,\nas it came from Italy, the awakened interest in Nature and in man, and\nthe powerful message of the German Mystics all played an important part\ntoward the formation of the new _Weltanschauung_.\n\n[3] _Three Books of Occult Philosophy_, translated by J. F. (London,\n1651).\n\n[4] Stoddart's Life of Paracelsus (London, 1911), p. 76.\n\n[5] Browning, _Paracelsus_, B. i.  This passage fairly represents\nParacelsus' general position.  \"There is,\" he says in his\n_Philosophia sagax_, \"a Light in the spirit of man which illuminates\neverything. . . .  The quality of each thing created by God, whether\nit be visible or invisible to the senses, may be perceived and\nknown. If man knows the essence of things, their attributes, their\nattractions, and the elements of which they consist, he will be a\nMaster of nature, of the elements, and of the spirits.\"\n\n[6] _Christliches Gespraech_, chap. iii.\n\n[7] There is an excellent critical study of Weigel's writings by A.\nIsrael, entitled, _Weigels Leben und Schriften nach den Quellen\ndargestellt_ (Zschopau, 1888).\n\n[8] \"Of the Life of Christ, That is, Of True Faith which is the Rule,\nSquare, Levell or Measuring Line of the Holy City of God and of the\nInhabitants thereof here on Earth.  Written in the German Language by\nValentine Weigelus.\" (London, Giles Calvert, 1648.)\n\n[9] Quoted from Israel, _op. cit._ p. 107.\n\n[10] _On the Life of Christ_, part i. chap. ii.\n\n[11] _On the Life of Christ_, part i. chap. iii.\n\n[12] _Ibid._ part i. chap. viii.\n\n[13] _On the Life of Christ_, part i. chap. ix.\n\n[14] _Ibid._ part ii. chap. ix.; part i. chap. x.; part ii. chap. x.;\nand part. i. chap. xiv.\n\n[15] _Ibid._ part ii. chaps. iii. and iv.\n\n[16] This is the view set forth in his [Greek] _Gnothi Seauton_ [Know\nThyself].\n\n[17] _On the Life of Christ_, part ii. chaps. v. and vii.\n\n[18] _Ibid._ part i. chap. viii.\n\n[19] _Vom himmlischen Jerusalem in uns_, chap. viii.\n\n[20] Weigel enjoins his readers to read Franck's book on \"the Tree of\nthe Knowledge of Good and Evil.\"  See _On the Life of Christ_, part ii.\np. 57.\n\n[21] \"Faith,\" he says, \"cannot be forced into any person by gallows or\npillory.\"  _On the Life of Christ_, part i. chap. xv.\n\n[22] _Ibid._ part ii. chap. xiv.  This is built on a passage in\nFranck's _Apologia_.\n\n[23] _On the Life of Christ_, part i. chaps. iv. and v.\n\n[24] _Ibid._ part i. chap. vi.\n\n[25] _Ibid._ part i. chaps. xii. and xiii.\n\n[26] Quoted from Tauler by Weigel, _ibid._ chap. vii.  See also part\niii. chap. i.\n\n[27] _Ibid._ part ii. chap. ii.\n\n[28] _Op. cit._ chap. xx.\n\n[29] _Christ. Gespraech_, chap. ii.\n\n[30] In his _Der gueldene Griff_, he tells of a personal spiritual\n\"opening\" which is very similar to the one which occurred later in the\nlife of Boehme.  He found himself astray in \"a wilderness of darkness\"\nand he cried to God for Light to enlighten his soul.  \"_Suddenly,_\" he\nsays, \"_the Light came and my eyes were opened so that I saw more\nclearly than all the teachers in all the world with all their books\ncould teach me._\"  Chap. xxiv.\n\n[31] _Astrologie Theologized_, p. 8.\n\n[32] _Ibid._ pp. 16-17.\n\n[33] This little book refers with much appreciation to Theophrastus\nParacelsus.  It uses his theory of \"first matter\" and his doctrine of\n\"the seven governours of the world,\" which we shall meet in a new form\nin Boehme.  Another book which carried astrological ideas into\nreligious thought in a much cruder way was Andreas Tentzel's _De\nratione naturali arboris vitae et scientiae boni et mali_, etc., which\nwas Pars Secunda of his _Medicinii diastatica_ (Jena, 1629).  It was\ntranslated into English in 1657 by N. Turner with the title: \"The\nMumial Treatise of Tentzelius, being a natural account of the Tree of\nLife and of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, with a mystical\ninterpretation of that great Secret, to wit, the Cabalistical\nConcordance of the Tree of Life and Death, of Christ and Adam.\" Tentzel\nwas a famous doctor and disciple of Paracelsus and \"flourished\" in\nGermany during the first half of the seventeenth century.\n\n\n\n\n{151}\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nJACOB BOEHME: HIS LIFE AND SPIRIT[1]\n\nFew men have ever made greater claim to be the bearer of a new\nrevelation than did the humble shoemaker-prophet of Silesia, Jacob\nBoehme.  \"I am,\" he wrote in his earliest book, \"only a very little\nspark of God's Light, but He is now pleased in this last time to reveal\nthrough me what has been partly concealed from the beginning of the\nWorld,\"[2] and he admonished the reader, if he would understand what is\nwritten, to let go opinion {152} and conceit and heathenish wisdom, and\nread with the Light and Power of the Holy Spirit, \"for this book comes\nnot forth from Reason, but by the impulse of the Spirit.\"[3]  \"I have\nnot dared,\" he wrote to a friend in 1620, \"to write otherwise than was\ngiven and indited to me.  I have continually written as the Spirit\ndictated and have not given place to Reason.\"[4]  Again and again he\nwarns the reader to let his book alone unless he is ready for a new\ndawning of divine Truth, for a fresh Light to break: \"If thou art not a\nspiritual overcomer, then let my book alone.  Do not meddle with it,\nbut _stick to thy old matters_!\"[5]\n\nBefore the Spirit came upon him, he felt himself to be a \"little\nstammering child,\" and he always declared that without this Spirit he\ncould not comprehend even his own writings--\"when He parteth from me, I\nknow nothing but the elementary and earthly things of this\nworld\"[6]--but with this divine Spirit unfolding within him \"the\nprofoundest depth\" of mysteries, he believed, though with much\nsimplicity and generally with humility, that the true ground of things\nhad \"not been so fully revealed to any man from the beginning of the\nworld\"--\"but,\" he adds, \"seeing God will have it so, I submit to His\nwill.\"[7]  Nobody before him, he declares, no matter how learned he\nwas, \"has had the ax by the handle,\" but, with a sudden change of\nfigure, he proclaims that now the Morning Glow is breaking and the Day\nDawn is rising.[8]  In his _Epistles_ he says: \"I am only a layman, I\nhave not studied, yet I bring to light things which all the High\nSchools and Universities have been unable to do. . . .  The language of\nNature is made known to me so that I can understand the greatest\nmysteries, in my own mother-tongue.  Though I cannot say I have\n_learned_ or _comprehended_ these things, yet so long as the hand of\nGod stayeth upon me I understand.\"[9]\n\nWe shall be able to estimate the value of these lofty {153} claims\nafter we have gathered up the substance of his teaching, but it may be\nwell to say at the opening of this Study of Boehme that in my opinion\nno more remarkable religious message has come in modern centuries from\nan untrained and undisciplined mind than that which lies scattered\nthrough the voluminous and somewhat chaotic writings of this\nseventeenth-century prophet of the common people.[19]\n\nHe frequently speaks of himself as \"unlearned,\" and in the technical\nsense of the word he was unlearned.  He had only a simple schooling,\nbut he possessed extraordinary native capacity and he was well and\nwidely read in the books which fitted the frame and temper of his mind,\nand he had very unusual powers of meditation and recollection so that\nhe thought over and over again in his quiet hours of labour the ideas\nwhich he seized upon in the books he read.\n\nThere are many strands of thought woven together in his writings, and\neverything he dealt with is given a {154} new aspect through the vivid\ninsights which he always brings into play, the amazing visual power\nwhich he displays, and his profoundly penetrating moral and\nintellectual grasp.  But, nevertheless, he plainly belongs in the\ndirect line of these spiritual reformers whom we have been studying.\nHe was deeply influenced, first of all, by Luther, especially in two\ndirections.  He got primarily from the great reformer his transforming\ninsight of the immense importance of personal faith for salvation, and\nsecondly he was impressed--almost overwhelmingly impressed in his early\nyears--with the awful reality and range of the principle of positive\nevil in the universe, upon which Luther had insisted with intensity of\nemphasis.  His feet, however, were set upon the track which seemed to\nhim to lead to light by the help which he got from the other line of\nreformers.  Schwenckfeld made him feel the impossibility of any scheme\nof salvation that rested on transactions and operations external to the\nhuman soul itself, and through that same noble Silesian reformer he\ndiscovered the central significance of the new birth through a creative\nwork of Grace within.  Sebastian Franck was clearly one of his\nspiritual masters.  From him, directly or indirectly, he learned that\nthe spirit must be freed from the letter, that external revelations are\nsymbols which remain dead and inert until they are vivified and\nvitalized by the inwardly illuminated spirit.  He was still more\ndirectly influenced by Valentine Weigel, the pastor of Zschopau, who\nunited the spiritual-mystical views of Schwenckfeld, Franck, and the\nother teachers of his type with a nature mysticism or theosophy which\nhad become, as we have seen, a powerful interest in the sixteenth\ncentury when a real science was struggling to be born, but had not yet\nseen the light.  This nature mysticism came to him also in a crude and\nindigestible form through the writings of Paracelsus.  Through him\nBoehme acquired a vocabulary of alchemistical terms which he was always\nlabouring to turn to spiritual meaning, but which always baffled him.\nIt has been customary to treat Boehme as a mystic, and he has not {155}\nusually been brought into this line of spiritual development where I am\nplacing him, but his entire outlook and body of ideas are different\nfrom those of the great Roman Catholic mystics.  He has read neither\nthe classical nor the scholastic interpreters of mysticism.  In so far\nas he knows of historical mysticism he knows it through Franck and\nWeigel and others, where it is profoundly transformed and subordinated\nto other aspects of religion and thought.  Unlike the great mystics, he\ndoes not treat the visible and the finite as unreal and to be negated.\nThe world is a positive reality and a divine revelation.  Nor, again,\nare sin and evil negative in character for him.  Evil is tremendously\nreal and positive, in grim conflict with the good and to be conquered\nonly through stern battle.  A mystic, an illuminate, he undoubtedly was\nin his first-hand experience, but his message of salvation and his\ninterpretation of life are of the wider, distinctively \"spiritual\" type.\n\nJacob Boehme[11] was born in November 1575 in the little market-town of\nAlt Seidenberg, a few miles from Goerlitz.  His father's name was Jacob\nand his mother's Ursula, both persons of good old German peasant stock,\npossessed of a strong strain of simple piety.  The family religion was\nLutheran, and Jacob the son was brought up both at home and at church\nin the Lutheran faith as it had shaped itself into definite form at the\nend of the sixteenth century.  His early education was very limited,\nbut he was possessed of unusual fundamental capacity and always\nexhibited a native mental power of very high order.  He was always a\nkeen observer; he looked through things, and whether he was in the\nfields, where much of his early life was spent as a watcher of cattle,\nor reading the Bible, which he knew as few persons have known it, he\nsaw everything with a vivid and quickened imagination.  He plainly\nbegan, while still very young, to revolt from the orthodox theology of\nhis time, and his {156} years of reading and of silent meditation and\nreflection were the actual preparation for what seemed finally to come\nto him like a sudden revelation or, to use his own common figure, as \"a\nflash.\"[12]\n\nHis external appearance has been quaintly portrayed by his admiring\nfriend and biographer, Abraham von Franckenberg, who, like a good\nportrait-painter, strives to let the body reveal the soul.  \"The\nexternal form of Jacob's body,\" he says, \"was worn and very plain; his\nstature was small, his forehead low, his temples broad and prominent,\nhis nose somewhat crooked, his eyes grey and rather of an azure-cast,\nlighting up like the windows of Solomon's Temple; his beard was short\nand thin; his voice was feeble, yet his conversation was mild and\npleasant.  He was gentle in manner, modest in his words, humble in\nconduct, patient in suffering and meek of heart.  His spirit was highly\nilluminated of God beyond anything Nature could produce.\"[13]\n\nThis youth, with \"azure-grey eyes that lighted up like the windows of\nSolomon's Temple,\" was from his childhood possessed of a most acutely\nsensitive and suggestible psychical disposition.  He always felt that\nthe real world was deeper than the one which he saw with his senses,\nand he was frequently swept from within by mighty currents which he\ncould not trace to any well-mapped region of the domain of Nature.  His\nvivid and pictorial imagination, his consciousness of inrushes from the\nunplumbed deeps within, and his inclination to solitude and meditation\nare well in evidence at an early age, and we have no difficulty at all\nin seeing that his psychological equilibrium was unstable, and that he\nwas capable of sudden shifts of inward level.\n\nThe first sign of his psychical peculiarity comes to light in an\nincident of his early childhood.  While he was tending cattle in the\nfields one day he climbed alone a neighbouring {157} mountain-peak, and\non the summit he espied among the great red sandstones a kind of\naperture overgrown with bushes.  Boy-like he entered the opening, and\nthere within, in a strange vault, he descried a large portable vessel\nfull of money.  The sight of it made him shudder, and, without touching\nthe treasure, he made his way out to the world again.  To his surprise\nhe was never able to find the aperture again, though, in company with\nthe other less imaginative cowboys, he often hunted for it.  His\nfriend, von Franckenberg, who relates the story and says that he had it\nfrom Boehme's mouth, thinks that the experience was \"a sort of\nemblematic omen or presage of his future spiritual admission to the\nsight of the hidden treasury of the wisdom and mysteries of God and\nNature,\"[14] but we are more interested in it as a revelation of the\nextraordinary psychical nature of the boy, with his tendency to\nhallucination.\n\nWhen he was in his fourteenth year he was apprenticed to a shoemaker in\nSeidenberg, and devoted himself diligently to the mastery of his trade.\nIt was during this period of apprenticeship, which lasted three years,\nthat there was granted to him \"a kind of secret tinder and glimmer\" of\ncoming fame.  One day a stranger, plain and mean in dress, but\notherwise of good presence, came to the shop and asked to buy a pair of\nshoes.  As the master shoemaker was absent, the uninitiated\nprentice-boy did not feel competent to sell the shoes, but the buyer\nwould not be put off.  Thereupon young Jacob set an enormous price upon\nthem, hoping to stave off the trade.  The man, however, without any\ndemur paid the price, took the shoes, and went out.  Just outside the\ndoor the stranger stopped, and in a serious tone called out, \"Jacob,\ncome hither to me!\"  The man, with shining eyes looking him full in the\nface, took his hand and said, \"Jacob, thou art little but thou shalt\nbecome great--a man very different from the common cast, so that thou\nshalt be a wonder to the world.  Be a good lad; fear God and reverence\nHis Word.\"  With a little more counsel, the {158} stranger pressed his\nhand and went his way, leaving the boy amazed.[15]\n\nHe had, his intimate biographer tells us, lived from his very youth up\nin the fear of God, in all humility and simplicity, and had taken\npeculiar pleasure in hearing sermons, but from the opening of his\napprenticeship he began to revolt from the endless controversies and\n\"scholastic wranglings about religion,\" and he withdrew into himself,\nfervently and incessantly praying and seeking and knocking, until one\nday \"he was translated into the holy Sabbath and glorious Day of Rest\nto the soul,\" and, according to his own words, was \"enwrapt with the\nDivine Light for the space of seven days and stood possessed of the\nhighest beatific wisdom of God, in the ecstatic joy of the\nKingdom.\"[16]  Boehme looked upon this \"Sabbatic\" experience as his\nspiritual call, and from this time on he increased his endeavours to\nlive a pure life of godliness and virtue, refusing to listen to\nfrivolous talk, reproving his fellows and even his shopmaster when they\nindulged in light and wanton conversation, until finally the master\ndischarged him with the remark that he did not care to keep \"a\nhouse-prophet\" any longer.[17]  Hereupon he went forth as a travelling\ncobbler, spending some years in his wanderings, discovering more and\nmore, as he passed from place to place, how religion was being lost in\nthe Babel of theological wrangling, and seeing, with those penetrating\neyes of his, deeper into the meaning of life and the world.  Near the\nend of the century--probably about 1599--he gave up his wanderings,\nmarried Catherine Kunchman, \"a young woman of virtuous disposition,\"\nand opened a shoemaker's shop for himself in the town of Goerlitz, where\nhe soon established a reputation for honest, faithful work, and where\nhe modestly prospered and was able to buy a home of his own, and where\nhe reared the four sons and two daughters who came to the happy home.\n\n{159}\n\nThe supreme experience of his life--and one of the most remarkable\ninstances of \"illumination\" in the large literature of mystical\nexperiences--occurred when Boehme was twenty-five years of age, some\ntime in the year 1600.  His eye fell by chance upon the surface of a\npolished pewter dish which reflected the bright sunlight, when suddenly\nhe felt himself environed and penetrated by the Light of God, and\nadmitted into the innermost ground and centre of the universe.  His\nexperience, instead of waning as he came back to normal consciousness,\non the contrary deepened.  He went to the public green in Goerlitz, near\nhis house, and there it seemed to him that he could see into the very\nheart and secret of Nature, and that he could behold the innermost\nproperties of things.[18]  In his own account of his experience, Boehme\nplainly indicates that he had been going through a long and earnest\ntravail of soul as a Seeker,[19] \"striving to find the heart of Jesus\nChrist and to be freed and delivered from everything that turned him\naway from Christ.\"  At last, he says, he resolved to \"put his life to\nthe utmost hazard\" rather than miss his life-quest, when suddenly the\n\"gate was opened.\"  He continues his account as follows: \"In one\nquarter of an hour I saw and knew more than if I had been many years\ntogether in a University. . . .  I saw and knew the Being of Beings,\nthe Byss and Abyss, the eternal generation of the Trinity, the origin\nand descent of this world, and of all creatures through Divine Wisdom.\nI knew and saw in myself all the three worlds--(1) the Divine,\nAngelical, or Paradisaical World; (2) the dark world, the origin of\nfire; and (3) the external, visible world as an outbreathing or\nexpression of the internal and spiritual worlds.  I saw, too, the\nessential nature of evil and of good, and how the {160} pregnant\nMother--the eternal genetrix--brought them forth.\"[20]\n\nHe has also vividly told his experience in the _Aurora_: \"While I was\nin affliction and trouble, I elevated my spirit, and earnestly raised\nit up unto God, as with a great stress and onset, lifting up my whole\nheart and mind and will and resolution to wrestle with the love and\nmercy of God and not to give over unless He blessed me--then the Spirit\ndid break through.  When in my resolved zeal I made such an assault,\nstorm, and onset upon God, as if I had more reserves of virtue and\npower ready, with a resolution to hazard my life upon it, suddenly my\nspirit did break through the Gate, not without the assistance of the\nHoly Spirit, and I reached to the innermost Birth of the Deity and\nthere I was embraced with love as a bridegroom embraces his bride.  My\ntriumphing can be compared to nothing but the experience in which life\nis generated in the midst of death or like the resurrection from the\ndead.  In this Light my spirit suddenly saw through all, and in all\ncreated things, even in herbs and grass, I knew God--who He is, how He\nis, and what His will is--and suddenly in that Light my will was set\nupon by a mighty impulse to describe the being of God.\"[21]\n\nThis experience was the momentous watershed of his life.  He is\nconstantly referring to it either directly or indirectly.  \"I teach,\nwrite, and speak,\" is his frequent testimony, \"of what has been wrought\nin me.  I have not scraped my teaching together out of histories and so\nmade _opinions_.  I have by God's grace obtained eyes of my own.\"[22]\n\"There come moments,\" he writes, \"when the soul sees God as in a flash\nof lightning,\"[23] and he tells his readers that \"when the Gate is\nopened\" to them, they also \"will understand.\"[24]  \"In my own\nfaculties,\" he writes again, \"I am as blind a man as {161} ever was,\nbut in the Spirit of God my spirit sees through all.\"[25]\n\nDuring the ten quiet years which followed \"the opening of the Gate\" to\nhim, Boehme meditated on what he had seen, and, though he does not say\nso, he almost certainly read much in the works of \"the great masters,\"\nas he calls them, who were trying to tell, often in confused language,\nthe central secret of the universe.  Instead of fading out, his \"flash\"\nof insight grew steadily clearer to him as he read and pondered, and\nlittle by little, as one comes to see in the dark, certain great ideas\nbecame defined.  With his third \"flash,\"[26] which came to him in 1610,\nwhen he felt once more \"overshadowed by the Holy Spirit and touched by\nGod,\"[27] he was moved to write down for his own use what he had seen.\n\"It was,\" he says, \"powerfully borne in upon my mind to write down\nthese things for a memorial, however difficult they might be of\napprehension to my outer self [intellect] and of expression through my\npen.  I felt compelled to begin at once, like a child going to school,\nto work upon this very great Mystery.  Inwardly [in spirit] I saw it\nall well enough, as in a great depth; for I looked through as into a\nchaos where all things lie [undifferentiated] but the unravelling\nthereof seemed impossible.  From time to time an opening took place\nwithin me, _as of a growth_.[28]  I kept this to myself for twelve\nyears [1600-12], being full of it and I experienced a vehement impulse\nbefore I could bring it out into expression; but at last it overwhelmed\nme like a cloud-burst which hits whatever it lights upon.  And so it\nwent with me: whatsoever I could grasp sufficiently to bring it out,\nthat I wrote down.\"[29]\n\nThis first book which thus grew out of his spiritual travails and\n\"openings\" Boehme called _Morning Glow_, to which later, through the\nsuggestion of a friend, he gave {162} the title _Aurora_.  It is a\nstrange _melange_ of chaos where all things lie undifferentiated and of\ninsight; dreary wastes of words that elude comprehension, with\nbeautiful patches of spiritual oasis.  He himself always felt that the\nbook was dictated to him, and that he only passively held the pen which\nwrote it.  \"Art,\" he says, speaking of his writing, \"has not written\nhere, neither was there any time to consider how to set it down\npunctually, according to the understanding of the letters, but all was\nordered according to the direction of the Spirit, which often went in\nhaste, so that in many words letters may be wanting, and in some places\na capital letter for a word; so that _the Penman's hand_, by reason\nthat he was not accustomed to it, did often shake.  And though I could\nhave wrote in a more accurate, fair, and plain manner, yet the reason\nwas this, that the burning fire often forced forward with speed, and\nthe hand and pen must hasten directly after it; for it goes and comes\nlike a sudden shower.\"[30]  This is obviously an inside account of the\nproduction of inspirational script, amounting almost to automatic\nimpulsion.  Throughout his voluminous writings he often speaks of \"this\nhand,\" or \"this pen\" as though they were owned and moved by a will far\ndeeper than his own individual consciousness,[31] and his writings\nthemselves frequently bear the marks of automatisms.\n\nHis manuscript copy of _Morning Glow_ was freely lent to readers and\ncirculated widely.  Boehme himself kept no copy by him, but he tells us\nthat during its wanderings the manuscript was copied out in full four\ntimes by strangers and brought to him.[32]  One of the copies fell into\nthe hands of Gregorius Richter, pastor primarius of Goerlitz, a violent\nguardian of orthodoxy and a man extremely jealous of any infringement\nof the dignity of his official position.  He proceeded at\nonce--\"without sufficient examination or knowledge\"--to {163} \"vilify\nand condemn\" the writing, and in a sermon on \"False Prophets\" he\nvigorously attacked the local prophet of Goerlitz, who meekly sat in\nChurch and listened to the \"fulminations\" against him.[33]  After the\nsermon, Boehme modestly asked the preacher to show him what was wrong\nwith his teaching, but the only answer he received was that if he did\nnot instantly leave the town the pastor would have him arrested; and\nthe following day Richter had Boehme summoned before the magistrates,\nand succeeded by his influence and authority in overawing them so that\nthey ordered the harmless prophet to leave the town forthwith without\nany time given him to see his family or to close up his affairs.\nBoehme quietly replied, \"Yes, dear Sirs, it shall be done; since it\ncannot be otherwise I am content.\"  The next day, however, the\nmagistrates of Goerlitz held a meeting and recalled the banished prophet\nand offered him the privilege of remaining in his home and occupation\non condition that he would cease from writing on theological matters.\nOn this latter point we have Boehme's own testimony, though he does not\nrefer the condition to the magistrates.  \"When I appeared before him\"\n[Pastor Richter], Boehme says, \"to defend myself and indicate my\nstandpoint, the Rev. Primarius [Richter] exacted from me a promise to\ngive up writing and to this I assented, since I did not then see\nclearly the divine way, nor did I understand what God would later do\nwith me. . . .  By his order I gave up for many years [1613-18] all\nwriting or speaking about my knowledge of divine things, hoping vainly\nthat the evil reports would at last come to an end, instead of which\nthey only grew worse and more malignant.\"[34]\n\nBoehme's friend, Doctor Cornelius Weissner, in his account, which is\nnone too accurate, endeavours to find an explanation of Richter's\npersistent hate and persecution {164} of the shoemaker-prophet in a\ngentle reproof which the latter administered to the former for having\nmeanly treated a poor kinsman of Boehme in a small commercial\ntransaction, but it is by no means necessary to bring up incidents of\nthis sort to discover an adequate ground for Richter's fury.  The\n_Aurora_ itself furnishes plenty of passages which would, if read,\nthrow a jealous guardian of orthodoxy into fierce activity.  One\npassage in which Boehme boldly attacks the popular doctrine of\npredestination and asserts that the writers and scribes who teach it\nare \"masterbuilders of Lies\" will be sufficient illustration of the\ntheological provocation: \"This present world doth dare to say that God\nhath decreed or concluded it so in His predestinate purpose and counsel\nthat some men should be saved and some should be damned, as if hell and\nmalice and evil had been from eternity and that it was in God's\npredestinate purpose that men should be and must be therein.  Such\npersons pull and hale the Scriptures to prove it, though, indeed, they\nneither have the knowledge of the true God nor the understanding of\nScripture.  These justifiers and disputers assist the Devil steadfastly\nand pervert God's truth and change it into lies.\"[35]  He closed his\nbook with these daring words: \"Should Peter or Paul seem to have\nwritten otherwise, then look to the essence, look to the heart [_i.e._\nto interior meaning].  If you lay hold of the heart of God you have\nground enough.\"[36]  His entire conception of salvation was, too, as we\nshall see, vastly different from the prevailing orthodox conception,\nand furthermore he was only a layman, innocent of the schools, and yet\nhe was claiming to speak as an almost infallible instrument of a fresh\nrevelation of God.  Theologians of the type of the Primarius Richter\nneed no other provocation to account for their relentless pursuit of\nlocal prophets that appear in the domain of their authority.\n\nMeantime Boehme's fame was slowly spreading, and he was drawing into\nsympathetic fellowship with himself a number of high-minded and serious\nmen who were {165} dissatisfied with the current orthodox teaching.  In\nthis group of friends who found comfort in the fresh message of Boehme\nwere Dr. Balthazar Walther, director of the Chemical Laboratory of\nDresden, Dr. Tobias Kober, physician at Goerlitz, a disciple of\nParacelsus, Abraham von Franckenberg, who calls Jacob \"our God-taught\nman,\" Doctor Cornelius Weissner, who became intimate with him in 1618,\nand the nobleman Carl von Endern, who copied out the entire manuscript\nof the _Aurora_.  These friends frequently encouraged Boehme to break\nhis enforced silence, and he himself was restless and melancholy,\nfeeling that he was \"entrusted with a talent which he ought to put to\nusury and not return to God singly and without improvement, like the\nlazy servant.\"  \"It was with me,\" he writes, describing his years of\nsilence, \"as when a seed is hidden in the earth.  It grows up in storm\nand rough weather, against all reason.  In winter time, all is dead,\nand reason says: 'It is all over with it.'  But the precious seed\nwithin me sprouted and grew green, oblivious of all storms, and amid\ndisgrace and ridicule it has blossomed forth into a lily!\"[37]\n\nUnder the pressure, from without and from within, he resolved after\nfive years of repression to break the seal of silence and give the\nworld his message.  Writing to a dear friend, whom he called \"a plant\nof God,\" he says: \"My very dear brother in the life of God, you are\nmore acceptable to me in that it was you who awaked me out of my sleep,\nthat I might go on to bring forth fruit in the life of God--and I want\nyou to know that after I was awakened _a strong smell was given to me\nin the life of God_.\"[38]  During the next six years (1618-24) he wrote\nalmost incessantly, producing, from 1620 on, book after book in rapid\nsuccession.[39]  In 1622, he informs a friend that he {166} has \"laid\naside his trade to serve God and his brothers,\"[40] and in 1623, he\nsays that he has written without ceasing during the autumn and winter.\nHe felt throughout his life that the \"illumination,\" which broke upon\nhim in the year 1600, steadily increased with the years, and he came to\nlook upon his first book as only the crude attempt of a child as\ncompared with his later works.  \"The Day,\" he writes in 1620, \"has now\novertaken the _Aurora_ [the morning glow]; it has grown full daylight\nand the morning is extinguished.\"[41]  He says, with artlessness, that\nwhen he wrote the _Aurora_, he was not yet accustomed to the Spirit.\nThe heavenly joy, indeed, met him and he followed the Spirit's\nguidance, but much of his own wild and untamed nature still remained to\nmar his work.  Each successive book marks a growth of \"the spiritual\nlily\" in him, he thinks: \"Each book from the first is ten times\ndeeper!\"[42]\n\nOnce again, the zeal of a friend brought Boehme into the storm-centre\nof persecution.  Until 1623, his works circulated only in manuscript\nand were kept from the eye of his ecclesiastical enemy, but toward the\nend of that year, an admirer, Sigismund von Schweinitz, printed three\nof his little books--_True Repentance_; _True Resignation_; and _The\nSupersensual Life_--in one volume under the title _The Way to Christ_.\nRichter was immediately aroused and poured forth his feelings in some\ndesperately bad verses:\n\n  Quot continentur lineae, blasphemiae\n  Tot continentur in libro sutorio,\n  Qui nil nisi picem redolet sutoriam,\n\n{167}\n\n  Atrum et colorem, quern vocant sutorium.\n  Pfuy! pfuy! teter sit fetor a nobis procul![43]\n\n\nBut the Primarius was not content with this harmless weapon of\nridicule.  He stirred up the neighbouring clergymen to join him in the\nattack, and a complaint was lodged in Town Council against Boehme as a\n\"rabid enthusiast,\" and he was warned to leave the town.  Boehme was as\nsweet and gentle in spirit now as he had been ten years before.  He\nwrote in 1624: \"I pray for those who have reviled and condemned me.\nThey curse me and I bless.  I am standing the test [\"Proba\"] and have\nthe mark of Christ on my forehead.\"[44]  But he thought that it did not\nbefit him as an instrument of God's revelation to let the false charges\nagainst him go unanswered.  He accordingly replied to the accusations\nin an _Apology_, in which the whole depth and beauty of his spiritual\nnature breathes forth.  His appeal was in vain and he was forced to\nleave Goerlitz.  He went forth, however, in no discouraged mood.  He saw\nthat his message was \"being sounded through Europe,\" and he predicts\nthat \"the nations will take up what his own native town is casting\naway.  Already, he hears, his book has been read with interest in the\nCourt of the Elector of Saxony, and he writes, March 15, 1624: \"I am\ninvited there to a conference with high people and I have consented to\ngo at the end of the Leipzig fair.  Soon the revelation of Jesus Christ\nshall break forth and destroy the works of the Devil.\"[45]  The real\ntrouble with the world, he thinks, is that the Christians in it are\ntitular and verbal,\"--they are only \"opinion-peddlers,\"[46] and that is\nwhy a man who insists upon a reproduction of the life of Christ is\npersecuted.  The visit to the Elector's Court in Dresden came off well\nfor the simple shoemaker.  He spent two months in the home of the court\nphysician, Dr. Hinkelmann, where many of the nobility and clergy came\nto see {168} him and to talk with him.  Three professors of theology\nand other learned doctors were asked by the Elector to examine him.\nThey reported that they did not yet quite succeed in understanding him,\nand that therefore they could not pronounce judgment.  They hoped \"His\nHighness would please to have patience and allow the man sufficient\ntime to expound his ideas\"--which were, in fact, already \"expounded\" in\nmore than a score of volumes!  One of the professors is reported to\nhave said: \"I would not for the world be a party to this man's\ncondemnation,\" and another declared: \"Nor would I, for who knows what\nlies at the bottom of it all!\"[47]\n\nThe end of the good man's life, however, was near.  He was taken ill in\nNovember 1624, while staying with his old friend, von Schweinitz, and\nhe hurried home to Goerlitz, where his family had remained during his\nabsence, to die in the quiet of his own house.  The night before he\ndied, he spoke of hearing beautiful music, and asked to have the door\nopened that he might hear it better.  In the morning--as the _Aurora_\nappeared--he bade farewell to his wife and children, committed his soul\nto the crucified Lord Jesus Christ, arranged a few simple matters, and,\nwith a smile on his face, said, \"Now I go to Paradise.\"\n\nHis old enemy, Richter, had died a few months before him, but the new\npastor was of the same temper and refused to preach his funeral sermon.\nThe second pastor of the city was finally ordered by the Governor of\nLausitz to preach the sermon, which he began with the words, \"I had\nrather have walked a hundred and twenty miles than preach this\nsermon!\"[48]  The common people, however,--the shoemakers, tanners and\na \"great concourse of us his fast friends,\" as one of them\nwrites,--were at the funeral, and a band of young shoemakers carried\nhis body to its last resting-place, where a block of porphyry now\ninforms the visitor that \"Jacob Boehme, _philosophus Teutonicus_\"\nsleeps beneath.\n\nGruetzmacher holds that Boehme is an \"isolated thinker,\" having little,\nif any, historical connection with {169} the past.[49]  I do not agree\nwith this view.  I find in him rather the ripe fulfilment of the\npowerful protest against the dead letter, against a formal religion,\nand equally a fulfilment of a Christianity of inward life, which was\nvoiced so vigorously in the writings of Denck, Buenderlin, Entfelder,\nFranck, and Weigel, neglecting for the moment another side of Boehme\nand another set of influences which appeared in him.  The central note\nof his life-long prophet-cry was against a form of religion built upon\nthe letter of Scripture and consisting of external ceremonies and\npractices, and this is the ground of Richter's bitter hostility and\nstubborn opposition.[50]\n\nThe Church of his day seems to him a veritable Babel--\"full of pride\nand wrangling, and jangling, and snarling about the letter of the\nwritten Word,\" lacking in true, real, effectual knowledge and power; a\npitiably poor \"substitute for the Temple of the holy Spirit where God's\nliving Word is taught.\"[51]  Through each of his books we hear of\n\"verbal Christendom\"; of \"titular Christians\"; of \"historical feigned\nfaith\"; of \"history religion\"; of \"an external forgiveness of sins\"; of\n\"the work of outward letters.\"  \"The builders of Babel,\" he says,\n\"cannot endure that one should teach that Christ Himself must be the\nteacher in the human heart\"--\"they jangle instead about the mere husk,\nabout the written word and letter while they miss the living Word.\"[52]\n\nThe divisions of Christendom are due to the fact that its\n\"master-builders\" are of the Babel-type.  They always follow the line\nof _opinion_; their basis is \"the letter\"; their method of approach is\n_external_.  They build \"stone houses in which they read the writings\nwhich the Apostles left behind them,\" while they themselves dispute and\ncontend about \"mental idols and {170} opinions.\"[53]  The true Church\nof Christ, on the contrary, is the living Temple of the Spirit.  It is\nbuilt up of men made wholly new by the inward power of the Divine\nSpirit and made _one_ by an inward unity of heart and life with\nChrist--as \"a living Twig of our Life-Tree Jesus Christ.\"  Nobody can\nbelong to this Church unless \"he puts on the shirt of a little child,\"\ndies to selfishness and hypocrisy, rises again in a new will and\nobedience, and forms his life in its inmost ground according to Christ,\nthe Life.[54]  \"The wise world,\" he declares, \"will not believe in the\ntrue inward work of Christ in the heart; it will have only an external\nwashing away of sins in Grace,\" but the ABC of true religion is far\ndifferent.[55]  He only is a Christian in fact in whom Christ dwelleth,\nliveth and hath His being, in whom Christ hath arisen as the eternal\nground of the soul.  He only is a Christian who has this high title in\nhimself, and has entered with mind and soul into that Eternal Word\nwhich has manifested itself as the life of our humanity.[56]  He wrote\nnear the end of his life to Balthazar Tilken: \"If I had no other book\nexcept the book which I myself am, I should have books enough.  The\nentire Bible lies in me if I have Christ's Spirit in me.  What do I\nneed of more books?  Shall I quarrel over what is outside me before I\nhave learned what is within me?\"[57]  \"What would it profit me if I\nwere continually quoting the Bible and knew the whole book by heart but\ndid not know the Spirit that inspired the holy men who wrote that book,\nnor the source from which they received their knowledge?  How can I\nexpect to understand them in truth, if I have not the same Spirit they\nhad?\"[58]\n\nThis insistence on personal, first-hand experience and practice of the\nChrist-Life, as the ground of true religion, {171} is the fundamental\nfeature of Boehme's Christianity.  He travels, as we shall see, through\nimmense heights and deeps.  Like Dante, who immeasurably surpasses him\nin power of expression, but not in prophetic power of vision, he saw\nthe eternal realities of heaven and hell and the world between, and he\ntold as well as he could what he _saw_, but his practical message which\nruns like a thread through all his writings is always simple--almost\nchildlike in its simplicity--\"Thou must thyself be the way.  The\nspiritual understanding must be born in thee.\"[59]  \"A Christian is a\nnew creature in the ground of the heart.\"[60]  \"The Kingdom of God is\nnot from without, but it is a new man, who lives in love, in patience,\nin hope, in faith and in the Cross of Jesus Christ.\"[61]\n\nAnd this simple shoemaker of Goerlitz, with his amazing range of thought\nand depth of experience, practised and embodied the way of life which\nhe recommended.  He was a good man, and his life touches us even now\nwith a kind of awe.  \"Life,\" he once said, \"is a strange bath of thorns\nand thistles,\"[62] and he himself experienced that \"bath,\" but he went\nthrough the world hearing everywhere a divine music and \"having a joy\nin his heart which made his whole being tremble and his soul triumph as\nif it were in God.\"[63]\n\n\n\n[1] I have used as primary source the German edition of Boehme's\nWorks--_Theosophia revelata_--published in 1730 in 8 vols.  All my\nreferences are to the English translations made by Sparrow, Ellistone,\nand Blunden, 1647-61.  These translations were republished, 1764, in 4\nvols. in an edition which has incorrectly been called William Law's\nedition.  Four volumes have been republished by John M. Watkins of\nLondon, as follows: _The Threefold Life of Man_, 1909; _The Three\nPrinciples_, 1910; _The Forty Questions_ and _The Clavis_, 1911; and\n_The Way to Christ_, 1911.  The _Signatura rerum_, in English, has been\npublished in \"Everyman's Library.\"  A valuable volume of selections\nfrom \"Jacob Behmen's Theosophic Philosophy\" was made by Edward Taylor,\nLondon, 1691.  Many volumes of selections have been published in recent\nyears.  The books on Boehme which I have found most suggestive and\nhelpful are the following: Franz von Baader's \"Vorlesungen und\nErlaeuterungen ueber J. Boehme's Lehre,\" _Werke_ (Leipzig, 1852), vol.\niii. [edition of 1855, vol. xiii.]; Emile Boutroux, _Le Philosophe\nallemand_ (Paris, 1888): translated into English by Rothwell in\nBoutroux's _Historical Studies in Philosophy_ (London, 1912), pp.\n169-233; Hans Lassen Martensen's _Jacob Boehme_ (translated from the\nDanish by T. Rhys Evans, London, 1885); Franz Hartmann's _Life and\nDoctrine of Jacob Boehme_ (London, 1891); Von Harless' _Jacob Boehme\nund die Alchymisten_ (Leipzig, 1882); Ederheimer's _Jakob Boehme und\ndie Romantiker_ (Heidelberg, 1901); Paul Deussen's _Jacob Boehme_--an\nAddress delivered at Kiel, May 8, 1897--translated from the German by\nMrs. D. S. Hehner and printed as Introduction to Watkin's edition of\n_The Three Principles_ (1910); Christopher Walton's _Notes and\nMaterials for a Biography of William Law_ (London, 1854)--a volume of\ngreat value to the student of Boehme; Rudolph Steiner's _Mystics of the\nRenaissance_ (translated, London, 1911), pp. 223-245; A. J. Penny's\n_Studies in Jacob Boehme_ (London, 1912), uncritical and written from\nthe theosophical point of view; Hegel's _History of philosophy_\n(translated by Haldane and Simson, London, 1895), iii. pp. 188-216.\n\n[2] Aurora, John Sparrow's translation (London, 1656), ii. 79-80.\n\n[3] _Aurora_, iii. 1-3.\n\n[4] _Third Epistle_, 15.\n\n[5] _Aurora_, xiii. 27.\n\n[6] _Ibid._ viii. 19.\n\n[7] _Ibid._ ix 90.\n\n[8] _Ibid._ xiii. 2-4.\n\n[9] _Third Epistle_, 22.\n\n[10] Many thinkers of prominent rank have borne testimony to the\ngreatness of Boehme's genius.  I shall mention only a few of these\nestimates:\n\n\"I would recommend you to procure the writings of Boehme and diligently\nread them.  For though I have studied philosophy and theology from my\nyouth . . . yet I must acknowledge that the above writings have been to\nme of more service for the understanding of the Bible than all my\nUniversity learning.\"--\"J. G. Gictell, 1698.\n\n\"Jacob Boehme, as a religious and philosophical genius, has not often\nhad his equal in the world's history.\"--\"Jacob Boehme: His Life and\nPhilosophy.\"  An Address by Dr. Paul Deussen.\n\n\"Jacob Boehme est le seul, au moins dont on ait eu les ecrits jusqu'a\nlui, auquel Dieu ait decouvert le fond de la nature, tant des choses\nspirituelles, que des corporelles.\"--Peter Poiret, in a note at the end\nof his _Theologie germanique_, 1700.\n\n\"As a chosen servant of God, Jacob Boehme must be placed among those\nwho have received the highest measures of light, wisdom, and knowledge\nfrom above. . . .  All that lay in religion and nature as a mystery\nunsearchable was in its deepest ground opened to this instrument of\nGod.\"--William Law, _Works_ (ed. 1893), vi. p. 205.\n\n\"To Jacob Boehme belongs the merit of having taught more profoundly\nthan any one else before or after him the truth that back of and behind\nall that has come to appear of good and evil there is an immaterial\nWorld which is the essence and reality of all that is.\"--Franz von\nBaader, _Werke_ (Leipzig, 1852), iii. p. 382.\n\nNovalis wrote in a letter to Ludwig Tieck in 1800: \"Man sieht durchaus\nin ihm [Jakob Boehme] den gewaltigen Fruehling mit seinen quellenden,\ntreibenden, bildenden, und mischenden Kraeften, die von innen heraus die\nWelt gebaeren.  Ein echtes Chaos voll dunkler Begier und wunderbarem\nLeben--einen wahren auseinandergehenden Mikrokosmos.\"--Quoted from\nEdgar Ederheimer's _Jakob Boehme und die Romantiker_ (1904), p. 57.\n\n[11] His English translators in the seventeenth century variously\nspelled his name Behm, Behme, and Behmen.  This latter spelling was\nadopted in the so-called Law Edition of 1764, and has thus come into\ncommon use in England and America.\n\n[12] Boehme refers frequently to \"the writings of high masters,\" whom\nhe says he read (_Aurora_, x. 45), and he often names Schwenckfeld and\nWeigel in particular.  See especially _The Second Epistle_, sec. 54-62\n\n[13] _Memoirs of the Life, Death and Burial, and Wonderful Writings of\nJacob Behmen_, translated by Francis Okeley (1780), p. 22.\n\n[14] _Memoirs_, p. 2.\n\n[15] _Memoirs_, p. 6.  Von Franckenberg says that Boehme himself told\nhim this incident.\n\n[16] Ibid. pp. 4-5.  The reader will have noted the long history of\nthis phrase, \"Sabbath of the soul.\"\n\n[17] _Ibid._ p. 7.\n\n[18] _Memoirs_, p. 8.  Paracelsus taught that the inner nature of\nthings might be seen by one who has become an organ of the Universal\nMind.  He says: \"Hidden things which cannot be perceived by the\nphysical senses may be found through the sidereal body, through whose\norganism we may look into nature in the same way as the sun shines\nthrough a glass.  The inner nature of everything may be known through\nMagic [The Divine Magia] and the power of inner sight.\"--Hartmann's\n_Life of Paracelsus_ (1896), p. 53.\n\n[19] He uses this word _Seeker_ hundreds of times in his writings.\n\n[20] _Second Epistle_, sec. 6-8.\n\n[21] _Aurora_, xix. 10-13.  He goes on in the following sections to\ndescribe how for twelve years this insight \"grew in his soul like a\nyoung tree before the exact understanding of it all\" was arrived at.\n\n[22] _The Fifth Epistle_, 50.\n\n[23] _Aurora_, xi. 146.\n\n[24] _Ibid._ xi. 6.\n\n[25] Aurora, xxii. 47.\n\n[26] In the _Aurora_ Boehme speaks of the Flash as an experience: \"As\nthe lightning flash appears and disappears again in a moment, so it is\nalso with the soul.  In its battle the soul suddenly penetrates through\nthe clouds and sees God like a flash of Light.\"--Ibid. xi. 76.\n\n[27] _Memoirs_, p. 8.\n\n[28] Evidently the \"flash\" of the year 1610 was not the last one.  In\nfact, he seems to have had frequent ecstasies.\n\n[29] _The Second Epistle_, 9-10.\n\n[30] _Third Epistle_, 35.\n\n[31] See especially _Signatura rerum_, ix. 63, and _Forty Questions_,\nxxvi. 2-3 and xxx. 3 and 5.\n\n[32] _Third Epistle_, 32.  The _Memoirs_ describe how it was copied by\n\"a Gentleman of some rank\" [Carl von Endern].\n\n[33] _Memoirs_, p. 9.\n\n[34] Preserved in the Diary of Bartholomew Scultetus, then Mayor of\nGoerlitz (Ueberfeld's edition, 1730).  This Diary does not record any\nactual banishment of Boehme.  The data for our knowledge of the\npersecutions of Boehme are found in a personal narrative written by his\nfriend Cornelius Weissner, M.D.--_Memoirs_, pp. 39-50.\n\n[35] _Aurora_, xiii. 7-10.\n\n[36] _Ibid._ xxxvi. 152.\n\n[37] _Third Epistle_, 7.\n\n[38] _Fifteenth Epistle_, 18.\n This \"new smell in the life of God\" often occurs in\nBoehme's writings.  Compare George Fox's testimony, \"The whole creation\nhad a new smell.\"  For further comparisons see pp. 221-227.\n\n[39] The following is a complete list of his writings:\n\n1612.  _The Aurora_.\n\n1619.  _The Three Principles of the Divine Essence_.\n\n1620.  _The Threefold Life of Man; Forty Questions; The Incarnation of\nJesus Christ; The Suffering, Death and Resurrection of Christ; The Tree\nof Faith; Six Points; Heavenly and Earthly Mysterium; The Last Times_.\n\n1621.  _De signatura rerum; The Four Complexions; Apology to Balthazar\nTilken_ in 2 parts; _Consideration on Esaias Stiefel's Book_.\n\n1622.  Sec. _Apology to Stiefel; Repentance; Resignation; Regeneration_.\n\n1623.  _Predestination and Election of God; A Short Compendium of\nRepentance; The Mysterium magnum_.\n\n1624.  _The Clavis; The Supersensual Life; Divine Contemplation;\nBaptism and the Supper; A Dialogue Between the Enlightened and\nUnenlightened Soul; An Apology on the Book of Repentance; 177\nTheosophic Questions; An Epitome of the Mysterium magnum; The Holy\nWeek; An Exposition of the Threefold World_.\n\nUndated.  _An Apology to Esaias Stiefel; The Last Judgment; Epistles_.\n\n[40] _Thirty-first Epistle_, 10.\n\n[41] _The Third Epistle_, 30.\n\n[42] _Ibid._ 29.\n\n[43] There are as many blasphemies in the shoemaker's book as there are\nlines.  It smells of shoemaker's wax and filthy blacking.  May this\nintolerable stench be far from us.\n\n[44] _Thirty-fourth Epistle_, 5.\n\n[45] _Thirty-third Epistle_.\n\n[46] _Thirty-fourth Epistle_, 16 and 21.\n\n[47] Weissner's Narrative, _Memoirs_, p. 49.\n\n[48] _Ibid._ p. 58.\n\n[49] _Wort und Geist_, p. 196 _seq._\n\n[50] What could be a bolder criticism of the existing Church of his day\nthan this: \"In place of the wolf [the Roman Church] there has grown up\nthe fox [the Lutheran Church] another anti-Christ, never a whit better\nthan the first.  If he should come to be old enough how he would devour\nthe poor people's hens!\"--_The Three Principles of the Divine Essence_,\nxviii. 102.\n\n[51] _Mysterium magnum_, xxvii. 47.\n\n[52] _Ibid._ xxviii. 49-51.\n\n[53] _Mysterium magnum_, xxxvi. 34; xl. 98.\n\n[54] _Ibid._ lxiii. 47-51; _Twenty-first Epistle_, 1.\n\n[55] _Myst. mag._ xxv. 13.\n\n[56] _The First Epistle_, 3-5.\n\n[57] _Apology to Tilken_, ii. 298.\n\n[58] _Ibid._ 72.  Compare George Fox's testimony: \"All must come to\nthat Spirit, if they would know God or Christ or the Scriptures aright,\nwhich they that gave them forth were led and taught by.\"--_Journal_\n(ed. 1901), i. 35 and _passim_.\n\n[59] _Sig. re._ xiv. i.\n\n[60] _Myst. mag._ lxx. 40.\n\n[61] _Fourth Epistle_, 27 and 32.\n\n[62] _The Three Princ._ xxii. 2.\n\n[63] _Aurora_, iii. 39.\n\n\n\n\n{172}\n\nCHAPTER X\n\nBOEHME'S UNIVERSE\n\n\"If thou wilt be a philosopher or naturalist and search into God's\nbeing in Nature and discern how it all came to pass, then pray to God\nfor the Holy Spirit to enlighten thee.  In thy flesh and blood thou art\nnot able to apprehend it, but dost read it as if a mist were before thy\neyes.  In the Holy Spirit alone, and in the whole Nature out of which\nall things were made, canst thou search into Nature.\"--_Aurora_, ii.\n15-17.\n\n\nOne idea underlies everything which Boehme has written, namely, that\nnobody can successfully \"search into visible Nature,\" or can say\nanything true about Man or about the problem of good and evil, until he\nhas \"apprehended _the whole Nature out of which all things were made_.\"\nIt will not do, he thinks, to make the easy assumption that in the\nbeginning the world was made out of nothing.  \"If God made all things\nout of nothing,\" he says, \"then the visible world would be no\nrevelation of Him, for it would have nothing of Him in it.  He would\nstill be off beyond and outside, and would not be known in this world.\nPersons however learned they may be, who hold such 'opinions' have\nnever opened the Gates of God.\"[1]\n\nBehind the visible universe and in it there is an invisible universe;\nbehind the material universe and in it there is an immaterial universe;\nbehind the temporal universe and in it there is an eternal universe,\nand the first business of the philosopher or naturalist, as Boehme\nconceives it, is to discover the essential Nature of this invisible,\nimmaterial, eternal universe out of which this fragment of a visible\nworld has come forth.\n\n{173}\n\n            Need have we,\n  Sore need, of stars that set not in mid storm,\n  Lights that outlast the lightnings.[2]\n\nThe visible fragment is never self-explanatory; all attempts to account\nfor what occurs in it drive the serious observer deeper for his answer,\nand with a breathless boldness this meditative shoemaker of Goerlitz\nundertakes to tell of the nature of this deeper World within the world.\nAs a boy he saw a vast treasury of wealth hidden in the inside of a\nmountain, though he could never make anybody else see it.  As a man he\nbelieved that he saw an immeasurable wealth of reality hidden within\nthe world of sense, and he tried, often with poor enough success, to\nmake others see the inside world which he found.  We must now endeavour\nto grasp what it was that he saw.  There is no doubt at all that this\ninside world which he discovered within and behind visible Nature,\nwithin and behind man, is really there, nor is there any doubt in my\nmind that he, Jacob Boehme, got an insight into its nature and\nsignificance which is of real worth to the modern world, but he is\nseriously hampered by the poverty of his categories, by the\ndifficulties of his symbolism and by his literary limitations, when he\ncomes to the almost insuperable task of expressing what he has seen.\nHe is himself perfectly conscious of his limitations.  He is constantly\namazed that God uses such \"a mean instrument,\" he regrets again and\nagain that he is \"so difficult to be understood,\" and he often wishes\nthat he could \"impart his own soul\" to his readers that they \"might\ngrasp his meaning,\"[3] for he never for a moment doubts that \"by God's\ngrace he has eyes of his own.\"[4]  He lived in an unscientific age,\nbefore our present exact terminology was coined.  He was the inheritor\nof the vocabulary and symbolism of alchemy and astrology, and he was\nobliged to force his spiritual insight into a language which for us has\nbecome largely an antique rubbish heap.[5]  If he {174} had possessed\nthe marvellous power that Dante had to compel words to express what his\nsoul saw, he might have fused these artificial symbolisms with the fire\nof his spirit, and given them an eternal value as the Florentine did\nwith the equally dry and stubborn terminology of scholasticism, but\nthat gift he did not have.[6]  We must not blame him too much for his\nobscurities and for his large regions of rubbish and confusion, but be\nthankful for the luminous patches, and try to seize the meaning and the\nmessage where it breaks through and gets revealed.\n\nThe outward, visible, temporal world, he declares, is \"a spiration, or\noutbreathing, or egress\" of an eternal spiritual World and this inner,\nspiritual World \"couches within\" our visible world and is its ground\nand mother, and the outward world is from husk to core a parable or\nfigure of the inward and eternal World.  \"The whole outward visible\nworld, with all its being, is a 'signature' or figure of the inward,\nspiritual World, and everything has a character that fits an internal\nreality and process, and the internal is in the external.\"[7]  As he\nexpresses the same idea in another book: \"The visible world is a\nmanifestation of the inward spiritual World, and it is an image or\nfigure of eternity, whereby eternity has made itself visible.\"[8]\n\nBut there is a still deeper Source of things than this inward spiritual\nWorld, which is after all a manifested and organized World, and Boehme\nbegins his account with That which is before beginnings--the\nunoriginated Mother of all Worlds and of All that is, visible and\ninvisible.  This infinite Mother of all births, this eternal Matrix, he\ncalls the _Ungrund_, \"Abyss,\" or the \"Great {175} Mystery,\"[9] or the\n\"Eternal Stillness.\"  Here we are beyond beginnings, beyond time,\nbeyond \"nature,\" and we can say nothing in the language of reason that\nis true or adequate.  The eternal divine Abyss is its own origin and\nexplanation; it presupposes nothing but itself; there is nothing beyond\nit, nothing outside it--there is, in fact, no \"beyond\" and\n\"outside\"--it is \"neither near nor far off.\"[10]  It is an absolute\nPeace, an indivisible Unity, an undifferentiated One--an Abysmal Deep,\nwhich no Name can adequately name and which can be described in no\nwords of time and space, of here and now.\n\nBut we must not make the common blunder of supposing that Boehme means\nthat _before_ God expressed Himself and unfolded Himself in the\ninfinite processes of revelation and creation, He existed apart, as\nthis undifferentiated One, this unknowable Abyss, this incomprehensible\nMatrix.  There is no \"before.\"  Creation, revelation, manifestation is\na dateless and eternal fact.  God to be a personal God must go out of\nHimself and find Himself in something that mirrors Him.  He must have a\nSon.  He must pour His Life and Love through a universe.  What Boehme\nmeans, then, is that no manifestation, no created universe, no\nexpression, is the ultimate Reality itself.  The manifested universe\nhas come out of More than itself.  The Abyss is more than anything, or\nall, that comes out of it, or can come out of it, and it lies with its\ninfinite depth beneath everything which appears, as a man's entire\nlife, conscious and unconscious, is in and yet lies behind every act of\nwill, though we can \"talk about\" only what is voiced or expressed.\n\nEven within this Abysmal Depth, that underlies all that comes to being,\nthere is eternal process--eternal movement toward Personality and\nCharacter: \"God is the eternal Seeker and Finder of Himself.\"[11]  \"In\nthe {176} Stillness an eternal Will arises, a longing desire for\nmanifestation, the eye of eternity turns upon itself and discovers\nitself\"[12]--in a word there is within the infinite Divine Deep an\neternal process of self-consciousness and personality, which Boehme\nexpresses in the words, \"The Father eternally generates the Son.\"  \"God\nhath no beginning and there is nothing sooner than He, but His Word\nhath a bottomless, unfathomable origin in Him and an eternal end: which\nis not rightly called _end_, but Person, _i.e._ the Heart of the\nFather, for it is generated in the eternal Centre.\"[13]  This inner\nprocess toward Personality is often called by Boehme \"the eternal\nVirgin\" who brings to birth God as Person, or sometimes \"the Mirror,\"\nin which God sees Himself revealed as will and wisdom and goodness.\n\nIn the greatest artistic creation of the modern world--\"The Sistine\nMadonna\"--Raphael has with almost infinite pictorial power of genius\ntried to express in visible form this Birth of God.  Behind curtains\nwhich hang suspended from nowhere and stretch across the universe,\ndividing the visible from the invisible, the world of Nature from the\nworld of holy mystery, the infinite, immeasurable and abysmal God is\npictured as defined and personal in the face and figure of a little\nChild, in which the artist suggests in symbolism the infinite depth and\njoy and potency of Divinity breaking forth out of mystery into form.\nIt is precisely this birth of God into visibility that Boehme is\nendeavouring to tell.  \"The Son,\" however, Boehme says, \"is not divided\nor sundered from the Father, as two persons side by side--there are not\ntwo Gods.  The Son is the heart of the Father--God as Person--the\noutspringing Joy of the total triumphing Reality,[14] and through this\neternal movement toward self-consciousness and Personality, God becomes\nSpirit, an out-going energy of purpose, a dynamic activity, bursting\nforth into infinite manifestation and differentiation--a forth-breathed\nor expressed Word.[15]  Through {177} this eternal process of\nself-differentiation and outgoing activity, the inner spiritual\nuniverse comes into being--as an intermediate Nature or world, between\nthe ineffable Abyss of God on the one hand, and our world of material,\nvisible things on the other hand.\"  \"The process of the whole\ncreation,\" he says, \"is nothing else but a manifestation of the deep\nand unsearchable God, and yet creation is not God but rather like an\napple which springs from the power of the tree and grows upon the tree,\nand yet is not the tree--even so all things have sprung forth out of\nthe central divine Desire.\"[16]\n\nThis entire manifested or out-breathed universe is, he says, the\nexpression of the divine desire for holy sport and play.  The Heart of\nGod enjoys this myriad play of created beings, all tuned as the\ninfinite strings of a harp for contributing to one mighty harmony, and\nall together uttering and voicing the infinite variety of the divine\npurpose.  Each differentiated spirit or light or property or atom of\ncreation has a part to play in the infinite sport or game or harmony,\n\"so that in God there might be a holy play through the universe as a\nchild plays with his mother, and that so the joy in the Heart of God\nmight be increased,\"[17] or again, \"so that each being may be a true\nsounding string in God's harmonious concert.\"[18]\n\nThis eternal, interior World--the Mirror in which the Spirit manifests\nHimself--is a double world of darkness and light, for there can be no\nmanifestation except through opposites.[19]  There must be yes and no.\nIn order to have a play there must be opposing players.  In order to\nhave life and reality there must be conflict and conquest.  As soon as\nthe forth-going Word of God is differentiated into many concrete\nexpressions and the fundamental Unity of the Abyss is broken up into\nparticular desires and wills, there is bound to be a clash of\nopposites--will and contra-will, strain and tension, light and joy and\nbeauty, and over against them pain and sorrow and evil.  Evil must\nappear as soon as there is {178} process of separation,\ndifferentiation, variety, specialization and particularity.[20]\nDarkness appears as soon as there is a contraction or narrowing into\nconcrete desire and will.\n\nBoth worlds--the light world and the dark world--are made by desire and\nwill.  Narrowing desires for individual and particular aims, which\nsever a being from the total whole of divine goodness, make the kingdom\nof darkness, while death to self-will and a yearning desire and will\nfor all that is expressed in the Heart and Light of God, in the Person\nof His Son, make the kingdom of Light.  Lucifer--the awful example of\nthe dark World--fell because he stood in pride and despised the Birth\nof the Heart of God and its gentle, universalizing love-spirit; and so\nhis light went out into darkness.  His climbing up into a severed will\nwas his fall.  The more he climbed toward the sundered aim of his own\nwill and turned away from the Heart of God, the greater was his fall,\nfor to turn away from the Heart of God is always to fall.[21]  There is\nno darkness, no evil, in angel or devil or man, except the nature of\nthat particular being's own will and desire--both darkness and light\nare born of desire.  The origin of the fall of any creature, therefore,\nis not outside that creature, but within it.[22]\n\nThe evil in the world is only a possible good spoiled.  Beings created\nfor a holy sport and play, for an ordered harmony, as infinite\nharp-strings for a celestial music, set their wilful desires upon\nsundered ends, broke the intended harmony, or \"temperature,\" as Boehme\ncalls it, introduced strife--the _turba magna_--and darkness, and so\nspoiled the actual material out of which the kingdoms of nature are\nmade, for the attitude of will moulds the permanent structure of the\nbeing.  Through the whole universe, visible and invisible, as a result,\nthe dark lines run, and the drama of the whole process of the universe\nis the mighty issue between light and darkness, good and evil: Two\nuniversal qualities persist from {179} beginning to end and produce two\nkingdoms arrayed against each other--each within the other--one love,\nthe other wrath; one light, the other darkness; one heavenly, the other\nhellish.[23]\n\nNow out of this inner spiritual universe--a double universe of light\nand darkness--this temporal, visible, more or less material, world has\ncome forth, as an outer sheath of an inner world, and, like its Mother,\nit, too, is a double world of good and evil.  \"There is not,\" as\nWilliam Law, interpreting Boehme, once said, \"the smallest thing or the\nsmallest quality of a thing in this world, but is a quality of heaven\nor hell discovered [_i.e._ revealed] under a temporal form.  Every\nthing that is disagreeable to taste, to the sight, to our hearing,\nsmelling or feeling has its root and ground and cause in and from hell\n[the dark kingdom], and is as surely in its degree the working and\nmanifestation of hell in this world, as the most diabolical malice and\nwickedness is; the stink of weeds, of mire, of all poisonous, corrupted\nthings; shrieks, horrible sounds; wrathful fire, rage of tempests and\nthick darkness, are all of them things that had no possibility of\nexistence, till the fallen angels disordered their kingdom [_i.e._\nuntil the inner universe was spoiled by narrow, sundered desires].\nTherefore everything that is disagreeable and horrible in this life,\neverything that can afflict and terrify our senses, all the kinds of\nnatural and moral evil, are only so much of the nature, effects and\nmanifestation of hell, for hell and evil are only two words for one and\nthe same thing. . . .  On the other hand, all that is sweet, delightful\nand amiable in the world, in the serenity of air, the fineness of\nseasons, the joy of light, the melody of sounds, the beauty of colours,\nthe fragrance of smells, the splendour of precious stones, is nothing\nelse but heaven breaking through the veil of this world, manifesting\nitself in such a degree and darting forth in such variety so much of\nits own nature.\"[24]\n\nI have spoken so far as though Boehme traced the {180} source of every\nthing to _will and desire_, as though, in fact, the visible universe\nwere the manifold outer expression of some deep-lying personal will,\nand in the last analysis that is true, but his more usual form of\ninterpretation is that of the working of great structural _tendencies_,\nor _energies_, or \"_qualities_,\" as he calls them, which are common\nboth to the inner and the outer universe.  There are, he declares again\nand again with painful reiteration, but with little advance of\nlucidity, seven of these fundamental laws or energies or qualities,\nlike the sevenfold colour-band of the rainbow, though they can never be\nuntangled or sundered or thought of as standing side by side, for\ntogether in their unity and interprocesses they form the universe, with\nits warp and woof of light and darkness.[25]\n\nThe first \"quality\" is a contracting, compacting tendency which runs\nthrough the entire universe, outer and inner.  It is in its inmost\nessence _desire_, the egoistic tendency, the focusing of will upon a\ndefinite aim so that consciousness contracts from its universal and\nabsolute possibilities to a definite, limited, concrete _something in\nparticular_, and thus negates everything else.  Desire always disturbs\nthe \"Quiet\" and brings contraction, negation and darkness.  In the\nouter world it appears as the property of cohesion which makes the\nparticles of a particular thing hold and cling together and form one\nself-contained and separate thing.  It is the individualizing tendency\nwhich permeates the universe and which may be expressed either as a\nmaterial law in the outer world, or as personal will-tendency in the\ninner world.\n\nThe second \"quality\" is the attractive, gravitating tendency which\nbinds whole with whole as an organizing, universalizing energy.  This,\nagain, is both spiritual and physical--it has an outer and an inner\naspect.  It is a fundamental love-principle in the inner world--the\n{181} foundation, as Boehme says, of sweetness and warmth and\nmercy[26]--and at the same time is a structural, organizing law of\nnature, which tends out of many parts to make one universe.[27]\n\nThese two diverse tendencies at work eternally in the same world\nproduce strain and tension and _anguish_.  The tension occasioned by\nthese opposite forces gives rise to the third \"quality,\" which is a\ntendency toward movement, oscillation, rotation--what Boehme often\ncalls _the wheel of nature_, or the wheel of motion, or the wheel of\nlife.[28]  This, too, is both outer and inner; a law of the physical\nworld and a tendency of spirit.  There is nothing in nature that is not\nceaselessly moved, and there is no life without its restlessness and\nanguish, its inward strain and stress, its tension and its problem, its\ndizzy wheel of life--the perpetual pursuit of a goal which ends at the\nstarting-point as an endless circular process.\n\nThe fourth \"quality\" is the _flash_, or ignition, due to collision\nbetween nature and spirit, in which a new principle of activity breaks\nthrough what before was mere play of _forces_, and reveals something\nthat has activity in itself, the kindling, burning power of fire,\nthough not yet fire which gives _light_.  In the outer world it is the\nbursting forth of the elemental, fusing, consuming powers of Nature\nwhich may either construct or destroy.  In the inner world it is the\nbirth of self-consciousness on its lower levels, the awaking of the\nsoul, the kindling of passion, and desire, and purpose.  Any one of\nthese four lower \"qualities\" may stay at its own level, remain in\nitself, out of \"temperature\" or balance with the rest, and so be only a\n\"dark principle\"; or it may go on and fulfil itself in one of the\nhigher \"qualities\" next to be described, and so become a part of the\ntriumphing \"light principle.\"  Fire may be only a \"fire of anguish\" or\nit may go up into a \"fire of love\"; it may be a harsh, {182}\nself-tormenting fire, or it may be a soft, light-bringing, purifying\nfire.  Suffering may harden the spirit, or it may be the condition of\njoy.  Crucifixion may be mere torture, or it may be the way of\nsalvation.  It is then here at the _great divide_ between the\n\"qualities\" that the universe reveals its differentiation into two\nkingdoms--\"the dark\" and \"the light.\"\n\nThe fifth \"quality\" is Light, springing out of the \"flash\" of fire and\nrising to the level of illumination and the revelation of beauty.  It\nis at this stage of Light that the lower force-forms and fire-forms\nfirst stand revealed in their full meaning and come to their real\nfulfilment.  On its inner or spiritual side this Light-quality is an\n\"amiable and blessed Love.\"  It is the dawn and beginning of the\ntriumphing spirit of freedom which wills to draw all things back to one\ncentre, one harmony, one unity, in which wild will and selfish passion\nand isolating pride, and all that springs from the dark fire-root are\nquenched, and instead the central principle of the spiritual\nworld--Love--comes into play.\n\nBoehme calls his sixth \"quality\" voice or sound, but he means by it the\nentire range of intelligent expression through tone and melody, music\nand speech, everything in the world, in fact, that gives joy and beauty\nthrough purposeful utterance.  He even widens his category of \"sound\"\nto include colours and smells and tastes, in short, all the\nsense-qualities by which the world gets revealed in its richness of\nbeauty and harmony to our perception.  He widens it, too, to include\ndeeper and subtler tones than those of our earth-born sense--the\nheavenly sports and melodies and harmonies which the rightly attuned\nspirit may hear with a finer organ than the ear.\n\nThe seventh, and final, \"quality\" is body or figure, by which he means\nthe fundamental tendency or energy toward expression in actuality and\nconcrete form.  The final goal of intelligent purpose is the\nrealization of wisdom, of idea, in actual Nature-forms and\nlife-forms--the _incarnation of the spirit_.  There is nothing real in\nthe {183} universe but has its form, its \"signature,\" its figure, its\nbody-aspect: \"There is not anything but has its soul and its body, and\neach soul is as it were an inner kernel, or seed, to a visible and\ncomprehensible body,\"[29] and, as we shall see, the supreme achievement\nof the universe is the visible appearance of the Word of God, the\neternal Son, in flesh like ours--a visible realization in time of the\neternal Heart of God.  The glory of God appears in a kingdom of God, a\nvisible vesture of the Spirit.\n\nAll these seven qualities, or \"fountain-spirits,\" or fundamental\ntendencies, are in every part and parcel of the universe, and each\nparticular thing or being finds his true place in the vast drama or\nplay of the universe, according to which \"quality\" is prepotent, and\nmarks the thing or being with its \"signature.\"  They constitute in\ntheir eternal nature what Boehme calls _The Three Principles_ that\nunderlie all reality of every order.  The first principle is the\nsubstratum or essence of these first three \"qualities,\" the\nnature-tendencies at the level of forces, which he generally calls the\n_fire-principle_, _i.e._ the dark fire, before the \"flash\" has come.\nThe second principle is the substratum or essence of the last three\n\"qualities\"--the tendencies toward unity, harmony, order, love, which\nhe calls the _light-principle_.  The third principle produces the union\nor synthesis of the other two--the principle of realization in body and\nform, the triumph over opposition of these two opposing principles in\nthe exhibition of the real, the actual, the living, the conscious,\nwhere dark and light are both joined, but are dominated by another\nirreducible principle.  To these three fundamental principles\ncorrespond the three supreme divine aspects: Father, Son, and Holy\nGhost.[30]\n\nWe are here, of course, far from a scientific account of the processes\nand evolution of the universe.  Boehme {184} is no scientific genius\nand he did not dream that every item and event of the world of\nphenomena could be causally explained, without reference to any deeper\nabysmal world of Spirit.  His mission is rather that of the prophet who\n\"has eyes of his own.\"  He is endeavouring to tell us, often no doubt\nin very laborious fashion, sometimes as \"one who is tunnelling through\nlong tracts of darkness,\" that this outside world which we see and\ndescribe is a parable, a pictorial drama, suggesting, hinting,\nrevealing an inside world of Spirit and Will; that every slightest\nfragment of the seen is big with significance as a revelation of an\nunseen realm, which again is an egress from the unimaginable Splendour\nof God.  He believes, like Paracelsus, that everything in\nNature--plants, metals, and stars--\"can be fundamentally searched out\nand comprehended\" by the inward way of approach, can be read like an\nopen book by the children of the Spirit who have caught the secret clue\nthat leads in, and who have the key that unlocks the inner realm.[31]\n\nObviously his \"inner way of approach\" works more successfully when\napplied to _man_ than when applied to plants and metals and stars--and\nwhen he writes of man, whether in the first or in the third person, he\ndoes often seem to have \"eyes of his own,\" and to \"hold the key that\nunlocks.\"\n\nIt is an elemental idea with him that man is \"a little world\"--a\nmicrocosm--and expresses in himself all the properties of the great\nworld--the macrocosm.[32]  \"As you find man to be,\" he writes, \"just so\nis eternity.  Consider man in body and soul, in good and evil, in light\nand darkness, in joy and sorrow, in power and weakness, in life and\ndeath--all is in man, both heaven and earth, stars and elements.\nNothing can be named that is not man.\"[33]  Every man's life is\ninwardly bottomless and opens from within into all the immeasurable\ndepth of God.  Eternity springs through time and reveals itself in\nevery person, for the foundation property of the soul {185} of every\nman is essentially eternal, spiritual, and abysmal--it is a little drop\nout of the Fountain of the Life of God, it is a little sparkle of the\nDivine Splendour.[34]  God is spoken of again and again as \"man's\nnative country,\" his true \"origin and home\"--\"The soul of man is always\nseeking after its native country, out of which it has wandered, seeking\nto return home again to its rest in God.\"[25]  \"The soul of man,\" he\nsays again, \"has come out from the eternal Father, out from the Divine\nCentre, but this soul--with this high origin and this noble\nmark--stands always at the opening of two gates.\"[36]  Two worlds, two\nmighty cosmic principles, make their appeal to his will.  Two kingdoms\nwrestle in him, two natures strive for the mastery in his life, and he\nmakes his world, his nature, his life, his eternal destiny by his\nchoices: \"Whatsoever thou buildest and sowest here in thy spirit, be it\nwords, works, or thought, that will be thy eternal house.\"[37]  \"The\ngood or evil that men do, by acts of will, enters into and forms the\nsoul and so moulds its permanent habitation.\"[38]  Adam once, and every\nman after him also once, has belonged, in the centre of the soul, to\nGod, and whether it be Adam or some far-off descendant of him, each is\nthe creator of his own real world, and settles for himself the\natmosphere in which he shall live and the inner \"tincture\" of his\nabiding nature.  \"Adam fell\"--and any man's name can here be\nsubstituted for \"Adam\"--\"because, though he was a spark of God's\neternal essence, he broke himself off and sundered himself from the\nuniversal Will--by contraction--and withdrew into self-seeking, and\ncentred himself in selfishness.  He broke the perfect temperature--or\nharmonious balance of qualities--and turned his will toward the dark\nworld and the light in him grew dim.\"[39]  To follow the dark world is\nto be Lucifer or fallen Adam, to follow the light world completely is\nto be Christ[40]--and before every soul the two {186} gates stand\nopen.[41]  In a powerful and penetrating passage he says: \"We should\ntake heed and beget that which is good out of ourselves.  If we make an\nangel of ourselves we are that; if we make a devil of ourselves, we are\nthat.\"[42]\n\nThis last sentence is a good introduction to Boehme's conception of\n\"the next world\"--\"the great beyond.\"  He was as completely free of the\ncrude idea that heaven is a shining locality in the sky, and hell a\nyawning pit of fire below the earth, as the most exact scientific\nscholar of the modern world is likely to be.  He had grasped the\nessential and enduring character of man's spiritual nature so firmly\nthat he ceased to have any further interest in the mythological aspects\nin which vivid and pictorial imagination has invested the unseen world.\n\"God's presence itself,\" he says, \"is heaven, and if God did but put\naway the veiling shadows, which now curtain thy sight, thou wouldst\nsee, even where thou now art, the Face of God and the heavenly gate.\nGod is so near that at any moment a holy Birth [a Birth into the Life\nof God] may be accomplished in thy heart,\"[43] and, again, in the same\nbook he writes: \"If man's eyes were opened he would see God everywhere,\nfor heaven is everywhere for those who are in the innermost Birth.\nWhen Stephen saw heaven opened and Jesus at the right hand of God, his\nspirit did not swing itself aloft into some heaven in the sky, but it\nrather penetrated into the innermost Birth where heaven always is.\nThou must not think that God is a Being who is off in an upper heaven,\nor that when the soul departs it goes many hundred thousands of miles\naloft.  It does not need to do that, for as soon as it has entered the\ninnermost Birth it is in heaven already with God--_near and far in God\nis one thing_.\"[44]\n\nThe \"next world\"--\"the beyond\"--therefore, must not be thought of in\nterms of space and time, of here and there, of now and then, as a place\nto which we shall journey at the momentous moment of death: \"the soul\n{187} needeth no going forth.\"[45]  As soon as the external veil of\nflesh dissolves, each person is in his own country and has all the time\nbeen in it.  There is nothing nearer to you than heaven and hell.  To\nwhichever of them you _incline_ and toward whichever of them you\ntend--that is most near you, and every man has in himself the key.[46]\nHeaven and hell are everywhere throughout the whole world.  You need\nnot seek them far off.\n\nIt is always the nature of \"Anti-Christ\" and \"Babel\" and\n\"opinion-peddlers\" to seek God and heaven and hell above the stars or\nunder the deep.  There is only one \"place\" to look for God and that is\nin one's own soul, there is only one \"region\" in which to find heaven\nor hell, and that is in the nature and character of the person's own\ndesire and will: \"Even though the devil should go many millions of\nmiles, desiring to see heaven and enter into it, yet he would still be\nin hell and could not see heaven at all.\"[47]  The soul, Boehme says in\nsubstance, hath heaven or hell in itself.  Heaven is the turning of the\nwill into God's love; hell is the turning of the will into hate.  Now\nwhen the body falls away the heavenly soul is thoroughly penetrated\nwith the Love and Light of God, even as fire penetrates and enlightens\nwhite-hot iron, whereby it loses its darkness--this is heaven and this\nis the right hand of God.  The soul that dwells in falsehood, lust,\npride, envy, and anger carries hell in itself and cannot reach the\nLight and Love of God.  Though it should go a thousand miles or a\nthousand times ten thousand miles--even climb beyond the spaces of the\nstars and the bounds of the universe--it would still remain in the same\nproperty and source of darkness as before.[48]  The \"next world\"--\"the\nworld beyond\"--is {188} just _this_ world, as it is in each one of us,\nwith its essential spirit and nature and character clearly revealed and\nfulfilled.  God creates and maintains no hell of ever-lasting torture;\nHe builds and supports no heaven of endless glory.  They are both\nformed out of the soul's own substance as it turns toward light or\ndarkness, toward love or hate--in short, as \"it keeps house,\" to use\none of his vivid words, with the eternal nature of things.\n\nSomething like this, then, was the universe which Boehme--with those\n\"azure-grey eyes that lighted up like the windows of Solomon's\nTemple\"--saw there in Goerlitz, as he pegged his shoes.  \"Open your\neyes,\" he once said, \"and the whole world is full of God.\"[49]  But he\nis not a pantheist, in the usual sense of that word, blurring away the\nlines between good and evil, or the boundaries which mark off self from\nself, and self from God.  There is forever, to be sure, a hidden\nessence or substance in the soul which is from God, and which remains\nto the end unlost and unspoiled--something to which God can speak and\nto which His Light and Grace can make appeal; but I am indestructibly a\nreal I, and God is in His true nature no vague Abyss--He eternally\nutters Himself as Person: \"The first Abysmal God without beginning\nbegets a comprehensible will which is Son.  Thus the Abyss which in\nitself is an indescribable Nothing [nothing in particular] forms itself\ninto Something [definite] through the Birth of a Son, and so is\nSpirit.\"[50]  In God Himself there is only Good, only triumphing\neternal Joy,[51] but as soon as finite processes appear, as soon as\nanything is differentiated into actuality, the potentialities of\ndarkness and light appear, the possibilities of good and evil are\nthere: \"_All things consist in Yes or No.  In order to have anything\ndefinite made manifest there must be a contrary therein--a Yes and a\nNo._\"[52]  The universe, therefore, though it came forth out of the\neternal Mother and remains still, in its deepest origin and being,\nrooted in the substance of God, is a {189} battleground of strife, an\nendless Armageddon.  Both within and without the world is woven of\nmixed strands, a warp of darkness and a woof of light, and all beings\npossessed of will are thus actors in a mighty drama of eternal\nsignificance, with exits, not only at the end of the Fifth Act but\nthroughout the play, through two gates into two worlds which are both\nall the time present here and now.\n\n\n\n[1] _Aurora_, xxi. 60-62.\n\n[2] Swinburne, _Erechtheus_.\n\n[3] See _Fifteenth Epistle_, 25.\n\n[4] _Fifth Epistle_, 50.\n\n[5] Like Paracelsus, he uses \"sulphur\" in a symbolic way to represent\nan active energy of the universe and a form of will in man.  In a\nsimilar way, \"mercury\" stands for intelligence and spirit, and \"salt\"\nis the symbol for substance.  No one could find in a chemist's shop the\nsalt or sulphur that Boehme talks about!\n\n[6] There is a fine saying about Dante in the Ottimo Commento: \"I, the\nwriter, heard Dante say that never a rhyme had led him to say other\nthan he would, but that many a time and oft he had made words say for\nhim what they were not wont to say for other poets.\"\n\n[7] _Sig. re._ ix. 1-3.  Paracelsus said, \"Everything is the product of\none creative effort,\" and, \"There is nothing corporeal that does not\npossess a soul.\"\n\n[8] _The Supersensual Life_, p. 44.\n\n[9] Paracelsus and others used the term _Mysterium magnum_ to denote\nthe original, but unoriginated, matter out of which all things were\nmade.  \"Mysterium\" is anything out of which something germinally\ncontained in it can be developed.\n\n[10] _Mysterium magnum_, xxix. 1-2.\n\n[11] _Forty Questions_, i. 57.\n\n[12] _Sig. re._ ii. 4-15, and iii. 1-10.\n\n[13] _The Threefold Life of Man_, iii. 2.\n\n[14] _Aurora_, iii. 35-39.\n\n[15] _Ibid._ vi. 6-8; _Clavis_, 18-29.\n\n[16] _Sig. re._ xvi. i.\n\n[17] _Aurora_, xiii. 48-57; _Myst. mag._ viii. 31; _The Three\nPrinciples_, iv. 66.\n\n[18] _Sig. re._ xv. 38.\n\n[19] _Myst. mag._ viii. 27.\n\n[20] _Myst. mag._ xxix. 1-10.\n\n[21] _The Three Principles_, iv. 68-74; _The Threefold Life_, iv. 33.\n\n[22] _Myst. mag._ ix. 3-8.\n\n[23] _Aurora_, Preface 84.\n\n[24] Christopher Walton, _Notes and Materials for a Biography of Wm.\nLaw_ (London, 1854), 55.\n\n[25] The great passages in which Boehme expounds the seven qualities\nare found in the _Aurora_, chaps. viii.-xi.; _Sig. re._ chap. xiv.;\n_The Clavis_, 54-132; though they are more or less definitely stated or\nimplied in nearly everything he wrote.  Seven \"qualities\" or\n\"principles\" or \"sources\" appear and reappear in ever shifting forms\nthroughout the entire literature of Gnosticism, alchemy, and\nnature-mysticism.\n\n[26] _Aurora_, viii. 32-35.\n\n[27] Some of Boehme's enthusiastic friends insist that Sir Isaac\nNewton, who was an admirer of Boehme, \"ploughed with Boehme's heifer,\"\n_i.e._ got his suggestion of the law of universal gravitation from the\nphilosopher of Goerlitz.  See Walton, _Notes_, p. 46 and _passim_.\n\n[28] _Sig. re._ iv. _passim_.\n\n[29] _Sig. re._ xiii.\n\n[30] For fuller treatment of this point see Boutroux, _Historical\nStudies in Philosophy_, chapter on \"Jacob Boehme, the German\nPhilosopher,\" pp. 199-201.\n\n[31] _Third Epistle_, 33.\n\n[32] _Twenty-fourth Epistle_, 7; _Sig. re._ i.\n\n[33] _The Threefold Life_, vi. 47.\n\n[34] _The Three Princ._ xiv. 89; _First Epistle_, 42.\n\n[35] _The Three Princ._ x. 26; xvi. 50.\n\n[36] _Ibid._ x. 13.\n\n[37] _Aurora_, xviii. 49.\n\n[38] _Myst. mag._ xxii. 41.\n\n[39] _Ibid._ xviii. 31-43, given in substance.\n\n[40] _Ibid._ xxvi. 19.  The place of Christ in Boehme's system will be\ngiven in the next chapter.\n\n[41] _Myst. mag._ xxvi.  5.\n\n[42] _Incarnation_, part ii. ix. 12-14.\n\n[43] _Aurora_, x. 100-103.\n\n[44] _Ibid._ xix. 56-59.\n\n[45] _The Supersensual Life_, 36.\n\n[46] _The Three Princ._ ix. 25-27 and xix. 33.\n\n[47] _Myst. mag._ viii. 28.\n\n[48] _The Supersensual Life_, 38.  Every reader will naturally be\nreminded of Milton's great lines:\n\n    \"The mind is its own place, and in itself\n    Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.\"\n\nThere were no doubt many _sources_ in Milton's time for such a\nconception, but the poet surely would read the translations of Boehme\nwhich were coming from the press all through the period of his literary\nactivity.\n\n[49] _The Threefold Life_, xi. 106.\n\n[50] _Election_, i. 10-17.\n\n[51] _Aurora_, ii. 63.\n\n[52] _Theosoph. Quest._ iii. 2-4.\n\n\n\n\n{190}\n\nCHAPTER XI\n\nJACOB BOEHME'S \"WAY OF SALVATION\"\n\n\"I will write a Process or Way which I myself have gone.\"[1]  Most\nwriters who have treated of Boehme have mainly dealt with his\n_Weltanschauung_--his theosophical view of the Abyss and the worlds of\ntime and eternity,--or they have devoted themselves to descriptions of\nhis type of mysticism.[2]  His important permanent contribution to\nChristianity is, however, to be found in his interpretation of the way,\nor, as he calls it, the process of salvation.  Very much that he wrote\nabout the procession of the universe is capricious and subjective.  His\ninterpretations of Genesis, and of Old Testament Scripture in general,\nare thoroughly uncritical and of value only as they reveal his own mind\nand his occasional flashes of insight.  But his accounts of his own\n_experience_ and his message of the way to God possess an elemental and\nuniversal value, and belong among the precious words of the prophets of\nthe race.  His Way of Salvation is in direct line with the central\nideas of Denck, Buenderlin, Entfelder, Franck, Schwenckfeld, and Weigel;\nthat is, his emphasis is always, as was theirs, upon the native divine\npossibilities of the soul, upon the fact of a spiritual environment in\nimmediate correspondence and co-operation with the soul, and upon the\nnecessity of personal and inward experience as the key to every gate of\nlife; but he puts more stress even than Schwenckfeld did {191} upon the\nepoch-making new birth, and he sees more in the Person of Christ as the\nway of salvation than any of the spiritual Reformers of the sixteenth\ncentury had seen, while his own personal experience was so unique and\nilluminating, so profound and transforming, that he was able to speak\non divine things with a grasp and insight and with a spiritual\nauthority beyond that attained by any of the reformers in this group.\nHe has given, I think, as profound and as simple, and at the same time\nas vital an interpretation of salvation through Christ as the\nReformation movement produced before the nineteenth century, and much\nthat he said touches the very core of what seems to us to-day to be the\nheart of the Gospel, the central fact of mature religion.[3]\n\nAs we have seen, Boehme does not in the least blink the tragic depth of\nsin, while he goes as far as anybody in holding that \"the centre of\nman's soul came out of eternity,\"[4] that \"as a mother bringeth forth a\nchild out of her own substance and nourisheth it therewith, so doth God\nwith man his child,\"[5] and that the inward ground and centre of the\nsoul, with its divine capacity of response to Grace and Light, is an\ninalienable possession of every man.[6]  Yet, at the same time, he\ninsists that there is in every soul \"both a yes and a no,\" a vision of\nthe good and a _contrarium_, a hunger for the universal will of God and\na hunger for the particular will of self.[7]  The form of hunger, the\ninclination of desire, the attitude of will shapes the destiny, forms\nthe fundamental disposition, and builds the life of every man into\nheaven or into hell--\"a man puts on a garment of light or a garment of\nwrath as he puts on clothes.\"[8]  To consent to false desire, to turn\ntoward objects that feed only the particular selfish will, to live in\nthe lower \"qualities\" of dark-fire is to {192} form a soul _tinctured_\nwith darkness and sundered from the eternal root of Life.  Lucifer went\nthe whole way in his consent to false and evil desire.  He said, \"Evil\nbe thou my good!\" and formed his entire nature out of the\ndark-principle, and \"his Light went out.\"  Adam and his offspring after\nhim, however, only dimmed the native Light and deadened the original\npower that belongs to one who comes from God, to live in heavenly\nharmony and joy.  Man has fallen indeed, but he is not hopelessly lost,\nhe is \"forever seeking his native country,\" and he forever bears within\nhimself an immortal seed which may burst into Life--into a\n\"Lily-blossom.\"[9]  The way of salvation for Boehme is the _process_ by\nwhich this original Light and power, dimmed and deadened by sin, are\nrestored to the soul.\n\nHe never tires of insisting that the restoration can come only by a\n_process of Life_, not by a \"scheme\" of theology.  Like the early\nprophets of Israel, in their sweeping attacks on the ritual and\nsacrificial systems that were being substituted for moral and spiritual\nlife, Boehme flings himself with holy passion against the substitution\nof doctrines of salvation for a real life-process of salvation,\npersonally experienced in the soul.  \"Cain\" and \"Babel\" are his two\nfavourite types of the prevailing substitute-religion which he calls\n\"verbal,\" or \"historical,\" or \"titular\" Christianity.[10]  \"Whatever\nBabel teaches,\" he says, \"of external imputed righteousness, or of\nexternal assumed adoption is without foundation or footing.\"[11]  He is\nstill only a follower of \"Cain\" who tries to cover his old, evil,\nunchanged self \"with the purple mantle of Christ's death.\"[12]  The\n\"opinion\" that the old man of evil-will can be \"covered\" with Christ's\nmerit, the \"faith\" that His death pays off for us the debt of our sin\nis only \"a supposed religion.\"[13]  \"Christianity,\" he says again,\n\"does not consist in the mere knowing of history and applying the\nhistory-knowledge to ourselves, {193} saying: 'Christ died for us; He\nhath paid the ransom for us, so that we need do nothing but comfort\nourselves therewith and steadfastly believe that it is so.'\"[14]  The\n\"doctors\" and \"the wise world\" and \"the makers of opinion\" will have it\nthat Christ has suffered on the Cross for all our sins, and that we can\nbe justified and acquitted of all our transgressions by what He did for\nus, but it is no true, safe way for the soul.  To stake faith upon a\nhistory that once was, to look for \"satisfaction\" through the\nsufferings which Christ endured before we were born is to be \"the child\nof an assumed grace,\" is to possess a mere external and historical\nfaith that leaves the dim, weak soul where it was before.  All such\n\"invented works\" and \"supposed schemes\" are of Anti-Christ, they \"avail\nnothing\" whatever toward the real process of salvation.[15]\n\nThe gravamen of his charge is not that the \"opinions\" are false, or\nthat the \"history\" is unimportant, but that \"opinions\" and \"history\"\nare taken as substitutes for religion itself, which is and must always\nbe an actual inward process constructing a new and victorious life in\nthe person himself.  \"All fictions, I say, and devices which men\ncontrive to come to God by are lost labour and vain endeavour _without\na new mind_.  Verbal forgiveness and outward imputation of\nrighteousness are false and vain comforts--soft cushions for the evil\nsoul--without the creation of a will wholly new, which loveth and\nwilleth evil no more.\"[16]  The whole problem, then, is the problem of\nthe formation of a new vision, a new desire, a new will, and Boehme\nfinds the solution of this deepest human problem in Christ.  Christ is\nthe Light-revelation of God--the shining forth of the Light and Love\nnature of the Eternal God.  It must not be supposed for a moment that\nonce--before satisfaction was made to Him--God was an angry God who had\nto be \"reconciled\" by a transaction, or that there was _a time in\nhistory_ when God began to reveal His Heart in a Christ-revelation, or\n{194} that when Christ became man, Deity divided itself into sundered\nPersons.[17]  \"No.  You ought not to have such thoughts,\" Boehme says.\nThe Heart and Light and Love of God are from eternity.  Christ has\nnever sundered or broken Himself away from God; they are not two but\nforever One.  All the Light and Love and Joy of God have blossomed into\nthe Christ-manifestation and become revealed in Him.  Like everything\nelse in the universe, Christ is both outward and inward.  He belongs in\nthe eternal inward world and He also has had His temporal manifestation\nin the visible world.  The Heart of God became a human soul, brought\nthe fulness of the Deity into humanity, and slew the spirit of the\nworld.[18]  The inward penetrated the outward and illuminated it with\nLight.[19]  Christ entered into humanity and tinctured it with\nDeity.[20]  In Him the Heart of God became man, and in the power of the\nheavenly Light He wrestled with our wild human nature and conquered\nit.[21]  Eternity and time are united in Him.[22]  He is the wedding\nchamber of God and man.[23]  He is God and man in one undivided\nPerson.[24]  He is actual God; He is essential man--the God-man, the\nman-God, in whom the arms of everlasting Love are outstretched and\nthrough whom humanity is brought into the power of the Eternal God.[25]\nIt was in this \"dear Emmanuel,\" as he often calls Christ, that \"Love\nbecame man and put on our human flesh and our human soul,\"[26] and the\nfull power of Eternal Love stood revealed in time, for \"One who is Love\nitself was born of our own very birth.\"[27]  The Cross was not a\ntransaction.  It was the culmination of this mighty Love, for \"here on\nthe cross hung God and man\"--God's Love springing forth in a soul\nstrong enough to show it in its full scope.[28]\n\nBut let no person think that he can \"cover himself with the purple\nmantle of Christ's sufferings and death,\" {195} and so win his\nsalvation: \"Thou thyself,\" he says, \"must go through Christ's whole\njourney, and enter wholly into His process.\"[29]  \"We become children\nof God in Christ,\" he wrote in one of his Epistles, \"not by an outward,\nadventitious show of appropriating Grace, not through some merit of\nGrace appropriated from without, or received in an historical\napprehension of being justified by another, but through an inward,\nresident Grace, which regenerates us into childlikeness, so that Christ\nthe conqueror of death arises in us and becomes a dominating operation\nin us.\"[30]  This is the heart of his entire message.  Every step must\nbe experimental.  Salvation is an inward process, and Christ is\nefficacious and effective because _He lives and operates in us_.  \"The\nsuffering and death of Christ,\" he says, \"avail only for those who die\nto their own will in and with Christ, and are buried with Him to a new\nwill and obedience, and hate sin; who put on Christ in His suffering,\nreproach, and persecution, take His cross upon them and follow Him\nunder His red banner; to those who put on Christ in His process and now\nbecome in the inward spiritual man Christ's members and the Temple of\nGod who dwells in us.  No one has a right to comfort himself with\nChrist's merits unless he desires wholly to put on Christ in himself.\nHe is not a Christian until he has put Him on by true repentance and\nconversion to Him with absolute resignation and self-denial, so that\nChrist espouseth and betrotheth Himself with him. . . .  For a\nChristian must be born of Christ and must die to the will of Adam.  He\nmust have Christ in him and be a member of His Life according to the\nspiritual man.\"[31]\n\nFaith, which is always the key-word in any person's interpretation of\nChristianity, is for Boehme a dynamic process of appropriating Christ,\nand of re-living Him.  \"Faith,\" he writes in his treatise on _The\nIncarnation_, {196} \"is not historical knowledge for a man to make\narticles of it and to depend on them, but faith is one spirit with God,\nit is the activity of God; it is free, but only for the right and for\npure Love, in which it draws the breath of its power and strength.  It\nis, finally, itself the substance.\"[32]  Faith is, thus, not knowledge,\nit is not believing facts of history, it is not accepting metaphysical\ndogma.  It is, as he is never weary of saying, \"strong earnestness of\nspirit,\" the earnest will to live in the inward and eternal, passionate\nhunger and thirst for God, and finally the act of receiving Christ into\nthe soul as a present power and spirit to live by.  \"I must die,\" he\nwrote, \"with my outward man [the man of self-centred will] in Christ's\ndeath and arise and live anew in Him.  Therefore I live now by the will\nof faith in the spirit of Christ and receive Christ with His humanity\ninto my will.  He makes through me a manifestation of the spiritual\nworld and introduces the true Love-sound into the harp-strings of my\nlife.  He became that which I am, and now He has made me that which He\nis!\"[33]\n\nAnother word for this efficacious and dynamic Faith is \"Birth\" or\n\"innermost Birth,\" by which Boehme means the act of discovering the\nGate to the Heart and Love and Light of God, and of entering it.  \"The\nSon of God, the Eternal Word of the Father, the Glance and Brightness\nand Power of Eternal Light must become man and _be born in you_;\notherwise you are in the dark stable and go about groping.\"[34]  \"If\nthou art born of God, then within the circle of thy own life is the\nwhole undivided Heart of God.\"[35]  It is a transforming event by which\none swings over from life in the outer to life in the inner world, from\nlife in the dark world to life in the light world, and is born into the\nkingdom, or principle, which Christ revealed in His triumphant\nspiritual Life.  The human spirit, by this innermost Birth, reaches the\nprinciple of Life by which Christ lived, and the gate into heaven is\nopened and paradise is in the soul.  In a {197} beautiful passage he\nsays: \"This birth must be wrought within you.  The Heart, or the Son of\nGod must arise in the birth of your life, and then you are in Christ\nand He is in you, and all that He and the Father have is yours; and as\nthe Son is one with the Father, so also the new man is one with the\nFather and with the Son, one virtue, one power, one light, one life,\none eternal paradise, one enduring substance, one Father, Son, and Holy\nGhost, and thou His child!\"[36]  God is no longer conceived as far\naway.  He is now with His Love and Light as near as the soul is to\nitself, and the joy of being born in Christ is like the joy of parents\nwhen a little child is born to them.[37]  God's will now becomes the\nman's will, he turns back into the unity from which he broke away, he\nsees now in one moment what all the doctors in the schools, on the mere\nlevel of reason, have never seen, and his inward eye is so opened that\nhe knows God as soon as his eye turns toward Him.[38]\n\nThis Faith-process, or innermost life-birth, is not the act of a moment\nthat is over and done with.  It means the progressive formation of a\nnew man within the man, so that the real Christian becomes a living\nbranch in a mighty Christ-Tree.  Just as Adam was the trunk of a great\nrace-tree of fallen humanity, Christ is to be the Eternal Life-Tree of\nthe universe in whom all the new-born souls of men shall live as\nspringing, flowering branches or twigs: God created only one Man; all\nother men are twigs of the One Stem.[39]  \"In Christ,\" he says, \"we are\nall only one, as a tree in many boughs and branches,\" and, with a\nreturn to autobiography, Boehme adds, \"His Life has been brought into\nmine, so that I am atoned with Him in His Love.  The will of Christ has\nentered into humanity again in me, and now my will in me enters into\nHis humanity.\"[40]  He writes to one of his Silesian friends: \"You are\na growing branch in the Life-Tree of God in Christ, in whom all the\nchildren of God are also branches,\" and he adds that there is \"no other\nfaith {198} which saves except Christ in us,\" the Life of our\nlives.[41]  Sometimes he calls this triumphant experience the birth of\na new branch in Christ's Life-Tree, sometimes the birth of the Lily in\nChrist's garden of flowers, sometimes it is the birth of the immortal\nseed.  Sometimes it is uniting in life and spirit with Him who is \"the\nTreader on the Serpent,\" sometimes it is finding the noble Virgin,\nsometimes it is discovering the Philosopher's Stone, sometimes it is\nwinning the precious Diadem, sometimes it is possessing the key which\nunlocks the Door, sometimes it is arriving at the Sabbath Quiet of the\nsoul.  These are only a variety of ways, many of them forgotten\ninheritances from alchemy and astrology, of saying that the soul finds\nits goal in an experience which binds it into one common corporate life\nwith Christ and so into an elemental Love-Unity with God: whoever is\nborn of Christ liveth and walketh in Him, puts Him on in His suffering,\ndeath, and resurrection, becomes a member of Christ's body, is\n\"tinctured\" with His spirit, and has his own human life rooted in the\nLove of God.[42]  Here, then, in the creation and formation of this\norganic Life-Tree the universe attains its ultimate goal.  It is wholly\nan achievement of free will, of holy choice.  The dark Principle is not\nannihilated, is not suppressed, but the Heart of God moves ever on in a\nsteadily growing triumph, binding soul after soul into the divine\nIgdrasil Tree of the Light Universe, in a unity that is not now the\nunity of negation and undifferentiation--an Abyss that swallows up all\nthat is in it,--but a unity of many wills united in a spirit of concord\nand love, many persons formed by holy desire into one unbroken symphony\nas harps of God.\n\nWith the change of _centre_ in the inner man corresponds also the outer\nlife of word and deed, for the outer, here as everywhere, is only the\n\"signature\" of an inner which fits it: \"A man must show the root of the\ntree out of which spirit and flesh have their origin.\"[43]  When the\nwill becomes new-born and the soul unites itself as a twig {199} in\nChrist's Life-Tree, then it ceases to love sin and will it.  When God\nbrings His will into birth in us, He gives us virtue and power to will\nwhat He wills, and to leave our sins behind.[44]  The attitude of hate,\nthe spirit of war are marks of the old unchanged nature, and are\nheathenish and not Christian.  When Christ is formed in the inner\nground of the soul, a man leaves the sword in the sheath and lives in\nthe virtue and power of peace and love.  \"What will Christ say,\" he\nasks the ministers of the Church of his day, \"when He sees your\napostolic hearts covered with armor?  When He gave you the sword of the\nSpirit, did He command you to fight and make war, or to instigate kings\nand princes to put on the sword and kill?\"[45]\n\nLike the prophets of Israel, he feels intensely the sufferings of the\npoor and the oppressed, and he breaks out frequently into a biting\nsatire on a kind of Christianity which not only neglects the true\n_cure_ of soul and body, but \"consumes the sweat and blood of the\nneedy,\" and feeds upon \"the sighs and groans and tears of the\npoor.\"[46]  The true idea of a _real_ Christianity is \"fraternity in\nthe Life of Christ\"--\"thy brother's soul,\" he says, \"is a fellow-member\nwith thy soul,\"[47] and he insists, as though it were the mighty burden\nof his spirit, that all possessions, goods, and talents shall\ncontribute to the common life of humanity and to the benefit of the\nsocial group.[48]  It is much better for parents to labour to form good\nsouls in their children than to strive to gather and to leave behind\nfor them great riches and abundance of goods![49]  Self-desire is a\nground not only of personal disquiet but also of social disturbance,\nand Boehme feels that the way to spread peace and joy through the world\nis to cultivate the Love-spirit of Christ and to practice it in\nfellowship with men.\n\nLike his German predecessor, Sebastian Franck, he is {200} primarily\nconcerned with the invisible Church, and he holds lightly to the\nempirical Church as he knows it.  The Church to which his spirit is\ndedicated is the organic Life-Tree of which Christ is the living Stem.\nThe holy Zion is not from without, he says, it is built up of those who\nare joined to Christ and who all live together in one city which is\nChrist in us.[50]  A Christian in the life belongs to no sect, he\nceases to wrangle over opinions and words, he dwells in the midst of\nsects and Babel-churches, but he keeps above the controversies and\ncontentions, and \"puts his knowing and willing into the Life of\nChrist,\" and works quietly on toward the formation and triumph of the\none true Christian Church,[51] which will be, when its glory is\ncomplete, the visible expression of the Divine Life-Tree.\n\nHe dislikes, as much as did the English Quaker, George Fox, the custom\nof calling \"stone houses\" churches, and he will not admit that a\nbuilding is anything but a building: \"Stone houses, called churches,\nhave no greater holiness than other houses, for they are built of stone\nand other such material, as other houses are, and God is no more\npowerful in them than He is in other houses, but the Church [_i.e._ the\nCongregation] which meets there, if the members of it bind themselves\nby prayer into one body in Christ, is a holy Temple of Jesus\nChrist.\"[52]\n\nHis attitude toward outward sacraments consistently fits in with all\nhis central teachings.  The outward, for Boehme, is never unimportant.\nIt is always significant and can always be used as a parable or symbol\nof something inner and eternal.  But the outward is at best only\ntemporal, only symbolic, and it becomes a hindrance if it is taken for\nthe real substance of which it is only the outward \"signature\": \"The\nform shall be destroyed and shall cease with time, but the spirit\nremains forever.\"[53]  The sacraments, he declares, do not take away\nsin, for men go to church all their lives and receive the sacraments\n{201} and remain as wicked and beastly as ever--while a holy man always\nhas a Church within himself and an inward ministry.[54]  Blessedness,\ntherefore, lies not in the outward, but in the life and power of the\ninward spirit, and it is only a Babel-Church that claims the right to\ncast out those who have the real substance and neglect only the outward\nform.[55]  In his _Treatise on the Holy Supper_, he wrote: \"It is not\nenough for a man to hear sermons preached, and to be baptised in the\nname of Christ, and to go to the Supper.  This maketh no Christian.\nFor that, there must be _earnestness_.  No person is a Christian unless\nChrist live and work in him.\"[56]\n\nThe pith and heart of Christianity, the consummate goal of the way of\nSalvation, for Boehme is, as we have seen, not \"history\" and not any\nkind of outward \"form\" or \"letter\"--_buchstaebliches Wort_,--it is an\nexperience in which the soul finds itself \"at the top of Jacob's\nladder,\" and feels its life in God and God's Life in it in an ineffable\nLove-union.  He has himself given a very simple and penetrating account\nof this type of experience drawn from what he calls his own book of\nlife: \"Finding within myself a powerful _contrarium_, namely, the\ndesires that belong to flesh and blood, I began to fight a hard battle\nagainst my corrupted nature, and with the aid of God I made up my mind\nto overcome the inherited evil will, to break it, and to enter wholly\ninto the Love of God. . . .  This, however, was not possible for me to\naccomplish, but I stood firmly by my _earnest resolution_, and fought a\nhard battle with myself.  Now while I was wrestling and battling, being\naided by God, a wonderful light arose within my soul.  It was a light\nentirely foreign to my unruly nature, but in it I recognized the true\nnature of God and man, and the relation existing between them, a thing\nwhich heretofore I had never understood.\"[57]  In one of his other\nautobiographical passages, he says that after much earnest seeking and\ndesire and many a hard repulse, \"the Gate was opened!\"  These are {202}\ncharacteristic accounts of a profound mystical experience.  There had\nbeen long stress and inward battle, the tension of a divided self, and\nthen a great ground swell of earnest will--a resolve, he says, to put\nmy life in hazard rather than give over, when \"a wonderful light arose\nwithin the soul\" and \"the Gate was opened.\"  And \"when this mighty\nlight fell upon me, I saw,\" he says, in still another description, \"in\nan effectual peculiar manner, and I knew in the spirit.\"[58]\n\nThe central aspect of his experience was plainly an overmastering\n_conviction_ of contact with, an immersion into, a deeper world of\nspirit and of inner unity of life and spirit with this deeper world.\nHis own personal spirit united, as he once put it, \"with the innermost\nBirth in God and stood in the Light.\"[59]  He discovered that \"God goes\nclean another way to work\" than by the way of reasoning or of sense\nexperience[60]--instead of waiting for man to climb up to Him, He\nclimbs up into man's soul.[61]  By a new and inner way, to change the\nfigure, the tides of the shoreless Divine Sea break in upon the life of\na man and bathe his entire being.  It seems to Boehme, at one time,\nlike the rising of a mid-noon Sun, with illuminating rays, and he\ndescribes the experience in terms of Light and enlarged Vision, or,\nagain, it appears like the bursting open of a secret door into a world\nof new dimensions, and he calls it the opening of the Gate, or now\nagain he feels as though the elemental creative power of God had burst\ninto operation within him and that a mighty birth-process had lifted\nhim to a new kingdom, or to a new order of nature, or, finally, hushed\nand soothed and healed as though he had suddenly found the breast of an\ninfinite Mother, he describes his state as \"the innermost Quiet\"--the\nreturn to \"the soul's eternal native country and abiding Home.\"\nDescriptions here all fail and are only \"stammering words of a child,\"\nas Boehme himself says.  But, as a matter of fact, descriptions fail\nand fall short in the case of all genuine life-experiences, {203} even\nthose that are most universal and common to the race.  How one feels\nwhen after nights of agony from watching over a child that is hovering\nbetween life and death, and seemingly certain to slip away from human\nreach, the doctor says, \"He has passed the crisis and the danger is\nover!\" one cannot describe.  Whenever it is a matter that concerns the\ninner _quick_ of the soul, all words are the stammerings of a child.\n\nThe true mystical experience is not primarily a knowledge-experience,\nit is not the apprehension of one more describable fact to be added to\nour total stock of information--what Boehme so often calls \"opinions\"\nand \"history,\"--it is a sudden plunge or immersion into the stream of\nLife itself, it is an interior appreciation of the higher meaning of\nlife by the discovery of a way of entering the Life-process, or,\nbetter, of letting the Life-process enter you, on a higher level than\nis usual.  Life always advances by a kind of leap, an _elan_, which\nwould not have been predicted or anticipated, but which, now it is here\nrevealed in a being with a novel function and a higher capacity of\nsurvival, will lift the whole scale of life henceforth to a new level.\nSo, in some way which must for the present at least remain mysterious,\nthe eternal Source of Life, when it finds a human door ready for its\nentrance, breaks in--or shall we say that the _earnest will_ climbs up\nand pushes open the door into new regions in this eternal Life\nSource?--and it seems then, as Boehme says, as though \"the true nature\nof God and man and the true relation between God and man\" had been\nfound.  The mystical experience is, thus, one way, perhaps the highest\nwe have yet discovered, of entering the Life-process itself and of\ngaining an interior appreciation of Reality by living in the central\nstream and flow of it, so that the Spirit can \"break through\" and can\n\"see into the Depth of Deity.\"\n\nBoehme appears to hold two inconsistent and seemingly contradictory\nviews about the human attitude which is the psychological pre-condition\nfor this epoch-making experience.  In his own autobiographical {204}\naccounts, he always refers to the part that _earnest resolution_ has\nplayed in bringing success to his momentous quest.  No great mystic\nsince St. Augustine has made more of the will in spiritual matters than\nhe does.  We have seen how the doors to both world-kingdoms stand\nbefore the soul, and how \"free-will,\" \"earnest purpose,\" \"decisive\nendeavour\" settle for each soul which door shall open and which shall\nshut, and so determine its eternal destiny.  \"Election\" is, for Boehme,\na fiction of the false imagination, a \"Babel-opinion,\" a perverse\ninvention of \"the Church of Cain.\"  Christ never says \"thou couldst\nnot,\" but rather \"thou wouldst not.\"[62]\n\nNot only does he, in a general way, thus make the will the decisive\nelement in human destiny, he also implies that the creative \"flash\" of\nspiritual insight, \"the innermost birth\" which brings the soul into\nliving union with its source is due, on the human side, to\n\"resolution,\" to \"earnestness,\" to \"valiant wrestling,\" to a brave\nventure of faith that risks everything.  It requires \"mighty\nendurance,\" \"hard labour,\" \"stoutness of spirit,\" and \"a great storm,\nassault, and onset\" to open the Gate.  In a word, the key to any\nimportant spiritual experience is _intention_, inward pre-perception,\nthat holds the mind intently focussed in expectation, without which the\n\"flash\" of spiritual vision is not likely to come.\n\nBut on the other hand Boehme is a powerful exponent of the idea that\ndesire and will must utterly, absolutely die before God can come to\nbirth in the soul--\"Christ is born and lives in our Nothingness.\"[63] A\nman, he says, must die wholly to self-hood, forsake it and enter again\ninto the original Nothing,--the eternal Unity in which nothing is\nwilled in particular,--before God can have His way with him; all sin\narises from self-hood, from desire.[64]  \"How,\" asks a disciple in one\nof Boehme's imaginary dialogues, \"shall I come to the hidden centre\nwhere God dwelleth and not man?  Tell me plainly, loving sir, how it is\nto be found and entered into?\"\n\n{205}\n\n_The Master_: \"There where the soul hath slain its own will and willeth\nno more anything of itself.\" . . .\n\n_The Disciple_: \"But how shall I comprehend it?\"\n\n_The Master_: \"If thou goest about to comprehend in thy own will, it\nflieth from thee, but if thou dost surrender thyself wholly, then thou\nart dead to thy own will, and Love will be the Life of thy nature.\"[65]\nHe seems to go as far in this direction toward the annihilation of\ndesire, negation of the finite, and loss of self-hood as any of the\npantheistic mystics.  This sample passage will indicate his teaching:\n\"When thou art wholly gone forth from the creature and become nothing\nto all that is nature and creature, then thou art in that Eternal One\nwhich is God Himself, and then thou shalt experience the supreme virtue\nof Love.\"[66]\n\nThese two diverse statements are, however, not as inconsistent as they\nat first seem.  The _will_, the _intention_ that is a psychological\npreparation for this mystical experience is a will washed and purged of\nselfish impulse and self-seeking aims.  It is an _intention_ that\ncannot be described in terms of any finite \"content.\"  It is the\nintense heave of the whole undivided being toward God with no\nreservation, no calculation of return profits, no thought even of\nisolated and independent personality.  A true account of consciousness,\npreceding the moment of bursting through the Gate, might emphasize with\nequal accuracy either the \"earnest resolution,\" \"the storm and onset of\nwill,\" or \"the annihilation of particular desire,\" \"the surrender of\nindividualistic self-hood,\" \"death to own will in the Life and Virtue\nof Love.\"\n\nThe effects of such an experience as that which came to Boehme, if we\nmay take his case as typical, are (1) The birth of an inner conviction\nof God's immediate and environing Presence amounting to axiomatic\ncertainty--faith through experience has become \"the substance,\" and \"is\nnow one spirit with God\"; (2) The radiation of the whole being with \"a\njoy like that which parents have at the birth of their first-born\nchild\"--the joy now of the {206} soul crying, \"Abba\"; (3) A vastly\nheightened perception of what is involved in the eternal nature of the\nreligious life and in the spiritual relation between the soul and God,\n_i.e._ increased ability to see what promotes and furthers the soul's\nhealth and development; (4) A unification, co-ordination, and\ncentralizing of the inner faculties, so that there is an increment of\npower revealed in the entire personality; and (5) An increase of\nclarity and a sharpening of focus in the perception of moral\ndistinctions together with a distinctly heightened moral and social\npassion.\n\nBoehme himself always believed, further, that his entire system of\nideas, his philosophy of the universe, and his way of salvation were a\n\"revelation\" of the Spirit to him,--in a word, that his wisdom was\n\"theosophy,\" a God-communicated knowledge.  I have no desire to mark\noff dogmatically the scope and possible limits of \"revelation,\" nor is\nit necessary here to discuss the abstract question whether \"ideas\" are\never \"communicated\" to a mind _ab extra_, and without the mediation of\nsubjective processes, or not.  In the concrete case of Jacob Boehme, I\ndo not find any compelling evidence of the unmediated communication of\nideas.  He was a man of unusual native capacity, and, though untrained,\nhis mind possessed a high order of range and quality, and swept, as he\nwas, by a mighty transforming experience, he _found himself_ in novel\nfashion, and was the recipient of inspirations, which fired and fused\nhis soul, gave him heightened insight into the significance of things\nold and new, and often enabled him to build better than he knew.  He\nis, however, obviously using the stock of ideas which his generation\nand those early and late before it, had made \"part of the necessary air\nmen breathed.\"  His terminology and symbolism were as old as mythology,\nand were the warp and woof of the nature philosophies and the alchemy\nof his day.  His impressive and spiritual interpretation of\nChristianity is always deep and vital, and freighted with the weight of\nhis own inward direct appreciation of God's revelation of Himself in\nChrist, {207} but even here he is walking on a road which many brave\nsouls before him had helped to build, and we cannot with truth say that\nhe supplies us with a new gospel which had been privately\n\"communicated\" to him.  In fact, the portions of his voluminous\nwritings which bear the mark of having been written as automatic\nscript--by \"this hand,\" as he often says--are the chaotic and confused\nportions, full of monotonous repetitions, of undigested and\nindigestible phrases and the dreary re-shufflings of sub-conscious\nwreckage.  Boehme used to say that \"in the time of the lily\" his\nwritings would be \"much sought after.\"  But I doubt if, even \"in the\ntime of the lily,\" most persons will have the patience to read this\nshoemaker-prophet's books in their present form, that is, if \"in the\ntime of the lily\" men still enjoy and prize intelligence and lucidity;\nbut there already is enough of \"the lily-spirit\" in the world to\nappreciate and to give thanks for the experience, the flashes of\ninsight, the simple wisdom, the brave sincerity, the inner certainty of\nthe true World within the world we see, and the spiritual message of\n\"the way to the soul's native Country,\" which he has given us.\n\n\n\n[1] _True Repentance_, i.\n\n[2] I have given his _Weltanschauung_ in the previous chapter, and I\nshall discuss his mysticism at the end of this chapter.\n\n[3] Hegel says that Boehme's piety is \"in the highest degree deep and\ninward.\"--_History of Philos._ iii. p. 216.\n\n[4] _True Resignation_, iii. 20.\n\n[5] _The Three Princ._, Preface, 4.\n\n[6] \"There is in every man an incorporate ground of Grace, an inner\nTemple of Christ, the soul's immortal Dowry.  No man can sell or pawn\nthis ground of Grace, this habitation and dwelling-place of Christ.  It\nremains unlost as the possession of God--an inward Ground and spiritual\nsubstance.\"--_Myst. mag._ lxxiv. 20-33, freely rendered.\n\n[7] _Sig. re._ xv. 45.\n\n[8] _Aurora_, xviii. 43.\n\n[9] _The Three Princ._, xiv. 3 and 12; also _ibid._ 85 and 88.\n\n[10] _Myst. mag._ xxvii. 41.\n\n[11] _Ninth Epistle_, 16.\n\n[12] _Myst. mag._ xxvii. _passim_; also _Seventh Epistle_, 11-14.\n\n[13] _Tenth Epistle_, 13-14.\n\n[14] _Regeneration_, 6.\n\n[15] For a sample passage see _Sig. re._ xv. 22-47.\n\n[16] _True Resignation_, 30-41.  Freely rendered.\n\n[17] _The Three Princ._ xxxiii. 8-17.\n\n[18] _Ibid._ xix. 6.\n\n[19] _Sig. re._ ix. 67.\n\n[20] _Ibid._ xi. 88.\n\n[21] _Aurora_, Preface, 27.\n\n[22] _Sig. re._ xi. 80.\n\n[23] Prayer in _True Repentance_.\n\n[24] _Three Princ._ xxii. 81.\n\n[25] _Myst. mag._ lxx. 7-10; _Three Princ._ xviii. 80; and\n_Supersensual Life_, 27.\n\n[26] _Three. Princ._ xxv. 43.\n\n[27] _Ibid._ xxv. 6.\n\n[28] Read _Ibid._ xxv. 7-41.\n\n[29] _True Repentance_.\n\n[30] _First Epistle_, 6.  Hegel well says of Boehme: \"What marks him\nout and makes him noteworthy is the Protestant principle of placing the\nintellectual world within one's own mind and heart, and of experiencing\nand knowing and feeling in one's own self-consciousness all that was\nformerly conceived as a Beyond.\"--_History of Philos._ iii. p. 191.\n\n[31] _Tenth Epistle_, 16-19.\n\n[32] _Incarnation_, part iii. chap. i. 5-15.\n\n[33] _Sig. re._ xii. 10-13.\n\n[34] _The Threefold Life_, iii. 31.\n\n[35] _Ibid._ vi. 71.\n\n[36] _The Three Princ._ iv. 9.\n\n[37] _Aurora_, xix. 52-66.\n\n[38] _Myst. mag._ lxxii. 7-10.\n\n[39] _Ibid._ xxiv. 17.\n\n[40] _Sig. re._ ix. 63.\n\n[41] _Seventh Epistle_, 1.\n\n[42] _Ibid._, 6 and 12.\n\n[43] _Apology to Stiefel_, 23.\n\n[44] _True Resignation_, iii. 21.\n\n[45] _Myst. mag._ lxii. 25.\n\n[46] _The Three Principles_, xix. 47; xxi. 32.; _Sig. re._ viii. 27.\n\n[47] _Forty Questions_, xii. 39.\n\n[48] For an example of it, see _Myst. mag._ lxxiv. 46.\n\n[49] _Forty Questions_, x. 9.\n\n[50] _Fourth Epistle_, 32, and _True Repentance_.\n\n[51] _Regeneration_, 161-162.\n\n[52] _Myst. mag._ lxiii. 47.  This theme constantly reappears.\n\n[53] _Sig. re._ xv. 37.\n\n[54] _Resignation_, vi. 134-151.\n\n[55] _Forty Questions_, xiv. 17-19.\n\n[56] _Op. cit._ iv. 16.\n\n[57] Von Hartmann's _Life and Doctrines of Jacob Boehme_, p. 50.\n\n[58] _Twenty-fifth Epistle_, 2.\n\n[59] _Aurora_, xix. 95.\n\n[60] _Twenty-sixth Epistle_, 7.\n\n[61] _Aurora_, xviii. 9.\n\n[62] _Sig. re._ xvi. 38.\n\n[63] _Ibid._ ix. 65.\n\n[64] _Ibid._ xiii. 27 and xv. 9.\n\n[65] _The Supersensual Life_, 29 and 30.\n\n[66] _Ibid._ 27.\n\n\n\n\n{208}\n\nCHAPTER XII\n\nJACOB BOEHME'S INFLUENCE IN ENGLAND\n\nThe first appearance in English of any of the writings of Jacob Boehme\nwas in 1645, when a tiny volume was issued with the title: _Two\nTheosophical Epistles, Englished_.\n\nThere had appeared a year earlier (1644) a seven-page biography of\nBoehme which was the first presentation of him to the English reader.\nThis brief sketch contains the well-known incidents which became the\nstock material for the later accounts of his life.[1] It also contained\nthe following quaint description of Boehme which was the model for all\nthe portraits of the Teutonic philosopher in the English biographies of\nhim: \"The stature of his outward body was almost of no Personage; his\nperson was little and leane, with browes somewhat inbowed; high\nTemples, somewhat hauk-nosed: His eyes were gray and somewhat heaven\nblew, and otherwise as the Windows in Solomon's Temple: He had a thin\nBeard; a small low Voyce.  His Speech was lovely.  He was modest in his\nBehaviour, humble in his conversation and meeke in his heart.  His\nspirit was highly enlightened by God, as is to be seen and discerned in\nthe Divine Light out of his writings.\"\n\nThe slender volume of _Theosophical Epistles_ was followed by another\nlittle book issued a year later (1646), {209} consisting of a Discourse\ndelivered in Latin in the Schools at Cambridge by Charles Hotham,\nRector of Wigan.  This Discourse was translated into English by the\nauthor's brother, Justice Durant Hotham, and was published under the\ntitle: _Introduction to Teutonic Philosophy, or A Determination\nconcerning the Original of the Soul_, Englished by D. F. [Durant\nFrater], 1650.  This interesting little volume, full of quaint phrase\nand strange speculation, reflects throughout its pages the profound\ninfluence of Boehme on these two brothers.  The Preface to the\nEnglished edition written by Justice Hotham not only shows specific\nmarks of Boehme's influence upon a high-minded and scholarly man, but\nit also reveals in an impressive way a type of thought that was very\nprevalent in England at this period of commotion.  \"There are,\" Justice\nHotham says, \"two islands of exceeding danger, yet built upon and\ninhabited and defended as part of the main continent of Truth.  The\nfirst is called: 'I believe as the Church believeth.'  Happy man whom\nso easie labour hath set on the shore of wisdom!  The other island is\ncalled: 'whatsoever the Church believes that will I not believe.'\"\nBoth these \"islands\" seem to him \"exceeding dangerous.\"  To adopt as\ntruth what the Church has believed, solely because the Church has\nbelieved it, to forego the personal quest and to arrive at \"the shores\nof wisdom\" without the venturous voyage, is \"too easie labour\" for the\nsoul.  But, nevertheless, he feels that the opposite danger--the danger\nof negating a truth merely because the Church affirms it--is even more\nserious.  It is wise to maintain an attitude of \"much reverence\" toward\nthe \"unanimous consent of good and pious men in sacred matters.\"  He\nsuggests that the way of wisdom consists in making the \"I believe\" of\nthe Church \"neither a fetter nor a scandel.\"  \"May I be,\" he says, \"in\nthe bed-route of those Seekers that, distrusting the known and\nexperienced deceits of their own Reason, walk unfettered in the quest\nof truth, . . . not hunting those poor soules with Dogge and speare\nwhose dimme sight hath led them into desert and unbeated {210} paths.\"\nThis was in all probability the Justice Hotham of whom George Fox\nwrote: \"He was a pretty tender man yt had had some experiences of God's\nworkeinge in his hearte: & after yt I had some discourse with him off\nye things of God hee tooke mee Into his Closett & saide _hee had knowne\nyt principle_ [of the Light] _this 10 yeere_: & hee was glad yt ye\nLorde did now publish it abroade to ye people.\"[2]\n\nLike his Teutonic master, Justice Hotham distrusts Reason and Sense as\nspiritual guides.  They are at best, he says, \"but guides of the night,\ndim lights set up, far distant from Truth's stately mansion, to lead\npoor groping souls in this world's affairs.\"  The surer Guide is within\nthe soul itself, for the soul of man, he insists, has \"a noble descent\nfrom eternal essences\" and \"our nobel Genealogy should mind us of our\nFather's House and make us weary of tutelage under hairy Faunes and\ncloven-footed Satyres.\"[3]  He shows that he has lost all interest in\ntheological speculations that assume a God remote in time and space, a\nGod who once created a world and left it to go to ruin.  He reminds his\nreaders that the God in whom he believes is \"yet alive and still\nspeaks.\"[4]  In the light of this Preface, in which he declares that he\nhas \"suckt in truth from divinest philosophy\" from his childhood, it is\nnot strange that he welcomed Fox, when the latter appeared in Yorkshire\nin 1651, proclaiming an inward Light and a present God near at hand,\nnor is it surprising that Hotham said to the young prophet of the\ninward Guide: \"If God had not raised uppe this principle of light and\nlife, ye nation had beene overspread with rantism . . . but this\nprinciple of truth overthrew ye roote & grounde of there [_i.e._ the\nRanters'] principle.\"[5]\n\nThe enthusiasm of Justice Hotham for his Teutonic master gets fervid\nexpression at the end of his Preface as follows: \"Whatever the thrice\ngreat Hermes [Hermes Trismegistus] delivered as oracles from his\nprophetical tripos, or Pythagoras spake by authority or {211} Socrates\ndebated or Aristotle affirmed; yea, whatever divine Plato prophesied or\nPlotinus proved: this and all this, or a far higher and profounder\nphilosophy is (I think) contained in the Teutonick's writings.  And if\nthere be any friendly medium which can possibly reconcile these ancient\ndifferences between the nobler wisdom which hath fixt her Palace in\nHoly Writ and her stubborn handmaid, Naturall Reason: this happy\nmarriage of the Spirit and Soul, this wonderful consent of discords in\none harmony, we owe in great measure to Teutonicus his skill!\"\n\nThe central problem of the _Discourse_, written by the brother, Charles\nHotham, is the origin of the soul.  After the manner of his German\nteacher, the English disciple finds the origin of man's soul in \"the\nbottomless, immeasurable Abyss of the Godhead,\" in \"the great deep of\nthe perpetually eternal God.\"  Man is an epitome of the universe.  He\nunites in himself all the contrary principles of the worlds visible and\ninvisible, he is a unity of body and soul, a centre of light and\ndarkness, and in him is a \"supreme region,\" or \"Divine Principle,\" \"by\nthe mediation of which man has direct fellowship with God.\"  In man,\nwho thus epitomizes all the spheres and principles of the universe,\n\"God, as in a glasse, hath a lively and delightful prospect of His own\nlovely visage and incomprehensible Beauty.\"  Finally, again, the\ndisciple reflects the constant teaching of Boehme that everything in\nthe visible world is a symbol of a fundamental and eternal World.\n\nDurant Hotham showed the full measure of his devotion to his German\nmaster in the _Life of Jacob Behmen_ which he wrote in 1653.[6]  It is,\nhowever, much more important for the insight which it gives of the\ninner life of the Yorkshire Justice than for any biographical\ninformation it furnishes of Boehme himself.  Hotham thinks that in\nBoehme he has discovered a new type of Christian Saint--\"one who led a\nsaint-like life in much sweet communion {212} with God,\" while he\ndeclares that many of those who \"get admission into the Calendar by the\nsynodical jurisdiction of those who claim also to hold the bunch of\nkeys to the bigger Heaven\" are hardly ripe for canonization--\"As for\nmany who in these last ages have termed themselves saints--what shift\nGod may make of them in heaven, I know not (He can do much)--but if I\nmay speak unfeignedly, they are so unmortified and untrue of word and\ndeed that they are found untoward members for a true Commonwealth and\ncivil Society here on Earth.\"[7]\n\nThe type of saint the Justice admires is one who refuses utterly to\nchoose the path of least resistance, one who will not be \"a messenger\nof eternal happiness at a cheap rate,\" but rather one who comes to\nchallenge the easy world, to fight evil customs and entrenched systems\nand to win \"the Land which the Devil holds in possession\"; and, with\nthe name of Jacob Boehme, he thinks he can \"begin a new roll of Civil\nSaints,\" hoping, he says, that in these last generations \"much company\"\nmay be added to the bead roll thus happily started.\n\nTwo points stand out clearly as central ideas of Justice Hotham's\nChristianity.  The first one is that religion is an inward affair.\n\"God,\" he declares, \"hath sent this last Generation a plain, uncouth\nMessage, bidding man to fight, telling him that he shall have a Heaven,\na Joy, a Paradise, a Land, a Territory, a Kingship--but that _all this\nis in himself, the Land to be won is himself_.\"[8]  The second one is\nthat religion is a progressive movement, an unfolding revelation of\nlife.  \"What a height of Presumption is it,\" he says, \"to believe that\nthe Wisdom and fullness of God can ever be pent up in a Synodical\nCanon?  How overweening are we to limit the successive manifestations\nof God to a present rule and light, persecuting all that comes not\nforth in its height and breadth!\"  It is through this \"unnatural\ndesire\" to keep Christians in \"a perpetual infancy\" that \"our dry\nnurses\" in the Church have \"brought us to such a dwarfish stature,\"\n{213} and he prays that the merciful God may teach at least one nation\na better way than that of \"muzzling\" the bringer of fresh light.\n\nMuch more important, however, for the dissemination of Boehme's ideas\nin England was the patient and faithful work of John Sparrow who, in\ncollaboration with his kinsman, John Ellistone, translated into English\nthe entire body of Boehme's writings, between the years 1647 and\n1661.[9]  Sparrow was born at Stambourne in Essex in 1615.  He was\nadmitted to the Inner Court in 1633 and subsequently called to the Bar.\nHe was probably the author of a widely-read book, published in 1649,\nunder the title of _Mercurius Teutonicus_, consisting of a series of\n\"propheticall passages\" from Boehme.[10]  His outer life was\nuneventful; his inner life is revealed in his Introductions to the\nBoehme Translations.  He begins his long series of Translations with\nthe testimony that the writings of this author have \"so very much\nsatisfied\" his own soul that he wants others to be partakers of the\nsame source of light, though he warns his readers that their own souls\nmust come by experience into the condition Boehme himself was in before\nthey can fully understand him.[11]  He is profoundly impressed, {214}\nas his great contemporary, Milton, was, with the strange birth of new\nsects \"now sprung up in England,\" but he hopes that \"goodness will get\nthe upper hand and that the fruits of the spirit will prevail,\" and his\nmind \"is led to think\" that through Boehme's message, which has been\nvery beneficial in other nations, \"our troubled, doubting souls in\nEngland may receive much Comfort, leading to that inward Peace which\npasseth all understanding, and that all disturbing sects and\nheresies . . . will be made to vanish and cease.\"[12]\n\nSparrow was deeply impressed with two of Boehme's central ideas, and he\ngives expression to them, in his own quaint and peculiar way, in almost\nevery one of his Introductions--(1) the idea that the visible is a\nparable of the Invisible, and (2) the idea that God manifests Himself\nwithin men.  In the very first of the Introductions both of these ideas\nappear: \"This outward world,\" he says, \"is the best outward\nlooking-glasse to see whatever hath been, is, or shall be in Eternity,\nand our own minds are the best inward looking-glasse to see Eternity\nexactly in\";[13] and he expresses the belief that any one who learns to\nread all the work of God in the world without, and in the mind of man\nwithin, will learn to know Him truly, will see Eternity manifested in\ntime, will discover that the mind of man is a centre of all mysteries,\nand that heaven and hell are potentially in us, and he will be\nconvinced that God is in all things and all things are in God; that we\nlive in Him and that He lives in us.[14]\n\nThis second idea--that God can be found in the depth of man's soul--is\nstrongly emphasized in Sparrow's next Introduction, written in\n1648--\"_The Ground of what hath ever been lieth in man_.\"[15]  All that\nis in the Scriptures has come out of man's experience and therefore can\nnow be grasped by us.  All that was in Adam lies in the ground and\ndepth of any man.  When the Apostle John wrote that there is an unction\nwhich teacheth all things and leadeth into all truth, he did not\nconfine this possibility {215} to apostles, but intended to include all\nmen in the class of those who may be anointed, and all who know \"what\nis in man\" realize that it is possible to attain to this inward and\napostolic guidance.[16]  In a passage of great boldness Sparrow goes in\nhis venturous faith in the inner Spirit as far as the young\nLeicestershire preacher did who was starting out, the very year this\nIntroduction was written, to proclaim the message of the inward Light.\n\"The ground,\" he says, \"of all that was in Adam is in us; for whatever\nGround lay in God, the same lieth in Christ and through Him it lieth in\nus, for He is in us all.  And he that knoweth God in himself . . . may\nwell be able to speak the word of God infallibly as the holy men that\npenned the Scriptures.  And he that can understand these things in\nhimself may well know who speaketh by the Spirit of God and who\nspeaketh his own fancies and delusions.\"[17]\n\nIn the Introduction to the _Mysterium magnum_, Sparrow returns to this\nidea of inward illumination, though he balances it better than he did\nin the former Introduction, with his estimation of \"the antient Holy\nScriptures,\" and he does not again suggest that present-day men speak\n\"infallibly.\"  He thinks that the same God who so eminently taught\nMoses by His Spirit that he could describe the processes of creation,\nmust have also prepared the people by the instruction of the same\nSpirit, so that they could understand what was written, and so that the\nSpirit in one man could verify itself in the experience of many men.\nHe declares that when the Scriptures instruct and perfect the man of\nGod, they are effective, \"not as a meer relation of things done,\" but\nas the medium of the living Word which reaches the inward Man, the\nhidden Man of the heart, the Christ in us, so that we pass beyond \"the\nhistory of Christ\" and rise to \"the experience that Christ is born\nwithin us.\"[18]\n\nNo other book, he says, but the Scriptures, teaches {216} man \"with\nassured knowledge of all the things which concern the soule, the\neternal part of man,\" for other writers have written from the\nobservation of their outward senses, but these writers had \"inward\nsenses--their eyes saw, their ears heard, their hands handled the Word\nof Life.\"  And yet for those in these days who can \"look through the\nvayle or shell within which the Eternal Spirit works its Wonders,\" the\nvisible things of the world prove to be \"a glasse wherein the\nsimilitude of spirituall things are represented\" and \"the Minde of man\nis a most clear and undeceiving glasse wherein we may perceive the\nmotions and activities of that Work-Master, the Spirit who hath created\neverything in the world.\"[12]  In the most satisfactory of all his\nIntroductions, the one to the _Aurora_ in 1656, he undertakes to show\nthat \"the Light within\" which has now arisen in England is not a\nsubstitute for the Christ of history.  On the contrary, he insists that\nthe Christ within and the Christ of history is one and the same Person\nwho is not divided.  He was once manifested in the likeness of sinful\nflesh, suffering, dying, rising, ascending in glory, and now, in an\ninward and spiritual manner, He is actually present within men so that\nthey may become conformable in soul and spirit to Him and share in His\nlife, sufferings, death, resurrection and glory, or they may, by their\nown choice, crucify Him afresh within themselves.[20]  The Word of Life\ncalls loudly within every man, urging the soul to forsake that which it\nperceives to be evil and to embrace that which it perceives to be good\nand holy and divine.  This, he says, is the Eternal Gospel, and it\nbrings to all men everywhere the good news that we live and move and\nhave our being in God, and that the soul that gropes in sincerity after\nGod will find Him, for He is very nigh, even in the heart of the\nseeker.[21]  He deals in an interesting way with the important\ncontemporary problem--raised by the prevalence of the emphasis on an\ninward Divine Presence--whether human Perfection is possible in this\nlife.  His {217} conclusion is that the tendency to sin remains so long\nas \"the mortal body\" lasts.  No person will ever reach a stage of\nearthly life in which the spur of the flesh is eradicated, and so no\nperson can be infallibly certain that he is beyond sin, but when Christ\nis inwardly united to the soul and His Spirit dwells in us and reigns\nin us and we are risen in soul, spirit, and mind with Him, then we live\nno longer after the flesh, or according to its thrust and push, but\nshare His life and partake of the conquering power of His Spirit; and\nthus, though \"sown in imperfection we are raised in perfection.\"[22]\nThe important matter, however, is not that one call himself a\n\"Perfectist,\" but that he actually live \"in this earthly pilgrimage and\nin this vale of sinfull flesh\" in the power of Eternity and by the\nLight of Christ, whose fulness may be revealed in himself.[23]\n\nJohn Ellistone, Sparrow's kinsman and able helper in the work of\nbringing Boehme into English thought, holds the same fundamental ideas\nas his co-labourer, though he has his own peculiar style and his own\nunique way of uttering himself.  The stress of his emphasis is always\non first-hand experience--what he calls \"an effectual, living,\nessential knowledge and real spiritual being of it in one's own\nsoul\";[24] and the brunt of his attack is {218} always against a\nreligion of \"notions\"--what he calls \"verball, high-flowne, contrived\nknowledge and vapouring Notions,\" constructed from \"the mental idolls\nof approved masters.\"[25]  Religion, he maintains, can no more consist\nof \"the letter\" or of \"a talkative historicall account\" than music can\nconsist of a row of written notes.  These things are only signs for the\ndirection of the skilful musician who must himself _make_ the sounds on\nhis instrument before there is any music.  So, too, if there is to be\nany real religion in the world, we Christians must do more than read\nand approve \"the deciphered writings of illuminated men,\" we must act\nby the same Spirit that inspired those men, we must be \"practitioners\nof the Divine Light,\" we must give \"living expression to Divine love\nand righteousness,\" we must \"practice the way of regeneration in the\nSpirit of Christ and _divinitize our knowledge into an effectual\nworking love and attaine the experimental and essential reality of it\nin our owne soules!_\"[26]  The way out of \"the tedious Maze and\nwearisome laborinth of discussions and opinions concerning God, Christ,\nFaith, Election, the Ordinances and the Way of Worship\" is \"to know the\nWord of Life, Light and Love experimentally,\" to have \"the fire of His\nlove so enkindled in our own hearts that it may breake forth in our\npractice and conversation to the destroying of all Thornes and tearing\nBryars of vaine contentions!\"[27]\n\nLike his kinsman, he has endless faith in the possibility of man; he\nthinks that the entire Scripture directs us to the Word within us, and\nthat the Book of all mysteries is within ourselves.  \"In our owne\nBook,\" he says, \"which is the Image of God in us, Time and Eternity and\nall Mysteries are couched and contained, and they may be read in our\nowne soules by the illumination of the Divine Spirit.  Our Minde is a\ntrue mysticall Mirror and Looking-glasse of Divine and Naturall\nMysteries, and we shall receive more real knowledge from one effectuall\ninnate essentiall beame or ray of Light arising from the New Birth\nwithin us than in reading many {219} hundreds of authors whereby we\nframe a Babel of knowledge in the Nation.\"[28]\n\nHe goes so far with his faith in the soul's possibility to return into\n\"the Original Centre of all Reality\" that he declares that a man may\nsink deep enough into this Original Principle that binds his own soul\ninto union with God so that he can penetrate by an inner Light and\nexperience into the secret qualities and virtues hid in all visible and\ncorporeal things, and may learn to discover the healing and curative\npowers of metals and plants, and may thus, by inward knowledge, advance\nall Arts and Sciences.[29]\n\nEllistone returns to this inner way of arriving at a knowledge of\noutward things in his Preface to _Signatura rerum_ in 1651.  Man, he\ndeclares, is a microcosm, or abridgment, of the whole universe, he is\nthe emblem and hieroglyphic of Time and Eternity, and he who will take\npains to push in beyond Solomon's Porch, or the Outer Court of sense\nand natural reason, to the Inner Court and Holy Place, where the\nimmortal Seed abides and where man can become one again with that which\nhe was in God before he became a creature, then he will have the key\nthat opens all mysteries both inner and outer.  Nature will be an open\nBook of Parables in which he can read the truth of Eternity, the world\nwill be a clear mirror in which he can see the things of the Spirit and\nhe will know what will cure both soul and body.  The \"Depth of God\nwithin the Soul,\" the Inner Light, is the precious Pearl, the\nnever-failing Comfort, the Panacea for all diseases, the sure Antidote\neven against death itself, the unfailing Guide and Way of all\nWisdom.[30]\n\nHere, then, were two very enthusiastic disciples of Boehme who took\ntheir master's teaching very seriously, who on the whole grasped its\nessential meaning, were possessed and penetrated by the _idea_ of a\ndeeper eternal world manifesting itself in the temporal, and who gave\ntheir lives to the difficult task of making Boehme's message {220}\navailable to their own people and to their own perplexed age.  They\nwere not \"occultists.\"  They did not run into enthusiastic vapourings,\nnor did they strain after psychic experiences which would relieve them\nof the stress and strain of achieving the goal of life through the\nformation of balanced character and the practice of social virtues,\nthough, as we shall see, some of the readers of their translations took\nthe risky course, and ended in the fog rather than in the clear light.\n\nThe question has naturally been raised whether Boehme exercised any\ndirect influence upon the early Quaker movement.[31]  There is at\npresent no way of proving that George Fox, the chief exponent of the\nmovement, had actually read the writings of the Teutonic philosopher or\nhad consciously absorbed the views of the latter, but there are so many\nmarks of influence apparent in the _Journal_ that no careful student of\nboth writers can doubt that there was some sort of influence, direct or\nindirect, conscious or unconscious.  The works of Boehme were, as we\nhave seen, all available in English, during the great formative period\nof Fox's life, from 1647 to 1661.  There can be no question that they\nwere read by the serious _Seekers_ in the period of the Commonwealth.\nThomas Taylor, who was one of the finest fruits of the Seeker movement,\nbears in 1659 a positive testimony to the spiritual value of Jacob\nBewman's (Behmen) writings.  Taylor received a letter from Justice\nWilliam Thornton of Hipswell in Yorkshire, warning him to beware of\n\"the confused Notions and great words of Jacob Bewman and such like\nfrothy scriblers.\"  Taylor replies: \"For thy light expressions of Jacob\nBewman, I know in most things he speaks a Parable to thee yet, and so\nhis writings may well be lightly esteemed of by thee; but there is that\nin his Writings which, if ever thy eye be opened, will appear to be a\nsweet unfolding of the Mystery of God and of Christ, in divers\nparticulars, according to his Gift.  And therefore beware of speaking\nEvil of that which thou {221} know'st not.\"[32]  We have also seen how\nBoehme appealed to such noble Seekers as Charles and Durant Hotham,\nJohn Sparrow, and John Ellistone.[33]  One Quaker of some importance,\nFrancis Ellington, not only read the writings of Boehme, but regarded\n\"that Faithful Servant Jacob Behme\" as \"a Prophet of the Lord.\"[34]  He\nquotes from his German \"Prophet\" the words: \"A Lilly blossometh to you\nye Northern Countries; if you destroy it not with sectarian contention\nof the learned, then it will become a great Tree among you, but if you\nshall rather contend than to know the true God, then the Ray passeth by\nand hitteth only some; and then afterwards you shall be forced to draw\nwater for the thirst of your souls among strange nations.\"  Ellington\nregards Boehme as a genuine \"prophet,\" and the \"Lilly\" that was to\nblossom in the North seems to Ellington plainly to be George Fox and\nhis Quaker Society, which the learned have tried in vain to overthrow.\nHe cites many passages from the Teutonic Prophet of the Lord to show\nthe parallelism between the prophesied type of spiritual religion and\nthe Children of the Light who have exactly fulfilled it.[35]\n\nIt would be natural to expect that the young Quaker seeker, eager for\nany light on his dark path, would read the _Forty Questions_ and _The\nThree Principles of the Divine Essence_, or at least that he would hear\nthem discussed by the people among whom he moved in these intense and\neventful years.  In any case there are ideas expressed and experiences\ndescribed in the _Journal_ which look strangely like memories,\nconscious or subconscious, of ideas and experiences to be found in the\nBoehme writings.  The most striking single passage is one which\ndescribes an experience which occurred to Fox in 1648.  It is as\nfollows: \"Now was I come up in Spirit through the flaming sword into\nthe paradise of God.  All things were {222} new; and all the Creation\ngave another smell unto me than before, beyond what words can utter.  I\nknew nothing but pureness and innocency and righteousness, being\nrenewed into the image of God by Jesus Christ, to the state of Adam\nbefore he fell.  The creation was opened to me; and it was showed me\nhow all things had their names given them, according to their nature\nand virtue.  I was at a stand in my mind, whether I should practise\nphysic for the good of mankind, seeing the nature and virtue of things\nwere so opened to me by the Lord. . . .  The admirable works of\ncreation and the virtues thereof may be known through the openings of\nthat divine Word of Wisdom and power by which they were made.\"[36]\n\nJacob Boehme had, as we have seen, a similar experience of having \"the\nnature and virtues of things opened\" to him in the year 1600.  The\nfollowing account of it was given in Sparrow's Introduction to _Forty\nQuestions_, printed in 1647: \"He went forth into the fields and there\nperceived the wonderful or wonder works of the Creator in the\nsignatures, shapes, figures, and qualities or properties of all created\nthings very clearly and plainly laid open.  Whereupon he was filled\nwith exceeding joy.\"  The same incident is told in a slightly different\nway in Justice Hotham's _Life of Behmen_: \"Going abroad into the\nFields, to a Green before Neys-Gate, at Gorlitts, he there sate down,\nand viewing the Herbs and Grass of the Field, in his Inward Light he\nsaw into their essences, use and properties.\"  It was, further, a\nfundamental idea of Boehme's that the outward and visible world is a\nparable and symbol of the spiritual world within, and that by a\nspiritual experience which carries the soul down to the inner, hidden,\nabysmal Centre, the secrets and mysteries of the outward creation may\nbecome revealed.  Hotham says that Boehme, by his divine Light, \"beheld\nthe whole of creation, and from that Fountain of Revelation wrote his\nbook _De signatura rerum_.\"[37]  Ellistone, in the Introduction to\nBoehme's _Epistles_, printed in 1649, predicts {223} that an\nexperience, like this one which Fox claimed, will come to those who\nreceive the inner Divine Light.  \"This knowledge,\" he says, \"must\nadvance all Arts and Sciences and conduce to the attainment of the\nUniversal Tincture and Signature, whereby the different secret\nqualities and vertues that are hid in all visible and corporeall\nthings, as Metals, Minerals, Plants and Herbes, may be drawne forth and\napplied to their right naturall use _for the curing and healing_ of\ncorrupt and decayed nature.\"[38]\n\nIt was also a feature of Boehme's teaching that man must enter again\ninto Paradise and return to the condition of the unfallen Adam.  \"The\nNoble Virgin\" [_i.e._ Sophia or Spiritual Wisdom], Boehme writes,\n\"showeth us the Gate and how we must enter again into Paradise through\nthe sharpness of the sword,\" which, in a few lines previous, he calls\n\"the flaming sword which God set to keep the Tree of Life.\"[39]  Fox's\nexperience of the \"new smell\" of creation is an even more striking\nparallel.  Mystic awakenings and spiritual openings generally impress\nthe recipient of them with a sense of new and fresh penetration into\nthe meaning of things and leave them with a feeling of heightened\npowers, but cases in which the experience results in a new sense of\n_smell_ are fairly rare.  Two persons might, no doubt, have such an\nexperience quite independently, but one who has become familiar with\nthe range of _suggestion_ in experiences of this type will note with\ninterest the large place which \"new Smells and Odours\" occupy in\nBoehme's writings.  For example, he says, in the _Signatura rerum_,\nwhere he describes the coming of the Paradise-experience: \"When\nParadise springs up, the paradisaical joy puts itself forth with a\nlovely smell,\"[40] and in one of his Epistles he speaks of a spiritual\nawakening in his own life that was marked by a new smell--\"A very\nstrong Odour was given to me in the life of God.\"[41]\n\nThere is another passage in Fox's _Journal_, a few lines {224} beyond\nthis famous account of his Paradise-experience, that also bears the\nmark of Boehme's influence.  In fact, it is difficult to believe that\nFox could have got his phraseology anywhere else than from Boehme.  The\npassage reads: \"As people come into subjection to the Spirit of God and\ngrow up in the Image and Power of the Almighty, they may receive the\n_Word of Wisdom that opens all things, and, come to know the hidden\nUnity in the Eternal Being_.\"[42]  Everywhere in Boehme it is \"Sophia,\nthe Word of Wisdom,\" that \"opens all things,\" and the goal of all\nspiritual experience and of all divine illumination for him consists in\ncoming to \"the hidden Unity in the Eternal Being, or the Eternal\nEssence.\"  That is not a Biblical phrase, and it is not one which the\nDrayton youth would have heard from native English sources.  It came to\nEngland with the Boehme literature.  Further revelations along this\nsame line of \"opening\" follow in the _Journal_.  In the Vale of Beavor\nthe Lord \"opened\" things to Fox, relating to \"the three great\nprofessions in the world, physic, divinity and law.\"  \"He showed me,\"\nFox says, \"that the physicians were out of the Wisdom of God by which\nthe creatures were made, and so knew not their virtue because they were\n_out of the Word of Wisdom_.\"  He saw that the priests were actuated by\n_the dark power_--a very suspicious phrase to one who knows what a\nplace the \"Dark Principle\" holds in Boehme's writings--and he saw that\nthe lawyers were out of the Wisdom of God.  But it was opened to him\nthat all these three professions might be \"reformed\" and \"brought into\nthe Wisdom of God by which all things were created,\" and \"have a right\nunderstanding of the virtues of things through the Word of Wisdom\"; for\n\"in the Light all things may be seen both visible and invisible.\"[43]\nThe extraordinary use of Old Testament figures, by which Fox\nillustrates the condition of the Church, in the section of the\n_Journal_ following the passages above quoted, is no less significant.\nThe figures of Cain and Esau, of Korah and Balaam, and the types of\nAdam and Moses are given {225} quite in the style of _The Three\nPrinciples_, or of the _Mysterium magnum_.[44]  One parallel is\nespecially interesting.  Fox says: \"I saw plainly that none could read\nMoses aright without Moses' spirit, by which Moses saw how man was in\nthe Image of God in Paradise, and how he fell and how death came over\nhim, and how all men have been under this death.\"[45]  The Preface to\n_Mysterium magnum_ says: \"I cannot but think that the same God that\ntaught Moses so eminently by His Spirit had so fitted the people for\nwhom he wrote that they were capable to receive instruction by his\nwords.\"[46]  This idea, so frequently expressed in the writings of Fox,\nthat no one can understand the Scriptures except by the Spirit that\ngave forth the Scriptures,[47] is equally a fundamental idea of Boehme\nand his English interpreters.  In many passages of the _Mysterium\nmagnum_ Boehme declares that the written word is only a witness to the\nliving Word, which latter Word can be understood only by those who are\nin the Spirit that spoke in the Prophets and Apostles.[48]  Sparrow, in\nhis Introduction to the _Aurora_, declares that no person can\nunderstand the spiritual mystery of redemption, \"though he reade of it\nin the Scriptures,\" unless the Holy Spirit in himself, the true Divine\nLight, enlighten him, and give him the word of faith in his heart;\n\"neither,\" he adds, \"can any understand the Holy Scriptures but by the\nsame Gifts of the Holy Spirit in the Soul.\"[49]\n\nOn one occasion the Lord showed Fox the nature of things that are in\nthe human heart--\"as the nature of dogs, swine, vipers, etc.\"[50]  So,\ntoo, Boehme saw that there are many kinds of wild beast in man's\nnature--the lion, the wolf, the dog, the fox, and the serpent.[51]  Fox\nfrequently speaks of the two \"seeds\"--the Seed of God or the Seed of\nChrist and the seed of the serpent--and the victory of life in the\nSpirit consists in having the Seed of God conquer the seed of the\nserpent, or, as Fox {226} often expresses it, having \"the Seed of God\nbruise the serpent's head,\" or having \"the Seed of God atop of the\ndevil and all his works\"; or having \"the Seed reign.\"[52]  This\nphraseology runs throughout Boehme's writings.  The two \"seeds\" are\neverywhere in evidence, and \"the Treader on the serpent\" is the\nfrequent name for Christ and for the victorious soul.  God showed Adam,\nBoehme says, how \"the Treader on the serpent\" should once again be\nbrought with virtue and power up into the Paradise of God, and live\nanew by the Word of God.[53]\n\nFox, in the account of his first great transforming opening in 1647,\nsays: \"I knew God by revelation as one who hath the key doth open.\"[54]\nThis is a frequent figure in Boehme for a first-hand experience.\n\"Where is Paradise to be found?\" he asks.  \"Is it far away or is it\nnear?  One person cannot lend the key to another.  Every one must\nunlock it with his own key or else he cannot enter,\"[55] and again he\ndescribes that \"surpassing joy of the new regeneration,\" when the soul\n\"gets the keys of the kingdom of heaven and may open for itself.\"[56]\n\nFox's \"openings\" about university-trained ministers and his references\nto \"stone churches,\" or \"churches of stone and mortar,\" have many\nparallels in Boehme.  Dinah of the Old Testament, for example, is\n\"nothing else but a figure of our stone churches and our colleges with\ntheir ministers!\" and Jacob's concubine, again, \"signifieth nothing\nelse but the stone churches in which God's word and testament are\nhandled.\"[57]\n\nFinally, Fox's great vision of an ocean of Darkness and an ocean of\nLight, while no doubt a real experience and expressed in his own words,\nis profoundly like Boehme's fundamental insight that there are two\nworld-principles of Light and Darkness, and that Light is, in the end,\nvictorious over Darkness.[58]\n\nNo attempt has been made to gather an exhaustive set {227} of parallels\nbetween the experiences and ideas of these two religious teachers.\nEnough, however, is presented to show that this spiritual leader in\nEngland was distinctly a debtor to the Teutonic seer who died the same\nyear in which the former was born.  Fox himself never mentions Boehme\nby name, nor does he ever refer to the little sect of \"Behmenists,\"\nwhich, springing into existence contemporaneously with the birth of the\nQuaker movement, had an interesting, though short-lived, history; but a\nnumber of the followers of Fox went aggressively into the lists against\ntheir puny rival.\n\nThe so-called \"sect of Behmenists\" is thus described by Richard Baxter:\n\"The fifth sect are the Behmenists whose opinions go much toward the\nway of the former [the Quakers] for the sufficiency of the Light of\nNature, Inward Light, the salvation of the Heathen as well as\nChristians, and a dependence on 'revelations.'  But they are fewer in\nnumber, and seem to have attained to greater Meekness and conquest of\npassions than any of the rest.  Their doctrines are to be seen in Jacob\nBehmen's Books, by him that hath nothing else to do, than to bestow a\ngreat deal of time to understand him that was not willing to be easily\nunderstood!\"[59]\n\n\"The chiefest\" of this \"sect of Behmenists,\" Baxter says, was Dr. John\nPordage.  Pordage was born in 1607; was curate in 1644 of St.\nLawrence's in Reading; was made rector of the Church in Bradfield late\nin 1646; was charged in 1651 with heresies, comprised in nine articles,\nconsisting apparently of a sort of mystical pantheism.  He was at first\nacquitted, but was later charged again with heresies on these nine\ncounts, with fifty-six more, and was deprived of his rectory in 1655.\nHe valiantly defended himself in a book with the title, _Truth\nappearing through the Clouds of Undeserved Scandel_, and in other\npublications, and after the Restoration he was reinstated.  As the\nBehmenists were definitely attacked by the Quaker, John Anderdon, in\n1661, it is to be inferred that they existed as a society at least as\nearly as the {228} Restoration, though the movement became much more\nprominent in the 'seventies, when Pordage discovered a remarkable woman\nnamed Jane Leade, and they \"agreed to wait together in prayer and pure\ndedication.\"  Jane Leade, whose maiden name was Jane Ward, was born of\na good English family in 1623.  She was a psychopathic child, and as a\nyoung girl \"heard miraculous voices\" which led her to devote herself to\nreligion.  She became profoundly impressed with the writings of Boehme,\nas Pordage had been still earlier, and under the _suggestion_ of\nBoehme's experiences she received many \"prophetic visions,\" which are\nrecorded in her spiritual Diary, _A Fountain of Gardens_.[60]  A few\ninstances of her experiences in the early stages will be of some value\nto the reader.  She was visiting, she says, in April 1670, in a quiet,\nretired place, and was \"contemplating the happy state of the angelical\nworld, much exercised upon Solomon's choice, which was to find out the\nNoble Stone of Wisdom.\"  \"There came upon me an overshadowing bright\ncloud, and in the midst of it the Figure of a woman, most richly\nadorned with transparent gold, her hair hanging down, and her face as\nterrible as chrystal for brightness, but her countenance was sweet and\nmild.  At which sight I was somewhat amazed, and immediately this Voice\ncame, saying, Behold, I am God's Eternal Virgin, Wisdom, whom thou hast\nbeen enquiring after.  I am to unseal the Treasures of God's deep\nWisdom unto thee. . . .  Wisdom shall be born in the inward parts of\nthy soul.\"  Three days later, \"the same Figure in greater Glory did\nappear, with a crown upon her head, full of majesty, saying, Behold me\nas thy Mother and know thou art to enter into covenant, to obey the\nNew-Creation laws that shall be revealed unto thee.\"[61]  In her\naccount of the following extraordinary experience there are many marks\nof Boehme's influence: \"I retained no strength, my Sun of Reason and\nthe Moon of my outward sense were folded up and withdrew.  I knew\nnothing by myself, as {229} to those working properties from Nature and\nCreature, and the wheel of the Motion standing still, another\n[influence] moved from a central Fire, so that I felt myself transmuted\ninto one pure flame.  Then came that Word to me, 'This is no other than\nthe Gate to my Eternal Deep.'\"[62]\n\nPordage's main contribution to the exposition of \"Behmenism\" was a book\npublished in 1683 and entitled, _Theologia Mystica, or the Mystic\nDivinitie of the Eternal Invisibles_.  It is the work of a confused\nmind, and its spiritual penetration, as also its mastery of the English\nlanguage, are of a low order.  The marks of Boehme's influence appear\neverywhere in the book, though Pordage is quite incapable of\ncomprehending the more profound and robust features of Boehme's\nphilosophy.  What he relates professes to be what he himself has _seen_\nin visions, or what he has heard from celestial visitants.  It has, he\nsays, been his privilege to taste much of that Tree of Life which grows\nin the midst of the Paradise of God; to smell the difference between\nheaven and hell; to have seen through the veil of nature into the\nspiritual glory of eternity, to have felt \"the distillations of\nheavenly dew and secret touches of the Holy Ghost.\"  Unlike his\nTeutonic master, he taught (and it was also the view of Jane Leade)\nthat in the end Divine Love transmutes evil into good and even hell\ninto Paradise.  One passage in his book, written in his best style,\nwill be sufficient to illustrate his glowing optimism: \"Love is of a\ntransmuting and transforming Nature.  The great effect of Love is to\nturn all things into its own Nature, which is all goodness, sweetness,\nand perfection.  This is that Divine Power which turns Water into Wine,\nSorrow and Hellish Anguish into exulting and triumphing Joy; Curse into\nBlessing; where it meets with a barren heathy Desart it transmutes it\ninto a Paradise of delights; yea, it changeth evil to good and all\nimperfection into perfection.  It restores that which is fallen and\ndegenerated to its primary Beauty, Excellence and Perfection.  It is\n{230} the Divine Stone, the White Stone with a Name written on it,\nwhich none knows but him that hath it . . . the Divine Elixir whose\ntransforming power and efficacy nothing can withstand.\"[63]\n\nHis greater disciple, Jane Leade, \"the enamoured woman-devotee of\nPordage,\" the main exponent of the Behmenist movement of this period,\nwas a far too voluminous writer.[64]  She was a sincere, pure-minded\nwoman, of intense devotion, but she was a strongly emotional type of\nperson, and lived in a kind of permanent borderland of visions and\nrevelations.  Her language, like that also of Pordage, is\nungrammatical, of involved style, and full of overwrought and fanciful\nimagination.  Christopher Walton, who in many ways respected her, calls\nher writings \"a huge mass of parabolicalism and idiocratic\ndeformity!\"[64]  In her _Message to the Philadelphian Society_ she\nreports a curious vision from heaven which assures her that the Quakers\nare not God's chosen people.  There pass in review before her\nilluminated sight the various claimants to the lofty title of the true\nChurch, the real Bride of Christ.  There are Anabaptists, Fifth\nMonarchy Men, and many others.  \"Then,\" she says, \"did I see a body\ngreater than any of these come up with great boldness, as deeming\nthemselves to have arrived to Perfection and so visibly distinguishing\nthemselves from all the rest, and I said, Now surely the anointed of\nthe Lord is before Him.  But a Voice said, Neither are these they; for\nthe Lord seeth not as man seeth.\"[66]\n\nA third and intellectually far greater member of this group of\n\"Behmenists\" was Francis Lee, a Fellow of St. John's College, Oxford, a\nstudent in Leyden University, and a man of splendid parts.  He became\nacquainted with the movement while in Holland, and on his return home\nsought out Jane Leade, became her adopted son, and, later, on the\nstrength of a \"revelation\" made to his {231} spiritual mother, he\nmarried her daughter.  Until the time of Jane Leade's death in 1704, he\nwas her devoted disciple, writing for her in the period of her\nblindness, and editing and publishing many of her books.  He was the\nmoving spirit in the formation of \"the Philadelphian Society\" for the\npropagation of the mystical ideas of the followers of Boehme--a Society\nwhich existed from 1697 to 1703, and which had a far-reaching influence\nnot only in England but still more on the Continent of Europe.[67]\n\nJohn Anderdon, an interesting Quaker pamphleteer, born in 1624,\nconvinced of the Truth of the Quaker Message by the preaching of\nFrancis Howgil in 1658, and for many years a prisoner for his faith,\nfor which he finally died in prison, furnishes in his attack on the\n\"Behmenists\" in 1661 the earliest data available for an estimate of\ntheir views and practices.[68]  The writer has evidently read the works\nof Jacob Boehme, or at least some of them, and he contends that the\n\"Behmenists\" whom he is attacking have failed to understand the\nwritings of their master and have never fathomed \"the tendencie of his\nspirit\": \"The Conclusion which you have drawn to yourselves from his\nWritings will not profit you; neither doth it make you any jot the more\nexcellent, that ye can talk much of him and his Books and Writings,\nbeing not come to the right Spirit in which is life, which brings men\nout of dead Forms.\"[69]\n\nHis main criticism of the little sect is that its members make use of\n\"Mediums and borrowed Instruments for the conveyance of God's Grace and\nVirtue into the Soul,\"[70] and that they have \"not come to the Light\nwhich gives {232} a true understanding of the things of God,\" though he\nadmits that there \"was sometime\" in them \"a hungering and thirsting\nafter Righteousness.\"[71]  These \"Mediums\" are evidently the Water of\nBaptism and the Bread and Wine of the Supper--\"Ordinances,\" he says,\n\"as you call them.\"[72]  It would seem from this Quaker Pamphlet that\nthe \"Behmenists\" under review were much like the followers of Fox,\nexcept only that they continued to use the sacraments.  This use of\n\"Mediums\" seemed to him indicate that they were \"out of the Light\" and\n\"trying to _cover_ the serpent's head,\" instead of stamping on it, but\nAnderdon would not have written his _Blow at Babel_ if he had not been\nimpressed with the general marks of likeness in other respects between\nthe \"Behmenists\" and his own people.\n\nAnother interesting Quaker document furnishes a glimpse of the\n\"Behmenists\" a dozen years later--at about the period when John Pordage\nand Jane Leade were beginning to \"wait together in prayer and pure\nmeditation.\"  It is a Minute adopted by the London \"Morning Meeting\" of\nFriends, \"the 21st of ye 7th Month 1674.\"  The occasion for action was\nthe reception of \"an Epistle to the Behminists,\" written by Ralph\nFrettwell of Barbadoes, at an earlier period \"one of the Chief Judges\nof the Court of Common-pleas\" in the island.  He had been stirred to\nwrite for the same reason that impelled Anderdon, and his \"Epistle\"\ncalled these partly spiritualized people, as he believed, to the fuller\nLight, and warned them against the use of Baptism, and Bread and Wine,\nand \"the Pater Noster.\"  The Minute of the Morning Meeting, which opens\nwith the words: \"Deare freind R. F. in the Truth that never changeth\nbut changeth all who believe and obey it,\" records the decision of the\nMeeting not to publish the Epistle, \"wee haveing well weighed it in the\nfeare of God and in tender Care of Truth.\"  The reason given in the\nMinutes for not publishing the \"Epistle\" is, first, that \"the writings\nof J. B. reveal {233} a great mixture of light and darkness,\" and\nindicate that he lived sometimes in the power of one and sometimes in\nthe power of the other, that God Himself has tried and judged the\nSpirit of darkness, and that the Spirit of Light has already \"come to\nits own Centre and flows forth again purely\"--presumably in the Quaker\nmovement.[73]  As the Lord Himself has given judgment and has given\nvictory to the Principle of the Light, the publication of the \"Epistle\"\nis unnecessary.\n\nAnd, secondly, Frettwell, in calling the \"Behmenists\" from \"the use of\nMediums,\" admits that at an earlier period of his life, before he\nreceived the full Light, he \"received light and peace\" through these\nexternal things.  This seemed to the Meeting \"too much giveing them\nencouragement\" to dwell in things which give \"only drynesse and\nbarrenness,\" and they fear that \"the ffoxes among them would take\nadvantage\" of this aid and comfort.[74]  It would appear that the\ngravamen of the Quaker attack on the little sect was the failure of its\nmembers to dispense with sacraments.  At a later period, when the\n\"Philadelphian Society\" was in full flower, an old-time pillar Quaker,\nGeorge Keith, then become a Churchman and \"an apostate\" in the eyes of\nFriends, attacked the writings of Jane Leade on the ground that \"she\nwrote derogatory to the Humanity of Christ,\" _i.e._ the historical\nChrist.  Francis Lee took up vigorously the defence, and told George\nKeith that he himself had taught again and again the same principle of\ninward Light and inward Religion, that he had never yet publicly\nrenounced these early ideas of his, and that he of all men ought to\nunderstand the meaning of a Christ within and of a \"Still Eternity.\"[75]\n\nTraces of Boehme's influence appear in the terms and {234} ideas of\nmany English writers during the period under consideration, besides\nthose specifically mentioned.  Sir Isaac Newton read Boehme's books\nwith great appreciation and meditated upon those strange accounts of\nthe invisible universe which underlies and is in the visible world, but\nwe need not take too seriously the claim of the \"Behmenists\" that \"he\nwas ploughing with Behmen's heifer\" when he discovered the law of\nuniversal gravitation![76]  Milton, without any doubt, had read the\nGerman mystic's account of the eternal war between the Light Principle\nand the Dark Principle, of the fall of Lucifer, of the loss of\nParadise, and of the return of man in Christ to Paradise, and there are\nmany passages in the great poet which look decidedly like germinations\nfrom the seed which Boehme sowed, but we must observe caution in\ntracing the origin of verses written by a poet of Milton's genius and\noriginality and range of knowledge.  One great Englishman of a later\nperiod, William Law, unmistakably owed to Jacob Boehme the main\ninfluences which transformed his life, and through the pure and lucid\nstyle of this noble English mystic of the eighteenth century, Boehme's\ninsights found a new interpretation and a clearer expression than he\nhimself or any other interpreter had been able to give them.[77]\n\n\n\n[1] \"The Life of one Jacob Boehmen, who although he was a meane man,\nyet wrote the most wonderful deepe knowledge in Naturall and Divine\nThings, that any hath been known to doe since the Apostles' Times, and\nyet never read them or learned them from any other man, as may be scene\nin that which followeth.\"--London, 1644, printed by L. N. for Richard\nWhitaker.\n\n[2] _Journal of George Fox_ (Cambridge edition, 1911), i. p. 18.\n\n[3] Preface, A. 4.\n\n[4] _Ibid._\n\n[5] _Journ._ i. p. 29.\n\n[6] _The Life of Jacob Behmen_, written by Durant Hotham, Esquire,\nNovember 7, 1653.  Printed for H. Blunden, and sold at the Castle in\nCorn Hill, 1654.\n\n[7] _Life of Jacob Behmen_, B. 2.\n\n[8] _Op. cit._ B. 2.\n\n[9] The writings were translated in the following order: In 1647,\n_Forty Questions_ by Sparrow; _The Clavis_, by Sparrow.  In 1648, _The\nThree Principles_, by Sparrow; _The Way to Christ_ (including the\nTreatises, _On True Repentance_; _On True Resignation_; _On\nRegeneration_; _The Supersensual Life_; and _On Illumination_), by\nSparrow.  In 1649, _Of the Last Times_, by Sparrow; _Epistles of Jacob\nBehmen_, by Ellistone.  In 1650, _The Three-fold Life_, by Sparrow.  In\n1651, _De signatura rerum_, by Ellistone.  In 1652, _Christ's\nTestaments_--Baptism and Supper,--by Sparrow.  In 1654, _The Mysterium\nmagnum_, by Ellistone and Sparrow; _A Table of the Divine\nManifestation_, by H. Blunden and Sparrow; _A Table of the Three\nPrinciples_, H. Blunden and Sparrow; _An Epitome of the Three\nPrinciples_, by Sparrow.  In 1655, _On Predestination_, by Sparrow; _A\nShort Compendium on Repentance_, by Sparrow.  In 1656, _The Aurora_, by\nSparrow.  In 1659, _The Treatise on the Incarnation_, by Sparrow.  In\n1661, _The Great Six Points_; _The Earthly and Heavenly Mystery_; _The\nFour Complexions_; _Two Apologies to Tylcken_; _Considerations\nconcerning Stiefel's Threefold State of Man_; _An Apology concerning\nPerfection_; _On Divine Contemplation_; _An Apology for the Books on\nTrue Repentance and True Resignation_; _177 Theosophic Questions_; _The\nHoly Week_; _25 Epistles_, by Sparrow.\n\n[10] Sparrow refers to this book in his Introduction to _The Three\nPrinciples_ as follows: \"For a taste of the Spirit of prophecy which\nthe author [Boehme] had, there is a little treatise of some prophecies\nconcerning these latter times, collected out of his writings by a lover\nof the Teutonic philosophy and entitled Mercurius Teutonicus.\"\n\n[11] Introd. to _Forty Questions_.\n\n[12] Introd. to _Forty Questions_.\n\n[13] Ibid.\n\n[14] Ibid.\n\n[15] Introd. to _The Three Princ._\n\n[16] Introd. to _The Three Princ._\n\n[17] Ibid.\n\n[18] \"To the Reader\" in _Myst. mag._\n\n[19] \"To the Reader\" in _Myst. mag._\n\n[20] Preface to the Reader in _Aurora_.\n\n[21] Preface for the _Aurora_.\n\n[22] Preface for the _Aurora_.\n\n[23] A contemporary of Sparrow, probably Samuel Pordage, wrote an\nEncomium on Sparrow in the Introduction to a long Behmenite Poem called\n_Mundorum explicatio_ (London, 1661).  The passage is as follows:\n\n    \"And learned Sparrow we thy praises too\n    Will Sing; rewards too small for what is due,\n    The Gifts of Glory and of Praise we owe:\n    The English Behmen doth Thy Trophies show.\n    Whilst Englishmen that great saint's praise declare,\n    Thy Name shall join'd with his receive a share.\n    The Time shall come when his great Name shall rise,\n    Thy Glory also shall ascend the skies.\n    Thou mad'st him English speak, or else what Good\n    Had his works done us if not understood?\n    To Germany they beneficial prove\n    Alone: till we enjoyed them by thy Love.\n    Their German Robes thou took'st from them, that we\n    Their Beauties might in English Garments see.\n    Thus has thy Love a vast rich Treasure showen,\n    And made what was exotic now our own.\"\n\n[24] Preface to Boehme's _Epistles_ (1649).\n\n[25] Preface to Boehme's _Epistles_.\n\n[26] _Ibid._\n\n[27] _Ibid._\n\n[28] Preface to _Epistles_.\n\n[29] _Ibid._\n\n[30] Preface to _Sig. re._\n\n[31] This question was raised by Barclay in his _Inner Life of the\nReligious Societies of the Commonwealth_ (London, 1879), pp. 214-215.\n\n[32] Thomas Taylor's _Works_ (London, 1697), p. 86.\n\n[33] The writings themselves constantly use the word \"Seeker,\" and the\nIntroductions emphasize the Seeking attitude.\n\n[34] _Christian Information Concerning these Last Times_, by F. E.\n(London, 1664), pp. 10-11.\n\n[35] _Op. cit._ pp. 11-12.\n\n[36] _Journal_ (ed. 1901), 28.  Unfortunately the Cambridge Journal\ndoes not contain any biographical incidents prior to 1652.\n\n[37] Hotham's _Life_, D. 4.\n\n[38] Preface to _Epistles_, p. 10.\n\n[39] The _Three Princ._, trans. 1648, xx. 40-41.\n\n[40] _Sig. re._ viii. 23.\n\n[41] _Ep._ xv. 18.  For another passage on \"the new smell,\" see _The\nThree Princ._ iv. 27.\n\n[42] _Journal_, i. p. 29.\n\n[43] _Ibid._ i. pp. 29-30.\n\n[44] See _Journal_, i. pp. 31-34.\n\n[45] _Ibid._ i. p. 33.\n\n[46] _Op. cit._ A.\n\n[47] See, for specimen passages, _Journal_, i. pp. 36 and 124.\n\n[48] See especially _Myst. mag._ xxxviii. sections 52-59.\n\n[49] Preface to _Aurora_, B.\n\n[50] _Journal_, i. p. 19.\n\n[51] _Three Princ._ xvi. 31-37.\n\n[52] See _Journal_, i. p. 13; pp. 190-191 and _passim_.\n\n[53] _Three Princ._ iv. 5.  See also _ibid._ xv. 24; xvi. 42; and\nxviii. 24.\n\n[54] _Journal_, i. p. 12.\n\n[55] _Three Princ._ ix. 25-26.\n\n[56] _Ibid._ xix. 33.\n\n[57] _Myst. mag._ lxii. 17 and lxiii. 36.\n\n[58] See Fox's _Journal_, i. p. 19.\n\n[59] _Reliquiae Baxterianae_ (London, 1715), i. 77.\n\n[60] _A Fountain of Gardens_, 4 vols., London, 1696-1701.\n\n[61] _Op. cit._ i. pp. 17-19.\n\n[62] _A Fountain of Gardens_, p. 25.\n\n[63] _Theologia mystica_, p. 81.\n\n[64] Christopher Walton, in his _Notes and Materials_ (1854), gives a\nlist of eighteen of her books.\n\n[65] _Ibid._ p. 238.\n\n[66] _Op. cit._ p. 9.  Pordage disliked the Quakers and speaks\nslightingly of them in _Theologia mystica_.  He also wrote a Treatise\nagainst them.  See Walton, p. 203.\n\n[67] Important material on this subject may be found in Walton's _Notes\nand Materials_, especially pp. 188-258.\n\n[68] The full title-page of Anderdon's book is as follows: _One Blow at\nBabel_.  In those of the Pepole called Behemnites, whose Foundation is\nnot upon that of the Prophets and Apostles, which shall stand sure and\nfirm forever; but upon their own carnal conceptions, begotten in their\nImaginations upon Jacob Behmen's writings: They not knowing the better\npart, the Teachings of that Spirit that sometime opened some Mysteries\nof God's Kingdom in Jacob, have chosen the worser part in Esau,\naccording to the predominancy of that Spirit which ruled in them when\nthey made choice of their Religion, as it doth in others the hearts of\nthe children of disobedience.--By John Anderdon.  (London, printed in\nthe year 1662, written in 1661).\n\n[69] _One Blow at Babel_, p. 3.\n\n[70] _Ibid._ pp. 1 and 6.\n\n[71] _One Blow at Babel_, pp. 1-2.\n\n[72] Jane Leade's writings give great importance to the outward\nsacraments.\n\n[73] The use of the phrase \"its own Centre,\" which became an important\nQuaker term, is an interesting relic of Boehme's influence.\n\n[74] _Minutes of the Morning Meeting_, i.  George Fox apparently asked\nto see Frattwell's MS., for in a Letter under date of eighth mo. 1st,\n1674, Alexander Parker writes to George Fox: \"I likewise spoke to Edw.\nMan [Edward Mann] to send down Ralph ffrettwells Book, I suppose he\nintends to see thee shortly and if he can find ye Book to bring itt\nwith him.\"--_Journal_ (Cambridge edition), ii. p. 305.\n\n[75] Walton's _Notes and Materials_, pp. 227 and 231.\n\n[76] See Walton's _Notes and Materials_, pp. 3, 46, 72, and 404.\n\n[77] William Law lies beyond the period to which this volume is\ndevoted.  It is customary to call the edition of Behmen's _Works_,\npublished 1764-1781, \"William Law's Edition.\"  This is quite incorrect.\nThis edition is in the main a reprint of the earlier Translations by\nSparrow and Ellistone.  It was edited by George Ward, assisted by\nThomas Langcake, and printed at the expense of Mrs. Hutcheson, an\nintimate friend of William Law.\n\n\n\n\n{235}\n\nCHAPTER XIII\n\nEARLY ENGLISH INTERPRETERS OF SPIRITUAL RELIGION:\n  JOHN EVERARD, GILES RANDALL, AND OTHERS\n\nI\n\nThe ideas developed by spiritual Reformers on the Continent were\nbrought into England by a great variety of carriers and over many\nroutes.  Some of the routes were devious and are difficult to trace,\nbut some of them, on the other hand, are obvious and easily found.  One\nof the potent and pervasive intellectual influences for the formation\nof the \"spiritual\" type of thought in England was the Platonic\ninfluence which came to England through the Humanists.  This strand of\nthought, inherited from the remote past, is woven into the inner\nstructure of all these interpreters of the divine Life.  The English\nrevival of Greek philosophy is closely connected with the work of the\nearly Italian Humanists, especially with that of the Florentine\nscholar, Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499), who was selected and educated by\nCosimo de Medici to be the head of the new Academy in Florence.  It was\na fixed idea of Ficino that Philosophy and Religion are identical, and\ntherefore that Religion, if it is true Religion, is rooted and grounded\nin Reason, since God is the source of all Truth and all that is\nrational.  Plato, in Ficino's eyes, is Philosophy.  He was the divine\nforerunner of Christ in the realm of intellect as John the Baptist was\nin the realm of the law.  In his mind Plato's Philosophy is the\ngreatest possible preparation for an adequate understanding of the\nworld of Truth which Christ has unveiled and of the way {236} of Life\nwhich He has revealed.  Ficino translated Plato's Dialogues into Latin,\nand gave his own interpretation of the great philosopher in a Treatise\non _Plato's Doctrine of Immortality of Souls_.  He also translated\nPlotinus and the writings falsely attributed to Dionysius the\nAreopagite, and put them anew into spiritual circulation.\n\nFicino, though living in an age of corruption and debauchery, and\nthough closely associated with Humanists who had hardly a thin veneer\nof Christianity, and who were bent on reviving paganism, yet himself\nmaintained a positive Christian faith and a pure and simple life.  He\nfound it possible to be a priest in the Christian Church and at the\nsame time to be a high-priest in the temple of Plato, because he found\nfaith and reason to be indivisible and indissoluble.  His influence was\nmarked upon the early English Humanists, Linacre, Grocyn, Colet, and\nMore, and he was a vital influence in the new revival, which occurred\nin the seventeenth century, of Plato and Plotinus as contributors to a\nvirile religion based upon an inherent divine and human relationship.\n\nStill another influence, of a very different sort, came to England by\nway of Italy--the intense interpretation of Faith as the way of\nsalvation, expressed in the writings of the Spanish reformer, Juan de\nValdes, and in the powerful sermons of his two Italian disciples,\nBernardino Ochino (1487-1564) and Pietro Martire Vermigli (1500-1562),\ngenerally known as Peter Martyr.  Juan de Valdes, twin brother of the\nHumanist, Alfonso de Valdes, the friend of the Emperor Charles V., was\nborn of a distinguished Castilian family toward the end of the\nfifteenth century.  He was splendidly prepared in his youth, both\nmentally and religiously, for the great work of his life, which was to\nbe a spiritual mover of other souls.  As his views of the needed\ntransformation of Christianity broadened and intensified he concluded\nthat he would be safer in Italy than in Spain, and he thus took up his\nresidence in Naples in 1529.  Here he became the centre of a remarkable\ncircle of spiritual men and women who were dedicating themselves to the\nreform of the Church and to the {237} propagation of a more vital\nreligion.  Ochino, the most powerful Italian preacher of the age; the\nfervent scholar, Vermigli; the papal secretary, Carnesecchi, later a\nmartyr to the new faith; Vittoria Colonna, the friend of Michael Angelo\nBuonarotti, and the beautiful Giulia Gonzaga, were among those who\nkindled their torches from his burning flame.  For the instruction of\nhis friends--especially for Giulia Gonzaga--de Valdes translated St.\nPaul's Epistles to the Romans and Galatians and wrote commentaries on\nthem, and contributed the penetrating original works, _The Christian\nAlphabet_ and _The Hundred and Ten Divine Considerations_.[1]\n\nThese writings present in vivid and powerful style the way of salvation\nthrough Faith.  The primary insight is Lutheran, but it is everywhere\ncoloured and tempered by the author's Humanistic outlook.  He insists,\nin all his interpretations of salvation, upon the vital interior work\nof the Holy Spirit and upon the necessity of re-living the Christ-life\nin all its heights and depths.  All the truths of religion, he\nconstantly urges, must be known and verified in experience, and those\nwho are to be effective ministers of the Gospel in any age must know\nthat they are divinely sent and must be taught by the inward Word of\nGod rather than by human science.  The attractive power of the Cross is\nrediscovered in his profound experience and makes itself felt as the\ndynamic principle of his entire moral activity.\n\nThe _Divine Considerations_ was put into English by Nicholas Ferrar\n(1592-1637) of Little Gidding, and published at Oxford in 1638,\ntogether with the Introduction to the _Commentary on Romans_, under the\nname of \"John Valdesso.\"  The English translation was submitted by\nFerrar to his friend, George Herbert, who wrote some interesting\ncritical notes which were printed with the original edition.  George\nHerbert expresses his great love for \"Valdesso,\" whose eyes, he says,\nGod has opened, even in the midst of Popery, \"to understand and\nexpresse so clearly {238} and excellently the intent of the Gospell in\nthe acceptation of Christ's righteousness,\" but he \"likes not\" his\nslighting of Scripture and his use of the Word of God for inward\nrevelation.  He believed, though wrongly, that de Valdes was a\n\"mystic,\" and that he was advocating a religion of \"private enthusiasms\nand revelations.\"  The fact was rather that de Valdes was presenting or\nwas aiming to present a religion of universal validity, brought to\nbirth by the discovery of God in Christ as revealed in the Gospel, and\nmade continuously effective anew by personal experience of the same\nChrist as Divine Revealer in the lives of men.\n\nThere is no question of the far-reaching influence of Ferrar's\ntranslation of this vital message of de Valdes, especially among\nscholars and literary men.  It must also have had a popular influence,\nfor Samuel Rutherford in 1648 declared it to be one of the \"poysonable\"\nsources of \"Familisme, Antinomianisme, and Enthusiasme.\"[2]  He charges\nthat \"Waldesso,\" as he calls him, teaches men that the Scriptures have\nbeen supplanted by the inner Light, in fact that \"Scripture shines only\nas a light in a dark place until the Day-star arises in the heart, and\nthat then man hath no more need to seeke that of the holy Scripture\nwhich departs of it selfe, as the light of a candle departs when the\nSunne-beames enter, even as Moses departed at the presence of Christ\nand the Law at the presence of the Gospel.\"[3]\n\nOchino and Vermigli spent six important years in England from 1547 to\n1553, when persecution under Mary forced them to flee.  They were far\nmore under the influence of Calvin at this period than under that of\ntheir former friend de Valdes, but they both with the fire and\nintensity of their Italian nature--especially Ochino in his\nsermons--drove home to the hearts and consciences of their hearers the\nway of salvation by faith and the absolute necessity of inner\nexperience and interior religion.\n\n{239}\n\nII.  JOHN EVERARD\n\nDr. John Everard of Clare College, Cambridge, was clearly one of the\nearliest and one of the most interesting carriers of these ideas, and\nin his case it is not difficult to discover the influences which shaped\nthe course of his thought and suggested the general lines of his\nmessage.  He was born about 1575--the birth year of Jacob\nBoehme--though all early biographical details are lacking.  He had a\nlong student period at Clare College, receiving his degree of B.A. in\n1600, M.A. in 1607, and D.D. in 1619.  He was deeply versed in the\ngreat mystics, and always reveals in his sermons the influence of\nPlotinus and Dionysius the Areopagite, and no less the influence of\nEckhart, Tauler, and the _Theologia Germanica_.  But at some period of\nhis life he tapped a new source and came into possession of a fresh\ngroup of live and suggestive ideas which influenced all the thinking of\nhis later stage.  His translations, some of which are in MS. and some\nin printed form, furnish a clue to the main sources of his ideas, which\npresent a striking parallelism with those held by the continental\nspiritual Reformers of the sixteenth century.  He was possessed of\noriginal power and of penetrating insight, with \"eyes of his own,\" but\nno one can fail to see that he had read and pondered the writings of\nthese submerged Reformers, and that in a country remote from theirs he\nhas become a reincarnation of their ideas and a new voice for their\nmessage.\n\nHis public career, in the England of the first two Stuarts, was a\nstormy one.  He was Rector of St. Martin-in-the-Field.  In the early\nstage of his preaching he felt called upon to oppose the \"Spanish\nMarriage\" as \"the great sin of matching with idolaters,\" and he\nunderwent a series of imprisonments for his attacks upon this precious\nscheme of King James, who wittily suggested changing his name from Dr.\nEverard [\"Ever-out\"] to \"Dr. Never-out.\"  Some time before his fiftieth\nyear--the date cannot be exactly fixed--he reached {240} his new and\ndeeper insight, and henceforth became the bearer of a message which\nseemed to him and to his friends like the reopening of the treasury of\nthe Gospels, and in this new light he felt ashamed of the barren period\nof his life when he walked in \"the ignorance of litteral knowledge,\"\nwhen he was \"a bare, literal, University preacher,\" as he himself says,\nand had not found \"the marrow and the true Word of God.\"[4]  The great\nchange which cleaves his public career into two well-defined parts is\nimpressively indicated by his friend and disciple, Rapha Harford, in\nhis \"Dedicatory Epistle\" to the Sermons and in his preface \"to the\nReader,\" though he nowhere gives any light upon the events and\ninfluences which initiated the transformation.  \"In a special and\nextraordinary manner God appeared to him in his latter days,\" Harford\nsays, \"and after that, he desired nothing more than to bring others to\nsee what he saw and to enjoy what he enjoyed.\"[5]  He was, we are told,\n\"a man of presence and of princely behaviour\" and was known \"as a good\nphilosopher, few or none exceeding him,\" \"endowed with skill and depth\nof learning,\" but after his new experience, when he \"came to know\nhimself,\" and to \"know Jesus Christ and the Scriptures _experimentally_\nrather than grammatically, literally or academically,\" he came to\nesteem lightly \"notions and speculation,\" \"letter-learning\" and\n\"University-knowledge,\" and he \"_centred his spirit_ on union and\ncommunion with God\" and turned his supreme interest from \"forms,\nexternals and generals\" to the cultivation of \"the inner man,\" and to\n\"acting more than talking.\"[6]\n\nHis new way of preaching--vivid, concrete, touched with subtle humour,\ngrounded in experience and filling old texts with new meaning--appealed\npowerfully to the common people and to an elect few of the more highly\nprivileged who had won a large enough freedom of spirit to go with him\ninto new paths.[7]  Like his Master, he loved {241} the common people,\n\"thinking it no disparagement to accompany with the lowest of men,\"\n\"tinkers, coblers, weavers and poor beggarly fellows who came running\"\nto hear him, and he poured out the best he had in his treasury to any,\neven the simplest and most ordinary, who cared to hear of this\n\"spiritual, practical experiment of life.\"  His preaching naturally\nbrought him suffering and persecution.  He was \"often fetched into the\nHigh Commission,\" was forced to give \"attendance from Court to Court\nand from Term to Term,\" was on one occasion fined a thousand pounds for\nhis \"heresies,\" and had many interviews with Archbishop Laud, but he\nalways held that \"Truth is strongest,\" and he declared that God had\ncalled him to be \"a Sampson against Philistines and a David against the\nhuge and mighty Goliath of his times,\"[8] and he was ready to pay the\ncost of obedience to the Light.  His friend, Harford, who had \"much\nado\" to keep the manuscript of his sermons \"out of the Bishop's\nfingers,\" declares that though Everard clearly \"distinguished the\noutward and killing letter from the Life and Spirit of the Holy Word,\"\nhe was not an antinomian or in sympathy with ranterism.  \"Our author,\"\nthe Dedicatory Epistle says, and says truly, \"missed both rocks against\nwhich many have split their vessels.  He carries Truth amain with\nTopsail set.  He cuts his way clear between the meer Rationalist who\nwill square out God according to his Reason, and the Familist who lives\nabove all ordinances and by degrees hath turned licencious Ranter.\"\nThomas Brooks added to Harford's Testimony a brief \"Approbation\" to the\nVolume, on Behalf of the Publishers, recommending all readers to\nreceive its \"heaven-born truths\" into their homes and into their\nhearts, assuring them that as they read and open their inner eyes they\nwill find their own hearts in the book and the book in their own\nhearts, _i.e._ the book will \"find them.\"\n\nBefore turning to Everard's message, as it finds expression in the rare\nvolume of his sermons--_The Gospel Treasures Opened_--we must consider\nthe Translations {242} which he left unpublished.  They are preserved\nin clearly written manuscripts in Cambridge University Library, under\nthe title \"Three Bookes Translated out of their Originall.\"[9]  The\nfirst \"Book\" bears the following title-page: \"The Tree of Knowledge of\nGood and Evil, And the Tree of Life in the Midst of the Paradise of\nGod: Taken out of a Book called The Letter and the Life, or The Flesh\nand the Spirit.  Translated by Dr. Everard.\"  An interesting article on\nDr. Everard in _Notes and Queries_[10] concludes that this first \"Book\"\nof Everard's is a free translation of the Second Part of Tentzel's\n_Medicina diastica_.  This guess, however, proves to be incorrect,\nthough there is a slight likeness between Tentzel's book and the\nEnglish MS. Everard's book is, in reality, a translation of Sebastian\nFranck's _Von dem Baum des Wissens Gutes und Boeses_ (\"Of the Tree of\nKnowledge of Good and Evil\").  The translation is made from a Latin\nedition of Franck's little book, which was published in 1561.  The\nentire message of this treatise, written by the wandering chronicler\nand spiritual prophet of Germany, and here reproduced in English, is\nthe _inwardness_ of everything that concerns the religious life.  The\nTree of Life was in Adam's heart, and in that same inner region of the\nsoul was the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  The story of\nParadise is a graphic parable of the soul's experience.  \"That Tree\nwhich tested Adam was and is nothing else in truth but the Nature,\nWill, Knowledge, and Life of Adam, and every man is as much forbidden\nto eat of this Tree as Adam was.\"  Franck's significant book contained\npassages from Hans Denck's _Widerruf_ (\"Confession\"), and Everard\ntranslated them as an appendix to his first manuscript book.[11]  They\nhold the very heart of Denck's message and deal, with Denck's usual\nsincerity and boldness, with the fundamental nature of spiritual\nreligion.  He here declares the primacy of the Word of God in the soul\nover everything else that ministers to man's life: \"I prefer the Holy\nScriptures before all Humane {243} Treasure; yet I do not so much\nesteem them as I do the Word of God which is living, potent, and\neternal, and which is free from all elements of this world: For that is\nGod Himself, Spirit and no letter, written without pen or ink, so that\nit can never be obliterated.  True Salvation is in the Word of God; it\nis not tied up to the Scriptures.  They alone cannot make a bad heart\ngood, though they may supply it with information.  But a heart\nillumined with the Light of God is made better by everything.\"  Franck\ndeclares, in comment on Denck's words: \"I myself know at least twenty\nChristian Religions all of which claim to rest on the Holy Scriptures\nwhich they apply to themselves by far-fetched expositions and\nallegories, or from the dead letter of the text. . . .  They can be\nunderstood rightly, however, only by the divine new-man, who is\nGod-born, and who brings to them the Light of the Holy Spirit.\"  There\ncan be no doubt, I think, that Dr. Everard found in the writings of\nthese two sixteenth-century prophets the body and filling of his own\nnew conceptions of Christianity, and it was through his vigorous\ninterpretations that this stream of thought first flowed into England.\n\nIt will not be necessary to make extended comment on Everard's other\ntranslations.  The second one was \"The Golden Book of German\nDivinitie,\" rendered into English in 1628 from the Latin edition of\n\"John Theophilus,\" who is Sebastian Castellio, and the third is a\ntranslation of Nicholas of Cusa's _De visione Dei_ (\"The Vision of\nGod\"), which is a profound and impressive piece of mystical literature\nand deserves to be much better known than it is.  Everard, further,\ntranslated the \"Mystical Divinity\" of Dionysius the Areopagite,\nselections from John Tauler and Meister Eckhart, and \"The Divine\nPymander [Poemander] of Hermes Trismegistus\"--a book which nearly all\nthe spiritual Humanists ranked in the very first list of religious\nliterature.[12]\n\nWe must now turn to Everard's message as it is {244} presented in his\nSermons, and endeavour to discover what he told the throngs of people\nwho came gladly to hear him in the Kensington Meetings and the\ngatherings at Islington.  The central emphasis in every sermon is on\npersonal experience, or, as we should phrase it to-day, on a religion\nof life and reality.  He has had his own \"scholastic\" period, but he\nlooks back on it as a passage across an arid desert, and he feels a\nmission laid upon him to call men everywhere away from a religion of\n\"notions and words\"[13] to a religion of first-hand experience and\ninwardly felt realities.  Unless we know Christ, he says,\nexperimentally so that \"He lives within us spiritually, and so that all\nwhich is known of Him in the Letter and Historically is truly done and\nacted in our own souls--until we experimentally verify all we read of\nHim--the Gospel is a meer tale to us.\"  It is not saving knowledge to\nknow that Christ was born in Bethlehem but to know that He is born in\nus.  It is vastly more important to know experimentally that we are\ncrucified with Christ than to know historically that He died in\nJerusalem many years ago, and to feel Jesus Christ risen again within\nyou is far more operative than to have \"a notional knowledge\" that He\nrose on the third day.  \"When thou begins to finde and know not merely\nthat He was conceived in the womb of a virgin, but that _thou_ art that\nvirgin and that He is more truly and spiritually, and yet as really,\nconceived in thy heart so that thou feelest the Babe beginning to be\nconceived in thee by the power of the Holy Ghost and the Most High\novershadowing thee; when thou feelest Jesus Christ stirring to be born\nand brought forth in thee; when thou beginnest to see and feel all\nthose mighty, powerful actions done in thee which thou readest that He\ndid in the flesh--here is a Christ indeed, a real Christ who will do\nthee some good.\"[14]\n\n{245}\n\nTo have Christ born in the soul means also to \"do the deeds of Christ,\"\nto grow and increase toward perfection as His life is more fully\nmanifested in us, to be able to say as we read of divine events, \"This\nday is this Scripture fulfilled in me,\" and to see Christ work all His\nmiracles before our eyes to-day.  It is the \"key of experience\" which\nunlocks all the drawers and cabinets and hidden and secret doors of\nScripture.[15]  We can discover, as we read, that there are whole\narmies of Philistines in us to be overcome, that there are Goliaths to\nbe slain, and that there are Promised Lands to be won.[16]  \"When thou\nhast seen God and found Him for thyself; then thou mayest say: Now I\nbelieve, not only because it is written in Genesis, but because I have\nfelt it and seen it written and fulfilled in mine own soul.\"[17]  \"Men\nshould not so much trouble themselves,\" he says to those who are\nexpecting a \"Fifth Monarchy,\" \"about a personal reign of Christ here\nupon earth, if they saw that the chief and real fulfilling of the\nScriptures were _in them_; and that, whatever is externally done in the\nworld or expressed in the Scriptures, is but typical and\nrepresentative, and points out a more spiritual _saving_, and a more\ndivine fulfilling of them.\"[18]\n\nIn almost the same figures used by Sebastian Franck he contrasts the\nletter and the Spirit, the outward and the inward, the word of the\nwritten Book and the living Word of God.  This contrast is carefully\nworked out in four sermons, preached at Kensington, on \"The Dead and\nKilling Letter, and the Spirit and the Life.\"  Here he insists, often\nin quaint and curious phrases, that the Old Testament, \"from the first\nof Genesis to the last of the Prophets,\" is an allegory, \"woven like a\nbeautiful tapestry\" to picture forth to the eye a history whose real\nmeaning is to be found within the soul; if you dwell upon it only as\npicture, only as history, it is a letter that kills; if you see your\nown selves in it and by it, then it gives life.[19]  You may learn the\nwhole Bible by heart and speak to any point in divinity according to\ntext and letter, and yet know {246} nothing of God or of spiritual\nlife.[20]  \"If you be always handling the letter of the Word, always\nlicking the letter, always chewing upon that, what great thing do you?\nNo marvel you are such starvelings!\"[21]  The letter is the husk; the\nWord, the Spirit, is the kernel; the letter is the earthen jar, the\nSpirit is the hidden manna; the letter is the outer court, the Spirit\nis the inner sanctuary; the letter is the shadow, the Spirit is the\nsubstance; the letter is the sheath, the Spirit is the sharp two-edged\nsword; the letter is the hard encasing bone that must be broken, the\nSpirit is inward marrow which nourishes the soul; the letter is\ntemporal, the Word is eternal[22]--\"if ye once know the truth\nexperimentally after the Spirit ye will no longer make such a stir\nabout Forms, Disciplines, and Externals as if that were the great and\nonly Reformation!\"[23]  The real difficulty, the true cause of\nspiritual dryness, is that \"men strive and contend so much for the\nletter and the external part of God's worship, that they neglect the\ninward and internal altogether; for where is the man who is so zealous\nand hot for the internal as he is for the external.  If we press men to\nthe inward before the outward, or do as I do, lift up that; either how\ncold and heartless they are, or else how quarrelsome and malicious they\nare!\"[24]  When once the inward core of things has been grasped and the\ntransforming experience has occurred, making a new man--freed,\nilluminated, sin-delivered, with \"God the Life of the life and the Soul\nof the soul\"[25]--the outward forms and the external things will fall\ninto the right perspective and will receive their proper emphasis.\nImitating St. Augustine's great saying: \"Love God absolutely and then\nyou may do as you please,\" Everard says, \"Turn the man loose who has\nfound the living Guide within him, and then let him neglect the outward\nif he can; just as you would say to a man who loves his wife with all\ntenderness, 'you may beat her, hurt her or kill her, if you want\nto!'\"[26]\n\nThe conception of God which forms the foreground of {247} all Everard's\nteaching is one perfectly familiar to those that have studied the great\nmystics who have formed their ideas under the direct or indirect\ninfluence of Plotinus.  The conception is, of course, not necessarily\nmystical--it is rather a recurring type of metaphysics--but it has\npeculiarly suited the mystical mind and is often regarded by Christian\nhistorians as synonymous with mysticism.  God, for Everard as for\nDionysius and for Eckhart, Tauler, and Franck, is unknowable,\nunspeakable, unnamable, abstracted from all that is created and\nvisible, an absolute One, alone of all beings in the universe able to\nsay \"I am,\" since He alone is Perfect Reality; but just for that reason\nHe is unrevealable in His inmost nature to finite beings and incapable\nof manifestation through anything that is finite.[27]\n\nHe is a permanent and unchanging Substance; all things that are visible\nare but shadow and appearance, are like bubbles in the water which are\nnow here and now gone.[28]  Every created and finite thing,\nhowever--from a grain of sand to a radiant sun and from a blade of\ngrass to the Seraph that is nearest God--is a beam or a ray or\nexpression of that eternal Reality, is an angel or messenger that in\nsome minute, or in some glorious fashion, reveals God in space and\ntime; and all created things together, from the lowest to the highest,\nfrom the treble of the heavenly beings to the base of earthly things,\nform \"one mighty sweet-tuned instrument,\" sending forth one harmonious\nhallelujah to the Creator and revealing a single organic universe,\n\"acted and guided by one Spirit\"--the Soul of all that is.[29]  \"Ask\nthe craggy mountains what part they sing, and they will tell you that\nthey sing the praise of the immutableness and unchangeableness of God;\nask the flowers of the field what part they sing, and they will tell\nyou they sing the wisdom and liberality of God who cloathes them beyond\nSolomon in all his glory; ask the sun, moon and stars what part they\nsing, and they will say the constancy of God's promises, that they hold\ntheir course and do not alter it; ask the poor received sinner {248}\nwhat part he sings, and he will tell you he sings the infinite free\nmercy of a most gracious Father; and ask the wicked, obstinate sinner\nwhat part he sings, and he will tell you he sings the praise of the\npatience and justice of God.\"[30]\n\nIn a very striking passage, Everard points out how the beings nearest\nin order to God are most free of matter and imperfection, while those\nlower in hierarchical scale are increasingly more material: \"God is a\npure Spirit, only Form without any manner of matter; and all the\nCreatures, the further off from Him, the more matter [they have] and\nthe nearer the less.  For example, Angels are pictured with complete\n_bodies_; yet to show they are further off from matter than men,\ntherefore they have always wings.  And Arch-angels, they being nearer\nthe Nature of God than Angels, are pictured _with bodies cut off by the\nmiddle with wings_.  But Cherubims, having less matter and nearer God\nHimself than either, are pictured _only with heads and wings, without\nbodies_.  But Seraphims, being farthest off from man and nearest of all\nto God, _have no bodies nor heads nor wings at all_ but [are] only\nrepresented _by a certain yellowish or fiery Colour_.\"[31]\n\nWe ourselves, we men, are both finite and infinite.  We have come from\nan infinite source, and even in our apparent finiteness and\nindependence we still remain inwardly joined to that central Reality.\n\nHe tells this in his parable of the water-drops: \"Suppose two\nwater-drops reasoning together, and one says to the other,\n\n'Whence are we?  Canst thou conceive whence we are?  Dost thou know\neither whence we come or to whom we belong, or whither we shall go?\nSomething we are, but what will in a short time become of us, canst\nthou tell?'  And the other drop might answer, 'Alas, poor fellow-drop,\nbe assured we are nothing, for the sun may arise and draw us up and\nscatter us and so bring us to nothing.'  Says the other again, 'Suppose\nit do, for all that, yet we are, we have a being, we are something.'\n\n'Why, what are we?' saith the other.\n\n{249}\n\n'Why, brother drop, dost thou not know?  We, even we, as small and as\ncontemptible as we are in ourselves, yet we are members of the Sea;\npoor drops though we be, yet let us not be discouraged: _We belong to\nthe vast Ocean_.'\"[32]\n\nThe way back to this infinite Ocean from which we have come and in\nwhich we belong is through the tiny rivulet, the narrow inlet, of our\nown souls, for \"the Sea flows into all the creeks and crannies of the\nWorld.\"[33]  But to find Him--this original Ground and Reality--we must\n\"leave the outcoasts\" and go back into \"the Abysse.\"  Most of us are\nbusy \"playing with cockel-shells and pebble-stones that lie on the\noutcoasts of the Kingdom,\" and we do not put back to the infinite Sea\nitself, where we become united and made one with His Life.[34]\n\nThe process of return is a process of denial and subtraction.  The\n\"cockel-shells and pebble-stones\" must be left, and one finite thing\nafter another must be dropped, and finally \"all that thou callest I,\nall that self ness, all that propriety that thou hast taken to thyself,\nwhatsoever creates in us Iness and selfness, must be brought to\nnothing.\"[35]  If we would hear God, we must still the noises within\nourselves.  \"All the Artillery in the World, were they all discharged\ntogether at one clap, could not more deaf the ears of our bodies than\nthe clamorings of desires in the soul deaf its ears, so you see a man\nmust go into silence or else he cannot hear God speak.\"[36]  All \"the\nminstrels\" that are singing of self and self interests \"must be cast\nout.\"  If \"the creature\" is to be loved and used at all, it must be\nloved and used rightly and in balance, which is hard to do.  \"Thou must\nlove it and use it as if thou loved it not and used it not, not\nappropriating it to thyself, and always being ready to leave it\nwillingly and freely; so that thou sufferest no rending, no tearing in\nthy soul to part with it, and so thou usest it for God and in God and\nto ends appointed by God.\"[37]\n\nThe result of this junction of finite and infinite in us is {250} that\na Christian life is bound to be a strenuous contest: \"you must expect\nto fight a great battel.\"  \"You are,\" Everard says again, \"bidden to\nfight with your own selves, with your own desires, with your own\naffections, with your own reason, with your own will; and therefore if\nyou will finde your enemies, never look without.  If you will finde out\nthe Devil and what he is and what his nature is, look within you.\n_There_ you may see him in his colours, in his nature, in his power, in\nhis effects and in his working.\"[38]\n\nIn a word, the way to God is the way of the Cross.  Christ Himself is\nthe pattern and His way of Life is the typical way for all who would\nfind God--\"Christ Jesus is He that all visions tend to; He is the\nsubstance of all the types, shadows, and sacrifices.  He is the\n_business_ that the whole Word was ever about, and only is, and shall\nbe about; He hath been, is, and shall be the business of all ages, in\none kinde or other.\"[39]  \"The Book of God,\" he says in another sermon,\n\"is a great Book, and many words are in it, and many large volumes have\nbeen drawn out of it, but Jesus Christ is the body of it; He is the\nMark all these words shoot at.\"[40]  It henceforth becomes our business\nto find Christ's life and Christ's death in us, to see that all His\ndeeds are done in us.  Christ's will must become our will, Christ's\npeace our peace, Christ's sufferings our sufferings, Christ's cross our\ncross, and then we may know \"the eternal Sabbath,\" and keep \"quiet,\neven if the whole fabrick of heaven and earth crack and the mountains\ntumble down.\"[41]\n\nEverard was always on the watch for those things which prevent the\ngrowth, progress, and advance of the soul into the deeper significance\nof religion.  The true Christian continually \"grows taller in Christ,\"\nhe does not stop at \"the child's stature,\" his growth is \"not stinted\nlike a Dwarf.\"[42]  He discovers one of the prevailing {251} causes of\narrested development, the \"stinting\" of the soul, to lie in the wrong\nuse of externals, in the subtle tendency to \"rest\" in the elements or\nbeginnings of religion, as he calls them, in \"the lowest things in\nChristianity.\"  This is \"to cover oneself with fig-leaves as Adam\ndid.\"[43]  Men \"turn shadows into substance,\" and instead of using\nordinances and sacraments, \"as means, schoolmasters and tutors,\" \"as\nsteps and guides to Christ who is the Truth and Substance,\" they so use\nthem that they stop the soul mid-way and hinder it from going on to\nChrist.[44]  He cites the way in which St. Paul \"burst out into a holy\ndefiance\" of everything which did not directly minister to the\nformation of a new creation within the person, whether it were Moses\nand the law or even Christ after the flesh, or any \"outward Priviledges\nand Ordinances\" whatever.  Those who make these things \"the top and\nquintessence of religion\" miss the Apostle's \"more excellent way.\"\nThose who \"stick in externals\" and \"rest upon them as Crutches and\nGo-bies\" [_i.e._ become arrested there] prevent growth in religion,\n\"turn the ordinance into an Idol\" and occasion disputes and\ndifferences, \"like children who quarrel about triffles.\"[45]  But\nEverard is, nevertheless, very cautious not to go too far in this\ndirection and he always shows poise and balance.  So long as the\noutward, whether letter or sacrament, is kept in its place and is used\nas means or medium for the attainment of a spiritual goal--the\nformation of Christ within--he approves of its use and warns against a\ntoo sudden transcendence of the outward helps to the soul.[46]\n\nHere in England, then, during the tumultuous years from 1625 to 1650 a\nsolid scholar and a great preacher was teaching the people the same\nviews which the spiritual Reformers of Germany had taught a century\nearlier.  Like them, Everard taught that the book of the Bible, in so\nfar as it consists of words, syllables, and letters, is not the Word of\nGod, for God's Word is not ink and paper, but Life and Spirit, quick\nand powerful, illuminating the {252} soul immediately, and\ndemonstrating itself by its creative work upon the inward man until he\nbecomes like the Spirit that works within him.[47]  Like them, he\ninsisted that Christ becomes Saviour only as He becomes the Life of our\nlives and repeats in us in a spiritual way the events of His outward\nand historical life.  Like them, too, he had discovered that God is not\na being of wrath and anger, needing to be appeased.  On the contrary he\nsays: \"Beloved, were you once to come to a true sight of God, you would\nsee Him glorious and amiable, full of love and mercy and\ntenderness--all wrath and frowns blown clean away.  We should see in\nHim not so much as any shadow of anger.\"[48]  Like them, he found\nheaven not far away but in the redeemed soul: \"Heaven is nothing but\nGrace perfected, 'tis of the same nature of that you enjoy here when\nyou are united by faith to Christ.\"[49]  \"I remember,\" he once said,\n\"how I was taught as a child, either by my nurse, or my mother, or my\nschoolmaster, that God was above in heaven, above the sun, moon and\nstars, and there, I thought, was His Court, and His Chamber of\npresence, and I thought it a great height to come to this knowledge;\nbut I assure you I had more to do to unlearn this principle than ever I\nhad to learn it.\"[50]  He tries to call his hearers away from \"the\nchildish apprehensions\" that heaven is a place of \"visible and ocular\nglories,\" or that \"it shall be only hereafter,\" or that its glory\n\"consists in Thrones, and Crowns, and Scepters, in Music, Harps and\nVyols, and such like carnal and poor things.\"[51]\n\nHe was a man of beautiful spirit, of saintly life, \"courageous and\ndiscerning,\" \"concerned not so much over self-sufferings as that truth\nshould not in any way be obstructed through him,\" and he belongs in the\nlist of those who saw through the veil of the outward, through the\nparable of the letter, and found the inward and eternal Reality.[52]\n\n{253}\n\nIII.  GILES RANDALL AND HIS TRANSLATIONS\n\nAnother seventeenth-century interpreter of religion as direct and\nimmediate experience of God was Giles Randall, who, like John Everard,\nwas a scholar, a translator of religious books, and a powerful popular\npreacher.  If one knew him only through the accounts of the\nheresy-hunters of the period, one would suppose him to have been a\ndisseminator of the most \"virulent poyson\" for the soul; but a careful\nexamination of all the material available convinces me that he was a\nhigh-minded, sincere, and fearless bearer of the message of the\npresent, living, inwardly-experienced Christ, as Eternal Spirit, Divine\nLight, and Word of God.\n\nIt is extremely difficult, from the fragmentary details at hand, to\nconstruct a biographical account of Randall, but the following sketch\nof him seems fairly well supported by facts:\n\nHe was the son of Edward Randall of Chipping Wycombe, Bucks, and\nreceived his B.A. from Lincoln College, Oxford, February 13,\n1625-6.[53]  He was probably the nephew of John Randall, B.D.\n(1570-1622), an eminent Puritan divine, a man of good scholarship and\nof large means, who bequeathed by will his house and garden to his\n\"loveing Nephewe Gyles Randall.\"[54]  He seems to have been for some\nyears a minister in good odour and repute, and to have given no\noccasion of complaint against his doctrine before 1643.  He probably\nwas the Giles Randall who was arrested in 1637 and tried in the Star\nChamber for {254} preaching against \"ship-money\" as unjust and an\noffence against God, since it was, he declared in his sermon, \"a way of\ntaking burdens off rich men's shoulders and laying them on the necks of\npoor men.\"[55]  He was again before the Star Chamber--this time it is\ncertainly our Giles Randall--in 1643 charged with preaching\n\"anabaptism,\" \"familism,\" and \"antinomianism,\" according to the usual\nlabels of the time.  He had been for some years preaching peaceably at\n\"the Spital\" in London with great multitudes of people nocking to hear\nhim.[56]  The charge of heresy was brought against Randall for a sermon\nwhich he was said to have preached in St. Martin Orgar's, a soundly\northodox church, in Candlewick ward, London--the charge being that he\npreached against \"the mandatory and obligatory nature of the law as a\nChristian rule to walk by,\" and asserted that a child of God can live\nas sinless a life as Christ's was.[57]  He was \"removed\" from the\nministry \"for his anabaptism\" in the autumn of 1644, though he\ncontinued to preach after being \"removed.\"[58]  The famous drag-nets of\nheresy give us a few more details of Randall's \"poysonous\" doctrine.\nEdwards says that Randall taught that \"our common food, ordinary eating\nand drinking, is a sacrament of Christ's death,\" and that \"all\ncreatures [_i.e._ everything in the visible creation] held forth God in\nChrist.\"[59]  Samuel Rutherford charges him with teaching a possible\nperfection in this life: \"Randall, the antinomian and Familist says,\nthose persons are ever learning and never coming to knowledge who say\nthat perfection is not attainable in this life.\"[60]  He further\ncharges that Randall in a sermon said that \"Christ's Parables, from\nSowing, a Draw-net, Leaven, etc., did prove that to expound the\nScriptures by allegories was lawfull and that all the things of this\nlife, as Seeds, the Wayside, a Rocke, the Sea, a {255} Net, the Leaven,\netc., were sacraments of Christ . . . and that a spiritual minde might\nsee the mysteries of the Gospel in all the things of nature and of this\nlife.  This man who preacheth most abomnable Familisme is suffered in\nand about London publickly, twise on the Lord's Day, to draw hundreds\nof Godly people after him!\"[61]\n\nJohn Etherington throws a little more light upon the nature of this\n\"abomnable Familism,\" which so many godly people liked.  He says that\nRandall taught in his sermons that when a person is baptized with the\nHoly Ghost he knows all things, and has entered into the deep mystery\nwhich is \"like the great ocean where there is no casting anchor nor\nsounding the bottome\"; that perfection and the resurrection are\nattainable in the present time; that \"those who have the Spirit have\nnothing to doe with the law nor with the baptism of repentance which\nJohn preached\"; \"he presumes to turn the holy writings of Moses, the\nProphets, of Christ and His Apostles into Allegories,\" and gives \"a\nspiritual meaning\" to the same.[62]  It is clear from the comments of\nthese crumb-pickers of pernicious doctrine that Giles Randall, as a\npreacher, was teaching the views now quite familiar to us.  He was\nteaching that the whole world is a revelation of God, that Christ is\nGod fully revealed; that the Divine Spirit, incarnate in Him, comes\nupon men still and brings them into the bottomless, unsoundable deeps\nof Life with God, and makes it possible for them to attain a perfect\nlife; that the Scriptures as outward and legal must be transcended, and\nthat they must be spiritually discerned and experienced.\n\nNearly everything connected with Randall's name presents an historical\npuzzle to us.  His biography, as we have seen, lies hid in obscurity\nand his books present baffling problems.  There are three translations\nof religious classics which bear his name on the title-page, and which\nare introduced to the reader in Prefaces written by him, but it is far\nfrom certain that he actually made the {256} translations.  In 1646 he\npublished a little book called the _Single Eye, or the Vision of God\nwherein is unfolded the Mystery of the Divine Presence_.  Randall says\nthat the book was written by \"that learned Doctor Cusanus.\"  It is in\nfact a translation of the _De visione Dei_ of Nicholas of Cusa, and it\nis word for word a printed copy of the Cambridge MS. ascribed to John\nEverard.  The other book, published in 1648, is an English edition of\n_Theologia Germanica_, the translation being made from the Latin of\n\"John Theophilus,\" that is, Sebastian Castellio.  It is called \"a\nLittle Golden Manuall briefly discovering the mysteries, sublimity,\nperfection and simplicity of Christianity in Belief and Practice.\"\nEverard, it will be remembered, also translated this \"little golden\nbook,\" but in this case there are very great variations between\nRandall's printed copy and the Cambridge MS., and they probably did not\ncome from the same hand.[63]  The English translation was evidently\nmade some time before the appearance of this edition of 1648, for\nRandall says in his Introduction that \"This little Book was long veiled\nand obscured (by its unknown tongue) from the eye of the illiterate and\ninexpert, until some years since, through the desires and industries of\nsome of our own countrymen, lovers of Truth, it was translated and made\nto speak to thee in thine own dialect and language.  But the time of\nits Nativity being under the late wise and wary Hierarchic who had\nmonopolized and engrossed the discovery of others . . . it walked up\nand down the city in MSS. at deer rates from hand to hand of some\nwell-wishers to truth, in clandestine and private manner; like Moses in\nhis Arke, or the little {257} Child fled and hid from Herod, never\ndaring to crowd into the Presse, fearing the rude usuage of those then\nin authority.\"[64]\n\nBoth Robert Baillie and Benjamin Bourne had seen the treatise before\ntheir respective books against heresy appeared in 1646, and they were\ndeeply stirred against Randall for sowing what to their minds seemed\nsuch dangerous doctrines and such regard for \"Popish writings.\"[65]\nHis critics further connect Randall with other books.  Baillie speaks\nof two books: \"the one by a Dutch Frier [evidently the Theologia] and\nthe other by an English Capuchine.\"  Bourne writes against those\ndangerous books _Theologia Germanica, The Bright Star, Divinity and\nPhilosophy Dissected_, and Edwards couples with _the Vision of God_\n(the treatise by Nicholas of Cusa) \"the third part of the Rule of\nPerfection by a Cappuchian Friar.\"[66]\n\nJohn Goodwin, vicar of St. Stephen's in Coleman St., commenting on\nEdward's _Gangraena_, humorously says: \"I marvaile how Mr. Edwards\nhaving (it seems) an authorized power to make errors and heresies at\nwhat rate and of what materialles he pleaseth, and hopes to live upon\nthe trade, could stay his pen at so small a number as 180, and did not\nadvance to that angelicall quotient in the Apocalypse, which is _ten\nthousand times ten thousand_,\" and he adds that if Edwards had\nconsulted with a book \"printed within the compasse of his foure years,\nintitled _Divinity and Philosophy Dissected, set out by a mad man_,\nwith some few others . . .  He shall be able to increase his roll of\nerrors from 180 to 280, if not to 500.\"[67]  Samuel {258} Rutherford\nsays: \"So hath _Randel_ the _Familist_ prefixed an Epistle to two\nPopish Tractates, furnishing to us excellent priviledges of Familisme,\nthe one called _Theologia Germanica_, and the other _Bright Starre_,\nwhich both advance perfect Saints above Law, and Gospel\". . .[68]\n\nThis treatise, called _A Bright Starre_ (London, 1646), which so deeply\ndisturbed the seventeenth-century guardians of orthodoxy, is a\ntranslation of \"The Third Part of the Rule of Perfection,\" written by\nan English Capuchin Friar, and \"faithfully done into the English\ntongue,\" apparently by Randall, \"for the common good.\"[69]  It is a\nprofoundly mystical book, characterized by interior depth and insight.\nIts central aim is the exposition of a stage of spiritual life which\ntranscends both \"the active life\" and \"the contemplative life,\" a stage\nwhich the writer calls \"the Life Supereminent.\"  In this highest stage\n\"the essential will of God is practiced,\" without strain or effort,\nbecause God Himself has now become the inner Life and Being of the\nperson, the spring and power of the new-formed will.\n\nRandall's preface, or \"Epistle to the Reader,\" as he calls it, is a\nfurther revelation of his religious views, and his Christian spirit.\nHe pleads for freedom and for variety in religious life and thought.\nGod does not want one fixed and unvarying Christian form or doctrine;\nHe wants variety in the spiritual life as He has arranged for variety\nin the external world of nature: \"As in the world all men are not of an\nequall height and stature of body, but some taller, some shorter; some\nweaker, some stronger: so neither are all of one just and even\nproportion in spiritual light and strength of faith in the kingdome of\nChrist, some are dwarfs of Zacheus his pitch, some {259} againe of\nSaul's port, taller by his head and shoulders than his brethren; so, in\nthe kingdome of Christ, some are babes, some are young men, some are\nfathers, every one according to the measure of the gift of Christ.\"\nGod has something in His kingdom that fits each spiritual stature,\nsomething suited to each intellectual capacity.  He does not want one\nand the same note struck by all--\"harping blindly on one string.\"  He\ndoes not want men to be \"tyed to one forme and kept forever to one\nlesson, unable to top up their work\"--He wants men to \"go from strength\nto strength, from faith to faith and from height to height.\"\n\nRandall declares that he has observed with deep sorrow \"the\n_non-proficiency_ of many ingenuous spirits who through the policie of\nothers and the too too much modesty and timerity of themselves\" have\nfailed to progress \"to the top and pitch\" of their possible\nperfection--\"poore soules after many years travelling being found in\nthe same place and going the same pace!\"  He hopes that this book on\nPerfection which he is now giving \"common vulgar people in their own\nmother tongue,\" though it is a way that is \"high and hard and almost\nunheard of amongst us,\" may help men to grow up into their full stature\nand to come to \"the uttermost steps of Jacob's Ladder which reacheth\ninto the heavens.\"  The lower stages of the religious life consist (1)\nof external practices and exercises in conformity to the law of God,\nand (2) interior contemplation and meditation of a God thought of as\noutside and beyond the soul's real possession.  But the true spiritual\nlife, and \"Sabbath rest of the soul,\" is reached only when God becomes\nthe inner Life of our lives, when Christ is formed within and we see\nLight and have our wisdom through His divine anointing.  At the highest\nstage of spiritual life man finds himself by ceasing to be himself.\nGod can now reveal His beauty and glory through such a person and act\nand work in him and through him.  This teaching, Randall admits, is\nonly for \"experienced Christians,\" but he believes that this book will\nhave \"good successe amongst _the Children of {260} the Light_, who are\ntaught of God and who run and read the hidden and deepe things of\nGod.\"[70]\n\nIf we may judge Randall from his extant Prefaces he was a beautiful\nspirit and was, in fact, what he calls himself, \"a lover of the Truth\nin the Truth.\"[71]  He says that \"Nothing is or ever was endeavored by\nmost men, with more industry and less success than the true knowledge\nof God,\" but this perennial failure is due, he thinks, to the false\nways which have been taken, especially to \"the negative process of\nabstraction\" by which men have tried in vain to find God.  The only\ntrue way to Him is \"the new and living way\" through the concrete\nrevelation of Him.  \"The sound and unerring knowledge of God standeth\nin your knowledge of your man Christ Jesus, and whoever hath seen Him\nhath seen the Father also, for He is not a dead image of Him, but a\nliving Image of the invisible God, yea, the fulgor or brightness of His\nglory and character of His person. . . .  He is an Immanuel, God with\nus, God in us. . . .  But there is no true knowledge of God within us\ntill He be in us formed in the face of Jesus Christ.\"[72]  He declares\nthat since \"understanding\" must be helped by \"sense\" and \"sense is not\navailable till it live in the light of the understanding,\" we must\nlearn to find the infinite in the finite, the invisible in the visible,\nand thus in Christ we have God \"finitely infinite and infinitely\nfinite\"--\"He cloathes Himself with flesh, reason, sense and the form\nand nature of a servant, who yet is above all and Lord over all.\"  \"He\nthat is infinitely above thee makes himselfe be to thee [visibly] what\nHe is in thee.\"[73]  Christ is the universal revealer of God to all who\nsee Him, just as the portrait of a human face seems to fix and follow\nthe beholder from any position in the room, while at the same time it\ndoes the same to all other beholders from whatever angle they may\nlook.[75]\n\n_The Vision of God_, whether Englished by Randall or {261} by Everard,\nor by both working together, is translated into beautiful, often\npoetical and rhythmical English, and contains many vivid passages, such\nas the following: \"Thou, O God, canst never forsake me so long as I am\n_capable of Thee_.\"[75]  \"I love my life exceedingly because Thou art\nthe sweetness of my life.\"[76]  \"No man can turn to Thee except Thou be\npresent, for except Thou wert present and diddest solicit me I should\nnot know Thee at all.\"[77]  \"Restless is my heart, O Lord, because Thy\nlove hath enflamed it with such a desire that it cannot rest but in\nThee alone.\"[78]  \"In the Son of Man I see the Son of God, because Thou\nart so the Son of Man that Thou art the Son of God and in the finite\nattracted nature I see the Infinite Attracting Nature.\"  \"I see all\nthings in thy human nature which I see in thy divine nature.\"[79]  \"To\ncome to God is Paradise; to see God is to be in Paradise.\"[80]  \"The\nWord of God illuminateth the understanding as the light of the sun doth\nthe world.  I see the fountain of Light in the Word of God. . . .\nChrist is the Word of God humanified and man deified.\"[81]  \"What is\nmore easie than to believe God, what is more sweet than to love\nHim. . . .  Thy Spirit, O God, comes into the intellectual spirit of\ngood men, and by the heat of divine love concocts the virtuall power\nwhich may be perfected in us. . . .  All Scriptures labour for nothing\nbut to show Thee, all intellectual spirits have no other exercise but\nto seek Thee and to reveal Thee.  Above all things Thou hast given me\nJesus for a Master, the Way of Life, and Truth, so that there might be\nnothing at all wanting to me.\"[82]\n\nThe literary style of _Divinity and Philosophy Dissected_ is unlike\nthat of Randall's known writings, and yet it is not impossible for him\nto have written it.[83]  The ideas which fill the little book are quite\nsimilar to those which {262} Randall held and are in full accord with\nthose which prevailed in this general group of Christian thinkers.  The\nwriter of the treatise, whoever he was, is fond of allegory and\nsymbolic interpretation.  He turns Adam into a figure and makes the\nGarden of Eden an allegory in quite modern fashion.  \"Doe you thinke,\"\nhe writes, \"that there was a materiall garden or a tree whereon did\ngrow the fruit of good and evill, or that the serpent did goe up in the\nsame to speake to the woman?  Sure it cannot stand with reason that it\ncould be so, for it is said that all the creatures did come to Adam,\nand he gave them names according to their natures: now it is contrary\nto the Serpent's nature to speake after the manner of men, unlesse you\nwill alleadge that she understood the language of the beasts, and\nthought them wiser than God, and resolved to be ruled by them, which to\nme seems altogether against reason, that the woman should be so\nignorant and unrationall, who was created rationall after the image of\nGod to be ruler of all creatures: for at this day if a Serpent went up\ninto a tree, and did speake from thence to men and women, it would make\nthem afraid in so much that they would not doe what he bid them: or\ndost thou thinke that in Mesopotamia (a great way off beyond the seas)\nthat there is a materiall garden wherein standeth the tree of life, and\nthe tree of knowledge of good and ill, both in one place, and an\nangell, standing with a flickering sword to keep the tree of life from\nthe man!\"[84]\n\nThe book contains a very striking confession of Faith quite unlike that\nwhich Rutherford or Baillie or Edwards would have allowed as \"sound,\"\nbut yet serious, honest, and marked with a clear note of experience.\nGod is, for the writer, above everything a living God, a Spirit, \"a\nperfect clear Light that reveals to man the Truth.\"  God is, he says,\nLight, Life, and Love, and He is all these things to man.  He instructs\nand convinces his conscience; He disciplines and corrects him; He\nraises condemnation in us for our sins, and \"His Light persuades our\nhearts to have true sorrow and real repentance for our sins, with a\n{263} broken and contrite heart and sorrowful spirit, and so we begin\nto hate ourselves and our sins, and doe really forsake them.\"[85]\n\"There is,\" he maintains, in words that sound strangely like the yet\nunborn Quakers, \"an infallible Spirit, Jesus Christ, the power of God\nin us, which directs, corrects, instructs, perswades, and makes us wise\nunto salvation; for He is the holy Word of life unto us . . . and\ndiscovers all mysteries unto us, . . . if so be we are obedient unto\nHim; but if we are not obedient unto Him, this infallible Spirit, Jesus\nChrist in us, then we shall know nothing of God or of the Scriptures,\nbut it shall be a _sealed book, a dead letter, a seeming contradiction_\nunto us.\"[86]\n\nSamuel Rutherford declares the little treatise to be \"a rude, foolish\nand unlearned Pamphlet of late penned and changing, as Familists and\nAntinomians doe, Scripture and God and Christ into metaphores and vaine\nAllegories.\"[87]  The comment of this good man is honest and sincere,\nbut of value only as revealing the mental attitude of himself.  Here\nthe representative of the old system was speaking out of the past and\ncondemning a dawning movement which with his apperceiving material he\ncould not understand, but which was in a few years to have\nextraordinary expansion and which, when it should in time become\ndefecated through discipline and spiritual travail, was destined to\nspeak to the condition of many minds to whom Rutherford's \"notions\"\nhave become only empty words.\n\n\n\nIV\n\nA beautiful little anonymous book of this period, containing a similar\nconception of Christianity to that set forth in the writings of Everard\nand Randall, must be briefly considered here: _The Life and Light of a\nMan in Christ Jesus_ (London, 1646).  The writer, who was a scholarly\nman, shows the profound influence of the _Theologia Germanica_, that\nuniversal book of religion which {264} fed so many souls in the\nsixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and he has evidently found, either\nat home or abroad, spiritual guides who have brought him to the\nDay-star in his own heart.\n\nReligion, he says, is wholly a matter of the \"operative manifestation\nof Christ in a man--the divine Spirit living in a man.\"[88]  To miss\nthat experience and to lack that inner life in God is to miss the very\nheart of religion.  \"There be many and diverse Religions and Baptisms\namong many and diverse peoples of the habitable world, but to be\nbaptized as a man in Christ--that is to be baptized into the living,\nactive God, so that the man has his salvation and eternal well-being\nwrought in him by the Spirit and life of his God--is the only\nbest.\"[89]  Those who lack \"this real spiritual business\" never attain\n\"the true Sabbath-rest of the soul.\"  They go to meeting on \"Sunday,\nSabbath or First day [_sic_] merely to hear such or such a rare divine\npreach or discourse, or to participate in such or such Ordinances.\"[90]\nThey have \"an artificiall, historicall Divinity [Theology] which they\nhave attained by the eye, that is by reading books, or by the ears,\nthat is, by hearing this or that man, or by gathering up\nexpressions\"--their religion rests on \"knowledge\" and not on Christ\nexperienced within.[91]  This external religion is not so much wrong as\nit is inadequate and immature.  \"It is,\" he says, \"like unto young\nchildren, who with shells and little stones imitate a real\nbuilding!\"[92]  The religion which carries a man beyond shadows to true\nrealities and from the cockle-shell house to a permanent and eternal\ntemple for the Spirit is the religion which finds Christ within as the\nDay-star in the man's own heart.[93]\n\nThere is throughout this simple little book a noble appreciation of\nlove as the \"supream good\" for the soul.  \"The God of infinite goodness\nand eternal love\" is a kind of refrain which bursts forth in these\npages again {265} and again.  Love in _us_ is, he thinks, \"a sparkle of\nthat immense and infinite Love of the King and Lord of Love.\"[94]\nSalvation and eternal well-being consist for him in the formation of a\nlife \"consecrated and united unto the true Light and Love of Christ.\"\nThe man who has this Life within him will always be willing and glad\nwhen the time comes \"to returne againe into the bosome of his heavenly\nFather-God.\"[95]  And not only is the man who has the Life of Christ in\nhim harmonized in love upwardly toward God; he is also harmonized\noutwardly towards his fellows.  \"He is a member with all other men,\nwith the good as a lowly-minded disciple to them; with those that are\nnot in Christ, as a deare, sympathizing helper, doing his utmost to do\nthem good.\"[96]  He has written his \"little Treatise,\" he says, \"as a\nlove-token from the Father\" to help lead men out of the \"darke pits of\nthe world's darkness\" into the full Light of the soul's day-dawn.\n\nThe book lacks the robustness and depth that are so clearly in evidence\nin most of the writings that have been dealt with in this volume, but\nthere is a beauty, a simplicity, a sweetness, a sincerity born of\nexperience, which give this book an unusual flavour and perfume.  The\nwriter says that there is \"an endless battle between the Seed of the\nwoman and the seed of the serpent,\" but one feels that he has fought\nthe battle through and won.  He says that \"a man should be unto God\nwhat a house is to a man,\" _i.e._ a man should be a habitation of the\nliving God, and the reader feels that this man has made himself a\nhabitation for the divine presence within.  He says if you want\nspiritual help you must go to a \"man who has skill in God,\" and one\nlays down his slender book feeling assured that, out of the experience\nof Christ in his own soul, he did have \"skill in God,\" so that he could\nspeak to the condition of others.  There was at least one man in\nEngland in 1646 who knew that the true source and basis of religion was\nto be found in the experience of Christ within and not in theological\nnotions of Him.\n\n\n\n[1] The Italian titles of these two books are _Alfabeto Christiana_\n(1546) and _Le Cento et dieci divine Considerationi_ (1550).\n\n[2] _A Survey of the Spiritual Antichrist_ (1648), p. 164.\n\n[3] _Ibid._ p. 319.\n\n[4] Epistle Dedicatory to _Some Gospel Treasures Opened_ (London, 1653).\n\n[5] _Gospel Treas._, \"To the Reader.\"\n\n[6] _Ibid._\n\n[7] Sometimes \"Divers Earls and Lords and other great ones\" were in his\naudience.\n\n[8] _Gospel Treas._, \"To the Reader.\"\n\n[9] _Sig. Dd._ xii. p. 68.\n\n[10] Fourth series, i. p. 597.\n\n[11] Denck's name is used in its Latin form John Denqui, and he is\ncalled _magnus theologus_.\n\n[12] _Hermes Trismegistus_ was published in Everard's lifetime.  Large\nextracts from his manuscript translations are given in the _Gospel\nTreasures Opened_ (1653).  _The Vision of God_ was edited and published\nin full by Giles Randall in 1646, and it is very probable that Everard\nand Randall did this work together.\n\n[13] _Gospel Treasures Opened_, p. 393.\n\n[14] Sermon on \"The Starre in the East,\" _Gospel Treas._ pp. 52-54.\nSee also pp. 586-587.  Compare the famous lines of Angelus Silesius:\n\n    \"Had Christ a thousand times\n    Been born in Bethlehem\n    But not in thee, thy sin\n    Would still thy soul condemn.\"\n\n_Angelus Silesius_, edited by Paul Carus (Chicago, 1909), p. 103.\n\n[15] _Gospel Treas._ pp. 59, 72, and 98.\n\n[16] _Ibid._ pp. 270-271.\n\n[17] _Ibid._ p. 282.\n\n[18] _Ibid._ p. 92.\n\n[19] _Ibid._ p. 280\n\n[20] _Gospel Treas._ pp. 310-311.\n\n[21] _Ibid._ p. 286.\n\n[22] _Ibid._ p. 468.\n\n[23] _Ibid._ p. 343.\n\n[24] _Ibid._ p. 344.\n\n[25] _Ibid._ p. 341.\n\n[27] _Ibid._ p. 344.\n\n[27] _Gospel Treas._ p. 81.\n\n[28] _Ibid._ p. 630.\n\n[29] _Ibid._ pp. 637 and 658.\n\n[30] _Gospel Treas._ p. 411.\n\n[31] _Ibid._ 2nd ed. ii. p. 345.\n\n[32] _Gospel Treas._ p. 753.\n\n[33] _Ibid._ p. 418.\n\n[34] _Ibid._ pp. 423-425.\n\n[35] _Ibid._ p. 230.\n\n[36] _Ibid._ p. 600.\n\n[37] _Ibid._ p. 308.\n\n[38] _Gospel Treas._ p. 142.\n\n[39] _Ibid._ p. 648.\n\n[40] _Ibid._ p. 642.\n\n[41] _Ibid._ pp. 99 and 250.  Everard's greater contemporary, Pascal,\nalso held the view that what happened to Christ should take place in\nevery Christian.  He wrote to his sister, Madame Perier, Oct. 17, 1651,\non the death of their father: \"We know that what has been accomplished\nin Jesus Christ should be accomplished also in all His members.\"\n\n[42] _Ibid._ pp. 555-556.\n\n[43] _Gospel Treas._ p. 315.\n\n[44] _Ibid._ p. 558.\n\n[45] _Ibid._ pp. 561-562.\n\n[46] _Ibid._ pp. 563-565.\n\n[47] _Gospel Treas._ pp. 310-315.\n\n[48] _Ibid._ p. 361.\n\n[49] _Ibid._ p. 365.\n\n[50] _Ibid._ p. 736.\n\n[51] _Ibid._ p. 552.\n\n[52] It is not possible to tell whether the sermons of John Everard\nwere generally known to the early Quakers or not.  He held similar\nviews to theirs on many points, and he reiterates, with as much vigour\nas does Fox, the inadequacy of University learning as a preparation for\nspiritual ministry.  One Quaker at least of the early time read Everard\nand appreciated him.  That was John Bellers.  In his \"Epistle to the\nQuarterly Meeting of London and Middlesex,\" written in 1718, Bellers\nquotes \"the substance of an excellent Discourse of a poor man in\nGermany, above 300 years ago, then writ by John Taulerus, and since\nprinted in John Everard's Works, who was a religious dissenter in King\nJames the First's time.\"  He thereupon gives the \"Dialogue between a\nLearned Divine and a Beggar\" (which Everard ascribed to Tauler) to add\nforce to his own presentation of \"the duty of propagating piety,\ncharity, and industry among men.\"\n\n[53] Foster's _Alumni Oxonienses_ (1500-1714), vol. iii.  Early Series,\np. 1231.\n\n[54] 57, Savile, Probate Court of Canterbury, Somerset House.\n\n[55] Calendar of State Papers, Dom. Ser. Charles I.\n\n[56] Robert Baillie's _Anabaptisme, the true Fountains of Independency_\n(1646), p. 102,\n\n[57] Thomas Gataker's _God's Eye on His Israel_ (1645), Preface.\n\n[58] _Journal of Commons_, August 9, 1644, pp. 584-585.\n\n[59] _Gangraena_ (1646), part iii. p. 25.\n\n[60] _A Survey of the Spiritual Antichrist_ (1647), chap. xi. p. 143.\n\n[61] _A Survey of the Spiritual Antichrist_, chap. lxxvi. pp. 162-163.\n\n[62] _A Brief Discovery_, etc. (1645), pp. 1-5.\n\n[63] Contemporary writers held that the Giles Randall who preached in\n\"the Spital\" was the translator.  Robert Baillie, Principal of Glasgow\nUniversity, in his work on _Anabaptisme_, pp. 102-103, speaks of\nRandall who preached in \"the Spital,\" and refers to his increasing\ntemerity as shown by the fact that \"he hath lately printed two very\ndangerous books and set his Preface before each of them, composed as he\nprofesses long ago by Popish Priests, the one by a Dutch Frier and the\nother by an English Capuchine.\"  Baillie further refers to the \"deadly\npoison\" of these books as shown in Benjamin Bourne's _Description and\nConfutation of Mysticall Antichrist, the Familists_ (1646), where \"the\ndangerous books\" are named, as _Theologia Germanica, the Bright Star,\nDivinity and Philosophy Dissected_.  Edward's _Gangraena_ also\nidentifies Randall the preacher with the translator of \"Popish Books\nwritten by Priests and Friers,\" citing as an example \"The Vision of God\nby Cardinall Cusanus,\" _op. cit._ (1646), part iii.\n\n[64] Preface.\n\n[65] Bourne's _Description and Confutation_ and Baillie's\n_Anabaptisme_.  It seems likely that there was an earlier edition of\nthe Theologia than this of 1648, as the chapters and pages quoted by\nBourne do not correspond with those of the 1648 edition, whose\ntitle-page has this clause: \"Also a Treatise of the Soul and other\nadditions not _before_ printed.\"\n\n[66] _Gangraena_, part iii.\n\n[67] Goodwin's _Cretensis_ (1646).  The book, entitled _Divinity and\nPhilosophy Dissected_, and attributed by implication to Randall, was\npublished in Amsterdam in 1644, with the following title-page:\n\n    \"Divinity & Philosophy Dissected, & set forth by a mad man.\n    \"The first Book divided into 3 Chapters.\n      \"Chap. I.  The description of the World in man's heart with the\n         Articles of the Christian Faith.\n      \"Chap. II.  A description of one Spirit acting in all, which some\n         affirme is God.\n      \"Chap. III.  A description of the Scripture according to the\n         history and mystery thereof.\n    \"Amsterdam, 1644.\"\n\n[68] _Survey_, etc., part ii. chap. xlvii. p. 53.\n\n[69] The only copy of Randall's _Bright Starre_ which I have been able\nto locate is in the Lambeth Palace Library.  A copy of it formerly\nbelonged to the learned Quaker, Benjamin Furly, and was sold with his\nremarkable collection of books in 1714.\n\n[70] This term, \"Children of the Light,\" was the name by which Friends,\nor Quakers, first called themselves.  It was plainly a term current at\nthe time for a Christian who put the emphasis on inward life and\npersonal experience.\n\n[71] Preface to _Theologia_.\n\n[72] Preface to _The Vision of God_.\n\n[73] _Ibid._\n\n[74] Nicholas' Preface to _De visione Dei_.\n\n[75] _The Vision of God_, p. 11.\n\n[76] _Ibid._ p. 13.\n\n[77] _Ibid._ p. 19.  Compare this passage with Pascal's saying: \"Thou\nwouldst not seek me if thou hadst not already found me.\"\n\n[78] _Ibid._ p. 37.\n\n[79] _Ibid._ p. 130.\n\n[80] _Ibid._ p. 138.\n\n[81] _Ibid._ pp. 151-152.\n\n[82] _Ibid._ pp. 170-176.\n\n[83] There is no author's name or initial in the book, only the\nstatement that it is \"put forth\" by a \"mad man,\" who \"desires to be in\nmy wits and right minde to God, although a fool and madman to the\nworld.\"\n\n[84] _Divinity and Philosophy Dissected_, pp. 39-40.\n\n[85] _Divinity and Philosophy Dissected_, p. 17.\n\n[86] _Ibid._ p. 62.\n\n[87] _A Survey of the Spiritual Antichrist_, chap. xiv. p. 163.\n\n[88] _Life and Light_, p. 3.\n\n[89] _Ibid._ pp. 99 and 101 quoted freely.\n\n[90] _Ibid._ p. 19.  It should be noted that this use of \"First-day\"\nfor Sunday antedates the Quaker practice.\n\n[91] _Ibid._ pp. 26-27.\n\n[92] _Ibid._ p. 35.\n\n[93] See _ibid._ p. 36.\n\n[94] _Life and Light_, p. 11.\n\n[95] _Ibid._ p. 38.\n\n[96] _Ibid._ p. 34.\n\n\n\n\n{266}\n\nCHAPTER XIV\n\nSPIRITUAL RELIGION IN HIGH PLACES--ROUS, VANE, AND STERRY\n\nThe spiritual struggles which culminated in the great upheaval of the\nEnglish Commonwealth were the normal fruit of the Reformation spirit,\nwhen once it had penetrated the life of the English _people_ and kindled\nthe fire of personal conviction in their hearts.  Beginning as it did\nwith the simple substitution of royal for papal authority in the\ngovernment of the Church, the English Reformation lacked at its inception\nthe inward depth, the prophetic vision, the creative power, the vigorous\narticulation of newly awakened personal conscience, which formed such a\ncommanding feature of the Reformation movement on the Continent.  It took\nanother hundred years in England to cultivate individual conscience, to\nripen religious experience, to produce the body of dynamic _ideas_, and\nto create the necessary prophetic vision before an intense and popular\nspirit of Reform could find its voice and marching power.  The contact of\nEnglish exiles and chance visitors with the stream of thought in Germany,\nin Switzerland, and in Holland, and the filtering in of literature from\nthe Continent, together with the occasional coming of living exponents,\nsowed the seeds that slowly ripened into that strange and interesting\nvariety of religious thought and practice which forms the inner life of\nthe Commonwealth.  The policy of the throne had always opposed this\nsteadily increasing tide of thought which refused to run in the well-worn\nchannels, but, as usual, the opposition and hindrances only served to\n{267} deepen personal conviction, to sharpen the edge of conscience, to\nnourish great and daring spirits, to formulate the battle-ideas and to\nwin popular support.  The inner life and the varied tendencies of the\nCommonwealth are too rich and complicated to be adequately treated\nhere.[1]  The purpose of this chapter is to show how the type of inward\nand spiritual religion, which the Reformation in its kindling power\neverywhere produced, finds expression in the writings of three men who\ncame to large public prominence in the period of the Commonwealth,\nFrancis Rous, Sir Harry Vane, and Peter Sterry.\n\n\n\nI\n\nFrancis Rous was born in Cornwall in 1579.  He graduated B.A. at Oxford\nin 1597 and at the University of Leyden in 1599.  He entered the Middle\nTemple in 1601, with the prospect of a legal and public career before\nhim, but soon withdrew and retired to Cornwall, where in a quiet country\nretreat he became absorbed in theological studies.  His later writings\nshow an intimate acquaintance with the great Church Fathers, especially\nwith St. Augustine, St. Ambrose, Clement of Alexandria, Origen and the\ntwo Gregorys, and with the mystics, especially with the writings of\nDionysius the Areopagite, St. Bernard, Thomas a Kempis, and John Tauler.\nHe was intensely Puritan in temper and sympathies in his earlier period\nof life, and much of his writing at this stage was for the purpose of\npromoting the increase of a deeper and more adequate reform in the\nChurch.  He translated the Psalms into \"English Meeter,\" and his version\nwas approved by the Westminster Assembly, authorized for use by\nParliament, and adopted by the estates in Scotland, \"whose Psalms,\"\nCarlyle says, \"the Northern Kirks still sing.\"[2]\n\nHe was a member of Charles I.'s first and second Parliaments, and again\nof the Short Parliament and of {268} the Long Parliament.  He was also a\nmember of the Little Parliament, often called \"Barebones Parliament,\" of\nwhich he was Speaker, and of the Parliaments of 1654 and of 1656, and he\nwas, too, a member of Oliver's Council of State.  He was one of many\nthoughtful men of the time who passed with the rapid development of\naffairs from the Presbyterian position to Independency, and he served on\nthe Committee for the propagation of the Gospel which framed a\ncongregational plan for Church government.  He was a voluminous writer,\nbut his type of Christianity can be seen sufficiently in his three little\nbooks: _Mystical Marriage_ (1635), _The Heavenly Academy_ (1638), and\n_The Great Oracle_ (1641).[3]\n\nHe, again, like so many before him, influenced by Plato as well as by the\nNew Testament and Christian writers, made the discovery that there is\nsomething divine in the soul of man, and that this \"something divine\" in\nman is always within hail of an inner world of divine splendour.  \"I was\nfirst breathed forth from heaven,\" he says, \"and came from God in my\ncreation.  I am divine and heavenly in my original, in my essence, in my\ncharacter. . . .  I am a spirit, though a low one, and God is a Spirit,\neven the highest one, and God is the fountaine of this spirit [of\nmine].\"[4]\n\nThe possession of this divine \"original,\" unlost even in the mist and\nmystery of a world of time and sense, enables man, he holds, to live in\nthat higher world even while he sojourns in this lower world.  Human\nreason, _i.e._ reasoning, is sufficient to guide in the affairs of this\nlife, but it is blind to the world of the Spirit from which we came.\n\"The soule has two eyes--one human reason, the other far excelling that,\na divine and spiritual Light. . . .  By it the soule doth see spiritual\nthings as truly as the corporall eye doth corporal things.\"[5]  \"Human\nreason acknowledges the sovereignty of this spiritual Light as a candle\nacknowledges the greater light of the sun,\" and, {269} by its in-shining,\nthe soul passes \"beyond a speculative and discoursing holiness, even\nbeyond a forme of godliness and advances to _the power of it_.\"[6]  But\nthis inward Light does not make outward helps unnecessary.  \"The light of\nthe outward word [the Scriptures] and the Light in our soules are twinnes\nand agree together like brothers,\"[7] and again he says, \"It is an\ninvaluable [inestimable] Loss that men do so much divide the outward\nTeacher from the Inward,\" though he insists that the ministry of the\nSpirit is above any ministry of the letter.[8]\n\nThis eye of the soul which is a part of its original structure and is\nresponsive to the Light of the spiritual world, so that \"soule and Light\nbecome knit together into one,\" is also called by Rous, as by his\npredecessors, \"Seed\" or \"Word.\"  Sometimes this divine Seed is thought of\nas an original part of the soul, and sometimes, under the assumption that\n\"man has grown wild by the fall of Adam\" and is \"run to weeds,\" it is\nconceived, as by Schwenckfeld, as a saving remedy supernaturally supplied\nto the soul--\"Christ entering into our spirits lays in them an immortal\nseed.\"[9]  In any case, whether the Seed be original, as is often implied\nand stated, or whether it be a supernatural gift of divine Grace in\nChrist, as is sometimes implied, it is, in Rous' conception, essential\nfor the attainment of a religious experience or a Christian life: \"A\nChristian man hath as much need of Christ's Spirit [called in other\npassages Seed or Word] to be a Christian and to live eternally, as a\nnatural man hath of a spirit [principle of intelligence] to be a man and\nto live temporally, so Christ's Spirit and a man together are a\nChristian, which is a holy, eternal and happy thing.\"[10]  He shows, as\ndo so many of those who emphasize the inner experience of Christ as a\nliving presence, an exalted appreciation of the historical revelation in\nChrist.  Christ is, he says, both God and man, and thus being the perfect\nunion of divinity and humanity {270} can be our Saviour.[11]  Here in the\nfull light of His Life and Love we may discover the true nature of God,\nwho was \"great with love before we loved Him.\"[12]  The outer word\nanswers to the inner Light as deep calls unto deep, and the two are \"knit\ntogether\" not to be sundered.  The eye must be on Christ the Light, and\nthe wise soul \"must watch the winde and tide of the Spirit, as the seaman\nwatcheth the naturall winde and tide.  When the tide of the Spirit\nfloweth then put thy hand to the oar, for then if thou row strongly thou\nmaiest advance mightily.\"[13]\n\nHe quaintly says that he has written about these spiritual things, about\nthe world of divine splendour and the \"soule's inner eye,\" because he\nwants to exhibit \"some bunches of grapes brought from the land of promise\nto show that this land is not a meere imagination, but some have seene it\nand have brought away parcels, pledges and ernests of it.  In these\nappears a world above the world, a love that passeth human love, a peace\nthat passeth naturall understanding, a joy unspeakable and glorious, a\ntaste of the chiefe and soveraigne good.\"  He has, further, written\nbecause he wanted to \"provoke others of this nation to bring forth more\nboxes of this precious ointment.\"[14]\n\nHis little books are saturated with a devotional spirit rising into words\nlike these: \"Let my love rest in nothing short of thee, O God!\"  \"Kindle\nand enflame and enlarge my love.  Enlarge the arteries and conduit pipes\nby which Thou the head and fountaine of love flows in thy members, that\nbeing abundantly quickened and watered with the Spirit I may abundantly\nlove Thee.\"[15]  They contain bursts of intense prayer--\"Put thy owne\nimage and beauty more and more on my soule.\"  He went through all the\nParliamentary storms of that great epoch; he was Provost of Eton College;\nhe was Cromwell's friend; but his main ambition seems to have been to be\n\"knit to God by a personal union,\" to have \"the {271} dayspring in his\nown heart,\" and to be taught in \"the heavenly Academy--the High School of\nExperience.\"[16]\n\n\n\nII\n\nThe story of Sir Harry Vane's life, adequately told, would involve the\nentire history of the great epoch of the Commonwealth.  Next to Cromwell,\nhe was the most influential shaper of events from the time of the meeting\nof the Long Parliament in 1640 until his \"retirement\" on the occasion of\nthe expulsion of the members of Parliament in 1653.  In his views of\nconstitutional government and of human liberty he was one of the most\noriginal and one of the most modern men of the seventeenth century.\nRichard Baxter, who had no love for Vane, is only stating an actual fact\nwhen he says: \"To most of our changes he was that within the House that\nCromwell was without.\"[17]  Clarendon, who loved him still less, said of\nhim: \"He was indeed a man of extraordinary parts, a pleasant wit, a great\nunderstanding which pierced into and discerned the purposes of men with\nwonderful sagacity.\"[18]  What Milton thought of him he has told in one\nof the noblest sonnets that a poet ever wrote on a great statesman:\n\n  Vane, young in years, but in sage counsel old,\n  Than whom a better senator ne'er held\n  The helm of Rome, when gowns not arms repelled\n  The fierce Epirot and the African bold:\n  Whether to settle peace, or to unfold\n  The drift of hollow states hard to be spelled,\n  Then to advise how war may best upheld\n  Move by her two main nerves, iron and gold,\n  In all her equipage; besides to know\n  Both spiritual power and civil, what each means,\n  What severs each, thou hast learned, which few have done:\n  The bounds of either sword to thee we owe;\n  Therefore on thy firm hand religion leans\n  In peace, and reckons thee her eldest son.[19]\n\n\n{272}\n\nVane was quite naturally selected at the Restoration as one of the actors\nin the historical drama who could not be allowed to live any longer.  The\nday after Vane's trial began, Charles II. wrote to Clarendon: \"He is too\ndangerous a man to let live, if we can honestly put him out of the\nway.\"[20]  His death brought out the loftiest traits of his character,\nand gave him a touch of beauty and glory of character which for posterity\nhas done much to cover the flaws and defects which were not lacking in\nhim.  \"In all things,\" writes Pepys, who saw everything in those days,\n\"he appeared the most resolved man that ever died in that manner.\"[21]\n\nIt is, however, not Vane the statesman, the maker of covenants with\nScotch armies, the creator of sinews of war for the battles of Marston\nMoor and Naseby, the organizer of a conquering navy, the man who dared\nwithstand his old friend Cromwell in the day of the great soldier's\npower, that concerns us in this chapter; it is Vane, the religious\nIndependent, the exponent of inward religion; the man whom Milton calls\n\"religion's eldest son.\"  Even in his early youth he passed through a\ndecisive experience which altered his entire after-life.  \"About the\nfourteenth or fifteenth year of my age,\" he said in his dying speech,\n\"God was pleased to lay the foundation or ground-work of repentance in\nme, for the bringing me home to Himself, by His wonderful rich and free\ngrace, revealing His Son in me, that by the knowledge of the only true\nGod and Jesus Christ whom He hath sent, I might, even whilst here in\nthe body, be made a partaker of eternal life, in the first fruits of\nit. . . .  Since that foundation of repentance was laid in me, through\ngrace I have been kept steadfast, desiring to walk in all good\nconscience toward God and toward men, according to the best light and\nunderstanding God gave me.\"  From this early period on through his life,\nhe always emphasized the importance of first-hand experience, of inward\nrevelation, and of Christ's reign in the kingdom of the {273} human soul.\nHe was still a very young man, when, under the impelling guidance of his\nconscience, he felt himself called to intermit, as Schwenckfeld and\nothers had done, the practice of the sacraments of the Church.  His\nattitude toward the sacraments at this time, and, apparently ever\nafterwards, was that of the \"Seekers.\"  He had reached the insight that\nreligion is a spiritual relationship with a spiritual God, and on the\nbasis of this position he questioned the divine \"commission\" of those who\nadministered the external ceremonies of the Church.  It is, however,\nperfectly clear that these views were not \"original\" with him, but that\nhe had come under the influence of the teachings of the men whom I am\ncalling \"spiritual Reformers.\"\n\nHow inward and mystical his type of Christianity really was, may be\ngathered from a short passage of an _Epistle_ which he wrote in 1661:\n\"The Kingdom of God is within you and is the dominion of God in the\nconscience and spirit of the mind. . . .  This Kingdom of Christ is\ncapable of subsisting and being managed inwardly in the minds of His\npeople, in a hidden state concealed from the world.  By the power\nthereof, the inward senses, or eyes of the mind are opened and awakened\nto the drawing of them up to a heavenly converse, catching and carrying\nup the soul to the throne of God and to the knowledge of the life that is\nhid with Christ in God.  Those that are in this Kingdom, and in whom the\npower of it is, _are fitted to fly with the Church into the wilderness,\nand to continue in such a solitary, dispersed, desolate condition till\nGod call them out of it.  They have wells and springs opened to them in\nthis wilderness, whence they draw the waters of salvation, without being\nin bondage to the life of sense_.\"[22]\n\nHe was only twenty-two years of age when, \"for conscience' sake\" and \"in\nthe sweete peace of God,\" he left England and threw in his lot with the\nyoung colony in Massachusetts Bay.  At twenty-three he was {274} Governor\nof the Colony and found himself plunged into a maelstrom of politics,\nIndian wars, and ecclesiastical quarrels which would have tried even a\nveteran like John Winthrop.  It was here in Massachusetts that the lines\nof his religious thought first come clearly into view, if any of Vane's\nreligious ideas can ever properly be called \"clear.\"  The controversy in\nthe Massachusetts Colony (1636-1638) was initiated and led by Anne\nHutchinson, and was, in the phraseology of that period, an issue between\n\"a Covenant of Works\" and \"a Covenant of Grace,\" which was a\nseventeenth-century way of stating the contrast between a religion\nhistorically revealed and completely expressed in an infallible Book on\nthe one hand, and, on the other, a religion primarily based on the\neternal nature of God and man, and on the fact of immediate revelation\nand communication between the God of Grace and the needy soul.[23]\nGovernor Vane aligned himself with the Hutchinson party and was in\nsympathy with this second type of religion, the religion of inward\nexperience, the immediate conscious realization of God, which, in the\nterminology of the times, was called \"the Covenant of Grace.\"[24]\nAbsorbed as he was for the next fifteen years after his return from\nAmerica in momentous public affairs, he had no opportunity to give\nexpression to the religious ideas which were forming in his mind.  During\nhis \"retirement\" after his break with Cromwell, he wrote two books which\ngive us the best light we can hope to get on his religious views--_The\nRetired Man's Meditations_ (1655), and _A Pilgrimage into the Land of\nPromise_ (1664), written in prison in 1662.\n\nBaxter complained that his Doctrines were \"so clowdily formed and\nexpressed that few could understand them,\"[25] and the modern reader,\nhowever much time and patience he bestows upon Vane's books, is forced to\nagree with Baxter.  Vane acknowledges himself that his {275} thought is\n\"knotty and abstruce.\"  In religious matters his mind was always\nlabouring, without success, to find a clear guiding clue through a maze\nand confusion of ideas, which fascinated him, and he allowed his mind to\nget lost in what Sir Thomas Browne calls \"wingy mysteries.\"  He had no\nsound principle of Scripture interpretation, but allowed his untrained\nand unformed imagination to run wild.  Texts in profusion from Genesis to\nRevelation lie in undigested masses in his books.  He had evidently read\nJacob Boehme, but, if so, he had only become more \"dowdy\" by the reading,\nfor he has not seized and appreciated Boehme's constructive thoughts,\nand, at least in his later period and in his last book, he is floundering\nunder the heavy weight of millenarian ideas, which do not harmonize well\nwith his occasional spiritual insights of an ever-growing revelation to\nman through the eternal Word who in all ages voices Himself within the\nsoul.  He was an extraordinary complex of vague mysticism and astute\nstatesmanship.\n\nIn one matter he was throughout his life both consistent and clear,\nnamely, in the advocacy of freedom of conscience in religion.  He put\nhimself squarely on a platform of toleration in his early controversy\nwith Winthrop.[26]  His friend Roger Williams in later life heard him\nmake \"a heavenly speech\" in Parliament in which he said: \"Why should the\nlabours of any be suppressed, if sober, though never so different?  We\nnow profess to seek God, we desire to see light!\"[27]  Throughout his\nparliamentary career he stood side by side with Cromwell in the difficult\neffort, which only partly succeeded, to secure scope for all honest\nreligious opinion.  Finally, in _The Retired Man's Meditations_, he\nwrote: \"We are bound to understand by this terme [the Rule of Magistracy]\nthe proper sphere, bounds and limits of that office _which is not to\nintrude itself into the office and proper concerns of Christ's inward\ngovernment and rule in the {276} conscience_.\"  After defining the\nmagistrate's proper functions in the affairs of the external life, he\nthen adds: \"The more illuminated the Magistrate's conscience and judgment\nis, as to natural justice and right, by the knowledge of God and\ncommunications of Light from Christ, the better qualified he is to\nexecute his office.\"[28]\n\nThe central idea of his religious thought--though it never completely\npenetrated the fringes of his mind--was the reality of the living Word of\nGod, the self-revealing character of God, who is an immediate, inward\nTeacher, who is His own evidence and demonstration, and who has, Vane\ntestifies, \"experimentally obtained a large entrance and reception in my\nheart as a seed there sown.\"[29]  This living Word is not to be confused\nwith the Scriptures, which are an outward testimony to the inner Word--an\nexternal way to the \"unveiled and naked beauty of the Word itself,\" who\nis Spirit and Life.[30]  In the long process of self-revelation through\nthe living Word a temporal universe has been created by emanations in\ntime, a universe double in its nature, first a deeper, invisible universe\nof light, of angels and exalted spirits, then a visible and material and\n\"animalish\" world, a shadow of the invisible world.[31]  At the top of\nthe order, man was created, uniting both the visible and the invisible\nworlds in one being.  Man thus in himself is in miniature a double world,\na world of light and spirit and a world of shadow.  Two seeds, as Boehme\nhad already taught, are always working in man, and his native free-will\ndetermines the course of his destiny.  In his first test, man fell,\nthough \"the tree of life,\" which was a visible type of Christ, was before\nhis eyes in Paradise, but this event was only the beginning of the long\nhuman drama, and the real history of the race is the story of the stages\nand dispensations of the living Word of God, educating, regenerating, and\nspiritualizing man, and bringing him to the height of his spiritual\npossibilities.\n\n{277}\n\nIn the first stage of this divine pedagogy, man has the Word of God\nwithin himself \"as a lampe or light in his mind, manifesting itself to\ninward senses, assisted by the ministry of angels.\"  This is the period\nof \"conditional covenant,\" under which man's spiritual life depends on\n\"obedience to the inward operations of this Word,\" and those that obey\nare made \"Children of the Light,\" and attain a forward-looking\napprehension of the coming Son.[32]\n\nThe second degree of glory--\"a more excellent and near approach to the\nsight of the Son Himself\"--is the training stage under the written word,\nwhich makes wise unto salvation.  This is a dispensation of discipline,\nreproof, correction, instruction in righteousness, and it culminates in\nthe manifestation of Grace in Jesus Christ, who is the Root of a new\nrace.  There are two ways of using the ministry of Grace in Jesus\nChrist--on the lower level as mere \"restoration-work\" and on the higher\nlevel as \"re-creation into new life.\"  Those who apprehend Christ on the\nlower level, as simply a new law-giver, do not get beyond the spirit of\nbondage and do not succeed in attaining an immutable and incorruptible\nnature.  Those, however, who are born from within by the immortal and\nincorruptible Seed of God are \"changed from their wavering unstable\npower\" into an inward likeness to God, into a love that binds man's\nspirit into union with God's Spirit, into \"steadfast and unmoveable\ndelight in goodness\" and \"fixed and unshaken averseness to sin and\nevil.\"[33]\n\nThe third and final stage of glory, the full dispensation of the\nSpirit--when \"the whole creation will be restored to its primitive purity\nand to the glorious liberty of sons of God\"--will be the thousand years'\nreign of Christ to which, Vane believed, both the outward and inward Word\ntestify.[34]\n\nIt is not easy to see how a man of Vane's mental and moral calibre, who\nhad himself, as he tells us in his scaffold speech, been \"brought home to\nhimself by {278} God's wonderful, rich and free Grace, revealing His Son\nin me that I might be a partaker of eternal life,\" and who had all his\nlife held that there is an eternal Word and Seed of God working both\nwithout and within to bring men to their complete spiritual stature,\nshould be unwilling to trust the operation of this divine Word to finish\nwhat He had begun, and should resort to a cataclysmic event of a new\norder for the final stage.  We of this later and more scientific age\nmust, however, speak with some caution of the idealistic dreams and\nvisions and glowing expectations of men, who in their deepest souls\nbelieved that God was a living, acting God who, in ways past finding out,\nintervened in the affairs of men and fulfilled His purposes of good.\n\"God is almighty,\" Vane said once in a Parliamentary speech.  \"Will you\nnot trust Him with the consequences?  He that has unsettled a monarchy of\nso many descents, in peaceable times, and brought you to the top of your\nliberties, though He drive you for a while into the wilderness, He will\nbring you back.  He is a wiser workman than to reject His work.\"\n\nGeorge Fox, in 1657, was \"moved of ye Lord to speake to him of ye true\nLight,\" having heard that \"Henery Vane has much enquired after mee.\"  Fox\ntold him, in his usual fashion, \"howe yt Christ had promised to his\ndisciples to sende ym ye holy ghoast, ye spiritt of truth which shoulde\nleade ym into all truth which wee [Friends] witnessed and howe yt ye\ngrace of God which brought salvation had appeared unto all men and was ye\nsaintes teacher in ye Apostles days & soe it was nowe.\"  Vane's comment\non the Quaker's message was: \"None of all this doth reach to my\nexperiens,\" and Fox, in his plain straightforward manner, said: \"Thou\nhast knowne somethinge formerly; but now there is a mountaine of earth &\nimaginations uppe in thee & from that rises a smoake which has darkened\nthy braine: & thou art not ye man as thou wert formerly. . . .  I was\nmoved of ye Lord to sett ye Seede Christ Jesus over his heade!\"[35]\n\n{279}\n\nClarendon was more charitable toward Vane than was Fox, who never deals\ngently with persons who approach his point of view and yet miss it.  The\nformer, declaring that Vane's writings lack \"his usual clearness and\nratiocination,\" and that \"in a crowd of very easy words the sense was too\nhard to find out,\" yet concludes to give the furnace-tried statesman the\nbenefit of the doubt: \"I was of opinion that the subject was of so\ndelicate a nature that it required another kind of preparation of mind,\nand perhaps another kind of diet, than men are ordinarily supplied\nwith!\"[36]\n\nThere can, at any rate, be no doubt of Vane's honesty or of his loyalty\nto the Light within him.  Standing face to face with death, he told his\nstrange audience that he had put everything that he prized in the world\nto hazard for the sake of obeying the best Light which God had granted\nhim, and he added these impressive words: \"I do earnestly persuade all\npeople rather to suffer the highest contradiction from men, than disobey\nGod by contradicting the Light of God in their own conscience.\"\n\n\n\nIII\n\nPeter Sterry was born in Surrey, early in the seventeenth century, and\nentered Emmanuel College, Cambridge, in 1629, graduating B.A. in 1633 and\nM.A. in 1637.  Emmanuel College had been founded during Elizabeth's reign\n(1584) by one of her statesmen, Sir Walter Mildmay, for the especial\nencouragement of Calvinistic theology, and it was the most important\nintellectual nursery of the great Puritan movement in England.  During\nSterry's University period there was a remarkable group of tutors and\nfellows gathered in Emmanuel College.  Foremost among them was Tuckney,\nwho was tutor to Benjamin Whichcote the founder of the school of\nCambridge Platonists, or \"Latitude-Men,\" and Whichcote himself was at\nEmmanuel College {280} throughout Sterry's period, graduating M.A. the\nsame year that Sterry graduated B.A.\n\nSterry was a thorough-going Platonist in his type of thought and had much\nin common with Henry More, whose writings were \"divinely pleasant\" to him\nand whom he calls \"a prophet\" of the spiritual unity of the universe, and\nwith Ralph Cudworth, the spiritual philosopher, though he finds \"somewhat\nto regret\" in the work of both these contemporary Cambridge\nPlatonists.[37]  Sterry is not usually reckoned among the Cambridge\nPlatonists, but there is no reason why he should not be included in that\ngroup.  He was trained in the University which was the natural home of\nthe movement, he read the authors most approved by the members of this\nschool, and his own message is penetrated with the spirit and ideals of\nthese seventeenth-century Platonists.  His writings abound with\nreferences to Plato and Plotinus, with occasional references to Proclus\nand Dionysius the Areopagite; and the world-conceptions of this composite\nschool of philosophers, as they were revived by the Renaissance, are\nfundamental to his thought.  He was thoroughly acquainted with the\nwritings of Ficino, and quotes him among his approved masters.  He had\nalso profoundly studied the great mystics and was admirably equipped\nintellectually to be the interpreter of a far different type of\nChristianity from that of the current theologies.\n\nHe became intimate in his public career with Sir Harry Vane, and there\nare signs of mutual influence in their writings, which gave occasion for\nRichard Baxter's pun on their names: \"Vanity and sterility were never\nmore happily conjoined.\"[38]  Upon the execution of Charles I., Sterry\nwas voted a preacher to the Council of State with a salary of one hundred\npounds a year, which was soon after doubled and lodgings at Whitehall\nadded.  He generally preached before Cromwell on Sundays, and on every\nother Thursday at Whitehall, frequently before {281} the Lords and\nCommons.  A number of his sermons were printed \"by Order of the House,\"\nand enjoyed a wide popularity, though their great length would make them\nimpossible sermons to-day.  Cromwell evidently appreciated his preaching\nvery highly and felt no objection to the mystical strain that runs\nthrough all his sermons.  He had many points of contact with Milton, and\nmay have been for a period his assistant as Latin Secretary.[39]  He was\ndevotedly fond of music, art, and poetry, and he held similar views to\nMilton regarding the Presbyterian system.  He naturally fell out of\npublic notice after the Restoration, and quietly occupied himself with\nliterary work, until his death in 1672.  The main material for a study of\nhis \"message\" will be found in his three posthumous Books: _A Discourse\nof the Freedom of the Will_ (1675); _Rise, Race and Royalty of the\nKingdom of God in the Soul of Man_ (1683), and _Appearance of God to Man\nin the Gospel_ (1710).[40]  His prose style is lofty and often marked\nwith singular beauty, though he is almost always too prolix for our\ngeneration, and too prone to divide his discourse into heads and\nsub-heads, and sub-divisions of sub-heads.  Here is a specimen passage of\nhis dealing with a topic which Plato and the great poets have often\nhandled: \"Imagine this Life as an Island, surrounded by a Sea of\nDarkness, beyond which lies the main Land of Eternity.  Blessed is he who\ncan raise himself to such a Pitch as to look off this Island, beyond that\nDarkness to the utmost bound of things.  He thus sees his way before and\nbehind him.  What shall trouble him on his Twig of Life, on which he is\nlike a bird but now alighted, from a far Region, from whence again he\nshall immediately take his flight.  Thou cam'st through a Darkness hither\nbut yesterday when thou wert born.  Why then shouldst thou not readily\nand cheerfully return through the same Darkness back again to those\neverlasting Hills?\"[41]  I will give one more {282} specimen passage\ntouching the divine origin and return of the soul: \"At our Birth, which\nis the morning of life, our Soul and Body are joined to this fleshly\nImage as Horses are put into a Waggon, to which they are fastened by\ntheir Harnes and Traces.[42]  The Body is as the forehorse, but the Soul\nis the filly which draws most and bears the chief weight.  All the day\nlong of this life we draw this Waggon heavy laden with all sorts of\ntemptations and troubles thorow deep ways of mire and sand.  This only is\nour comfort that the Divine Will, which is Love itself in its perfection,\nas a Hand put forth from Heaven thorow a Cloud, at our Birth put us into\nthis Waggon and governs us all the day.  In the evening of our life, at\nthe end of the day, Death is the same Divine Will as a naked Hand of pure\nLove, shining forth from an open Heaven of clear light and glory, taking\nour Soul and Body out of the Waggon and Traces of this fleshly Image and\nleading them immediately into their Inn.\"[43]\n\nEverything in the universe, he believes, is double.  The things that are\nseen are copies--often faint and shadowy--of That which is.  Every\nparticular thing \"below\" corresponds to an eternal reality \"above.\"  Even\nthose things which appear thin and shallow possess an infinite depth, or\nwe may just as well say an infinite height.  \"Didst thou ever descry,\" he\nasks, \"a glorious eternity in a winged moment of Time?  Didst thou ever\nsee a bright Infinite in the narrow point of an Object?  Then thou\nknowest what Spirit means--that spire-top whither all things ascend\nharmoniously, where they meet and sit connected in an unfathomed Depth of\nLife.\"[44]  And the immense congeries of things and events, even \"the\njarring and tumultuous contrarieties,\" \"through the whole world, through\nthe whole compass of time, through both the bright and the black Regions\nof Life and Death,\" consent and melodize in one celestial music {283} and\nperfect harmony of Divine purpose.[45]  \"The stops and shakes make music\nas well as the stroaks and sounds,\" even Death and Hell \"are bound by a\ngold chain with shining links of Love\" to the throne of God.[46]\n\nHe outdoes even the \"pillar\" Quakers, his contemporaries in later life,\nin his proclamation of a Divine Root and Seed in the soul of man.  In\nwords almost precisely like those which Barclay used later in his\n_Apology_, he says: \"There is a spiritual man that lies hid under the\nnatural man as seed under the ground,\"[47] or, again, \"go into thyself\nbeyond thy natural man, and thou shalt meet the Spirit of God.\"[48]\nThere is \"something eternal,\" \"a seminal infiniteness,\" in the soul, its\nnative Root and Bottom, consubstantial with it and inseparable from it.\n\"It lasts on through all forms, wearing them out, casting them off for\nnew forms, through which it manifests itself, until it finally brings us\nback into Itself and becomes our only clothing.\"[49]  But though\n\"native,\" it is not a part or function of the natural, psychical man, it\nis not of the \"finite creature.\"  It is from above, a transcendent\nReality; it belongs to the eternal world and yet it is a Root of God\nwithin, a point in the soul's abyss (or apex) unsevered from God, so that\none who knew the soul to its depths would know God.[50]  Beneath all the\nwreck and ruin and havoc of sin it is still there, with its \"glimpses of\nimmortal Beauty.\"  The prodigal who would return \"home\" must first return\nto himself, to that divine Seed, \"hid deep beneath the soil and dung,\nbeneath the darkness, deformity and deadness of its Winter-Season and\nrise up in its proper Spring into pleasant flowers and fruits, as a\nGarden of God.\"[51]  There is thus \"a golden thread\" which is always\nthere to guide the soul back home, through all the mazes of the world,\nor, to use another of his figures, \"Thou hast but to follow the stream of\nLove, the Fountain of the Soul, if thou {284} wouldst be led to that Sea\nwhich is the confluence of all the waters of Life, of all Truth, of all\nGoodness, of all Joy, of all Beauty and Blessedness.\"[52]\n\nThe _Fullness_ of the juncture of God and Man is seen only in Christ.  In\nHim, \"God and Man are one, one Love, one Life, one Likeness.\"[53]  He is\nthe Pattern, the unspoiled Image, the Eternal Word, and He is, too, the\nHead of our race.  In Him the Divine Spirit and the human spirit \"are\ntwined into one.\"  \"If you want to see God, then see Christ.\"[54]  If you\nwant to see what the Seed in us can blossom into when it is unhampered by\nsin, again, see Christ.[55]  He is a Life-giving Spirit who can penetrate\nother spirits, who broods over the soul as the creative Spirit brooded\nover the waters, and who, when received, makes us radiant with _Love,\nwhich is the only truth of religion_.\n\nSin is the mark and brand of our failure--it is our aberration from the\nnormal type as it is fully revealed in Christ.  \"Nothing is so unnatural\nas sin,\"[56] nothing is so irrational, nothing so abnormal--it is always\na break from the unity of the divine Life, a movement towards isolation\nand self-solitariness, a pursuit of narrowing desires, a missing of the\npotential beauty and harmony of the Soul.[57]  But in every case, whether\nit be Adam's or that of the last man who sinned, it is always an act of\nfree-will--\"even in its most haggish shapes sin is the act of free-will.\"\nSome strange contrary principle in us, something from a root alien to the\ndivine Root, makes civil war within us,[58] and though the Word of God's\neternal Love is ringing in our ears and though the gleams of divine\nBeauty are shining in our eyes, we still walk away into \"the barren\ndessert of the world and forsake our proper habitation in the paradise of\nGod.\"[59]  There is no way back from the \"barren dessert,\" without a\ncomplete reversal of direction, a conversion: \"He that will pass {285}\nfrom the dismal depths of sin to the heights of strength and holiness\nmust make his first motion a conversion, a change from a descent to an\nascent, from going outward toward the circle to go inward towards the\ncentre\"; there must be an _awakening_ so that the soul comes to see all\nthings in the light of their first Principle; a Birth through the Spirit\nand a newness of life through the bubbling of the eternal Spring.[60]\n\nThe mighty event of re-birth is described by Sterry very much after the\nmanner of Schwenckfeld.  The new Seed, Christ Jesus, the divine Life\nitself, comes into operation within the man, and the new-made man, raised\nwith Christ, is joined in Spirit with Him and lives henceforth not after\nAdam but after Christ the Head of the spiritual Race.[61]  The shift of\ndirection, the complete reversal, however, does not mean \"parting with\ndelights,\" or \"putting on a sad and sour conversation\"--on the contrary,\nit means enlargement of soul and \"a gainful addition of joy,\" the\ndiscovery within of another world and a new kingdom.[62]\n\nLike all this group of thinkers to whom he is kindred, Sterry makes a\nsharp contrast between the Spirit and the letter, between what happens\nwithin the soul and what is external to it.  The early stage of religion\nis characterized by externals, and only after long processes of tutorship\nand discipline does the soul learn how to live by the Seed of life and\nLight of truth within.  The early stage is legalistic, during which the\nperson is \"hedged about\" with promises and threats, \"walled in\" with laws\nand ordinances, \"living in a perpetual alarm of fears,\" \"shut up to\nrules, retirements and forms\"--but it is far better to serve God from\nfear and by outward rules than not to serve Him at all.  The true way of\nprogress is to move up from fear and law to love and freedom, and from\noutward rules to the discovery of a central Light of God, a Heavenly\nImage, in the deeps of {286} one's own spirit--\"real knowledge comes when\nthe Day Star rises in the heart.\"[63]  We pass from \"notions\" and \"words\"\nto an inward power and a bubbling joy.  He calls the period of law and\nletter a \"baby-stage,\" \"when we see truth as blear-eyed beholders.\"\nLegal religion compared with the religion of the Spirit is \"like a spark\nstruck from flint at midnight\" compared with the sun; it is like \"drawing\nthe waters of Grace, a bucketful at a time,\" when we might have \"the\nSpirit gushing as a living and perpetual Fountain.\"[64]  But God is so\ngood that He speaks to us in a variety of ways, and He lets us \"spell His\nname\" with the alphabet, until we learn to know His own Voice.  Nature,\nin the elements of visible creation, tells us of Him; Reason compels us\nto recognize One who is First and Best, the All in all; the written word\ncries in our ears that God is Love; but above these voices there is a\nPrinciple within our own souls by which \"God propagates His Life\" in us,\nand he who, in this love-way, has become a son knows God as\n_Abba-Father_.[65]  We pray now with power, when this new Life of the\nSpirit has come into us, and we pour our spirits out in\nself-forgetfulness, \"as a River pours itself into the sea, where it\nloseth its own name and is known only as the waters of the Sea.\"[66]\n\nHe is always gentle in his account of other religions and other stages of\nfaith, and he sees good in all types, if only they help the soul to\nhunger for the Eternal and do not cramp it.  \"O that I had a hundred\nmouths,\" he writes, \"an hundred tongues, a Voice like the Voice of God\nthat rends Rocks, to cry to all sorts of Persons and Spirits in this Land\nand in all the Christian World through the whole creation: 'Let all that\ndiffer in Principles, Professions, Opinions and Forms, see the good there\nis in each other'!\"[67]\n\nThe world, busy with action and choosing for its historical study the men\nwho did things, has allowed {287} Peter Sterry to drop into oblivion and\nhis books to gather dust and cobwebs, but there was, I think, a Seed of\nGod in him, and he had a message for his age.  He sincerely endeavoured\nto hand on the torch which in his youth at Cambridge had been kindled in\nhim by some other flame.  \"When one candle is lighted,\" he beautifully\nsays, \"we light many by it, and when God hath kindled the Life of His\nglory in one man's Heart he often enkindles many by the flame of\nthat.\"[68]\n\n\n\n[1] I have studied the \"Familists,\" the \"Anabaptists,\" the \"Seekers,\" and\n\"Ranters,\" and some of the interesting religious characters, such as John\nSaltmarsh, William Dell, and Gerard Winstanley, in my _Studies in\nMystical Religion_ (London, 1908).\n\n[2] Oliver Cromwell's _Letters and Speeches_ (New York, 1900), i. p. 103.\n\n[3] These three books were issued together in Latin under the title,\n_Interiora Regni Dei_, in 1655 and in 1674, and in an English Collection\nof Rous' Works under the title, _Treatises and Meditations_ (1657).\n\n[4] _Mystical Marriage_, pp. 1-2.\n\n[5] _Treatises and Meditations_, pp. 230-231.\n\n[6] _Treatises and Meditations_, pp. 240 and 258.\n\n[7] _Ibid._ p. 235.\n\n[8] _The Heavenly Academy_, pp. 110-111.\n\n[9] _Mystical Marriage_, p. 10.\n\n[10] _Treatises and Meditations_, p. 496.\n\n[11] _Mystical Marriage_, p. 10.\n\n[12] _Ibid._ p. 16.\n\n[13] _Ibid._ p. 193.\n\n[14] Preface to _Mystical Marriage_.\n\n[15] _Mystical Marriage_, p. 322.\n\n[16] _The Heavenly Academy_, Preface, and _ibid._ p. 57.\n\n[17] _Reliquiae Baxterianae_, i. p. 75.\n\n[18] Clarendon, _History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars_ (Oxford, 1827),\np. 1581.\n\n[19] Milton's sonnet _To Sir Henry Vane the Younger_.\n\n[20] Burnet, _History of his Own Times_ (Airy ed.), i. p. 286.\n\n[21] Pepys, _Diary_ (ed. by H. B. Wheatley, London, 1893), ii. p. 242.\n\n[22] An Epistle to the Mystical Body of Christ on Earth.  The lines which\nI have put in italics in the text clearly show the \"seeker\"-attitude.\n\n[23] See my _Quakers in the American Colonies_ (1911), pp. 1-25.\n\n[24] In his _Retired Man's Meditations_ he speaks of \"Christ's rule in\nthe legal conscience\" and \"Christ's rule in the evangelical conscience,\"\nby which he means to contrast a religion founded on external performances\nor historical events, and a religion founded on _events transacted in the\nsoul of the man himself_.\n\n[25] _Reliquiae Baxterianae_, i. p. 75.\n\n[26] See Vane's _A Brief Answer to a certain Declaration made of the\nIntent and Equity of the Order of Court_, etc., in Hutchinson's\nCollection of Original Papers.\n\n[27] Preface to Williams' _Bloudy Tenet_.\n\n[28] _The Retired Man's Meditations_, p. 388.  Italics mine.\n\n[29] _Ibid._ Preface\n\n[30] _Ibid._ chap. ii.\n\n[31] _Ibid._ ii. chaps. iii. and iv.  See also _A Pilgrimage into the\nLand of Promise_, pp. 1-3.\n\n[32] _A Pilgrimage into the Land of Promise_, pp. 51-52.\n\n[33] _Ibid._ pp. 55-56.\n\n[34] _Retired Man's Meditations_, chap. xxvi.\n\n[35] _Journal of George Fox_ (Cambridge ed.), i. pp. 313-314.\n\n[36] _Animadversions on Cressy's Answer to Stillingfleet_ (1673), p. 59.\n\n[37] See _A Discourse of the Freedom of the Will_ (1675), pp. 31-32.\n\n[38] _Reliquiae Baxterianae_, i. p. 75.\n\n[39] A Mr. Sterry was appointed Sept. 8, 1657, to assist Milton as Latin\nSecretary (_Nat. Dict. of Biog. Art._ \"Sterry\").\n\n[40] Besides the above named I have also used his Sermons on _The Clouds\nin which Christ Comes_ (1648) and _The Spirits' Conviction of Sinne_\n(1645).\n\n[41] _Rise, Race and Royalty_, p. 8.\n\n[42] There is, he thinks, an inner \"body\" which is as immortal as the\nsoul and which together with the soul is united to the body of\nflesh--\"the fleshly Image.\"\n\n[43] _Rise, Race and Royalty_, p. 435.\n\n[44] _Ibid._ p. 24.  See also _ibid._  p. 5, and _Discourse_, p. 55.\n\n[45] _Discourse_, pp. 30-35.  Also p. 161.\n\n[46] _Ibid_. Preface, p. c 8, and _Rise, Race and Royalty_, p. 164.\n\n[47] _Rise, Race and Royalty_, p. 126.\n\n[48] _Ibid._ p. 96.\n\n[49] _Ibid._ pp. 4, 5, 6, 18-19.\n\n[50] _Discourse_, pp. 67 and 77.\n\n[51] _Rise, Race and Royalty_, Preface, p. b 2.  See also pp. 362 and\n512-513.\n\n[52] _Discourse_, Preface, pp. a and c 6, and _Rise, Race and Royalty_,\np. 101.\n\n[53] _Rise, Race and Royalty_, p. 78.\n\n[54] _Ibid._ p. 68.\n\n[55] _Ibid._ pp. 95 and 184.  Also _Appearance of God_, pp. 239 and 251.\n\n[56] _Rise, Race and Royalty_, p. 73.\n\n[57] _Ibid._ pp. 16-18 and 141, and _Discourse_, pp. 141-142.\n\n[58] _Appearance of God_, p. 91.\n\n[59] _Rise, Race and Royalty_, p. 359.\n\n[60] _Rise, Race and Royalty_, pp. 2, 23, and 466.\n\n[61] See especially _Appearance of God_, pp. 74-75 and 480.\n\n[62] _Rise, Race and Royalty_, pp. 107-109.\n\n[63] _Rise, Race and Royalty_, pp. 46-47 and 467.\n\n[64] _Ibid._ pp. 56-60.\n\n[65] _Ibid._ pp. 63-67.\n\n[66] _Appearance of God_, pp. 130-131.\n\n[67] _Discourse_, Preface, p. a 6.\n\n[68] _Rise, Race and Royalty_, p. 39.\n\n\n\n\n{288}\n\nCHAPTER XV\n\nBENJAMIN WHICHCOTE, THE FIRST OF THE \"LATITUDE-MEN\"[1]\n\nThe type of Christianity which I have been calling \"spiritual religion,\"\nthat is, religion grounded in the nature of Reason, finds, at least in\nEngland, its noblest expression in the group of men, sometimes called\n\"Cambridge Platonists,\" and sometimes \"Latitude-Men,\" or simply\n\"Latitudinarians.\"  These labels were all given them by their critics and\nopponents, and were used to give the impression that the members of this\ngroup or school were introducing and advancing a type of Christianity too\nbroad and humanistic to be safe, and one grounded on Greek philosophy\nrather than on Scripture and historical Revelation.[2]\n\nThey were, however, undertaking to do in their generation precisely what\nthe long line of spiritual interpreters had for more than a century been\nendeavouring, through pain and suffering, misunderstanding and fierce\npersecution, to work out for humanity--a religion of life and reality, a\nreligion rooted in the eternal nature of the Spirit of God and the spirit\nof man, a religion as authoritative and unescapable \"as mathematical\ndemonstration.\"[3]\n\nIt is not possible to establish direct connection between the leaders of\nthis school and the writings of the successive {289} spiritual Reformers\non the Continent whom we have been studying in this volume, though the\nparallelism of ideas and of spirit is very striking.  Both groups were\npowerfully influenced by the humanistic movement, both groups drew upon\nthat profound searching of the soul which they found in the works of\nPlato and Plotinus, and both groups read the same mystical writers.\nThese things would partly account for the similarities, but there was\nalmost certainly a closer and more direct connection, though we cannot\ntrace it in the case of Whichcote as we can in that of John Everard of\nClare College.  There has been a tendency to explain Whichcote's views\nthrough the influence of Arminius and Arminians; but he himself denied\nthat he had been influenced by Arminius,[4] while his disciple, Nathaniel\nCulverwel, speaks disapprovingly of Arminianism.[5]  There are no\ndistinct allusions in Whichcote to Jacob Boehme, and the former's\nconception of the Universe is vastly different from the latter's, but\ntheir vital and ethical view of the way of salvation is almost exactly\nthe same, and the constant insistence of Whichcote and his disciples that\nHeaven and Hell are primarily conditions of life in the person himself\nhas, as we know, a perfect parallel in Boehme.\n\nThe Cambridge scholars were much better equipped for their task than any\nof the men whom we have so far studied, their gravest difficulty being an\noverweighting of learning which they sometimes failed to fuse with their\nspiritual vision and to transmute into power.  But with all their\npropension to learning and their love of philosophy, they were primarily\nand fundamentally _religious_--they were disciples of Christ rather than\ndisciples of Plato and Plotinus.  Bishop Burnet's testimony to the\npositive spiritual contribution of this movement, now under\nconsideration, and to the genuineness of the religious life of these men\nis well worth quoting.  After describing the arid condition of his time,\nthe prevailing tendency of ministers to seek pomp and luxury, and the\napparent thinness of the preaching of the day, he adds: \"Some {290} few\nexceptions are to be made; but so few, that if _a new set of men had not\nappeared of another stamp_, the Church had quite lost her esteem over the\nnation.\"  He then designates this group of Cambridge scholars.  Speaking\nparticularly of Whichcote, he says: \"Being disgusted with the dry\nsystematical way of those times, he studied to raise those who conversed\nwith him to a nobler set of thoughts, and to consider religion as _a seed\nof a deiform nature_ (to use one of his own phrases).  In order to this,\nhe set young students much on reading the ancient philosophers, chiefly\nPlato, Tully and Plotin, and on considering the Christian religion as a\ndoctrine sent from God, both to elevate and sweeten human nature, in\nwhich he was a great example, as well as a wise and kind instructor.\nCudworth carried this on with a great strength of genius and a vast\ncompass of learning.\"[6]\n\nThese \"Latitude-Men\" were Puritan in temper and in intensity of\nconviction; they were all trained in the great nursery of Puritan faith,\nEmmanuel College, and they were on intimate terms with many of the men\nwho were the creators of the outer and inner life of the Commonwealth,\nbut in their intellectual sympathies they went neither with the sectaries\nof the time--\"the squalid sluttery of fanatic conventicles,\" as S. P.\nputs it--nor with the prevailing Puritan theology.  They read Calvin and\nBeza with diligence, at least Whichcote did, but their thought did not\nmove along the track which the great Genevan had constructed.  They\ndiscovered another way of approach which made the old way and the old\nbattles seem to them futile.  Instead of beginning with the eternal\nmysteries of the inscrutable divine Will, they began with the fundamental\nnature of man, always deep and difficult to fathom, but for ever the\nground and basis of all that can be known in the field of religion.\nTheir interest was thus psychological rather than theological.  It is\ntheir constant assertion that nothing is more intrinsically rational than\nreligion, and they focus all their energies to make this point clear and\nevident.\n\n{291}\n\nThey came to their intellectual development in the period when Hobbes was\nformulating one of the most powerful and subtle types of materialism that\nhas ever been presented.  They were, too, contemporaries of Descartes,\nand they followed with intense interest the attempt of the great\nFrenchman to put philosophy in possession of a method as adequate for its\nproblems as the method of geometry was for the mathematical sciences.\nNone of the \"Platonists\" was possessed of the same rare quality of genius\nas either of these two great philosophers, but they saw with clear\ninsight the full bearing of both systems.  They heartily disapproved of\nHobbes' materialism and shuddered at its nakedness.  They were too much\ncommitted to the ideals of Humanism to be positive opponents of\nDescartes' rational formulation of all things outer and inner, but they\nnever felt at home with the vast clock-like mechanism to which his system\nreduced the universe, and they set themselves, in contrast, to produce a\nreligious philosophy which would guarantee freedom, would give wider\nscope for the inner life, would show the kinship of God and man and put\nmorality and religion--to their mind for ever one and inseparable--on a\nfoundation as immovable as the pillars of the universe.\n\nThe first of this group, the pathbreaker of the movement, was Benjamin\nWhichcote, though it must not be forgotten that he had noble forerunners\nin John Hales, William Chillingworth, and Jeremy Taylor.  The\nbiographical details which have survived him are very limited.  A great\nteacher's life is so largely interior and so devoid of outward events\nthat there is usually not much to record.[7]  He was descended from \"an\nancient and honourable family,\" and was born at Whichcote-Hall, in the\nparish of Stoke, the 11th of March, 1609.  He was admitted in 1626 to\nEmmanuel College--\"which was looked on from its first foundation as a\nSeminary of Puritans\"--and was there under the tutorship of two great\nPuritan teachers.  Dr. Anthony Tuckney and Thomas Hill, {292} both of\nwhom were for a time associated with John Cotton, afterwards the famous\npreacher of colonial Boston.  He was ordained both deacon and priest in\n1636, was made Provost of King's College, Cambridge, in 1644, \"went-out\"\nDoctor of Divinity in 1649, and for twenty years gave the afternoon\nLecture on Sundays at Trinity Church, Cambridge.  At the Restoration he\nwas deprived of the Provostship by order of the King, which brought his\nuniversity career to an end.  He was made curate of St. Anne's,\nBlackfriars, in 1662, and later received from the Crown the vicarage of\nSt. Laurence Jewry, where he preached twice each week until his death in\n1683.\n\nHe once said in one of his sermons: \"Had we a man among us, that we could\nproduce, that did live an exact Gospel life; had we a man that was really\ngospelized; were the Gospel a life, a soul, and a spirit to him . . . he\nwould be the most lovely and useful person under heaven.  Christianity\nwould be recommended to the world by his spirit and conversation.\"[8]\nDr. Whichcote himself was, as far as one can judge from the impression\nwhich he made on his contemporaries, such a \"gospelized\" man.  He\n\"recommended religion,\" as Dr. Salter says, by his life and writings, and\nshowed it \"in its fairest and truest light as the highest perfection of\nhuman nature.\"[9]  He seemed to be \"emancipated\" when he came back to\nCambridge as Provost of King's College, and he devoted himself to\n\"spreading and propagating a more generous sett of opinions\" than those\nwhich were generally proclaimed in the sermons of the time, and \"the\nyoung Masters of Arts soon cordially embraced\" his message.[10]\n\nThis \"new sett of opinions,\" proclaimed in Trinity Church with vision and\npower, soon disturbed those who were of the older and sterner schools of\nthought.  \"My heart hath bin much exercised about you,\" his old friend\nand tutor, Dr. Tuckney, wrote to him in 1651, \"especially since your\nbeing Vice-Chancellour, I have seldom heard you preach, but that\nsomething hath bin delivered {293} by you, and that so authoritatively\nand with big words, sometimes of 'divinest reason' and sometimes of 'more\nthan mathematical demonstration,' that hath much grieved me.\"[11]  The\nnovelty of Dr. Whichcote's \"opinions\" comes more clearly into view as the\nletter proceeds: \"Your Discourse about Reconciliation that 'it doth not\noperate on God, but on us' is Divinity [theology] that my heart riseth\nagainst. . . .  To say that the ground of God's reconciliation is from\nanything in us; and not from His free grace, freely justifying the\nungodly, is to deny one of the fundamental truths of the Gospel that\nderives from heaven.\"[12]\n\nThe correspondence which followed this frank letter supplies us with the\nclearest light we possess, or can possess, upon Whichcote's inner life\nand type of religion.  He replied to his old friend, whom he had always\nheld \"in love, reverence and esteem,\" that he had noticed of late that\n\"our hearts have not seemed to be together when our persons have\nbin,\"[13] \"but,\" he adds, \"your letter meets with no guilt in my\nconscience.\"  \"My head hath bin possessed with this truth [which I am\npreaching] these manie years--I am not late nor newe in this\npersuasion.\"[14]  He then proceeds to quote from his notes exactly what\nhe had said on the subject of reconciliation in his recent Discourse.  It\nwas as follows: \"Christ doth not save us by onely doing for us _without_\nus [_i.e._ historically]: yea, we come at that which Christ hath done for\nus with God, by what He hath done for us _within_ us. . . .  With God\nthere cannot be reconciliation without our becoming God-like. . . .  They\ndeceeve and flatter themselves extreamly; who think of reconciliation\nwith God by means of a Saviour acting upon God in their behalfe and _not\nalso working in or upon them to make them God-like_,\" and he says that he\nadded in the spoken sermon, what was not in his notes, that a theology\nwhich taught a salvation without inward moral transformation was\n\"Divinity minted in Hell.\"[15]\n\n{294}\n\nDr. Tuckney in his second letter becomes still more specific.  He admits\nthat Whichcote's \"persuasion of truth\" is not \"late or newe\"; he\nremembers, on the latter's first coming to Cambridge, \"I thought you then\nsomwhat cloudie and obscure in your expressions.\"  What he now notices\nwith regret is the tendency in his old pupil to \"cry-up reason rather\nthan faith\"; to be \"too much immersed in Philosophy and Metaphysics\"; to\nbe devoted to \"other authours more than Scripture, and Plato and his\nschollars above others\"; to be producing \"a kinde of moral Divinitie,\nonlie with a little tincture of Christ added\"; to put \"inherent\nrighteousness above imputed righteousness\" and \"love above faith,\" and to\nuse \"some broad expressions as though in this life wee may be above\nordinances\"; and finally he notices that since Whichcote has \"cast his\nsermons in this mould,\" they have become \"less edifying\" and \"less\naffecting the heart.\"[16]  He thinks, too, that he has discovered the\nforeign source of the infection: \"Sir, those whose footsteppes I have\nobserved [in your sermons] were the Socinians and Arminians; the latter\nwhereof, I conceive, you have bin everie where reading in their workes\nand most largely in their Apologie.\"[17]\n\n\"In a thousand guesses,\" Whichcote answers this last charge, in his\nsecond letter, \"you could not have bin farther off from the truth of the\nthing.\"  \"What is added of Socinians and Arminians, in respect of mee, is\ngroundless.  I may as well be called a Papist, or Mahometan; Pagan or\nAtheist.  And trulie, Sir, you are wholly mistaken in the whole course of\nmy studies.  You say you find me largelie in their _Apologia_; to my\nknowledge I never saw or heard of the book before! . . .  I have not read\nmanie bookes; but I have studied a fewe: meditation and invention hath\nbin my life rather than reading; and trulie I have more read Calvine and\nPerkins and Beza than all the bookes, authors and names you mention.  _I\nhave alwaies expected reason for what men say_, less valuing persons and\nauthorities in the stating and {295} resolving of truth, therefore have\nread them most where I have found itt.  I have not looked at anie thing\nas more than an opinion which hath not bin underpropt by convincing\nreason or plaine and satisfactorie Scripture.\"[18]\n\nAs to the charge that he has become immersed in philosophy, Whichcote\nmodestly replies: \"I find the Philosophers that I read good as farre as\nthey go: and it makes me secretlie blush before God when I find eyther my\nhead, heart or life challenged by them, which I must confess, I often\nfind.\"  To the criticism that he \"cries-up reason,\" he answers that he\nhas always found in his own experience that \"that preaching has most\ncommanded my heart which has most illuminated my head.\"  \"Everie\nChristian,\" he insists, \"must think and believe as he finds cause.  Shall\nhe speak in religion otherwise than he thinks?  Truth is truth, whoever\nhath spoken itt or howsoever itt hath bin abused.  If this libertie be\nnot allowed to the Universitie wherefore do wee study?  We have nothing\nto do butt to get good memories and to learn by heart.\"[19]  Finally, to\nthe impression expressed by Dr. Tuckney that his sermons are less\nedifying and heart-searching, he replies with dignity and evidently with\ntruth: \"I am sure I have bin all along well understood by persons of\nhonest heartes, but of mean place and education: and I have had the\nblessing of the soules of such at their departure out of this world.  I\nthanke God, my conscience tells me, that I have not herein affected\nworldlie shewe, but the real service of truth.\"[20]\n\nWe need not follow further this voluminous correspondence in which two\nhigh-minded and absolutely honest men reveal the two diverging lines of\ntheir religious faith.  To the man whose mind found its spiritual footing\nalone on the solid ground of Calvin's unmodified system, the new\n\"persuasion\" was sure to seem \"cloudie and obscure\"; and no number of\nletters could convince him that the new message presented a safe way of\nfaith and life.  And no amount of criticism or advice could change the\nother man who found it necessary for him to have {296} reasonable cause\nfor what he was to believe and live by.  Whichcote closes the friendly\ndebate with some very positive announcements that for him religion must\nbe, and must remain, something which guarantees its reality in the soul\nitself: \"Christ must be inwardlie felt as a principle of divine life\nwithin us.\"[21]  \"What is there in man,\" again he says, \"more\nconsiderable than that which declares God's law to him, pleads for the\nobservation of it, accuseth for the breach and excuseth upon the\nperformance of it?\"[22]  And finally he informs his friend that each of\nthem must be left free to follow his own light: \"If we differ there is no\nhelp for it: Wee must forbear one another. . . .  If you conceeve\notherwise of me than as a lover and pursuer after truth, you think\namisse. . . .  Wherein I fall short of your expectation, I fail for\ntruth's sake.\"[23]\n\nThe central idea in Whichcote's teaching, which runs like a gulf-stream\nthrough all his writings, is his absolute certainty that there is\nsomething in the \"very make of man\"[24] which links the human spirit to\nthe Divine Spirit and which thus makes it as natural for man to be\nreligious as it is for him to seek food for his body.  There is a\n\"seminal principle,\" \"a seed of God,\" \"something that comes immediately\nfrom God,\" in the very structure of man's inner nature,[25] and this\nstructural possession makes it as natural and proper for man's mind to\ntend toward God, \"the centre of immortal souls,\" as it is for heavy\nthings to tend toward their centre.[26]  \"God,\" he elsewhere says, \"is\nmore inward to us than our own souls,\" and we are more closely \"related\nto God than to anything in the world.\"[27]  The soul is to God as the\nflower is to the sun, which opens when the sun is there and shuts when\nthe sun is absent,[28] though this figure breaks down, because, in\nWhichcote's view, God never withdraws and is never absent.  This idea\nthat the spiritual life is absolutely rational--a normal function {297}\nof man's truest nature--receives manifold expression in Whichcote's\n_Aphorisms_, which constitute a sort of seventeenth-century Book of\nProverbs, or collection of Wisdom-sayings.  He had absorbed one great\nsaying from the original Book of Proverbs, which he uses again and again,\nand which became the sacred text for all the members of the school--\"the\nspirit of man is a candle of the Lord.\"[29]  This Proverb is for\nWhichcote a key that fits every door of life, and the truth which it\nexpresses is for him the basal truth of religion, as the following\nAphorisms will sufficiently illustrate:\n\n\"Were it not for light we should not know we had such a sense as sight:\nWere it not for God we should not know the Powers of our souls which have\nan appropriation to God.\"[30]\n\n\"God's image is in us and we belong to Him.\"[31]\n\n\"There is a capacity in man's soul, larger than can be answered by\nanything of his own, or of any fellow-creature.\"[32]\n\n\"There is nothing so intrinsically rational as Religion is.\"[33]\n\n\"The Truths of God are connatural to the soul of man, and the soul of man\nmakes no more resistance to them than the air does to light.\"[34]\n\n\"Religion makes us live like men.\"[35]\n\n\"We worship God best when we resemble Him most.\"[36]\n\n\"Religion is intelligible, rational and accountable: It is not our burden\nbut our privilege.\"[37]\n\nSomething is always wrong, he thinks, if Religion becomes a burden: \"It\nis imperfection in Religion to _drudge_ in it, and every man drudges in\nReligion if he takes it up as a task and carries it as a burden.\"[38]\nThe moment we follow \"the divine frame and temper\" of our inmost nature\nwe find our freedom, our health, our power, and our joy; as one of the\nAphorisms puts it: {298} \"When we make nearer approaches to God, we have\nmore use of ourselves.\"[39]\n\nThis view is beautifully expressed in Whichcote's Prayer printed at the\nend of the _Aphorisms_: \"Most Blessed God, the Creator and Governor of\nthe World; the only true God, and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.  We\nthy Creatures were made to seek and find, to know and reverence, to serve\nand obey, to honour and glorify, to imitate and enjoy Thee; who art the\nOriginal of our Beings, and the Centre of our Rest.  Our Reasonable\nNature hath a peculiar Reservation for Thee; and our Happiness consists\nin our Assimilation to, and Employment about, Thee.  The nearer we\napproach unto Thee, the more free we are from Error, Sin, and Misery; and\nthe farther off we are from Thee, the farther off we are from Truth,\nHoliness, and Felicity.  Without Thee, we are sure of nothing; we are not\nsure of ourselves: but through Thee, there is Self-Enjoyment in the mind,\nwhen there is nothing but Confusion, and no Enjoyment of the World.\"\n\nReligion is thus thought of as the normal way of life, as the true\nfulfilment of human nature and as complete inward health.  \"Holiness,\" he\nsays, \"is our right constitution and temper, our inward health and\nstrength.\"[40]  Sin and selfishness carry a man below the noble Creation\nwhich God made in him, and Religion is the return to the true nature and\ncapacity of God's Creation in man: \"The Gospel, inwardly received, dyes\nand colours the soul, settles the Temper and Constitution of it and is\nrestorative of our Nature. . . .  It is the restitution of us to the\nstate of our Creation, to the use of our Principles, to our healthful\nConstitution and to Acts that are connatural to us.\"[41]\n\nAs soon as man returns to \"his own healthful Constitution\" and to \"the\nstate of his Creation,\" he finds that Religion has its evidence and\nassurance in itself.  God made man for moral truths, \"before He declared\n{299} them on Sinai,\" or \"writ them in the Bible,\"[42] and so soon as the\nsoul comes into \"conformity to its original,\"[43] that is \"into\nconformity to God according to its inward measure and capacity,\"[44] and\nlives a kind of life that is \"self-same with its own Reason,\"[45] the\nDivine Life manifests itself in that man and kindles his spirit into a\nblazing candle of the Lord.  Those who are spiritual \"find and feel\nwithin themselves Divine Suggestions, Motions and Inspirations; . . . a\nlight comes into the Mind, a still Voice.\"[46]\n\nThis direct and inward revelation is, however, for Whichcote never \"a\nrevelation of new matter,\" never a way to the discovery of truths of a\nprivate nature.  The revelations which the guidance of the Divine Spirit\nbreathes forth within our souls are always truths of universal\nsignificance, truths that are already implicitly revealed in the Bible,\ntruths that carry their own self-evidence to any rational mind.  But\nthese revelations, these discoveries of what God means and what life may\nbecome, are possible only to those who prepare themselves for inward\nconverse and who centre down to the deeper Roots of their being: \"Unless\na man takes himself sometimes out of the world, by retirement and\nself-reflection, he will be in danger of losing _himself_ in the\nworld.\"[47]  Where God is not discovered, something is always at fault\nwith man.  \"As soon as he is abstracted from the noise of the world,\nwithdrawn from the call of the Body, having the doors of the senses shut,\nthe Divine Life readily enters and reveals Itself to the inward Eye that\nis prepared for it.\"[48]  \"Things that are connatural in the way of\nReligion,\" he once said, \"the Illapses and Breakings in of God upon us,\nrequire a mind that is not subject to Passion but is in a serene and\nquiet Posture, where there is no tumult of Imagination. . . .  There is\nno genuine and proper effect of Religion where the Mind is not composed,\nsedate and calm.\"[49]\n\n{300}\n\nThere is no tendency in Whichcote to undervalue Scripture.  Inward\nrevelations are for him not a substitute for the Bible nor an appendix to\nit.  Through the Divine Light in the soul and through Scripture, Divine\ncommunications are imparted to men.  These he calls respectively \"truth\nof first inscription\" and \"truth of after-revelation,\"[50] and they no\nmore conflict than two luminaries in the physical world conflict.\n\"Morals,\" he says, \"are inforced by Scripture, but they were before\nScripture: they were according to the nature of God,\"[51] and, as he\nalways claims, according to the deiform nature in man's reason.[52]  As\nsoon as a person interprets the Light within him--the candle of the Lord\nin his own heart--by the Light of revelation his inward illumination\nbecomes clearer; and contrariwise, as soon as one brings an enlightened\nspirit to the Bible its message becomes clarified--\"the Spirit within\nleads to a right apprehension of those things which God hath\ndeclared.\"[53]  But Truth is always vastly more than \"Notions,\" or\nconceptual formulation of doctrine.  \"Religion,\" as he says in his\nwisdom-proverbs, \"is not a System of Doctrine, an observance of Modes or\na Form of Words\"--it is \"a frame and temper of mind; it shows itself in a\nLife and Action conformable to the Divine Will\"; it is \"our resemblance\nto God.\"[54]  Bare knowledge does not sanctify any man; \"Men of holy\nHearts and Lives best understand holy Doctrines.\"[55]  We always deceive\nourselves if we do not get beyond even such high-sounding words as\nconversion, regeneration, divine illumination, and mortification; if we\ndo not get beyond names and notions of every sort, into a real holiness\nof life that is a conformity of nature to our original.  His most\nimportant passage on this point is one which is found in his Sermon on\nthe text: \"Of this man's seed hath God, according to His promise, raised\nup unto {301} Israel a Saviour, Jesus\" (Acts xiii. 23).  \"Religion,\" he\nsays in this passage, \"is not satisfied in Notions; but doth, in deed and\nin reality, come to nothing unless it be in us not only matter of\nKnowledge and Speculation, but doth establish in us a Frame and Temper of\nMind and is productive of a holy and vertuous Life.  Therefore let these\nthings take effect in us; in our Spirituality and Heavenly-mindedness; in\nour Conformity to the Divine Nature and _Nativity from above_.  For\nwhoever professes that he believes the Truth of these things and wants\nthe Operation of them upon his Spirit and Life doth, in fact, make void\nand frustrate what he doth declare as his Belief.  He doth receive the\nGrace of God in vain unless this Principle and Belief doth descend in his\nHeart and establish a good Frame and Temper of Mind and govern in all\nActions of his Life and Conversation.\"[56]  This translation of Light and\nTruth and Insight into the flesh and blood of action is a necessary law\nof the spiritual life: \"Good men spiritualize their bodies; bad men\nincarnate their souls\";[57] or, as he expresses it in one of his Sermons:\n\"To be [spiritually] well and unactive do not consist together.  No man\nis well without action.\"[58]\n\nReligion is, thus, with him always a dynamic principle of Life, working\nitself out in the frame and temper of the man and producing its\ncharacteristic effects in his actions.  It does not operate \"like a charm\nor spell\"--it operates only as a vital principle[59] and we become\neternally the self which we ourselves form.  \"We naturalize ourselves,\"\nto use his striking phrase, \"to the employment of eternity.\"[60]  We are\nlost, not by Adam's sin, but by our own; and we are saved, not by\nChrist's historical death, but by our own obedience to the law of the\nSpirit of Life revealed in Him and by our own death to sin;[61] and the\nbeginning of Heaven is one with the beginning of conformity to the will\nof God and to our nativity from above.  \"Heaven is a temper of spirit,\nbefore it is a place.\"[62] {302} There is a Heaven this side of Heaven\nand there is as certainly a Hell this side of Hell.  The most impressive\nexpression of this truth is given in one of his Sermons: \"All misery\narises out of _ourselves_.  It is a most gross mistake, and men are of\ndull and stupid spirits who think that the state which we call Hell is an\nincommodious place only; and that God by His sovereignty throws men\ntherein.  Hell ariseth out of a man's self.  And Hell's fewel is the\nguilt of a man's conscience.  It is impossible that any should be so\nmiserable as Hell makes a man and as there a man is miserable by his own\ncondemning of himself: And on the other side, when they think that Heaven\narises from any place, or any nearness to God or Angels, that is not\nprincipally so; but Heaven lies in a refined Temper, in an inward\nReconciliation to the Nature of God.  So that both Hell and Heaven have\ntheir Foundation within Men.\"[63]  The evil and punishment which follow\nsin are \"consequential\" and inseparable from sin, and so, too, eternal\nlife is nothing but spiritual life fulfilling itself in ways that are\nconsequential and necessary in the deepest nature of things: \"That which\nis our best employment here will be our only employment in eternity.\"[64]\n\nThe good old Puritan, Tuckney, suspected that Whichcote was promulgating\na type of Christianity which could dispense with ordinances--\"as though\nin this life wee may be above ordinances,\"--and it must be confessed that\nthere was some ground for this suspicion.  He was no \"enthusiast\" and he\nin no way shared the radical anti-sacramentarian spirit of the small\nsects of the Commonwealth, but it belonged to the very essence of this\ntype of religion, as we have seen in every varied instance of it, to hold\nlightly to externals.  \"The Spirit,\" as Whichcote once said, \"makes men\nconsider the Inwards of things,\"[65] and almost of necessity the grasp\nslackens on outward {303} forms, as the vision focusses more intently\nupon inward and eternal realities.  It is one of his foundation\nprinciples that \"we worship God best when we resemble Him most,\"[66] and\nif that is true, then the whole energy of one's being should concentrate\nupon the cultivation of \"the deiform nature,\" \"the nativity from Above.\"\nThe real matters of religion, as he keeps insisting, are matters of life\nand inner being, the formation of disposition and the right set of will.\nBut these vital things have been notoriously slighted, and \"men's zeal is\nemployed in usages, modes and rites of parties\"; in matters that are\ndivisive and controversial rather than in \"things that are lovely in the\neyes of all who have the Principles of Reason for their rule.\"[67]  The\ngreat differences in religion have never been over necessary and\nindispensable Truth; on the contrary the disturbing differences have\nalways been and still are \"either over Points of curious and nice\nSpeculation, or about arbitrary modes of worship.\"[68]  Just as fast as\nmen see that religion is a way to fullness of life, a method of attaining\nlikeness to God, and just as soon as they realize that God can be truly\nworshipped only by acts and attitudes that are moral and spiritual,\n_i.e._ acts and attitudes that attach to the deliberate consent of the\ninner spirit, Whichcote thinks that \"rites and types and ceremonies,\nwhich are all veils,\" will drop away and religion will become one with a\nrich and intelligent life.[69]\n\nWe can well understand how this presentation of Christianity as \"a\nculture and discipline of the whole man--an education and consecration of\nall his higher activities\"[70]--would seem, to those accustomed to\ndualistic theologies, \"clowdie and obscure.\"  It was, however, \"no newe\npersuasion.\"  In all essential particulars it is four-square with the\ntype of religion with which the spiritual Reformers of Germany and\nHolland had for more than a century made the world acquainted.  But,\n{304} in the words of the Epistle to the Hebrews, somewhat adapted: \"all\nthese, having had the witness borne to them through their faith, received\nnot the promise in full, God having provided some better, _i.e._ fuller,\nthing, that they should not be made complete, apart from those who\nsucceeded them and fulfilled their hopes.\"\n\n\n\n[1] This interesting phrase occurs in _A Brief Account of the New Sect of\nLatitude-Men_, by S. P. (probably Simon Patrick), 1662.\n\n[2] S. P. in his _Sect of Latitude-Men_ says: \"A Latitude-Man is an image\nof Clouts [a man of straw] that men set up to encounter with, for want of\na real enemy; it is a convenient name to reproach a man that you owe a\nspite to.\"\n\n[3] Letters of Tuckney and Whichcote in the Appendix to Whichcote's\n_Aphorisms_ (London, 1753), p. 2.\n\n[4] _Aphorisms_, Appendix, p. 53.\n\n[5] Culverwel, _Elegant Discourses_ (1654), p. 6.\n\n[6] Burnet, _History of His Own Times_ (London, 1850), p. 127.\n\n[7] We are dependent, for the few facts which we possess concerning\nWhichcote's life, on the Sketch of him written by Dr. Samuel Salter, as a\nPreface to his edition of Whichcote's _Aphorisms_, published in 1753.\n\n[8] _Select Sermons_ (1698), p. 30.\n\n[9] Salter's Preface, pp. xxii-xxiii.\n\n[10] _Ibid._ p. xx.\n\n[11] Appendix to _Aphorisms_ (1753), p. 2.\n\n[12] Ibid. p. 4.\n\n[13] Ibid. p. 7.\n\n[14] Ibid. pp. 8 and 13.\n\n[15] Ibid. pp. 13 and 14.\n\n[16] Appendix to _Aphorisms_, pp. 37-38.\n\n[17] _Ibid._ p. 27.\n\n[18] Appendix to _Aphorisms_, pp. 53-54.\n\n[19] _Ibid._ p. 57.\n\n[20] _Ibid._ p. 60.\n\n[21] Appendix to _Aphorisms_, p. 125.\n\n[22] _Ibid._ p. 127.\n\n[23] _Ibid._ pp. 133-134.\n\n[24] _Select Sermons_ (1698), p. 149.\n\n[25] _Ibid._ pp. 131-133.\n\n[26] _Ibid._ p. 88.\n\n[27] _Ibid._ p. 109.\n\n[28] _Ibid._ p. 74.\n\n[29] Proverbs xx. 27.\n\n[30] _Aphorism_ 861.\n\n[31] _Aphorism_ 934.\n\n[32] _Aphorism_ 847.\n\n[33] _Aphorism_ 457.\n\n[34] _Aphorism_ 444.\n\n[35] _Aphorism_ 87.\n\n[36] _Aphorism_ 248.\n\n[37] _Aphorism_ 220.\n\n[38] _Several Discourses_ (1707), iv. p. 259.\n\n[39] _Aphorism_ 709.\n\n[40] _Several Discourses_, iv. p. 192.\n\n[41] _Select Sermons_, pp. 55 and 62\n\n[42] _Select Sermons_, p. 7.\n\n[43] _Discourses_, iv. p. 191.\n\n[44] _Ibid._ p. 171.\n\n[45] _Ibid._ p. 259.\n\n[46] _Select Sermons_, p. in\n\n[47] _Aphorism_ 302.\n\n[48] Quoted almost literally from _Select Sermons_, p. 72.\n\n[49] _Ibid._ pp. 32-33.\n\n[50] _Select Sermons_, p. 6.  He also says in Aphorism No. 109, \"God hath\nset up two Lights to enlighten us in our Way: the Light of Reason, which\nis the Light of His Creation; and the Light of Scripture which is\nAfter-Revelation from Him.\"\n\n[51] _Aphorism_ 587.\n\n[52] See _Several Discourses_, iv. p. 173.\n\n[53] _Ibid._ ii. p. 275.\n\n[54] _Aphorisms_ 1127, 853, and 1028.\n\n[55] _Select Sermons_, p. 79; and _Aphorism_ 285.\n\n[56] _Select Sermons_, p. 350.\n\n[57] _Aphorism_ 367.\n\n[58] _Select Sermons_, p. 71.\n\n[59] _Aphorisms_ 243 and 625.\n\n[60] _Aphorism_ 290.\n\n[61] _Aphorisms_ 525, 612.\n\n[62] _Aphorism_ 464.\n\n[63] _Select Sermons_, p. 86.  This will be recognized as in perfect\nparallelism with Jacob Boehme's teaching, and the parallel is even more\nstriking in the passage where Whichcote says that \"Religion must inform\nthe Judgment with Truth and reform the Heart and Life by the _Tincture_\nof it.\" (_Select Sermons_, p. 157).\n\n[64] _Aphorism_ 51.\n\n[65] _Select Sermons_, p. 42.\n\n[66] _Aphorism_ 248.\n\n[67] _Select Sermons_, p. 153.\n\n[68] _Ibid._ p. 21.\n\n[69] _Several Discourses_, ii. p. 329.\n\n[70] John Tulloch's _Rational Theology in the Seventeenth Century_, ii.\np. 115.\n\n\n\n\n{305}\n\nCHAPTER XVI\n\nJOHN SMITH, PLATONIST--\"AN INTERPRETER OF THE SPIRIT\"[1]\n\nPrincipal Tulloch, in his admirable study of the Cambridge Platonists,\ndeclares that John Smith was \"the richest and most beautiful mind and\ncertainly by far the best writer of them all.\"[2]\n\nThere can be no doubt, in the thought of any one who has come into\nclose contact with him, of the richness and beauty of his spirit.  He\nleaves the impression, even after the lapse of more than two hundred\nand fifty years, of having been a saint of a rare type.  Those who were\nnearest to him in fellowship called him \"a good man,\" \"a Godlike man,\"\n\"a servant and friend of God,\" \"a serious practicer of the Sermon on\nthe Mount\"; and we who know him only afar off and at second hand feel\nsure nevertheless that these lofty words were rightly given to him.\nHis scholarship was wide--he had \"a vastness of learning,\" as Patrick\nsays; but his main contribution was not to philosophy nor to theology,\nit consisted rather of an exhibition of religion wrought out in the\nattractive form of a beautiful spiritual life: \"He was an Exemplar of\ntrue Christian Vertue of so poized and even a life that by his Wisdom\nand Conscience one might live almost at a venture, walking blindfold\nthrough the world.\"[3]\n\nThe details of his life are very meagre.  We are in the {306} main\ndependent on the literary portraits of him drawn by two of his\naffectionate friends--John Worthington who edited his Discourses, and\nSimon Patrick who delivered the remarkable sermon on the occasion of\nhis funeral.[4]  From these sources we learn that John Smith was born\nat Achurch near Oundle about the year 1618, \"of parents who had long\nbeen childless and were grown aged.\"  It appears incidentally that his\nparents were poor, and that Benjamin Whichcote, who was Smith's college\nTutor, made \"provision for his support and maintenance\" in his early\nstudent days.[5]  He entered Emmanuel College in 1636, and here he came\nunder the profound religious and intellectual influence of Whichcote,\nfor whom \"he did ever express a great and singular regard.\"  He became\na Master of Arts in 1644, and that same year was elected Fellow of\nQueens' College.  It was about this time that Whichcote returned to\nCambridge, \"spreading and propagating a nobler, freer and more generous\nsett of opinions,\" which \"the young Masters of Arts soon cordially\nembraced.\"  Among those who formed this group of awakened and kindled\nstudents Smith was an enthusiastic member, and he himself soon became a\npowerful exponent in the Chapel of Queens' College of a similar\nmessage, which, a contemporary writer says, \"contributed to raise new\nthoughts and a sublime style in the members of the University.\"  He was\nsmitten, while still young, with a painful lingering illness, which he\nbore \"without murmuring or complaining,\" \"resting quietly satisfied in\nthe Infinite, Unbounded Goodness and Tenderness of his Father,\" hoping\nonly that he might \"learn that for which God sent the suffering,\"[6]\nand he died August 7, 1652, \"after God had lent him to the world for\nabout five and thirty years.\"[7] \"I was desirous,\" his friend Patrick\nsays at the opening of his funeral sermon, \"that I might have stai'd\nthe wheels of that Triumphant Chariot wherein he seemed to be carried;\nthat we might have {307} kept him a little longer in this world, till\nby his holy breathing into our souls, and the Grace of God, we had been\nmade meet to have some share in that inheritance of the saints in\nlight\"; but now, he adds, \"we are orphans, left without a father.\"[8]\nPatrick adapts to his own departed teacher the beautiful words which\nGregory Thaumaturgus used of his great instructor, Origen: \"He hath\nentangled and bound up my soul in such fetters of love, he hath so tyed\nand knit me to him, that if I would be disengaged, I cannot quit\nmyself.  No, though I depart out of the world, our love cannot die, for\nI love him even as my own soul, and so my affection must remain\nforever.\"[9]  The whole sermon throbs with intense love, and while it\nis somewhat overweighted with quotations and learned allusions, it yet\nexpresses in an impressive way the sincere affection of a disciple for\na noble master who has \"begot another shape in his scholar and has made\nanother man of him.\"[10]  \"Such men,\" he says, \"God hath alwaies in the\nworld, men of greater height and stature than others, whom He sets up\nas torches on an hill to give light to all the regions round\nabout.\"[11]  Such men \"are the guard and defense of the towns where\nthey reside, yea of the country whereof they are members; they are the\nkeepers and life-guards of the world; the walls and bulwarks of the\nNation,\"[12] and when they leave the world everybody soon feels that a\nglory has departed--\"when Elijah goes away you shall have fifty men go\nthree days to seek him!\"[13]\n\nThis disciple, who declared that whatever \"heavenly life\" there was in\nhimself had been \"hatched\" by the fostering care, the nurturing love\nand the brave conduct of his teacher, has left a few very clear traits\nfor the creation of a true portrait of this saintly interpreter of the\nSpirit: He was a Fountain running over, Worthington says, \"an ever\nbountifull and bubbling Fountain.\"[14]  Love was bubbling and springing\nup in his soul and flowing out to all.  He would have emptied his soul\ninto others.  He {308} was dipped into Justice as it were over head and\nears; he had not a slight tincture but was dyed and coloured quite\nthrough with it.  He cared only for those substantial and solid things\nof a Divine and Immortal Nature, which he might carry out of the world\nwith him.  He was a living library, a walking study, a whole college in\nhimself, that carried his learning about with him; a man of great\nindustry, indefatigable pains, and herculean labours.  His learning was\nso concocted that it lay not in notions in his head, but was wrought\nout and formed in his very soul so that a man came away always better\nafter converse with him.  His faith did not busy itself about fine\nnotions, subtilties, and curiosities, but it was firmly set and fixed\nin an experience of the mercy and goodness of God, seen in Jesus\nChrist.  He lived in a continuous enjoyment of God and perpetually drew\nnearer to the Centre of his soul's rest and always stayed God's time of\nadvancement.  His spirit was absorbed in the business and employment of\nbecoming perfect in his art and profession--which was the art _of being\na good man_.[15]  The devoted scholar's highest wish, as he closes his\nglowing account of his beloved master, who \"enshrined so much Divinity\nthat everything about him had a kind of sacredness,\" was that those who\nhad enjoyed his presence and inspiration and had formed their lives\nunder his instruction might \"so express his life\" in theirs, that men\nwould say as they saw these disciples of his, \"There walks at least a\nshadow of Mr. Smith!\"[16]\n\nIt would be difficult to find any one, in the long list of those who\nhave interpreted Christianity, who has been more insistent than was\nJohn Smith that religion is the normal function of the soul and the\nsurest evidence of its health and sanity.  But religion of this normal\nand spiritual type must be sharply differentiated both from\nsuperstition and from legalistic religion.  The mark of superstition in\nhis mind is the apprehension of God as capricious, a hard Master, and\nof such a character that his {309} favour can be gained only by servile\nflattery or bribery or by spells of magic.  Superstition is \"a brat of\ndarkness\" born in a heart of fear and consternation.  It produces\ninvariably \"a forced and jejune devotion\"; it makes \"forms of worship\nwhich are grievous and burdensome\" to the life; it chills or destroys\nall free and joyous converse with God; it kills out love and inward\npeace, and instead of inspiring, heightening, and purifying man's soul,\nit bends all its energies in the vain attempt to alter the capricious\nattitude of the superior Being who scares and terrifies men.  It is,\nhowever, a very subtle spirit and one hard to eradicate.  It invades\nour religion even when we are least aware of it: \"it enters into our\nchambers, creeps into our clothes, twines about our secret devotions,\nand actuates our forms of belief and orthodox opinions.\"[17]\n\nLegalistic religion, or the \"covenant of works,\" is much of a piece\nwith superstition.  It, again, is always a burden to be borne.  Its\nmark is \"drudgery and servility.\"  It is a \"lean and lifeless form of\nexternal performances.\"  Its \"law\" is always something outside the soul\nitself.  It is a way of acquiring \"merit,\" of getting reckoned among\n\"heaven's darlings,\" but it is not a way of life or expansion or power\nor joy.[18]\n\nThis \"dead\" legalistic form of religion is, however, not merely a thing\nof antiquity, of some early \"dispensation\" in the long stretch of years\ncalled \"B.C.\"  Like superstition, legalistic religion also has \"crept\ninto our clothes\" and \"twined about our secret devotions.\"  The\n\"gospel\" can be made, and has often enough been made, \"as legal as ever\nthe religion of the Jews was.\"  The gospel becomes legal, in Smith's\nsense, wherever it is treated \"as something onely without us,\" \"as a\nmeer historical story or account,\" or as a collection of book-facts, or\n\"as _credenda_ propounded for us to believe,\" or when we attempt to\n\"make Christ's righteousness serve onely as our outward\n_covering_.\"[19]  \"Some of our {310} _Dogmata_,\" he thinks, \"and\nNotions of Justification puff us up in far higher and goodlier conceits\nof ourselves than God hath of us; and we _profanely_ make the unspotted\nrighteousness of Christ serve only as a _covering_ to wrap up our foul\ndeformities and filthy vices in.\"[20] This tendency, wherever it\nappears, is but legal religion.  Men adopt it because it does not\n\"pinch their sins.\"  It gives them a \"sluggish and drowsie Belief, a\nlazy Lethargy to hugg their supposed acceptation with God\"; it enables\nthem \"to grow big and swell with a mighty bulk with airy fancies and\npresumptions of being in favour with Heaven,\" and it fans up \"a\npertinacious Imagination that their Names are enrolled in the Book of\nLife, or crossed off in the Debt-Book of Heaven.\"  But it is all \"a\nmeer Conceit or Opinion,\" for such men are \"never the better in reality\nin themselves and God judges all things as they are.\"  \"While men\ncontinue in their wickedness, they do but vainly dream of a device to\ntie the hands of Almighty Vengeance.\"[21]\n\nTrue religion, on the other hand, is absolutely another thing, sundered\nby the width of the sky from either superstition or legalistic\nreligion.  It is a reception and assimilation of the Life of God within\nthe soul of man which is predisposed by its fundamental nature to the\ninflux and formative influence of the Spirit of God, who is the\nenvironing Life and inner atmosphere of all human spirits: \"_Spiritual\nLife comes from God's breath within us and from the formation of Christ\nwithin the soul_.\"[22]\n\nLike all of his kind, Smith begins with what to him is an axiomatic\nfact, that the human soul has a \"royal pedigree and noble extraction,\"\nthat, \"as the best philosophers have alwaies taught, we must enquire\nfor God within ourselves,\" that \"Principles of Divine Truth have been\nengraven on man's Heart by the finger of God,\" that we can find \"a\nclear impression of some Eternal Nature and Perfect Being stamped upon\nour own souls,\" that there are \"Radical Principles of Divine Knowledge\"\n{311} and \"Seeds of Divine Nature\" hidden within us and that a Divine\nSpirit blows and breathes upon men's hearts, assisting the soul to\nparticipate in the Life of God.[23]  In one of his bold sayings this\nposition is summed up as follows: \"Religion is a Heaven-born thing, the\nSeed of God in the spirits of men, whereby they are formed to a\nsimilitude and likeness of Himself.  A true Christian is every way of a\nmost noble extraction, of an heavenly and divine pedigree.\"[24]\n\nHe finds the mark of man's excelling dignity in the inexhaustible depth\nof his nature and in his noble discontent with every finite and mutable\nthing.  The soul of man is \"too big for earthly designs and interests.\"\nThere is forever a restless appetite within man for some infinite Good\nwithout which he can never be satisfied.  Everything which he attains\nor achieves still leaves him in \"pinching penury,\" unsatiated with\n\"the thin and spare diet which he finds in his finite home.\"  His\nsoul, \"like the daughters of the Horseleach is always crying: 'Give,\ngive.'\"  No happiness worth having ever arises, nor through a whole\neternity could arise, for any soul sequestered like a hermit in\nthe narrow confines of its own private cell, sundered from \"the\nFountain-Goodness,\" for which it was created.  The immortal Principle\nwithin forever drives it to seek its Original, and it lives only when\nit \"lives above itself,\" and follows \"its own proper motion upward.\"[25]\n\nThe real Gospel in contrast to the \"legal gospel,\" is \"the formation of\na Christlike Nature in a man's soul by the mighty power of the Divine\nSpirit.\"[26]  It is no new set of opinions; no body of Notions about\nTruth; \"no system of saving Divinity, cast in a Pedagogical mould\"; it\nis, from its Alpha to its Omega, Spirit and Life, or, to put it in\nSmith's own words, it is \"a vital or energetical Spirit or Power of\nRighteousness,\" \"a Principle of Life working in man's spirit,\" \"a\nquickening ministration,\" \"a Seed of God,\" \"a vital Influx, spreading\nthrough all {312} the powers of the soul and bringing it into a Divine\nLife.\"[27]  There are many close imitations of this real Gospel which\non the outside look exactly like it, but they only assume \"the garish\ndress and attire of religion,\" they put on \"the specious and\nseemingly-spiritual Forms\" without the inward Life and Power which are\nalways the mark of true religion.  These \"mimical Christians\" reform\ntheir looks, instruct their tongues, take up the fitting set of duties\nand system of opinions, underprop their religion with sacred\nperformances; \"chameleon-like, they even turn their insides to whatever\nhue and colour\" is demanded of religion; they \"furnish this domestick\nScene of theirs with any kind of matter which the history of religion\naffords them\"--only, however they \"cunningly fashion out their religion\nby Book-skill,\" they cannot get \"the true and living thing,\" which\ncreates a new spirit and produces a new inward joy: \"True Religion is\nno piece of artifice; it is no boiling up of our Imaginative powers nor\nthe glowing heats of Passion; though these are too often mistaken for\nit, when in our jugglings in Religion we cast a mist before our eyes.\nBut it is a new Nature informing the souls of Men; it is a Godlike\nframe of Spirit, discovering it self most of all in serene and clear\nMinds, in deep Humility, Meekness, Self-denial, Universal Love of God\nand all true Goodness, without Partiality and without Hypocrisie;\nwhereby we are taught to know God, and knowing Him to love Him and\nconform ourselves as much as may be to all that Perfection which shines\nforth in Him.\"[28]\n\nHeaven and Hell for John Smith, as for Boehme and for Whichcote, \"have\ntheir foundation laid in Men's own souls.\"[29]  They are rather\nsomething within us than something without us.  Sin and hell have the\nsame origin, \"the same lineage and descent.\"  \"The Devil is not only\nthe name of one particular thing, but a _nature_.  He is not so much a\nparticular Being designed to torture wicked men in the world to come as\na hellish and diabolical {313} nature seated in the minds of men. . . .\nCould the Devil change his foul and impure nature, he would neither be\na Devil nor miserable. . . .  All Sin and Wickedness in man's spirit\nhath the Central force and energy of Hell in it, and is perpetually\npressing down towards it as towards its own place.  There needs no\nfatal necessity or Astral influences to tumble wicked men down forcibly\ninto Hell: No, Sin itself, hastened by the mighty weight of its own\nnature, carries them down thither with the most swift and headlong\nmotion.\"[30]  \"Would wicked men dwell a little more at home, and\n_descend into the bottom of their own Hearts_ they would soon find Hell\nopening her mouth wide upon them, and those secret fires of inward fury\nand displeasure breaking out upon them.\"[31]  So, too, the Kingdom of\nHeaven is within.  It lies not so much in external things, golden\nstreets and crowns, as in the quality and disposition of a man's mind.\nThe enjoying of God consists not so much in a change of place as in\nparticipation in the nature of God and in assimilation to God.  Nothing\ncan stand firm and sure, nothing can have eternal establishment and\nabiding permanence that \"hath not the everlasting arms of true Goodness\nunder it.\"[32]\n\nIn a very fine passage, in the noble discourse on \"True Religion,\"\nSmith says: \"I wish there be not among some such a light and poor\nesteem of Heaven, as makes them more to seek after _Assurance of Heaven\nonely in the Idea of it as a thing to come than after Heaven it self_;\nwhich indeed we can never be well assured of untill we find it rising\nup within ourselves and glorifying our own souls.  When true Assurance\ncomes, Heaven it self will appear upon the Horizon of our souls, like a\nmorning light chasing away all our dark and gloomy doublings before it.\nWe shall not then need to light up our Candles to seek for it in\ncorners; no, it will display its own lustre and brightness so before us\nthat we may see it in its own light, and our souls the true possessours\nof it.\"  \"Should a man hear a Voice from Heaven or see a Vision from\nthe Almighty to testifie unto him the Love of God towards him [and the\n{314} Assurance of his Salvation]; yet methinks it were more desirable\nto find a Revelation of all _from within_, arising up from the Bottome\nand centre of a man's own soul, in the Reall and Internal impressions\nof a Godlike nature upon his own spirit; and thus to find the\nFoundation and Beginning of Heaven and Happiness within himself; it\nwere more desirable to see the crucifying of our own Will, the\nmortifying of the meer Animal life and to see a Divine life rising up\nin the room of it, as a sure Pledge and Inchoation of Immortality and\nHappiness, the very Essence of which consists in a perfect conformity\nand cheerful compliance of all the Powers of our Souls with the Will of\nGod.\"[33]\n\nThe consciousness of Immortality rises or falls with the moral and\nspiritual height of the soul.  Nothing makes men doubt or question the\nImmortality of their souls so much as their own \"base and earthly\nloves,\" and so, too, inward goodness \"breeds a sense of the Soul's\nImmortality\": \"Goodness and vertue make men know and love, believe and\ndelight in their Immortality.  When the soul is purged and enlightened\nby true sanctity it is more capable of those Divine irradiations\nwhereby it feels it self in conjunction with God.  It knows that\nAlmighty Love, by which it lives, is stronger than death.  It knows\nthat God will never forsake His own life which He has quickened in the\nsoul.  Those breathings and gaspings after an Eternal participation of\nHim are but the energy of His own breath within us.\"[34]\n\nSmith finds the world in which he lives a fair world, everywhere full\nof \"the Prints and Footsteps of God,\" the finite creatures of which are\n\"Glasses wherein God reflects His glory.\"  There are many \"golden links\nthat unite the world to God,\" and good men, \"conversing with this lower\nworld and viewing the invisible things of God in the things that are\nmade in the outward Creation, may many times find God secretly flowing\ninto their souls and leading them silently out of the Court of the\nTemple into the Holy Place.\"[35]\n\n{315}\n\nThe outward world is thus not something stubbornly foreign to the\nspirit; it is not the enemy's country, but every finite good and\neverything of beauty is \"a Blossom of the First Goodness, a Beam from\nthe Father of Lights.\"  The spiritual person discovers that the whole\ncreation is spiritual.  He learns to \"love all things in God and God in\nall things, and he sees that God is All in all, the Beginning and\nOriginal of Being, the Perfect Idea of their goodness and the end of\ntheir motion.\"  In the calming illumination of this clarified vision,\nthe good man, in whose soul religion has flowered, \"is no longer\nsolicitous whether this or that good thing be mine, or whether my\nperfections exceed the measure of this or that particular Creature, for\nwhatever good he beholds anywhere he enjoys and delights in as much as\nif it were his own, and whatever he beholds in himself he looks upon\nnot as his _property_ but _as a common good_; for all these Beams come\nfrom one and the same Fountain and Ocean of Light in whom he loves them\nall with an universal Love.  When his affections run along the stream\nof any created excellencies, whether his own or any one's else, yet\nthey stay not here but run on until they fall into the Ocean; they do\nnot settle into a fond love and admiration either of himself or any\nother's excellencies, but he owns them as so many Pure Effluxes and\nEmanations from God, and in any particular Being loves the Universal\nGoodness.  Thus a good man may walk up and down the world as in a\nGarden of Spices and suck a Divine Sweetness out of every flower.\nThere is a twofold meaning in every Creature: a Literal and Mystical; a\ngood man says of everything that his Senses offer to him: it speaks to\nhis lower part but it points out something above to his Mind and\nSpirit. . . .  True Religion never finds it self out of the Infinite\nSphere of Divinity and wherever it finds Beauty, Harmony, Goodness,\nLove, Ingenuity, Wisdom, Holiness, Justice, and the like, it is ready\nto say: _Here is God_.  Wheresoever any such Perfections shine out, an\nholy Mind climbs up by these Sunbeams and raises up it self to\nGod. . . .  A good man finds every place he {316} treads upon _Holy\nGround_; to him the world is God's Temple.\"[36]\n\nThe supreme instance of the revelation of the Universal through the\nparticular, of the invisible through the visible, the Divine through\nthe human, is seen in Christ.  It was precisely such an event as might\nhave been expected, for \"the Divine Bounty and Fulness has always been\nmanifesting Itself to the spirits of men.\"  Those who have lived by\ninward insight have perpetually found themselves \"hanging upon the arms\nof Immortal Goodness.\"  At length, in this One Life the Divine Goodness\nblossomed into perfect flower and revealed its Nature to men.  In Him\ndivinity and humanity are absolutely united in one Person.  In Christ\nwe have a clear manifestation of God and in Him, too, \"we may see with\nopen face what human nature can attain to.\"[37]  This stupendous event,\nhowever, was no \"gracious contrivance,\" no scheme to restore lapsed men\nin order that God might have \"a Quire of Souls to sing eternal\nHallelujahs to Him\"; it was just \"the overflowing fountain and efflux\nof Almighty Love bestowing itself upon men and crowning Itself by\ncommunicating Itself.\"[38]  The Christ who is thus divine Grace become\nvisible and vocal is also at the same time the irresistible attraction,\n\"strongly and forcibly moving the souls of men into a conjunction with\nDivine Goodness,\" which is what Smith always means by the great word,\n_Faith_.  It is something in the hearts of men which by experience\n\"feels the mighty insinuations of Divine Goodness\"; complies with it;\nperpetually rises into co-operation with it, and attains its true \"life\nand vivacity\" by partaking of it.[39]  Christ is thus the Node, or\nCentre, of both Grace and Faith.\n\nWith this apprehension of Faith as a vital thing--a new and living\nway--Smith thinks very lightly of \"notions\" and what he calls \"a\nknowledge of Divinity [Theology] which appears in systems and\nmodels.\"[40]  This is but a poor way, he thinks, to \"the Land of\nTruth.\" {317} \"It is but a thin and aiery knowledge that is got by meer\nspeculation.\"  \"This is but spider-like to spin a worthless web out of\none's own bowels.\"  \"Jejune and barren speculations may unfold the\nPlicatures of Truth's garment, but they cannot discover her lovely\nFace.\" \"To find Truth,\" he says in another figure, \"we must break\nthrough the outward shell of words and phrases which house it,\" and by\n_experience and practice_ discover the \"inward beauty, life and\nloveliness of Truth.\"[41]\n\nThis hard \"shell of words and phrases\" which must be broken before\nTruth is found, is one of Sebastian Franck's favourite sayings, and we\nfind Smith also repeating Franck's vivid accounts of the weakness of\nScripture when it is treated only as external history, or as words,\ntexts, and phrases.  \"Scripture,\" he says, in the exact words and\nfigures of the German Humanist, \"is a Sealed Book which the greatest\nSophist may be most acquainted with.  It is like the Pillar of fire and\ncloud that parted between the Israelites and Egyptians, giving a clear\nand comfortable light to all those that are under the manuduction and\nguidance thereof [_i.e._ those who have the inner experience] but being\nfull of darkness and obscurity to those that rebel against it.\"[42]\n\"The dead letter,\" he says, \"is a sandy foundation\" for religion,\nbecause it is never in books and writings but rather in the human soul\nthat men must seek for God.[43] Action and not words; life and not\nmotions; heart and not brain, hold the key to Truth: \"They cannot be\ngood at Theorie that are bad at Practice.\"[44]  \"Our Saviour,\" he says,\n\"would not draw Truth up into any System, nor would He lay it out into\nCanons or Articles of Faith, because He was not so careful to stock the\nworld with Opinions and Notions as to make it thrive with true piety,\nGodlike purity and spiritual understanding\"; and in a very happy\npassage, he reminds us that there are other ways of propagating\nreligion besides writing books: \"They are not alwaies the best Men who\nblot the most paper; Truth is not so {318} voluminous nor swells into\nsuch a mighty bulk as our Bookes doe.  Those minds are not alwaies the\nmost chaste that are the most parturient with learned Discourses.\"[45]\n\nI have, I believe, now given a true account of Smith's type of\nChristianity, It was no new message.  It was a re-expression of ideas\nand ideals that had already been often proclaimed to the dull ears of\nthe world.  He, however, is never a repeater of other men's ideas.\nWhat he offers is always as much his own as was the life-blood which\ncoursed through his heart.  He fed upon the literature which was\nkindred to his growing spirit, and his books helped him find the road\nwhich he was seeking; but he was nobly true to his own theory that the\nway of Life is discovered by spiritual experience rather than by\n\"verbal description,\" and this quiet, sincere scholar and prophet of\nthe soul found it thus.  He once said that \"Truth is content, when it\ncomes into the world, to wear our mantles, to learn our language and to\nconform itself as it were to our dress and fashions\";[46] that is to\nsay, prophets speak in their own dialect and use the modes of their own\nculture, but they are prophets through their own temporal experience of\nthat one eternal Reality which shines into their souls in its own\nLight.[47]\n\nWhat impressed his contemporary friends most was the beauty of his\nspirit, and that is what still most impresses the reader of his\nDiscourses.  He has succeeded in preserving some of the strong elixir\nof his life in the words which survive him, and we know him as a\nvaliant soldier in that great army of soldier-saints who have fought\nwith spiritual weapons.  \"This fight and contest,\" he himself has told\nus, \"with Sin and Satan is not to be known by the rattling of Chariots\nor the sound of an alarm: it is indeed alone transacted upon the inner\nstage of men's souls and spirits--but it never consists in a sluggish\nkind of doing nothing that so God might do all.\"[48]  A Life is always\nbattle, and the true Christian is always \"a Champion of God\" clad in\nthe armour of Light for the defeat of {319} darkness and the seed of\nSatan.  In this battle of Armageddon John Smith took a man's part, and\nhis affectionate disciple Simon Patrick was quite right in saying, as\nthe master passed away, \"My father, my father, The chariot of Israel\nand the horsemen thereof.\"\n\nThe other members of this impressive group of Cambridge Platonists,\nespecially Ralph Cudworth, Henry More, Nathaniel Culverwel and John\nNorris, might well be studied, and they would furnish some additional\naspects of religious thought, but the teachings of the two exponents\nwhom I have selected as representative of the school have brought the\ncentral ideas and the underlying spirit of this seventeenth century\nreligious movement sufficiently into view.  Their intimate connection\nwith the currents of thought which preceded them has also been made\nadequately clear.  This volume does not pretend to be exhaustive, and\nit cannot follow out all the interesting ramifications of the\ncomplicated historical development which I have been tracing.  I have\nbeen compelled to limit myself to the presentation of typical specimens\nand examples of this continuously advancing spiritual movement which\nfound one of its noblest figures in John Smith.\n\n\n\n[1] Simon Patrick uses this phrase in his funeral sermon on his friend\nJohn Smith.  _Select Discourses_ (1673), p. 472.\n\n[2] _Rational Theology_, ii. p. 122.\n\n[3] Patrick's Sermon, _Select Discourses_, p. 496.\n\n[4] Worthington's Sketch is given in the Preface to the Reader in\n_Select Discourses_, pp. iii-xxx, and Patrick's Sermon is given as an\nAppendix to the same volume, pp. 471-512.\n\n[5] Preface, p. vi.\n\n[6] Patrick, _op. cit._ p. 498.\n\n[7] Preface, p. xxviii.\n\n[8] Patrick, _op. cit._ pp. 471 and 472.\n\n[9] _Ibid._ p. 484.\n\n[10] _Ibid._ p. 477.\n\n[11] _Ibid._ p. 474.\n\n[12] _Ibid._ pp. 480-481.\n\n[13] _Ibid._ p. 486.\n\n[14] Preface, p. iii.\n\n[15] This portrait is made up entirely of passages gathered out of\nPatrick's Sermon, and but slightly altered.\n\n[16] _Op. cit._ p. 509.\n\n[17] \"A Short Discourse on Superstition,\" in _Select Discourses_, pp.\n24-36.\n\n[18] \"Discourse on Legal Righteousness, etc.,\" _ibid._ pp. 273-338.\n\n[19] Smith uses this phrase in precisely the same manner as Jacob\nBoehme.\n\n[20] _Select Discourses_, p. 316.\n\n[21] _Ibid._ pp. 319-321, quoted freely.\n\n[22] _Ibid._ p. 21, quoted freely.\n\n[23] _Select Discourses_, pp. 13, 14, 57, 61, and 118.\n\n[24] _Ibid._ p. 370.\n\n[25] _Ibid._ pp. 375, 393, 395, 403, 407-408.\n\n[26] _Ibid._ p. 311.\n\n[27] _Select Discourses_, pp. 303, 305, and 315.\n\n[29] _Ibid._ p. 364.  For Smith's view of mimical Christians see pp.\n359-364.\n\n[29] _Ibid._ p. 144.\n\n[30] _Select Discourses_, p. 452.\n\n[31] _Ibid._ p. 456.\n\n[32] _Ibid._ pp. 452 and 445.\n\n[33] _Select Discourses_, p. 416.\n\n[34] _Ibid._ pp. 97-98.  Quoted freely.\n\n[35] _Ibid._ pp. 419-420.\n\n[36] _Select Discourses_, pp. 421-423.\n\n[37] _Ibid._ pp. 332 and 336.\n\n[38] _Ibid._ p. 398.\n\n[39] _Ibid._ p. 325.\n\n[40] _Ibid._ p. 2.\n\n[41] _Select Discourses_, pp. 4, 7, and 8.\n\n[42] _Ibid._ p. 278.\n\n[43] _Ibid._ pp. 3 and 288.\n\n[44] _Ibid._ p. 12.\n\n[45] _Select Discourses_, p. 12.\n\n[46] _Ibid._ p. 165.\n\n[47] _Ibid._ p. 260.\n\n[48] _Ibid._ pp. 461 and 458.\n\n\n\n\n{320}\n\nCHAPTER XVII\n\nTHOMAS TRAHERNE AND THE SPIRITUAL POETS OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY\n\nI\n\nThe powerful religious upheaval in England which reached its\nculmination during the two middle decades of the seventeenth century,\nprofoundly stirred both the upper and lower intellectual strata of\nsociety.  It fused and organized men on the one hand, and carried them\nbeyond themselves; and on the other hand it broke up settled habits of\nthought, swept away many customs and practices which had become almost\nirresistible subconscious influences, and left those who were in any\nway morally and intellectually defective at the mercy of chance\ncurrents and eddies.  As a result there appeared a strange medley of\ntiny sects.  These groups, seething with enthusiasm, scattered pretty\nmuch over England, unorganized or loosely organized, generally gathered\nabout some influential psychopathic leader, were lumped together in the\npublic mind and named \"Ranters.\"[1]  They are by no means a negligible\nphenomenon of the period.  They reveal the back-wash of the spiritual\nmovement, which in the main went steadily onward.  They exhibit, in\ntheir loose and unmoralized freedom, the inherent dangers which attach\nto the proclamation of spiritual liberty, and they furnish a clear\nhistorical illustration of the truth that progress toward a religion\ngrounded upon the inner life of man can only be slowly and painfully\nachieved.\n\n{321}\n\nThe religious poets of this period, on the other hand, furnish clear\nevidence of the constructive, organizing and fusing power of these\nnewly dawning spiritual insights, as they worked upon the minds of\nhighly gifted and endowed persons.  Poets are not Reformers.  They do\nnot consider themselves \"commissioned\" to reconstruct old systems of\nthought, old forms of faith and old types of church-organization, or to\nre-interpret the Gospel, the way of salvation and the communion of\nsaints.  Their mission is a different one, though it is no less\nspiritual and, in the best sense of the word, no less practical.  The\npoets are always among the first to feel the direction of spiritual\ncurrents, and they are very sure voices of the deeper hopes and\naspirations of their epoch.  All the religious poets of this particular\nperiod reveal very clearly the influence of the ideas which were\ncentral in the teaching of the spiritual leaders whom we have been\nstudying.  The reader of Milton needs no argument to convince him of\nthe fact that, however far removed the great poet was in most points of\nview from the contemporary Quakers, he nevertheless insisted\nemphatically, as they did, on the illumination of the soul by a Light\nwithin; \"a celestial Light,\" he calls it in _Paradise Lost_, which\nshines inward and irradiates the mind through all her powers, and\nsupplies an inward sight of things invisible to sense[2]--a Light which\nsteadily increases as it is used by the obedient soul.[3]  The origin\nof this inward Light, according to Milton's thought, is the eternal\nWord of God, who is before all worlds and who is the source of all\nrevelation, whether inward or outward: the Spirit that prefers\n\n  Before all temples the upright heart and pure.[4]\n\n\nThe minor religious poets of the period had not, however, formed their\nintellectual outlook under the imperial sway of theological systems of\nthought in anything like {322} the degree that Milton had.  They\nreflect the freer and less rigidly formulated currents of thought.\n\"All divinity is love, or wonder,\" John Donne wrote in one of his\npoems.  No phrase could better express the intense religious life of\nthe group of spiritual poets in England who interpreted in beautiful,\noften immortal, form this religion of the spirit, this glowing\nconsciousness that the world and all its fulness is God's and that\neternity is set within the soul of man, who never is himself until he\nfinds his Life in God.\n\n  E'en like two little bank-dividing brooks,\n  That wash the pebbles with their wanton streams,\n  And having rang'd and search'd a thousand nooks,\n  Meet both at length in silver-breasted Thames,\n  Where in a greater current they conjoin:\n  So I my best beloved's am; so He is mine.\n\n  E'en so we met: and after long pursuit,\n  E'en so we joined; we both became entire:\n  No need for either to renew a suit,\n  For I was flax and He was flames of fire.\n  Our firm united souls did more than twine;\n  So I my best beloved's am; so He is mine.[5]\n\n\nWhatever these poets, Herbert, Vaughan, Traherne, Crashaw, Quarles, say\nof the soul and its fuller life, they say quite naturally in terms of\nlove and wonder.  Religion has become for them the flowering of the\nsoul; the flooding of the whole being with health and joy; the\nconsummation of life; and they tell of it as lovers tell of their\ndiscovery and their joy.\n\n  Oh mightie love! man is one world and hath\n      Another to attend him.[6]\n\n\nWe have here in these poets, as in the writings of Whichcote and Smith,\na type of religion which is primarily concerned with the liberation and\nwinning of the whole of life, a thing which, they all tell us, can be\ndone only in conscious parallelism with the set of eternal currents.\n\nThese minor prophets of seventeenth century English literature have\noften been treated as mystics, and there {323} is in all of them,\nexcept George Herbert, a rich strand of mystical religion, but their\nmysticism is only an element, a single aspect, of a very much wider and\ncompleter type of religion which includes all the strands that compose\nwhat I have been calling \"spiritual religion\"--an inner flooding of the\nlife with a consciousness of God, a rational apprehension of the soul's\ninherent relation to the Divine, and a transforming discovery of the\nmeaning of life through the revelation in Christ, which sets all one's\nbeing athrob with love and wonder.\n\n  Eternal God!  O thou that only art\n  The sacred fountain of eternal light,\n  And blessed loadstone of my better part,\n  O thou, my heart's desire, my soul's delight,\n  Reflect upon my soul and touch my heart,\n  And then my heart shall prize no good above thee;\n  And then my soul shall know thee; knowing, love thee.[7]\n\n\n\nII\n\nThomas Traherne is one of the best and most adequate representatives,\nin this literary group, of this type of religion.  He was profoundly\ninfluenced by the revival of Plato and Plotinus, and by the writings of\nthe religious Humanists and he had absorbed, consciously or\nunconsciously, the ideas and ideals which appear and reappear in the\nwidespread movement which I have been tracing.  He was a pure and noble\nsoul, a man of deep experience and fruitful meditation, the master of a\nrare and wonderful style, and we shall find in his writings a glowing\nappreciation and a luminous expression of this type of inner, spiritual\nreligion.\n\nHe was born about the year 1636, probably at Hereford, the son of a\npoor shoemaker, but of a notable and well-endowed family line.  He took\nno pains to inform the world of his outward history and we are left\nwith guesses as to most of the details of his earthly career, but he\nhas himself supplied us with an unusually full account of his {324}\ninward life during the early years of it.  \"Once I remember,\" he says,\n\"I think I was about four years old when I thus reasoned with myself,\nsitting in a little obscure room of my father's poor house: If there be\na God certainly He must be infinite in Goodness, and I was prompted to\nthis by a real whispering instinct of Nature.\"[8]  Whereupon the child\nwonders why, if God is so rich, he himself is so poor, possessed of \"so\nscanty and narrow a fortune, enjoying few and obscure comforts,\" but he\ntells us that as soon as he was old enough to discover the glory of the\nworld he was in, and old enough for his soul to have \"_sudden returns\ninto itself_,\" there was no more questioning about poverty and narrow\nfortunes.  All the wealth of God was his--\n\n  I nothing in the world did know\n        But 'twas divine.[9]\n\n\nAs nobody has better caught the infinite glory of being a child, and as\nnobody in literature has more successfully \"set the little child in the\nmidst,\" than has Traherne, it may be well to let him tell us here in\nhis splendid enthusiasm what it is to be a child and what the eyes of a\nchild can see.  He shall do it, first in his magnificent prose and then\nin his fine and simple verse.\n\n\"Certainly Adam in Paradise had not more sweet and curious\napprehensions of the world, than I when I was a child.  All appeared\nnew, and strange at first, inexpressibly rare and delightful and\nbeautiful.  I was a little stranger, which at my entrance into the\nworld was saluted and surrounded with innumerable joys.  My knowledge\nwas Divine. . . .  My very ignorance was advantageous.  I seemed as one\nbrought into the Estate of Innocence.  All things were spotless and\npure and glorious: yea, and infinitely mine, and joyful and precious.\nI knew not that there were any sins, or complaints or laws.  I dreamed\nnot of poverties, contentions or vices.  All tears {325} and quarrels\nwere hidden from mine eyes.  Everything was at rest, free and immortal.\nI knew nothing of sickness or death or rents or exaction, either for\ntribute or bread.  In the absence of these I was entertained like an\nAngel with the works of God in their splendour and glory, I saw all the\npeace of Eden; Heaven and Earth did sing my Creator's praises, and\ncould not make more melody to Adam, than to me.  All Time was Eternity,\nand a perpetual Sabbath.  Is it not strange, that an infant should be\nheir of the whole World, and see those mysteries which the books of the\nlearned never unfold?\n\n\"The corn was orient and immortal wheat, which never should be reaped,\nnor was ever sown.  I thought it had stood from everlasting to\neverlasting.  The dust and stones of the street were as precious as\ngold; the gates were at first the end of the world.  The green trees\nwhen I saw them first through one of the gates transported and ravished\nme, their sweetness and unusual beauty made my heart to leap, and\nalmost mad with ecstasy, they were such strange and wonderful things.\nThe Men!  O what venerable and reverend creatures did the aged seem!\nImmortal Cherubims!  And young men glittering and sparkling Angels, and\nmaids strange seraphic pieces of life and beauty!  Boys and girls\ntumbling in the street, and playing, were moving jewels.  I knew not\nthat they were born or should die.  But all things abided eternally as\nthey were in their proper places.  Eternity was manifest in the Light\nof the Day, and something infinite behind everything appeared; which\ntalked with my expectation and moved my desire.  The city seemed to\nstand in Eden, or to be built in Heaven.  The streets were mine, the\ntemple was mine, the people were mine, their clothes and gold and\nsilver were mine, as much as their sparkling eyes, fair skins and ruddy\nfaces.  The skies were mine, and so were the sun and moon and stars,\nand all the World was mine; and I the only spectator and enjoyer of it.\n. . .  So that with much ado I was corrupted, and made to learn the\ndirty devices of this world.  Which {326} now I unlearn, and become, as\nit were, a little child again that I may enter into the Kingdom of\nGod.\"[10]\n\n      How like an Angel came I down!\n      How bright are all things here!\n  When first among His works I did appear\n      O how their Glory did me crown!\n  The World resembled His _Eternity_\n      In which my soul did walk;\n  And everything that I did see\n      Did with me talk.[11]\n\n      Long time before\n  I in my mother's womb was born,\n  A God preparing did this glorious store,\n      The world, for me adorne.\n  Into this Eden so divine and fair\n  So wide and bright, I come His son and heir.[12]\n\n\nLike Vaughan, who, in his \"angel-infancy,\" could\n\n  In these weaker glories spy\n  Some shadows of eternity,\n\nand who\n\n  Felt through all this fleshly dress\n  Bright shoots of everlastingness,[13]\n\nTraherne not only saw, in his paradise-innocence, the glory of the\nearth and sky--the streets paved with golden stones, and boys and girls\nwith lovely shining faces--but he also felt that he was part of a\ndeeper world which lay about his infancy and wooed him with love.\n\n  O Lord I wonder at Thy Love,\n  Which did my Infancy so early move.[14]\n\nAnd out of this childhood experience, which many a meditative child can\nmatch, he insists that God visited him.\n\n      He did Approach, He did me woo;\n  I wonder that my God this thing would do.\n\n    He in our childhood with us walks,\n  And with our thoughts Mysteriously He talks;\n    He often visiteth our Minds.[15]\n\n\n{327}\n\nI know of no one who has borne a louder testimony than Traherne to the\ndivine inheritances and spiritual possibilities of the new-born child,\nor who has more emphatically denied the fiction of total depravity: \"I\nspeak it in the presence of God,\" he says, \"and of our Lord Jesus\nChrist; in my pure primitive Virgin Light, while my apprehensions were\nnatural and unmixed, I cannot remember but that I was ten thousand\ntimes more prone to good and excellent things than to evil.\"[16]  And\nhe adds this impressive word on the doctrine of inheritance: \"It is not\nour parents' loins, so much as our parents' lives, that enthrals and\nblinds us.\"[17]\n\nAfter a happy childhood, during which \"The Earth did undertake the\noffice of a Priest,\"[18] and when his soul was\n\n        A living endless eye\n        Just bounded with the sky,\n  Whose power, whose act, whose essence was to see,[19]\n\nhe entered Brasenose College, Oxford, in the year 1652, being made B.A.\nin 1656, M.A. in 1661, and Bachelor of Divinity in 1669.  He was\nadmitted in 1657 to the Rectory of Credenhill, near Hereford, where he\nremained for about ten years, and in 1667 he was made chaplain to Sir\nOrlando Bridgman, in whose service he died in 1674, and was buried\n\"under the reading-desk\" in the church at Teddington near Hampton Court.\n\nDuring his lifetime he published _Roman Forgeries_ (1673), an\nunimportant work, and had begun the publication of his _Christian\nEthics_, which appeared, after his death, in 1675.  His _Poems_ and his\n_Centuries of Meditations_ remained in MS. unknown until they were\ndiscovered in a London bookstall about the year 1897, and their\nauthorship was proved by Bertram Dobell who published the _Poems_ in\n1903, and the _Centuries of Meditations_ in 1908.  There still remains\nin MS. an octavo volume of meditations and devotions.\n\nTraherne's poems show that he always dwelt near the {328} gate of\nHeaven and was easily aware of the \"ancient Light of Eden.\"  An\naccidental bit of gossip, reported in John Aubrey's _Miscellanies_,\nindicates that he was subject to psychical experiences of an unusual\nsort, and the poet himself has reported an impressive crisis-experience\nwhen he chose his destiny and settled his preference for inward\ntreasures, even though it meant, as with George Fox, the wearing of a\nleather suit.\n\n\"When I came into the country, and being seated among silent trees, and\nmeads and hills, had all my time in mine own hands, I resolved to spend\nit all, whatever it cost me, in the search of happiness, and to satiate\nthat burning thirst which Nature had enkindled in me from my youth.  In\nwhich I was so resolute, that I chose rather to live upon ten pounds a\nyear, and to go in leather clothes, and feed upon bread and water, so\nthat I might have all my time clearly to myself, than to keep many\nthousands per annum in an estate of life where my time would be\ndevoured in care and labour.  And God was so pleased to accept of that\ndesire, that from that time to this, I have had all things plentifully\nprovided for me, without any care at all, my very study of Felicity\nmaking me more to prosper, than all the care in the whole world.  So\nthat through His blessing I live a free and a kingly life as if the\nworld were turned again into Eden, or much more, as it is at this\nday.\"[20]\n\nLike his predecessors in this faith, Traherne is never tired of\ndeclaring the infiniteness of the human soul.  Eternity is in the human\nheart, if only the way of the open door is taken, if only the eyes are\nopened to see.  God, he says, has made our spirits \"centres in\neternity,\" opening upon \"innumerable infinities.\"  The Ocean is but a\ndrop of a bucket to the immensity of the soul, with its abysmal deeps\nand its immeasurable capacities.  It is the very essence and being of\nthe soul to feel infinity, for \"God is ever more near to us than we are\nto ourselves, so that we cannot feel our own souls without feeling\nHim.\"[21]  \"You are never,\" he says, \"your true self, till you live\n{329} by your soul more than by your body, and you never live by your\nsoul until you feel its incomparable excellence.\"[22]  Its nobility is\nrevealed by its insatiable hungers, its surpassing dignity is declared\nby its endless wants, its inability to live by bread alone.  \"As by the\nseed we conjecture what plant will arise, and know by the acorn what\ntree will grow forth, or by the eagle's egg what kind of bird; so do we\nby the powers of the soul upon earth, know what kind of Being, Person,\nand Glory will be in the Heavens, where its latent powers shall be\nturned into Act, its inclinations shall be completed, and its\ncapacities filled.\"[23]\n\nNot only in a primitive Eden, but in the world as we know it, with its\nblack and white, man always bears within himself the mark of a heavenly\norigin, and has the quickening Seed of God in the depth of his soul:\n\"The Image of God is seated in the lineaments of the soul.\"  Man is the\ngreatest of all miracles; he is \"a mirror of all Eternity.\"[24]  His\nthoughts run out to everlasting; he is made for spiritual supremacy and\nhas within himself an inner, hidden life greater than anything else in\nthe universe.[25]  We are \"nigh of kin to God\" and \"nigh of kin\n\n  To those pure things we find\n    In His great mind\n  Who made the world.\"[26]\n\nThere is\n\n  A Spiritual World standing within\n  An Universe enclosed in Skin.[27]\n\n\nWith the same enthusiasm with which he proclaims the divine origin and\nthe heavenly connections of the soul, Traherne also proclaims the glory\nand beauty of the visible world as a revelation of God.\n\n  Eternity stooped down to nought\n  And in the earth its likeness sought.[28]\n\nThe world is not God, for He is Spirit, but the world is \"a glorious\nmirror\" in which the verities of religion are {330} revealed and in\nwhich the face of God is at least partially unveiled.[29]  It is here\nin this \"mirror\" that the clairvoyant eye discovers God's being,\nperceives His wisdom, goodness, and power, guesses out the footsteps of\nHis love, and finds promises and pledges of the larger fulfilment of\nthat love.  Here in the world, which is full of \"remainders of\nParadise,\" is surely the visible porch or gate of Eternity.[30]  It is\neasy to believe that God has given us His Son when once we have seen\nthe richness of the world which He has given us.[31]  But the world is\nnever \"ours\" until we learn how to see it and enjoy it in its beauty,\neven in the most common things, and until we discover that all its\nservice and all its excellency are spiritual: \"Pigs eat acorns, but\nneither consider the sun that gave them life, nor the influences of the\nheavens by which they were nourished, nor the very root of the tree\nfrom whence they came.  This being the work of Angels who in a wide and\nclear light see even the sea that gave them [the acorns] moisture: And\nfeed upon that acorn spiritually while they know the ends for which it\nwas created, and feast upon all these as upon a World of Joys within\nit: while to ignorant swine that eat the shell it is an empty husk of\nno taste nor delightful savour.\"[32]\n\nMen, as well as angels, can learn to use the world spiritually--can\nlearn to see how rough, common things are part of \"the divine\nexchequer\"; how a grain of sand exhibiteth the wisdom of God and\nmanifesteth His glory.[33]  With this prelude, Traherne gives his\nglowing account of the true, spiritual way to enjoy the world.\n\n\"Your enjoyment of the world is never right, till every morning you\nawake in Heaven; see yourself in your Father's Palace; and look upon\nthe skies, the earth, and the air as Celestial Joys: having such a\nreverend esteem of all, as if you were among the Angels.  The bride of\na monarch, in her husband's chamber, hath no such causes of delight as\nyou.\n\n\"You never enjoy the world aright, till the Sea itself {331} floweth in\nyour veins, till you are clothed with the heavens, and crowned with the\nstars: and perceive yourself to be the sole heir of the whole world,\nand more than so, because men are in it who are every one sole heirs as\nwell as you.  Till you can sing and rejoice and delight in God, as\nmisers do in gold, and Kings in sceptres, you never enjoy the world.\n\n\"Till your spirit filleth the whole world, and the stars are your\njewels; till you are as familiar with the ways of God in all Ages as\nwith your walk and table; till you are intimately acquainted with that\nshady nothing out of which the world was made; till you love men so as\nto desire their happiness with a thirst equal to the zeal of your own;\ntill you delight in God for being good to all; you never enjoy the\nworld.  Till you more feel it than your private estate, and are more\npresent in the hemisphere, considering the glories and the beauties\nthere, than in your own house; till you remember how lately you were\nmade, and how wonderful it was when you came into it: and more rejoice\nin the palace of your glory, than if it had been made but to-day\nmorning.\n\n\"Yet further, you never enjoy the world aright, till you so love the\nbeauty of enjoying it, that you are covetous and earnest to persuade\nothers to enjoy it.  And so perfectly hate the abominable corruption of\nmen in despising it, that you had rather suffer the flames of Hell than\nwillingly be guilty of their error. . . .  The world is a mirror of\ninfinite beauty, yet no man sees it.  It is a Temple of Majesty, yet no\nman regards it.  It is a region of Light and Peace, did not men\ndisquiet it.  It is the Paradise of God.  It is more to man since he is\nfallen than it was before.  It is the place of Angels and the Gate of\nHeaven.  When Jacob waked out of his dream, he said, 'God is here, and\nI wist it not.  How dreadful is this place!  This is none other than\nthe House of God, and the Gate of Heaven.'\"[34]\n\nBut notwithstanding his exuberant and overflowing joy in creation,\nTraherne is conscious that the world has {332} its \"dreggy parts,\" that\nit has been \"muddied\" by man's misuse of it, and that the havoc of sin\nis apparent.  The light which shined in infancy becomes eclipsed as the\ncustoms and manners of life close down over it and cover it.  Men's\nmouths are full of talk of fleeting, vulgar, and worthless things, and\nthey speak no syllable of those celestial and stable treasures which\nform the only wealth of life.  The emphasis in education is on the\nwrong things.  So with much ado the innocent child is \"corrupted and\nmade to learn the dirty devices of the world,\" which he must again\nunlearn and become a little child once more in the Kingdom of God.[35]\nThe taint, however, is not in the native structure of the soul, it is\nnot through a biological transmission, it is due to false training--it\nis from the parents' lives rather than their loins.  Let parents, he\nsays, who desire holy children learn to make them possessors of divine\nthings _betimes_.  It is \"deadly barbarous and uncouth\" to \"put grubs\nand worms\" into little children's minds, to teach them to say this\nhouse is mine, this bauble is a jewel, this gew-gaw is a fine thing,\nthis rattle makes music, when they ought to be made instead to see the\nspiritual glory of the earth and sky, the beauty of life, the sweetness\nand nobility of Nature, and to live joyously, like birds, in union and\ncommunion with God.  I am sure, he concludes, that barbarous people\nthat go naked come nearer to Adam, God, and the Angels, in the\nsimplicity of their wealth, than do many among us who partake of what\nwe nick-name civility and mode.[36]  The entire work of redemption is,\nthus, to restore man to himself, to bring him once more to the Tree of\nLife, to enable him to discover the glory all about him, to reveal to\nhim the real values of things, and to bring to birth within him an\nimmortal love.  The true healing of the soul is always through the\nbirth of love.  Before a soul loves, it lives only to itself; as soon\nas love is born it lives beyond itself and finds its life in the object\nof its love.  It is Christ who first reveals the full measure of love,\nwho makes us see the one adequate Object of love, and who {333} forges\nwithin our human spirits the invisible bonds of a love that binds us\nforever to Him who so loved us.  Here in Him--\"a Man loving all the\nworld, a God dying for mankind\"[37]--we see that we are infinitely\nbeloved, that the foundations of an eternal Friendship are laid, that\nGod is infinitely prone to love, and that true love spares nothing for\nthe sake of what it loves--\"O miraculous and eternal Godhead suffering\non a Cross for me!\"[38]  \"That Cross is a tree set on fire with\ninvisible flame which illuminateth all the world.  The flame is love:\nthe love in His bosom that died upon it.\"[39]\n\nBut there is no salvation for us in the Cross until it kindles the same\nflame of love in us, until that immeasurable love of His becomes an\nirresistible power in us, so that we henceforth live unto Him that\nloved us.  It must, if it is to be efficacious, shift all our values\nand set us to loving as He loved--\"He who would not in the same cases\ndo the same things Jesus Christ hath done can never be saved,\" for love\nis never timorous.[40]  The love of Christ is to dwell within us and\nevery man is to be the object of it.  God and we are to become one\nspirit, that is, one in will and one in desire.  Christ must live\nwithin us.  We must be filled with the Holy Ghost, which is the God of\nLove; we must be of the same mind with Christ Jesus and led by His\nSpirit, and we must henceforth treat every man in respect to the\ngreatness of Christ's love--this is salvation in Traherne's conception\nof it, and holiness and happiness are the same thing.[41]  The Cross\nhas not done its complete work for us until we can say: \"O Christ, I\nsee thy crown of thorns in every eye; thy bleeding, naked, wounded body\nin every soul; thy death liveth in every memory; thy crucified person\nis embalmed in every affection; thy pierced feet are bathed in every\none's tears and it is my privilege to enter with thee into every\nsoul.\"[42]\n\nHowever contemplative and mystical the bent of Traherne's mind may have\nbeen, he always finds the {334} terminus of spiritual life in action,\nindeed, in brotherly service, in what he calls \"blessed operations.\"\nSpeaking apparently of himself, he finely says: \"He thought it a vain\nthing to see glorious principles buried in books, unless he did remove\nthem into his understanding; and a vain thing to remove them into his\nunderstanding unless he did revive them and raise them up with\ncontinual _exercise_.  Let this therefore be the first principle of\nyour soul--that to have no principles or to live beside them is equally\nmiserable.  Philosophers are not those that speak but do great\nthings.\"[43]  \"It is,\" he writes in words which sound like those of his\ncontemporary Winstanley, \"it is an indelible principle of Eternal\ntruth, that practice and exercise is the Life of all.  Should God give\nyou worlds and laws and treasures, and worlds upon worlds, and Himself\nalso in the Divinest manner, if you will be lazy you lose all.  The\nsoul is made for action and cannot rest till it be employed. . . .  If\ntherefore you would be happy, your life must be as full of operation as\nGod of treasure.\"[44]\n\nLove, once kindled in the soul, is the mother of all heroic actions;\nlove knows how to abound and overflow--the man who has lighted his life\nfrom Christ's love is constant in trials, patient in sufferings,\ncourageous in assaults, prudent in difficulties, victorious and\ntriumphant in action.[45]\n\nTraherne shares with Boehme and with the Cambridge Platonists the view\nthat Eternity is as much here as anywhere.  Those Christians, he\nthinks, who put off felicity and defer their enjoyment with long delays\n\"are to be much suspected.\"[46]  \"'Tis not,\" so he states his law,\n\"change of place, but glorious principles well practised that establish\nHeaven in the life and soul.  An angel will be happy anywhere and a\ndevil miserable, because the principles of the one are always good, of\nthe other, bad.  From the centre to the utmost bounds of the\neverlasting hills all is Heaven before God, and full of {335} treasure;\nand he that walks like God in the midst of them is blessed.\"[47]  \"You\nare in Heaven everywhere.\"[48]  The real business of life, as he\nelsewhere declares, is to \"piece this life with the life of Heaven, to\nsee it as one with all Eternity, a part of it, a life within it,\"[49]\nwhich reminds us of Vaughan's great words:\n\n  I saw Eternity the other night\n  Like a great ring of pure and endless light,\n      As calm as it was bright:\n  And round beneath it, Time in hours, days, years,\n      Driv'n by the spheres,\n  Like a vast shadow mov'd; in which the world\n      And all her train were hurl'd.[50]\n\n\nAnd with much penetration Traherne tells us that Eternity is not an\nendless addition of \"times \"--a weak infinite series of durations, but\nrather a Reality in which all true realities abide, and which retains\nin a present now all beginnings and all endings.[51]  Eternity is just\nthe real world for which we were made and which we enter through the\ndoor of love.\n\n  It is a spiritual world within,\n  A living world and nearer far of kin\n    To God than that which first He made.\n      While that doth fade\n  This therefore ever shall endure\n  Within the soul as more divine and pure.[52]\n\n\n\n[1] See my _Studies in Mystical Religion_, chap. xix.\n\n[2] Book III. lines 51-55.\n\n[3] Book III. lines 194-197.\n\n[4] Book I. line 18.  Since this chapter was written, Alden Sampson's\n_Studies in Milton_ (New York, 1913) has been published.  His valuable\nchapter on \"Milton's Confession of Faith\" reveals in Milton a very wide\nacquaintance with the ideas which I have been tracing, and shows by a\nvast number of quotations how frequently the poet used these ideas\nsympathetically.\n\n[5] Francis Quarles' \"My Beloved is Mine.\"\n\n[6] George Herbert's poem \"Man.\"\n\n[7] Francis Quarles' \"Light.\"\n\n[8] _Centuries of Meditations_ (London, 1908), iii. 16.  For details of\nhis life and for the story of the discovery of his writings, see the\nIntroduction to _The Poetical Works of Thomas Traherne_ (1903) by\nBertram Dobell.\n\n[9] Traherne's pom \"Wonder,\" iii.\n\n[10] _Centuries of Meditations_, iii. 1, 2 and 3.\n\n[11] \"Wonder,\" i.\n\n[12] \"The Salutation\"\n\n[13] Vaughan's \"The Retreat.\"\n\n[14] Traherne's \"The Approach.\"\n\n[15] _Ibid._\n\n[16] _Centuries of Meditations_, iii. 8.\n\n[17] _Ibid._\n\n[18] \"Dumbness.\"\n\n[19] \"The Preparative.\"\n\n[20] _Centuries of Meditations_, iii. 46.\n\n[21] _Ibid._ ii. 81.  See also ii. 70 and 83.\n\n[22] _Centuries of Meditations_, ii. 92.\n\n[23] _Ibid._ iv. 70.\n\n[24] _Ibid._ i. 19, and iv. 81.\n\n[25] _Ibid._ ii. 23.\n\n[26] \"My Spirit.\"\n\n[27] \"Fullness.\"\n\n[28] \"The Choice.\"\n\n[29] _Centuries of Meditations_, ii. 17.\n\n[30] _Ibid._ ii. 1 and 17.\n\n[31] _Ibid._ ii. 6.\n\n[32] _Ibid._ i. 26.\n\n[33] _Ibid._ i. 25 and 27.\n\n[34] _Centuries of Meditations_, i. 28-31.\n\n[35] _Centuries of Meditations_, iii. 7 and 3.\n\n[36] _Ibid._ iii. 11-13.\n\n[37] _Centuries of Meditations_, i. 59.\n\n[38] _Ibid._ i. 67 and 62.\n\n[39] _Ibid._ i. 60.\n\n[40] _Ibid._ iv. 59.\n\n[41] _Ibid._ iv. 28.  See also iv. 31.\n\n[42] _Ibid._ i. 86.\n\n[43] _Centuries of Meditations_, iv. 2.\n\n[44] _Ibid._ iv. 95.\n\n[45] _Christian Ethics_, chapter on \"Charity.\"\n\n[46] _Centuries of Meditations_, iv. 9.\n\n[47] _Centuries of Meditations_, iv. 37.\n\n[48] _Ibid._ iv. 38.\n\n[49] _Ibid._ iv. 93.\n\n[50] Vaughan's poem, \"The World.\"\n\n[51] _Centuries of Meditations_, v. 7-8.\n\n[52] Traherne's poem, \"Thoughts.\"\n\n\n\n\n{336}\n\nCHAPTER XVIII\n\nCONCLUSION\n\nFew words are needed in conclusion to point out the historical\nsignificance of the movement which we have been studying, and to indicate\nits connection with the rise and development of seventeenth century\nQuakerism.  These chapters have presented sufficient historical evidence\nto show that from the very beginning of the Reformation there appeared a\ngroup of men who felt themselves commissioned, like the prophets of old,\nto challenge the theological systems of the Reformers, and to cry against\nwhat proved to be an irresistible tendency toward the exaltation of form\nand letter in religion.  They were men of intense religious faith, of\nmarked mystical type, characterized by interior depth of experience, but\nat the same time they were men of scholarship, breadth and balance.\n\nTheir central loyalty was to the invisible Church which in their\nconception was the Body of Christ, forever growing and expanding through\nthe ages under the guidance of the ever-present Spirit; and they esteemed\nbut lightly the established Churches which seemed to them formed not\nafter the pattern in the mount but after very earthly and political\nmodels.  Challenging, as they did, the formulated doctrines of the\nReformation, the type of Church which was being substituted for the Roman\nCatholic Church, and the entire body of ceremonial and sacramental\npractices which were being put in place of the ancient sacraments of the\nChurch, these \"prophets\" found themselves compelled to discover the\nfoundations {337} for a new type of Church altogether, and to feel their\nway down to a new and fundamental basis of religious authority.  That\nwould be a momentous task for any age, or for any spiritual leaders, and\nwe must not demand the impossible of these sixteenth century\npathbreakers.  What they did do consistently and well was to proclaim the\nspiritual character of God as revealed in Christ, the native capacity of\nthe human soul for God, the intimate and inherent relationship of the\ndivine and human, the progressive revelation of God in history, the\npriority of the inward Word, the august ethical aspect which must attach\nto any religion adequate for the growing race, and the folly of losing\nthe heart and spirit of Christianity in contentions over external,\ntemporal, and pictorial features of it.\n\nThey themselves were not founders of sects or churches.  Their sole\nmission was the propagation of a message, of a body of truth and of\nspiritual ideals.  They were from the nature of the case destined to be\nvoices crying in a wilderness-world, and they were obliged to trust their\nprecious cause to the contagion of their word and life and truth.  The\nQuakers of the seventeenth century are obviously one of the great\nhistorical results of this slowly maturing spiritual movement, and they\nfirst gave the unorganized and inarticulate movement a concrete body and\norganism to express itself through.  The modern student, who goes to the\noriginal expositions of Quakerism to find what the leaders of this\nmovement conceived their message and their mission to be, quickly\ndiscovers that they were not radical innovators setting forth novel and\nstrange ideas, but that they were on the contrary the bearers, the\ninterpreters, the living embodiment of ideas which have now become\nfamiliar to the reader of these chapters.\n\nNo one has given us a clearer statement of George Fox's mission and of\nthe creation of the new \"Society\" than has the writer of the \"Epistle to\nthe Reader\" in Fox's strange book _The Great Mystery of the Great Whore_\n(1659).  This \"Epistle to the Reader\" was {338} written by Edward\nBurrough and was printed, also under the same title, in Burrough's\n_Works_ in 1672.[1]  In this striking document the writer gives his\naccount of the existing Church, and over against this dark background he\nsets God's new Reformation that is just beginning, of which he feels\nhimself to be the divinely sent herald and prophet.  \"As our minds became\nturned, and our hearts inclined to the Light which shined in every one of\nus,\" he writes, \"we came to know the perfect estate of the Church; her\nestate before the apostles' days, and in the apostles' days and since the\ndays of the apostles.  And her present estate we found to be as a woman\nwho had once been clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, who\nbrought forth Him that was to rule the nations; but she [the Church] was\nfled into the wilderness, and there sitting desolate, in her place that\nwas prepared of God for such a season, in the very end of which season,\nwhen the time of her sojourning was towards a full end, then _we_\n[Friends] were brought forth.\"[2]\n\nIn the Light which broke in upon them, he says, they saw that \"the world\nwas in darkness\" and that \"anti-Christ was set up in the temple of God,\nruling over all, having brought nations under his power, and having set\nup his government over all for many ages; even since the days of the\napostles and true churches hath he reigned.~.~.~.  As for the ministry,\nfirst, looking upon it with a single eye in the Light of the Spirit of\nGod which had anointed us, we beheld it clearly _not to be of Christ, nor\nsent of Him, nor having the commission, power, and authority of Christ,\nas His ministry had in the days of true churches; but in all things, as\nin call, practice, maintenance, {339} and in everything else, in fruits\nand effects we found it to disagree, and to be wholly contrary to the\ntrue ministry of Christ in the days of the apostles_.\"[3]  His charge\nagainst the ministers of his day is one now very familiar to us: \"You\npreach to people what you have studied out of books and old authors, and\nwhat you have noted down you preach by an hour-glass and not as the\nSpirit of God gives you utterance.  You preach other men's words which\nyou have collected.\"[4]  The \"call\" to ministry, he urges, is based upon\nlearning acquired in schools, colleges, and universities, and is not of\nthe Spirit, and ministers' lives are obvious signs that they are not in\nthe true \"apostolic succession.\"[5]  \"As for all churches (so called),\"\nhe continues, \"we beheld you all in the apostasy and degeneration from\nthe true Church, not being gathered by the Spirit of the Lord, nor\nanointed thereby as the true members of Christ ever were, but to be in\nforms of righteousness without power, and imitations without life.  All\nthe practices of religion we beheld to be without power and life.~.~.~.\nWe beheld all professions [of religion] to be but as coverings of\nfig-leaves, while the [inner] nature stood uncondemned and not\ncrucified.\"[6]\n\nHe insists that no true and radical reformation of the Church has taken\nplace, that the churches of his day still bear the marks of apostasy as\ndid the churches before the Reformation occurred: \"Do not professors and\nsects of people have the form without the power of godliness?  Are not\nall people still covetous and earthly-minded, and given to the world, and\nproud and vain, even such as profess religion?  Are not professors as\ncovetous and proud as such as do not profess?  Are they not given to the\nworld, and doth it not show that they are not changed nor translated?\nAnd is it not manifest that they have taken up the _form_ of the\napostles' and Christ's words and practices, and are without the {340}\nlife, and not guided by the Spirit of Christ and the apostles in their\npraying and preaching?\"[7]\n\nHere, with an air of prophet-like boldness and infallibility, we have\nonce again an announcement of the inadequacy of the Reformation, the\nformal and external character of prevailing types of religion, and the\nunapostolic nature of the existing churches.  The language describing the\nvisible church is throughout the language of a \"Seeker.\"  \"We ceased,\" he\nsays in words that exactly describe the \"Seeker,\" \"from the teachings of\nall men, and their words and their worships, and their temples, and all\ntheir baptisms and churches, and we ceased from our own words and\nprofessions and practices in religion.~.~.~.  We met together often, and\nwaited upon the Lord in pure silence from our own words, and harkened to\nthe voice of the Lord and felt His Word in our hearts.\"[8]\n\nThe striking difference between him and the contemporary \"Seeker\" lies in\nthe fact that he profoundly believed, that the time of \"apostasy\" was now\nat an end, that a new \"commission\" had come, that a real Reformation was\nbeing set into operation, and that the apostolic Church--the Church of\nChrist, the Church of the Spirit--had appeared as though let down from\nheaven.  He relates how the \"Lord raised us [Friends] up and opened our\nmouths in this His Spirit,\" and how \"the Light of Christ revealed and\nmade known to us all things that pertain to salvation, redemption, and\neternal life, needful for man to know,\" and how through the outpouring\nand anointing of the Spirit \"the true Church,\" \"the true worship,\" \"the\ntrue ministry\" have come again to the world.  He makes such exalted\nclaims as these: we received the pouring out of the spirit upon us; the\ngift of God's eternal Spirit was bestowed upon us as in the days of old;\nthe deep things of God were revealed to us; the Lord Almighty brought us\nout of captivity and bondage and put an end to sin and death; {341} the\nbabe of glory was born in us; we entered into ever-lasting union,\nfellowship, and covenant with the Lord, and we were raised from death to\nLife.  And, finally, he announces the new \"commission\" in positive words\nof glowing faith: \"Then having armed us with power, strength, and wisdom\nand dominion, according to His mind, and having taught us in all things,\nand having chosen us unto His work, God put His sword into our and and\ngave us a perfect _commission_ to go forth in His name and authority,\ngiving us the Word from His mouth what to cut down and what to preserve,\nand giving us the everlasting gospel to preach.\"[9]\n\nIn the absolute certainty of his divine \"commission,\" he challenges the\nChurches which are defending their authority \"with jails and prisons and\nwhips and stocks and inquisitions--all Cain's weapons\"--to a \"trial\" of\nfaith and spirit and power, like that on Mount Carmel in the days of\nElijah, \"whether it be they or we that are of the true faith and true\nworship of God that the apostles were in.\"[10]\n\nThere can be no doubt, I think, that the writer of this \"Epistle to the\nReader\" in _The Great Mystery_, has come out of the \"Seeker\" movement, or\nthat he has \"come out\" of it only because he believes that he with others\nhave found what they sought, and are the seed and nucleus of the true,\nrestored, apostolic Church of God.  They refuse absolutely to be called a\nsect; and they assume in all their early writings that they are the\nrestored Church of Christ, though they seldom use that word \"Church\"\nbecause in their thought it was a name associated with the \"apostasy,\"\nand they preferred to call themselves \"the Seed,\" or \"the Children of the\nLight.\"  These were, as I have sufficiently shown, names already in use.\n\nIt is an interesting fact that this \"Epistle\" dates the beginning of the\nnew era as 1652--\"it is now {342} about seven years since the Lord raised\nus up in the North of England and opened our mouths in this His\nSpirit\"[11]--and that it locates the springing forth of \"the Seed\" in the\nNorth of England.   It was, we are now well aware, out of the\nSeeker-groups of the northern counties of England that the new \"Society\"\nwas actually born, and it grew, like a rolling snowball, as it gathered\nin the prepared groups of \"Seekers,\" both north and south in England, and\na little later in America.[12]\n\nThe creation of the Quaker \"Society\" was not the work of any man; the\ngroups were there before the formative leader appeared on the scene.  In\nfact the very term \"Quaker,\" which was soon fixed upon the new movement\nas the popular name for it, had already been in use--at least as far back\nas 1646--for the members of some of these highly emotional communities.\nAs soon as these groups--intense in their expectations--found a leader\nwho was already raised to an impelling conviction of immediate contact\nwith God and of definite illumination by the living Christ, and possessed\nof an overmastering _sense of mission_, the effect was extraordinary.\nThe account of what happened is, we may be sure, none too strong: \"The\ngift of God's eternal Spirit was poured upon us as in days of old, our\nhearts were made glad, our tongues were loosed, and we spake with new\ntongues as the Lord gave us utterance and as His Spirit led us.\"[13]\nProfound psychological experiences occurred; they felt themselves\nbaptized together, fused and formed into one group-spirit, swept into\ntrembling as by a mighty rushing wind, and carried beyond their common\nordinary range of thought and  power and utterance.  Their\ngroup-experiences of a common divine Spirit coming upon their lives from\nbeyond themselves, their discovery that God was in their midst, that\ngifts were conferred upon them, and, above all, Fox's compelling sense of\napostolic mission--a conviction which was, as it always is,\ncontagious--were {343} grounds enough to change these Seeker-groups into\nthe seed and nucleus of a Body possessed of the faith that the\nlong-expected Church of the Spirit had at last come.  They rose to the\ngroup-consciousness that they were the beginners, in modern times, of a\nChurch of the spiritual order, and a community-loyalty was born which\ngave the movement great conquering power and an amazing capacity for\nendurance and suffering.\n\nIn Fox we have a person of extraordinary psychical experiences and of\ndynamic leadership, and in him the \"prophetical\" and \"enthusiast\" traits\nof the movement are strikingly in evidence.  He reveals in a variety of\nways his connections with the great body of spiritual ideas that had been\naccumulating for more than a century before his time, but for the most\npart these influences worked upon him in sub-conscious ways as an\natmosphere and climate of his spirit, rather than as a clearly conceived\nbody of truth which he got by reading authors and which he apprehended\nthrough clear intellectual processes.  He can be rightly appreciated only\nas he is seen to be a potent member of an organic group-life which formed\nhim as much as he formed it.\n\nThe expositions, however, of the more trained and scholarly Quakers show\nan explicit acquaintance with the writings of these men whom we have been\nstudying, and they cannot be adequately understood in isolation.  The\nfruits of reading and of contact with a wider intellectual world are\nclearly in evidence, and the ideas and the peculiar phrases of the\nspiritual reformers \"pass and come again\" in their voluminous works.\nRobert Barclay is the chief literary exponent of Quakerism.  His range of\nfamiliarity with religious and theological literature is very extensive,\nand he shows intimate acquaintance with contemporary thought.  For him,\nas for his spiritual predecessors, the existing Church is \"in apostasy\";\nit has departed from \"the simplicity and purity of the gospel as it was\nin the apostles' days.\"  Christian faith has become \"burdened with\nmanifold inventions and traditions, with various notions and opinions\"\nwhich {344} have been \"substituted instead\" of the true religion of\nChrist.[14]\n\nThe Quaker interpreters all unite in treating \"notions and opinions\"--or,\nto use their sweeping phrase, \"notional religion\"--as barren\n_substitutes_ for a true religion of spiritual reality, which for them is\nalways born in a first-hand experience of Christ as the inner spirit and\nlife and power of one's entire being and activity.  A good specimen\ninstance of this position is found in William Penn's Tract, \"A Key\nopening the Way to every Capacity,\" etc.[15]  He says: \"It is not\nOpinion, or Speculation, or Notions of what is true; or Assent to or\nSubscription of Articles or Propositions, tho' never so soundly worded,\nthat makes a Man a true Believer or a true Christian.\" \"Phrases of\nSchoolmen,\" \"notions of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,\" \"conceptions of\nman's meer Wit,\" \"superfining interpretations of Scripture texts,\" he\ndeclares to be very chaffy substitutes for a consciousness of Christ's\nLife and Light within, conformity of mind and practice to the will of\nGod, and the actual formation of Christ in the inner self.[16]  The\nfurther Reformation, upon the necessity of which he insists, is one that\nwill take Christianity not only beyond and beneath outward ceremonies,\nbut beyond and beneath all formulations of creed and doctrine, and that\nwill ground and establish it in the experience and attitude and verifying\npower of the person's life.[17] This is precisely what all these teachers\nof spiritual religion have all the time been demanding.\n\nThe Quaker view of the moral and dynamic character of saving faith, the\nview that justification is a vital process and not merely a forensic\nscheme, is, in heart and essence, indistinguishable from the central\nteaching of these spiritual predecessors of the Quakers.  No Quaker has\npresented this view in a more compact, and at the same time adequate way\nthan has Barclay in one of his {345} important early Tracts: \"The manner\nand way whereby Christ's righteousness and obedience, death and\nsufferings, become profitable unto us and are made ours, is by receiving\nHim, and becoming one with Him in our hearts, embracing and entertaining\nthat holy Seed, which as it is embraced and entertained, becometh a holy\nbirth in us~.~.~. by which the body of sin and death is done away, and we\ncleansed, and washed, and purged from our sins, _not imaginarily_, but\nreally; and we are really and truly made righteous.~.~.~.  Christ Himself\nrevealed in us, indwelling in us.  His life and spirit covering us--that\nis the ground of our justification.\"[18]\n\nThe root principle of Quakerism is belief in a divine Light, or Seed of\nGod, in the soul of man.  All of the multitudinous Quaker books and\ntracts bear unvarying testimony to that, and all their contemporary\naccounts make that faith, that principle, their _organizing idea_.  What\nthey all say is that there is a Light in man which shines into his\ndarkness, reveals his condition to him, makes him aware of evil and\nchecks him when he is in the pursuit of it; gives him a vision of\nrighteousness, attracts him toward goodness, and points him infallibly\ntoward Christ from whom the Light shines.  This Light is pure, immediate,\nand spiritual.  It is of God, in fact is God immanently revealed.[19]\n\nThen, again, the figure is changed and what was called Light is now\ncalled \"Seed,\" and it is thought of as a resident germ of divine Life\nwhich, through the active co-operation of the individual, produces a new\ncreation within, and makes the person through and through of a new nature\nlike itself.[20]  It is also frequently called \"the Word of God,\" or\n\"Grace of God,\" or \"That of God in you,\" or \"Christ within,\" or \"the\nSpirit,\" or \"the Kingdom within you.\"  \"By this Seed, Grace, and Word of\nGod, and Light wherewith every one is enlightened,\" {346} Barclay says,\n\"We understand a spiritual, heavenly, and invisible Principle in which\nGod, as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, dwells; a measure [_i.e._ a\nportion] of which divine and glorious Life is in all men as a Seed, which\nof its own nature draws, invites, and inclines to God.  This some call\n_vehiculum dei_, or the spiritual Body of Christ, the flesh and blood of\nChrist, which came down from heaven, of which all saints do feed and are\nthereby nourished unto eternal life.\"[21] But under whatever name it\ngoes, it is always thought of as a _saving Principle_.  He who says yes\nresponds, obeys, co-operates, and allows this resident Seed of God, or\nChrist-Light, to have full sway in him becomes transformed thereby and\nre-created into likeness to Christ, by whom the inner Seed was planted\nand of whose nature it is.  The spiritual predecessors of the Quakers, as\nwe have seen, all held this view with individual variations of phrase and\nexperience.  All the Quaker terms for the _Principle_ were used by\nSebastian Franck and by Caspar Schwenckfeld; and all the men who taught\nthe dynamic process of salvation presuppose that something of the divine\nnature, as Light or Seed or Spirit, or the resurrected Christ, is\ndirectly operative upon or within the human soul.  That is, salvation is\nfor them more than a moral change, it is a birth-and-life-process,\ninitiated and carried through by the _real presence_ of the Divine in the\nhuman.[22]\n\nThe Quakers are perhaps somewhat more emphatic than were their spiritual\nforerunners, with the exception {347} of Schwenckfeld, in their\ndeclarations that this Seed, this Light, is not _natural_.  \"We assert,\"\nWilliam Penn wrote, \"the Light of Christ not to be a Natural Light,\notherwise than as all men born into the world have a Measure of Christ's\nLight, and so in a sense it may be called Natural to all Men.  But this\nLight is something else than the bare Understanding which Man hath as a\nRational Creature.\"[23]  What man does naturally have, in William Penn's\nview, is a _capacity_ for the Light, but the Light itself is from a\nsource wholly heavenly and divine.  Barclay, in quite Cartesian fashion,\ninterprets it to be \"a real spiritual Substance,\" \"a substantial Seed\"\nfrom another world, hidden away within man's soul at birth, lying there\n\"like naked grain in stony ground,\" until the child is old enough to feel\nits stirrings and to determine by his own free choices of obedience or\ndisobedience to its movings whether it shall grow and develop or not.[24]\nWe plainly have here a double world.  The once-born man is \"natural,\"\nthough he carries buried deep in the subsoil of his nature a Seed of God,\na germ of Life drawn from the higher, spiritual world.  He may live in\nand under the dominion of either world, but he must choose which it shall\nbe.  By response to and participation with the divine Seed of\nradio-active spiritual energy, he can become transformed--utterly and\ncompletely--into a new nature, and can belong here and now to the\nspiritual World which Christ by His victorious Life has brought across\nthe chasm and planted in our soil.  On the other hand, by negligence or\nby disobedience he can live a mere empirical, natural life, and keep his\ninestimable Seed of God buried and forgotten in a region of himself which\nhe seldom or never visits.\n\nThe Quakers, however, as a consequence of their heightened\ngroup-consciousness, and as a result of the intense experiences enjoyed\nin their gatherings, exhibited a far greater degree of _enthusiasm_ than\nhad appeared in the earlier exponents of the inner Word; and they showed\na heightened element of _prophetism_, both in their faith {348} and\npractice.  They devoutly believed that in them the prophecy of Jeremiah\nhad found fulfilment: God had written His Word in their hearts, so that\nthey were recipients of His will and His message.  The more sure Word of\nprophecy, announced by Peter, had come and the Day Star had risen in\ntheir hearts.  Their Light was to them not only a principle of connection\nwith a higher world, a germ of a new nativity, it was also a principle\nand basis for continuous revelation, and for definite openings of light\nand guidance on all matters that concern present-day life and practice.\n\"The inward command,\" Barclay says, \"is never wanting in the due season\nto any duty.\"[25]\n\nLike their predecessors, they did not slight the importance of the\noutward word, the Scriptures.  They had an immense reverence for them and\nwere diligent in the study and skilful in the use of them, though of\ncourse they used them in a thoroughly uncritical and unhistorical way, as\ndid also their opponents.  But they would never allow the Scriptures to\nbe called the Word of God or to be treated as God's only revelation of\nHimself to man without a challenge.  \"The Word of God,\" Barclay says,\n\"is, like unto Himself, spiritual, yea, Spirit and Life, and therefore\ncannot be heard and read with the natural external senses as the\nScriptures can.\"  Our Master, he adds, is always with us.  \"His letter is\nwrit in our hearts and there we find it.\"[26]  \"There is,\" William Penn\ndeclares, \"something _nearer to us_ than Scriptures, to wit, the Word in\nthe heart from which all Scriptures came,\" though he is very emphatic in\nhis claim that Friends never slight the Scriptures and believe in their\ndivine authority.[27]\n\nIt is not necessary to prolong the exposition of early Quakerism farther.\nThe similarity of its fundamental position with that of the preceding\nspiritual reformers is perfectly clear.  Quakerism is, thus, no isolated\nor sporadic religious phenomenon.  It is deeply rooted and embedded in a\nfar wider movement that had been {349} accumulating volume and power for\nmore than a century before George Fox became a \"prophet\" of it to the\nEnglish people.  And both in its new English, and in its earlier\ncontinental form, it was a serious attempt to achieve a more complete\nReformation, to restore primitive Christianity, and to change the basis\nof authority from external things, of any  sort whatever, to the interior\nlife and spirit of man.\n\nThat the _formulation_ of this vast spiritual Reformation, as presented\nby the men who are studied in this volume, was adequate, I do not for a\nmoment assert.  The views here expounded in their historical setting are\nplainly hampered by inadequate philosophical and psychological\npresuppositions.  They need reconstructive interpretation and a fresh\nre-reading, in terms of our richer experience, our larger historical\nperspective, and our truer psychological conceptions.  That work of\nreexamination and reinterpretation, especially of the Quaker movement and\nthe Quaker message, is a part of the task undertaken in the historical\nvolumes which follow this one in this series.  It must suffice for the\npresent to have reviewed here the story and the struggles of these brave,\nsincere men and their heroic endeavours to proclaim a spiritual\nChristianity.  It has been a privilege to live for a little while with\nthis succession of high-minded men, to review for our time their type of\nspiritual religion, and to retrace their apostolic efforts to bring the\nworld, with its sins and its tragedies and its inner hungers, back to the\nFather's Love and to the real presence of the eternal Christ.  They may\nhave failed in their intellectual formulation, but at least they\nsucceeded in finding a living God, warm and tender and near at hand, the\nLife of their lives, the Day Star in their hearts; and their travail of\nsoul, their brave endurance, and their loyal obedience to vision have\nhelped to make our modern world.\n\n\n\n[1] This document, though, as stated above, not written by Fox, had his\napproval, and may be taken as exactly expressing his views and his\nposition.  Many of the early Quaker books show how remarkable was the\ncorporate character and the group-spirit of the \"Society\" at this period.\nWhatever any individual could contribute was given for the common cause\nand went into the life of the whole.  I have given the passages, which I\nhave quoted from this \"Epistle,\" in modern English.\n\n[2] _The Great Mystery of the Great Whore_ (London, 1659), p. B1.  Jacob\nBoehme had already set Fox the example of calling the existing Church by\nthis opprobrious name.  See _The Threefold Life of Man_, vii., 56-58.\n\n[3] _The Great Mystery of the Great Whore_, p. B3.\n\n[4] _Ibid._ p. A6.\n\n[5] _Ibid._ pp. A5-A7.\n\n[6] _Ibid._ p. B4.  This is almost word for word Boehme's view.\n\n[7] _The Great Mystery of the Great Whore_, p. C3.\n\n[8] _Ibid._ p. B1.\n\n[9] _The Great Mystery of the Great Whore_, p. B2.  I have taken some\nliberty in correcting the grammatical form of the passage quoted, but the\noriginal sense is preserved.\n\n[10] _Ibid._ p. C2.\n\n[11] _The Great Mystery of the Great Whore_, p. B.\n\n[12] For evidence of Seeker-groups in America, see my _Quakers in the\nAmerican Colonies_.\n\n[13] _The Great Mystery of the Great Whore_, pp. B1-B2.\n\n[14] Preface to _A Catechism and Confession of Faith_.\n\n[15] _Works_ (London, 1726), ii. p. 781.\n\n[16] _Ibid._ ii. pp. 781-783.\n\n[17] \"Salvation lieth not in literal but in experimental\nknowledge.\"--Barclay's _Apology_, Props. V. and VI. sec. 25.\n\n[18] Barclay, \"Truth cleared of Calumnies,\" _Works_ (London, 1691), i.\npp. 1-48.\n\n[19] This view appears _passim_ in the works of Isaac Penington.\n\n[20] See Penington's Tract, \"Concerning the Seed of God,\" _Works_\n(edition of 1761), ii. pp. 593-607.\n\n[21] _Apology_, Props. V. and VI. sec. 13.  This passage could be exactly\nparalleled in the writings of Schwenckfeld.\n\n[22] It is interesting to see how closely William Law, the great exponent\nof \"Spiritual\" Christianity in the eighteenth century, carrying on this\ntrain of thought in another channel, approaches the Quaker position:\n\"Thou needest not run here or there saying, 'Where is Christ?'  Thou\nneedest not say, 'Who shall ascend into heaven, that is, to bring Christ\ndown from above?' or, 'Who shall descend into the deep, to bring up\nChrist from the dead?'  For, behold, the Word, which is the Wisdom of\nGod, is in thy heart.  It is there as a bruiser of Thy serpent, as a\nLight unto thy feet and Lanthorn unto thy paths; it is there as an Holy\nOil, to soften and overcome the wrathful fiery properties of thy nature,\nand change them into the humble meekness of Light and Love; it is there\nas a speaking Word of God in thy soul; as soon as thou art ready to hear,\nthis eternal, speaking Word will speak wisdom and peace in thy inward\nparts, and bring forth the birth of Christ, with all His holy nature,\nspirit, and temper within thee.\"--\"Spirit of Prayer,\" _Works_, vii. p. 69.\n\n[23] _Works_, ii. p. 780.\n\n[24] _Apology_, Props. V. and VI. sec. 13.\n\n[25] \"Truth Cleared of Calumnies,\" _Works_, i. p. 13.\n\n[26] _Ibid._ i. pp. 13-15.\n\n[27] _Works_, ii. p. 782.\n\n\n\n\n{351}\n\n  INDEX\n\n\n  Abrahams, Galenus, 118, 120-121\n    and George Fox, 122-123\n    discussion with Penn and Keith, 122\n  Acontius, J., 115\n  Agrippa of Nettesheim, Cornelius, 55 _n._, 136-137\n  Althamer, A., 48\n  Ambrose, Saint, 267\n  Anabaptism--\n    characteristics of, 17-18, 28, 31, 81 _n._, 112, 267 _n._\n    attacked by Franck, 48\n    Schwenckfeld and, 80\n    Coornhert and, 112\n    Giles Randall and, 254\n  Anabaptists, xv\n    divisions among, 33\n  Anderdon, John--\n    on Behmenists, 227, 231-232\n  Antinomianism, 238, 241, 254, 263\n  Antinomians, xv\n  Aristotle, 211\n  Arminius, J.--\n    controversy over views of, 114\n    and Coornhert, 107\n    and Whichcote, 289, 294\n    and Culverwel, 289\n  Arnold, Gottfried--\n    on Entfelder, 39\n    on Schwenckfeld, 64 _n._\n    on Arminius, 107 _n._\n    on Boreel, 118 _n._\n  Astrology, 134, 137\n    as used by Weigel, 148-150\n    as used by Tentzel, 150 _n._\n  Aubrey, John--\n    on Traherne, 328\n  Augsburg--\n    Anabaptist Synod in, 20, 33\n  Augustine, Saint, 6, 9, 246, 267\n    theology of, 22, 204\n  Automatism--\n    of Jacob Boehme, 162, 207\n\n  Baader, F. von--\n    on Boehme, 151 _n._, 153 _n._\n  Baillie, Robert--\n    on Anabaptism, 254 _n._\n    on Giles Randall, 256 _n._; 262\n  Balling, Peter, 123-124, 128\n    influence of Cartesianism on, 124, 128, 130\n  Barclay, Robert (of Ury), 123\n    influence of Cartesianism on, 124, 347\n    on divine Seed in man, 283, 345-346, 347\n    teaching of, 343, 344-345, 348\n  Barclay, Robert--\n    on Boehme's influence on Quakers, 220 _n._\n  Barneveldt, John of, 114 _n._\n  Baxter, Richard--\n    on Behmenists, 227\n    on Vane, 271, 274\n    on Sterry, 280\n  Behmen, Jacob, 155 _n._ (_see_ Boehme)\n  Behmenists, 227-234\n    and Quakers, 231-233\n  Bellers, John--\n    on John Everard, 253 _n._\n  \"Bellius, Martinus,\" 93, 95\n  Bernard, Saint, 6, 267\n  Bewman, Jacob, 220\n  Beza, T., 95, 290, 294\n  Bible, translations from--\n    by Denck, 21\n    by Castellio, 90, 92\n    by de Valdes, 237\n    by Rous, 267\n  Boehme, Jacob, 43 _n._, 139\n    life and character of, 151-171, 208\n    vision of, 148 _n._, 158, 159-161\n    mysticism of, 154, 159, 201-206\n    automatism of, 162, 207\n    symbolism of, 173\n    view of man, xxx\n    view of God, xli _n._, 35 n; 174-177\n    views on salvation, 170, 190-198, 289, 309\n    views on the universe, 150 _n._, 159-160, 172-189\n    writings of, 151 _n._, 161, 165 _n._\n      in England, 208-220\n    influence on--\n      George Fox, 165 _n._, 170 _n._; 221-227, 338 _n._, 339 _n._\n      Quakers, 220, 233\n      Seekers, 220\n      Isaac Newton, 181 _n._, 234\n      John Milton, 234\n      William Law, 153 _n._, 179, 234\n      Sir Harry Vane, 275\n    and the Behmenists, 227-234\n    and B. Whichcote, 289, 302 _n._\n  Boethius, 105\n  Boreel, Adam, 117-120\n  Borellists--\n    views of, 119-120\n  Bosanquet, Bernard, xxxi _n._\n  Bourne, Benjamin--\n    on Randall, 256 n; 257\n  Boutroux, Emile--\n    on Boehme, 151 _n._, 183 _n._\n  Breen, Daniel van, 117\n  Brooks, Thomas--\n    on Everard, 241\n  Brothers of the Common Life, 4\n  Broussoux, Emile--\n    on Castellio, 88 _n._\n  Browne, Sir Thomas, 275\n  Browning, Robert--\n    on Paracelsus, 138\n  Bucer, Martin, 47\n  Buisson, F.--\n    on Castellio, 88 _n._\n  Buenderlin, Johann--\n    life of, 32-34, 40\n    teaching of, 34-39, 69, 76, 169, 190\n    writings of, 34 _n._\n    a mystic, 35\n    Franck's opinion of, 48\n  Buonarotti, Michael Angelo, 237\n  Burnet, Bishop G.--\n    on Vane, 272\n    on Cambridge Platonists, 289-290\n  Burrough, Edward--\n    on mission of \"the Children of Light,\" 337-341\n\n  Cabala, the--\n    teaching of, 134-136\n  Caird, Edward--\n    on Cartesianism, 125 _n._\n  Calvin, xlix, 121\n    relations with Castellio, 89-91, 93, 96\n    influence on Cambridge Platonists, 290, 294, 295\n  Calvinism--\n    in Holland, 106\n    in England, 279\n    and Arminianism, 114\n  Campanus, Johann, 48, 59\n  Carlyle, Thomas--\n    on Rous, 267\n  Castellio, Sebastian--\n    life, 88-93, 97\n    teachings of, 90, 91, 93-102, 107\n    writings, 90, 92-94, 96, 97, 98, 99 _n._, 101, 103 _n._\n    _nom-de-plume_ of, 93, 103 _n._\n    as a Reformer, 103\n    influence in England, 103 _n._, 243\n    on Van der Kodde brothers, 115\n    on Boreel, 118\n  Caton, William--\n    on Castellio, 103 _n._\n  Charles II.--\n    on Vane, 272\n  \"Children of the Light,\" 132, 221, 260, 277, 341\n  Chillingworth, William, 291\n  Christ--\n    in a Faith religion, xxxix-xliv\n    as viewed by--\n      Denck, 25\n      Buenderlin, 37\n      Entfelder, 41, 42\n      Spiritual Reformers, 44, 337\n      Franck, 54, 61\n      Schwenckfeld, 65, 69, 70\n      Castellio, 99-101\n      teachers of \"Nature Mysticism,\" 134\n      Weigel, 142-144\n      Boehme, 183, 185 _n._, 191, 193-194\n      John Sparrow, 216\n      John Everard, 244, 250\n      Pascal, 250 _n._\n      Francis Rous, 269-270\n      Peter Sterry, 284\n      John Smith, 316\n      Thomas Traherne, 332\n  Chrypffs, Nicolaus (_see_ Cusa)\n  Church, the--\n    historical conception of, xlix\n    as conceived by--\n      Montanists, the, xiii\n      Protestant Reformers, l\n      Luther, 8, 121\n      Denck, 38\n      Buenderlin, 38\n      Entfelder, 41\n      Spiritual Reformers, l, 45\n      Franck, 58-59, 145, 199\n      Schwenckfeld, 78-80, 85\n      Seekers, 84, 86, 340\n      Collegiants, 84\n      Borellists, 120\n      Abrahams, 120-121, 122\n      Weigel, 145, 147\n      Boehme, 169-170, 199-201, 226\n      George Fox, 200, 226, 339-340\n  Church, interim, (_see also Sttilstand_)--\n    Coornhert and, 113\n  Cicero, 105\n  Clarendon, Earl of--\n    on Vane, 271, 279\n  Clement of Alexandria, xxxix, 267\n  Colet, John, 236\n  Collegiants, the--\n    and the _Stillstand_, 68 _n._\n    Schwenckfeld and, 84\n    history of, 113-124\n    influence of Descartes and Spinoza on, 123 _seq._\n  Colonna, Vittoria, 237\n  Comans, Michael, 117\n  Commonwealth, English--\n    Reformation in, 266\n    Rous in, 268\n    Vane in, 271-272\n    Puritans in, 290\n  Conscience, liberty of--\n    taught by--\n      Castellio, 93-96\n      Coornhert, 106\n      Boreel, 118\n      Vane, 273, 275\n      Sterry, 286\n    William Caton on, 103 _n._\n    in Holland, 104\n    dangers of, 320\n  Coornhert, D. V.--\n    life, 105-108\n    writings, 105, 106\n    teachings, 106, 108-113\n    and Calvinism, 106, 111\n    and Van der Kodde brothers, 115\n    and Adam Boreel, 118\n  Cotton, John, 292\n  \"Covenant of Grace,\" 274\n  \"Covenant of Works,\" 274, 309\n  Crashaw, Richard, 322\n  Crautwald, Valentine, 67 _n._, 81\n  Cromwell, Oliver, 268, 271, 272, 274, 275, 280\n  Cudworth, Ralph, 280, 290\n  Culverwel, Nathaniel, 319\n    on Arminius, 289\n  Cunitz, M., 47 _n._\n  Curio, Valentin, 18\n  Cusa, Nicholas of, 3, 4\n    translated into English by Everard, 243, 256, 260\n    published by Randall, 256, 260\n\n  Dante, xxiii, 171, 174\n  Dell, William, l, 267 _n._\n  Denck, Hans, 48\n    life of, 18-21\n    writings of, 22 _n._\n    teaching of, xxx, 21-30, 69, 76, 242-243\n    not an Anabaptist, 18\n    begins \"Spiritualist\" movement, 132, 139, 169, 190\n    Everard's translation of, 242\n  Denqui, John, 242 _n._\n  Descartes, R.--\n    philosophy of, 117, 123-125, 128\n    and Cambridge Platonists, 291\n  Deussen, Paul--\n    on Boehme, 151 _n._, 153 _n._\n  Dilthey, Wilhelm--\n    on justification, 8 _n._\n  Dionysius, the Areopagite, 236, 239\n    his conception of God, xxvii, 247\n    translation of, by Everard, 243\n    influence on Rous, 267\n    on Sterry, 280\n  Dobell, Bertram--\n    on Traherne, 324 _n._; 327\n  Doellinger, Johann--\n    on Schwenckfeld, 64 _n._\n  _Dompeldoop_, 116\n  Donne, John, 322\n  Dort, Synod of, 114\n  Duerer, Albrecht, 48\n\n  Ecke, Karl--\n    on Schwenckfeld, 64 _n._\n  Eckhart, Meister, 3, 4, 239, 243\n    his conception of God, xxvi, xxvii, 247\n  Ederheimer, Edgar--\n    on Boehme, 151 _n._, 153 _n._\n  Edward VI. of England, 92\n  Ellington, Francis--\n    on Boehme, 221\n  Ellistone, John, 213\n    translates Boehme into English, 213, 217, 221, 234 _n._\n    views of, 217-220, 222\n  Emmanuel College, 279, 290, 291, 306\n  Endern, Carl von, 162 _n._, 165\n  England--\n    influence in--\n      of Castellio, 103 _n._\n      of Schwenckfeld, 84, 87, 103 _n._\n      of Weigel, 139, 141, 146, 148, 150\n      of Boehme, 208-234\n      of Spiritual Reformers, 235, 251, 252, 267, 288\n      of de Valdes, 237-238\n    Quakers in, 132, 221, 227, 337\n    Reformation spirit in, 266-267\n    religious upheaval in, 320\n  Entfelder, Christian--\n    life of, 39, 40\n    writings, 40\n    teaching, 40-43, 69, 169, 190\n  \"Enthusiasm,\" 238\n  \"Enthusiasts,\" xv, 31, 48\n  Erasmus, 34, 51, 55 _n._, 92, 105\n    Christian Humanist, 1 _n._, 3, 47\n    quoted on toleration, 93\n  Erbkam, H. W.--\n    on Schwenckfeld, 64 _n._\n  Erigena, 3\n  Etherington, John--\n    on Randall, 255\n  Everard, John--\n    life of, 239-241, 289\n    translations by, 241-243, 250 _n._, 256, 260\n    Sermons, 241\n    teaching, 243-252\n    and Randall, 243 _n._, 256, 260\n  Evil (_see_ Sin)\n\n  Faith--\n    definition of, xxxix\n    in \"spiritual\" religion, xv\n    as an approach to religion, xxxviii-xlv\n    magic reliance on, 75\n    Confessions of, 118\n    Confessions of, source of divisions, 115\n    view of, held by--\n      Luther, xxxix, 5-11, 75\n      Schwenckfeld, 75, 77-78\n      Castellio, 100\n      Coornhert, 109-110\n      Weigel, 146\n      Boehme, 195-198\n      de Valdes, 236, 237\n      John Smith, 316\n      Quakers, 344\n  Familism, 238, 241, 254, 255, 256 _n._., 258, 263, 267 _n._\n  Faust, xxiii\n  Ferrar, Nicholas, 237, 238\n  Ficino, Marsilius, 134, 235-236\n    influence on Sterry, 280\n  Fox, George, 328\n    mission of, 337-34l, 349\n    character, 343\n    conception of the Church, 200, 226, 339-341\n    and Abrahams, 122-123\n    and Boehme, 165 _n._, 170 _n._, 221-227, 338 _n._, 339 _n._\n    and Justice Hotham, 210\n    and Henry Vane, 278\n  France--\n    Castellio on conditions in, 101-102\n  Francis of Assisi--\n    and Schwenckfeld, 65\n  Franck, Sebastian, 139\n    Humanist and Mystic, 46, 55, 105\n    life of, 47-52, 92\n    writings, 49, 51\n    teachings, 49, 50, 52-63, 69, 93, 199, 242, 243, 247, 346\n    on the _Stillstand_, 86\n    quoted by William Caton, 103 _n._\n    translated by Everard, 242, 243\n    influence on--\n      Coornhert, 107\n      Boreel, 118\n      Weigel, 145, 146 _n._, 148\n      Boehme, 154, 169, 190\n  Franckenberg, Abraham von--\n    on Boehme, 156, 165\n  Frecht, Martin, 47\n  Freedom--\n    views on, of--\n      Spiritual Reformers, xlix\n      Hans Denck, 22, 23\n      Buenderlin, 35\n      Luther, 70\n      Schwenckfeld, 70, 72\n      Castellio, 93-96, 107\n      Coornhert, 106, 113\n      Randall, 258-259\n      Vane, 273, 275\n  Freedom of conscience in Holland, 104\n  Frettwell, Ralph, 232, 233\n  Furley, Benjamin, 128 _n._\n    collection of books, 258 _n._\n\n  Gairdner, W. H. J., xxvii _n._\n  _Gangraena_, Edwards'--\n    on Giles Randall, 254, 256 _n._, 257, 262\n  Gataker, Thomas--\n    on Giles Randall, 254 ft.\n  Gerson, 6\n  Gichtel, J. G.--\n    on Boehme, 153 _n._\n  Gnosticism--\n    view of man in, xii, xiii\n    seven qualities in, 180 _n._\n  God--\n    as conceived--\n      in a Faith religion, xliv\n      by Reason, xxxv-xxxviii\n      by Spiritual Reformers, xlvii, 44\n      by Mystics, xxiv, xxvii-xxviii, 247\n      by Luther, 10, 11\n      by Denck, 22-26\n      by Buenderlin, 35-37\n      by Entfelder, 40\n      by Castellio, 99\n      by Descartes, 125\n      by Spinoza, xxviii, 126-127\n      by Boehme, 35 _n._, 174-177\n      in _The Light on the Candlestick_, 130\n      in the Cabala, 134-135\n      by Justice Hotham, 210\n      by Everard, 246-248\n      by Randall, 260-261, 262\n  Goeters, W.--\n    on Collegiants, etc., 104 _n._\n  \"Gomarists,\" 114\n  Gonzaga, Giulia, 237\n  Goodwin, John--\n    on Randall, 257\n  Grace--\n    salvation by, 75, 99\n    \"Covenant of, the,\" 274\n    as conceived by--\n      the Remonstrants, 114\n      Boehme, 170, 191\n  Gregory of Nazianzen, 267\n  Gregory of Nyssa, 267\n  Gregory Thaumaturgus, 307\n  Grocyn, 236\n  Grotius, Hugo, 114 _n._\n  Gruetzmacher, R. H.--\n    on Schwenckfeld, 64 _n._\n    on Boehme, 168\n\n  Hagen, Carl--\n    on Buenderlin, 34 _n._\n  Haldane, E. S.--\n    on Descartes, 124 _n._\n  Hales, John, 291\n  Harford, Rapha--\n    on Everard, 240, 241\n  Harless, von--\n    on Boehme, 151 _n._\n  Harnack, A.--\n    on Luther, 15\n    on Irenaeus, 71 _n._\n  Hartmann, Franz--\n    on Boehme, 151 _n._\n  Hartranft, C. D.--\n    editor of _Corpus Schwenchfeldianorum_, 64 _n._\n  Heaven--\n    as conceived by--\n      Spiritual Reformers, xlviii\n      Weigel, 147\n      Boehme, 179, 186-188, 289, 302 _n._, 312, 334\n      Milton, 187 _n._\n      Everard, 252\n      Whichcote, 289, 301-302, 312\n      John Smith, 312-313\n      Thomas Traherne, 334-335\n  Heberle--\n    on Denck, 17 _n._\n  Hegel, G. W. F.--\n    on nature of consciousness, xxxii\n    on Boehme, 151 _n._, 195 _n._\n  Hegler, A.--\n    on Franck, 48 _n._\n  Hell--\n    as conceived by--\n      Spiritual Reformers, xlviii\n      Weigel, 147\n      Boehme, 179, 186-188, 289, 302 _n._, 312, 334\n      Milton, 187 _n._\n      Whichcote, 289, 301-302, 312\n      John Smith, 312-313\n      Thomas Traherne, 334-335\n  Heppe, H.--\n    on Collegiants, 104 _n._\n  Heraclitus, 63\n  Herbert, George, 237, 322\n  \"Hermes Trismegistus,\" 53, 136 _n._, 210\n    translated by Everard, 243\n  Hetzer, Ludwig, 19, 21\n  Hill, Thomas, 291\n  Hinkelmann, Dr., 167\n  Hobbes, Thomas, 291\n  Hoffman, Melchior, 33\n  Holland--\n    Collegiants in, 68 _n._, 84, 86, 113-124\n    William Caton in, 103 _n._\n    disciples of Castellio in, 102, 103\n    religious liberty in, 104\n    Calvinism in, 106\n  Hotham, Charles--\n    on Boehme, 209, 211, 221\n  Hotham, Durant--\n    on Boehme, 209-210, 211, 221, 222\n    and George Fox, 210\n    views of, 211-212\n  Howgil, Francis, 231\n  Huebmaier, Balthasar, 40\n  Huegel, Friedrich von, xlii\n  Humanists--\n    finding a new world, 1-3\n    view of man, 2, 4, 19, 69\n    view of \"Hermes Trismegistus,\" 243\n    in England, 235-236\n    influence on--\n      Spiritual Reformers, xxx, 289\n      Denck, 18, 19\n      Franck, 46, 47\n      Castellio, 89\n      Coornhert, 105-106\n      Cambridge Platonists, 289\n      Thomas Traherne, 323\n  Hutchinson, Anne, 274\n  Hutten, Ulrich von, 47\n  Hylkema, C. B.--\n    on Collegiants, 104 _n._\n    on Boreel, 118 _n._\n\n  _Imitation of Christ, The_, 4, 267\n  Immortality--\n    John Smith on, 314\n  Independency, 268\n  Inquisition, Spanish, 106\n  Irenaeus, 71\n  Israel, A.--\n    on Weigel, 140 _n._\n\n  Jarrin, Charles--\n    on Castellio, 88 _n._\n  Job, xxiii\n  Joris, David, 108\n  Justification--\n    mediaeval conception of, 8 _n._\n    as conceived by--\n      Luther, 8 _n._, 19, 74\n      Schwenckfeld, 75, 77\n      John Smith, 310\n      the Quakers, 344\n\n  Keith, George, 122, 233\n  Keller, L.--\n    on Denck, 17 _n._, 18 _n._\n  Kempis, Thomas a, 267\n  Kessler, J., 18 _n._\n  Kober, Dr. Tobias, 165\n  Kodde, Giesbert Van der--\n    founder of Collegiants, 115-116\n  Kodde, John Van der, 115, 117\n  Kodde, William Van der, 115\n  Kolde, Th., 20 _n._\n\n  Ladders, mystical, xxiii _n._\n  Langcake, Thomas, 234 _n._\n  \"Latitude-men,\" 279, 288-291\n  Law, William--\n    on Boehme, 153 _n._, 179, 234\n    on Inner Word, 346 _n._\n  Leade, Jane, 228, 230, 232 _n._, 233\n  Lee, Francis, 230-231, 233\n  Letter, the--\n    _versus_ the Spirit in--\n      Denck, 28-29\n      Buenderlin, 36-39\n      Entfelder, 41-43\n      Schwenckfeld, 72-74\n      Franck, 60-62, 154, 245, 317\n      Castellio, 101\n      Coornhert, 108-109\n      _The Light on the Candlestick_, 130\n      Weigel, 148\n      Boehme, 169-170, 201\n      John Ellistone, 217-218\n      Everard, 241, 245-246, 251\n      Randall, 263\n      Rous, 269\n      Vane, 276\n      Sterry, 285\n      John Smith, 316-318\n  Liegnitz Pastors, 67 _n._\n  _Life and Light of a Man in Christ Jesus, The_, 263-265\n  \"Light, Children of the,\" 132, 221, 260, 277, 341\n  Light, Inward, 129-132 (_see_ Inward Word)\n  _Light on the Candlestick, The_, 123, 128\n    teaching of, 128-132\n    circulated as Quaker Tract, 128\n  Linacre, Thomas, 236\n  Loofs, F.--\n    on Luther, 13\n  Lucifer, 178, 185, 192, 234\n  Luther, Martin--\n    child of the people, 4, 9\n    influence of mystics on, 6, 7, 9\n    influence of Humanists on, 7, 8\n    discovers way of Faith, xxxix, 5-8, 15\n    theology of, 9-14, 19, 70, 76\n    as a Reformer, 14-16, 12l\n    quoted on Toleration, 93\n    influence on--\n      Franck, 47\n      Schwenckfeld, 65-69\n      Boehme, 154\n\n  Magic--\n    in use of words, xi\n    as an aspect of--\n      the Sacraments, 13\n      Justification, 75\n      Sacerdotalism, 79\n      Superstition, 309\n    in the Cabala, 135\n    in Agrippa of Nettesheim, 136\n    in Paracelsus, 137\n  Man--\n    as conceived by--\n      Gnostics, xii, xiii\n      the psychologist, xvii\n      the mystics, xxvi, 70\n      the Spiritual Reformers, xxx-xxxii, xlviii, 337\n      the Humanists, 2, 4, 19, 69\n      Luther, 9, 11-12, 70\n    Denck, xxx, 21-23\n    Buenderlin, 35, 36\n    Franck, 53-55\n    Schwenckfeld, 54, 70, 77, 269\n    Castellio, 99\n    Coornhert, 106\n    Remonstrants, 114\n    Descartes, 124-125\n    Spinoza, 127\n    author of _The Light on the Candlestick_, 130-131\n    exponents of \"Nature Mysticism,\" 133\n    Agrippa of Nettesheim, 137\n    Paracelsus, 138\n    Weigel, 142-145\n    Boehme, xxx, 184-186, 188, 190-191\n    Charles Hotham, 211\n    John Ellistone, 218, 219\n    John Sparrow, 218, 219\n    Everard, 248-250\n    Rous, 268\n    Vane, 276-277\n    Sterry, xxx, 283\n    Robert Barclay, 283, 347\n    Cambridge Platonists, 290\n    Whichcote, 296-297\n    John Smith, 310-311\n    English poets, 322, 323\n    Traherne, 327, 328-329\n    the Quakers, 347\n  Mann, Edward, 233 _n._\n  Martensen, H. L.--\n    on Boehme, 151 _n._\n  Martyr, Peter, 236\n  Massachusetts--\n    religious controversies in, 273-274\n  McGiffert, A. C.--\n    on Luther, 15\n  Mennonites, 115\n    views of, 116\n    and Collegiants, 116, 120\n  Mildmay, Sir Walter, 279\n  Millennium, the--\n    Vane on, 275, 277-278\n  Milton, John--\n    on heaven and hell, 187 _n._\n    on strange sects, 214\n    on Vane, 271\n    on Inward Word, 321\n    influence of Boehme on, 234\n    and Sterry, 281\n    and Quakers, 321\n  Ministry--\n    must be divinely ordained, 79\n    in interim-Church, 113\n    among Mennonites, 116\n    among Collegiants, 115, 117\n    as conceived by--\n      Weigel, 146-147\n      de Valdes, 237\n      George Fox, 226, 338-339\n  Montanists establish a \"spiritual\" church, xiii\n  \"Montfort, Basil,\" 93\n  More, Henry, 118, 280, 319\n  More, Sir Thomas, 236\n  \"Morning Meeting,\" the, of London Friends, 232-233\n  Muenzer, Thomas--\n    views on Inward Word, 19\n  Mysticism--\n    characteristics of, xix-xxi, 223\n    limitations of, xxii-xxix\n    negative way of, xxv-xxviii\n    in \"spiritual\" religion, xv\n    the basis of life, 3, 4\n    a pathway to God, 133\n    of Buenderlin, 35\n    of Entfelder, 41\n    of Franck, 46, 55, 62, 155\n    of Coornhert, 108\n    of Spinoza, 123, 125\n    of Ficino, 134\n    of Paracelsus, 138\n    of Weigel, 141, 155\n    of Boehme, 154-155, 159, 201-206\n    of Randall, 258\n    of Vane, 273\n    of English poets, 323\n    of Traherne, 333-334\n  \"Mysticism, Nature,\" 133-139, 148, 154, 180 _n._\n  Mystics--\n    conception of--\n      man, 70\n      salvation, 75\n      the universe, 155\n      God, xxiv, xxvii-xxviii, 246-247\n    influence on--\n      Luther, 6, 7, 9\n      new views, 136 _n._\n      Coornhert, 108\n      Boreel, 118\n      Everard, 247\n      Rous, 267\n      Sterry, 280\n      Cambridge Platonists, 289\n\n  \"Nature Mysticism,\" 133-139, 148, 154, 180 _n._\n  Neo-Platonism, 134, 136 _n._\n  Neo-Pythagoreanism, 134\n  Newton, Sir Isaac--\n    influence of Boehme on, 181 _n._, 234\n  Nicholas, Henry, 108\n  Nicoladoni, A., 21\n    on Buenderlin, 33 _n._\n  Norris, John, 319\n  Novalis--\n    on Boehme, 153 _n._\n\n  Oaths--\n    views on--\n      of Mennonites, 116\n      of Collegiants, 116\n  Ochino, Bernardino, 236, 237, 238\n  OEcolampadius, 18, 21, 34, 137\n  Oporin, Humanist printer, 92\n  Origen, 267, 307\n\n  Paracelsus, 137-139\n    teaching of, 159 _n._, 184\n    symbolism of, 173 _n._\n    influence on--\n      Weigel, 148, 150 _n._\n      Tentzel, 150 _n._\n      Boehme, 154, 174, 175 _n._\n  Parker, Alexander, 233 _n._\n  Pascal, xxx _n._, 94, 250 _n._, 261 _n._\n  Patrick, Simon (S. P.)--\n    on \"Latitude-Men,\" 288 _n._, 290\n    on John Smith, 305 _n._, 306-308, 319\n  Paul St.--\n    use of word \"spiritual,\" xi\n  Penington, Isaac, xix, xxi, 345 _n._\n  Penn, William--\n    and Abrahams, 122\n    teaching of, 344, 347, 348\n  Pennsylvania--\n    migration of Schwenckfelders to, 83\n  Penny, A. J.--\n    on Boehme, 151 _n._\n  Pepys, Samuel--\n    on Vane, 272\n  Perfection, doctrine of--\n    John Sparrow on, 216-217\n    Randall on, 254, 255, 259\n  Perkins, 294\n  Personality, xlix, 8\n  Pfeiffer, F.--\n    on Eckhart, xxvi _n._, xxvii _n._\n  Pflug, Julius, 34\n  Philadelphian Society, the, 230, 23l, 233\n  Philosophy--\n    Greek, 134\n      in England, 235-236, 288, 295\n    Arabian, 134\n  Pico of Mirandola, 134\n  Pirkheimer, 47\n  Plato, xxxiv, 53, 134, 211, 268\n    influence on--\n      Ficino, 235-236\n      Peter Sterry, 280\n      Cambridge Platonists, 289, 290\n      Traherne, 323\n  Platonists, Cambridge, 279, 280, 288-291, 319, 334\n  Plotinus, 3, 53, 211, 236, 239, 280, 289, 290, 323\n  Poiret, Peter--\n    on Boehme, 153 _n._\n  Pordage, John, 227-230\n    on Quakers, 230 _n._\n  Pordage, Samuel--\n    on John Sparrow, 217 _n._\n  Predestination, 99\n    as viewed by--\n      Spiritual Reformers, xlix\n      Coornhert, 111\n      Remonstrants, 114\n      Boehme, 164, 204\n  Presbyterianism, 268, 28l\n  Principles, Three--\n    in Boehme's universe, 183\n  Proclus, 280\n  Psalms, translated by Rous, 267\n  Puritans, 279, 290, 291\n  Pythagoras, 210\n\n  Quakers, the--\n    precursors of, xxxii, 31, 83, 116, 123, 132, 146,\n      263, 264 _n._, 283, 337, 346, 348\n    circulate _The Light on the Candlestick_, 128\n    influence of Boehme on, 220-227, 233 _n._, 338 _n._\n    influence of Everard on, 252 _n._\n    and the Behmenists, 231-233\n    mission of, 337-341\n    organization of, 341-343\n    views of, 343-348\n  Qualities, Seven--\n    in Jacob Boehme, 180-183, 191\n    in Gnosticism, alchemy, etc., 180 _n._\n  Quarles, Francis, 322, 323\n\n  Randall, Giles--\n    and Everard, 243 _n._, 256, 260\n    life of, 253-254\n    teaching, 254, 255, 260-263\n    translations, 255-256, 258, 260, 261\n  Randall, John, 253\n  Ranterism, 31, 210, 241, 267 _n._\n    among Anabaptists, 33\n  Ranters, 320\n  Raphael, 176\n  Reason--\n    in \"spiritual\" religion, xv\n    as an approach to religion, xxxii-xxxviii\n    use of, for--\n      Luther, 12\n      Franck, 55\n      Castellio, 98, 101\n      Coornhert, 108\n      Ficino, 235-236\n      Rous, 268\n      Durant Hotham, 210, 211\n      Whichcote, 295, 300 _n._\n  Reformation, the--\n    divisions in, 1, 31, 49, 88, 98-99, 169\n    character of, 43-44, 66-67\n    how to be carried out, 82, 112\n    false course of, 97, 121\n    in England, 266-267\n    Spiritual Reformers and, xiv-xv, xlvi, 336-337, 349\n  Reformer, a--\n    types of, 14-16\n    Denck as, 29\n    Buenderlin as, 43-45\n    Entfelder as, 43-45\n    Franck as, 46\n    Schwenckfeld, 64, 65, 75, 139\n    Castellio as, 103\n  Reformers, Spiritual--\n    type of religion, xxix-xxxii, xlvi-li\n    views of early, 43-45, 76, 133\n    views brought into England, 235\n    mission of, 336-337, 349\n    and Spinoza, 127\n    and Weigel, 139, 148\n    and the Cambridge Platonists, 288-290\n    influence of, on--\n      Coornhert, 107\n      Everard, 239, 251-252\n      Randall, 255\n      Vane, 273\n      Milton, 321\n      Traherne, 323\n      Quakerism, 336-337, 348-349\n  Reforms, Economic and Social, 4\n  Religion, First-hand--\n    Faith as, xlv\n    in \"Covenant of Grace,\" 274\n    as taught by--\n      Denck, 26-27\n      Buenderlin, 37-39\n      Entfelder, 42\n      Franck, 45, 58\n      Schwenckfeld, 71-72\n      Spiritual Reformers, 76\n      Castellio, 90, 100\n      Coornhert, 109\n      Weigel, 141\n      Boehme, 154, 170-171, 192 _seq._\n      Durant Hotham, 212\n      John Ellistone, 217-218\n      de Valdes, 237\n      Everard, 244\n      Rous, 267\n      Vane, 272, 274\n      Whichcote, 296, 297-299, 300-301, 322\n      John Smith, 308, 310, 311-312, 318, 322\n      English poets, 322-323\n  Religion of lay type--\n    Humanism and, 3, 4, 8\n    found in Schwenckfeld Societies, 82-83\n    in Collegiant Societies, 115-117, 120\n    in Congregational Church government, 268\n  Religion, rational type of, xxxii-xxxviii\n  Religion, \"spiritual,\" xlvi\n    in Montanism, xiii\n    in Gnostic sects, xii\n    during Reformation period, xiv-xv\n    three tendencies in, xv, xxix, xlv-xlvi\n  Religion, study of, xv-xix\n  Remonstrants, the--\n    views of, 114\n  Reuchlin, J., 47\n    forerunner of Reformation, 134\n  Richter, Gregorius--\n    and Boehme, 162-164, 166-167, 168\n  Rieuwertz, John, 128\n  Roehrich, Gustave--\n    on Denck, 17 _n._\n  Roth, F.--\n    on Schwenckfeld Societies, 83 _n._\n  Rous, Francis--\n    life, 267-268, 270\n    writings, 268\n    teaching, 268-271\n  Rues, S. F.--\n    on Collegiants, 123 _n._\n  Rutherford, Samuel--\n    on Schwenckfeld, 87\n    on de Valdes, 238\n    on Randall, 254, 258, 262, 263\n  \"Rynsburgers,\" 114 (_see_ Collegiants)\n\n  Sabbath, the--\n    names for, 264 _n._\n    true, for Coornhert, 111\n  Sachs, Hans, 47\n  Sacraments, the use of--\n    as taught by--\n      Luther, 12-14, 19\n      Denck, 27\n      Buenderlin, 37, 39\n      Entfelder, 41-43\n      Franck, 59\n      Schwenckfeld, 67-69, 80-82, 86, 270\n\n      Castellio, 101\n      Coornhert, 110-112\n      Collegiants, 116\n      Borellists, 120\n      Weigel, 142, 147\n      Boehme, 201\n      Behmenists, 232-233\n      Jane Leade, 232 _n._\n      Everard, 251\n      Randall, 254, 255\n      Vane, 273\n      Seekers, 273\n      Whichcote, 302-303\n  Salter, Dr. Samuel--\n    on Whichcote, 291 _n._\n  Saltmarsh, John, 267 _n._\n  Salvation--\n    by Faith, xlii-xliv\n    by works, xlvi, 75\n    view of, as held by--\n      Protestant Reformers, xlvi\n      Spiritual Reformers, xlvii-xlix, 44, 76\n      historic Church, 75, 99\n      Mystics, 75\n      Luther, 10-12, 76\n      Denck, 25-27, 28, 243\n      Buenderlin, 36-38\n      Entfelder, 42\n      Franck, 54-55\n      Schwenckfeld, 70-72, 74-78, 285\n      Irenaeus, 70\n      Castellio, 98, 100\n      Coornhert, 110\n      Remonstrants, 114\n      Weigel, 141\n      Boehme, 170, 190-198, 289\n      de Valdes, 236, 237\n      Everard, 250\n      Sterry, 285\n      Whichcote, 289, 293, 301\n      John Smith, 311-312\n      Traherne, 332-333\n      Quakers, 345, 346-347\n  Sampson, Alden--\n    on Milton, 321 _n._\n  Schellhorn, J. G., 66 _n._\n  Schleiermacher, Friedrich, xxxii\n  Schmalkald League, 69\n  Schneider, Walter--\n    on Adam Boreel, 118 _n._\n  Schweinitz, Sigismund von, 167, 168\n  Schweizer, A.--\n    on Castellio, 88 _n._\n  Schwenckfeld, Caspar, 48\n    as a Reformer, 64, 65, 75, 139\n    life, 65-69\n    teaching, 54, 66, 67, 69-87, 154, 269, 285, 346, 347\n    writings, 64 _n._, 70 _n._\n    organizes Societies, 82-83\n    appearance of views in England, 84, 87, 103 _n._\n    influence on--\n      Weigel, 142, 148\n      Boehme, 154, 156 _n._, 190\n  Scriptures, the--\n    views on, as held by--\n      Luther, 12\n      Denck, 28, 29, 242\n      Buenderlin, 36\n      Entfelder, 42\n      Spiritual Reformers, 44, 251\n      Franck, 58, 60, 6l, 243\n      Schwenckfeld, 73\n      Castellio, 101\n      Coornhert, 108\n      Borellists, 120\n      Boehme, 169, 170, 225\n      John Sparrow, 215, 216, 225\n      George Fox, 225\n      Everard, 245, 251\n      Randall, 255\n      Rous, 269\n      Whichcote, 300\n      John Smith, 317\n      Quakers, 348\n  Scultetus, B., 163 _n._\n  Seekers, the--\n    and the _Stillstand_, 68 _n._\n    view of the Church, 84, 86, 340\n    view of sacraments, 273\n    Schwenckfeld and, 84\n    among the Collegiants, 117, 120, 122\n    in England, 122, 267 _n._\n    Boehme of the type of, 159\n    Boehme's influence on, 220-221\n    Vane one of the, 273\n    and the Quakers, 340-342\n  Seidemann, J. R.--\n    on Muenzer, 19 _n._\n  Servetus, 93, 96\n  Sewel, William--\n    on Abrahams, 122 _n._\n  \"Signature,\" 174, 183, 222, 223\n  Silesius, Angelus, 244 _n._\n  Simons, Menno, 112, 121\n  Sin--\n    views of, as held by--\n      Franck, 62\n      Schwenckfeld, 70\n      Castellio, 99\n      Remonstrants, 114\n      Boehme, 154, 155, 177-179, 188-189, 191\n      John Sparrow, 216, 217\n      Sterry, 284\n      Whichcote, 301-302\n      John Smith, 312-313\n      Traherne, 331-332\n  Slee, J. C. Van--\n    on Collegiants, 114 _n._\n  Smith, John--\n    life, 305-306\n    character, 305, 306-308, 318\n    teaching, 308-318, 322\n  Societies--\n    organized by Schwenckfeld, 82-83\n    of Collegiants, 115-117, 119-120, 123\n  Society of Friends--\n    organized by George Fox, 337, 341-343\n  Socrates, xxxiii _n._, 211\n  Sopingius, G., 114\n  Sparrow, John--\n    translates Boehme into English, 213-221, 222, 234 _n._\n    views of, 214-217, 225\n  Spinoza, B.--\n    mysticism of, xxviii, 123, 125\n    Philosophy of, 125\n    and the Spiritual Reformers, 127\n    and the Collegiants, 123, 128\n  Spiritual, the word--\n    Paul's use of, xi\n    in Johannine writings, xii\n    among Gnostics, xii\n      Montanists, xiii\n      Spiritual Reformers, xiv-xv\n  \"Spiritualists,\" 12, 31, 48\n  Spruyt, David, 120\n  Steiner, R.--\n    on Boehme, 151 _n._\n  Sterry, Peter--\n    life, 279-281\n    writings, 281\n    teachings, xxx, xxxiv, 281-287\n  _Stillstand_, the--\n    Schwenckfeld and, 67, 86, 273\n    Franck and, 86\n    revived by Collegiants and Seekers, 68 _n._\n    Vane adopts type of, 273\n  Stoddart, A. M.--\n    on Paracelsus, 137 _n._\n  Stoicism, 134\n  Stoupe--\n    on Collegiants, 119\n  Strobel, G. T.--\n    on Muenzer, 19 _n._\n  Sub-conscious, the, xxviii-xxix\n  Swinburne, A. C., 173\n\n  Tauler, xxvi, 3, 4, 6, 19, 141, 239, 243, 253 _n._, 267\n    his conception of God, 247\n  Taylor, Jeremy, 291\n  Taylor, Thomas--\n    on Boehme, 220\n  \"Temperature,\" 178, 181, 185\n  Tentzel, A., 242\n    use of astrology by, 150 _n._\n  _Theologia Germanica_, xxvi _n._, 4, 6, 239, 263\n    translated by--\n      John Theophilus (Castellio), 103 _n._, 243, 256\n      Everard, 243\n      Randall, 256-257, 258\n    influence on Weigel, 141\n  Theophilus, John (Castellio), 103 _n._, 243\n  Thornton, William, 220\n  Tilken, Balthazar, 170\n  Traherne, Thomas--\n    life, 323-324, 327, 328\n    writings, 327\n    teaching, 322, 324-327, 328-335\n  Trithemius, 137\n  Troeltsch, E.--\n    on Luther, 15 _n._\n    on Franck, 47 _n._\n    on Schwenckfeld, 64 _n._\n  Tuckney, Dr. Anthony, 279, 291\n    correspondence with Whichcote, 292-296, 302\n  Tulloch, John--\n    on Cambridge Platonists, 303 _n._, 305\n  Tully, 290\n  Turner, Wyllyam, 84\n\n  Underhill, Evelyn, x\n  Universe, the--\n    as conceived--\n      in a rational religion, xxxii-xxxviii\n      by Buenderlin, 35\n      by Entfelder, 40\n      in \"Nature Mysticism,\" 133\n      in the Cabala, 135\n      by Agrippa of Nettesheim, 137\n      by Paracelsus, 138-139\n      by Weigel, 148\n      by Boehme, 150 _n._, 159-160, 172-189\n      by John Sparrow, 214\n      by John Ellistone, 219\n      by Everard, 248\n      by Vane, 276-278\n      by Sterry, 282\n      by John Smith, 314-316\n      by Traherne, 329-331\n  Vadian, 21\n  Valdes, Alfonso de, 236\n  Valdes, Juan de--\n    life, 236-237\n    teaching, 237\n    influence in England, 237-238\n  Vane, Sir Harry--\n    life, 271-274\n    teaching, 274\n    and George Fox, 278\n    and Sterry, 280\n  Vaughan, Henry, 322, 326, 335\n  Veesenmeyer--\n    on Buenderlin, 33 _n._\n    on Entfelder, 40\n  Vermigli, Pietro Martire, 236, 237, 238\n\n  Wallace, William, xxxvii\n  Walther, Dr. B., 165\n  Walton, Christopher--\n    on Boehme, 151 _n._, 179 _n._\n    on Jane Leade, 230\n  War--\n    views of Collegiants on, 117\n    views of Boehme on, 199\n  Ward, George--\n    on Boehme, 234 _n._\n  Ward, James, xxxvi\n  Warmund, Church of, 115-116\n  Weigel, Valentine--\n    life, 139-140, 148 _n._\n    teaching, 141-150\n    writings, 141, 145, 148\n    influence on Boehme, 139, 148, 150 _n._, 154, 156 _n._, 169, 190\n    influence in England, 139, 141, 146, 148, 150\n  Weissner, Dr. Cornelius, 163, 165\n  Whichcote, Benjamin--\n    life, 279, 289, 291-293\n    teaching, 293-304\n    and Dr. Tuckney, 292-295\n    and John Smith, 306\n  Whitaker, Richard--\n    on Boehme, 208 _n._\n  Wilcox, Ella Wheeler, xxxviii\n  Williams, Roger--\n    on Vane, 275\n  Winstanley, Gerard, 267 _n._, 334\n  Winthrop, John, 274, 275\n  Word of God, Inward--\n    as taught by--\n      the Spiritual Reformers, xxx, xxxviii, li, 32, 44, 337\n      Thomas Muenzer, 19\n      Ludwig Hetzer, 19\n      Denck, 24, 27, 28-30, 243\n      Buenderlin, 36-39\n      Entfelder, 41\n      Franck, 53, 56-58, 346\n      Schwenckfeld, 66, 72, 346, 347\n      Castellio, 101\n      Coornhert, 108-109\n      _The Light on the Candlestick_, 129-132\n      Weigel, 147\n      Boehme, 169\n      John Sparrow, 214-216\n      George Fox, 215\n      John Ellistone, 218\n      de Valdes, 238\n      Everard, 246, 251-252\n      Randall, 263\n      Rous, 268-269\n      Vane, 276, 279\n      Milton, 321\n      William Law, 346 _n._\n    root principle of Quakerism, 345, 348\n  Wordsworth, William, xxiii, xxxv\n  Worthington, John--\n    on John Smith, 306, 307\n\n  Zwickau Prophets, 12\n  Zwingli, 121","title":"Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":146888}