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The High And According To The By Jacob Boehme, |
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The High And According To The By Jacob Boehme, |
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Being a high and deep searching out of the Threefold Life of Man, through the Three Principles.
Why God, who is the highest Good, has brought all things to light. Also why one thing is contrary to another, and destroys it: and then what is right or true, and what is evil or false, and how the one distinguishes itself from the other. Wherein especially the Three Principles are founded, which are the only original or fountain whence all things flow and are generated. Whereby the multitude of meanings and opinions about faith and religion may be known: and what is the cause of the multitudes of opinions among men concerning the essence and will of God. Also, what is best for man to do, that he may attain the highest and eternal good. Then concerning the end and issue of all things -- why all things have appeared in such a property and essence as they have had; for the comfort of the poor wounded sick soul of man, and for the rebuilding or edification of the true Christian religion; wherein the Antichrist stands quite naked and revealed. Set down for a remembrance to ourself, and for a stay to uphold us in these distracted miserable times.
"Theosophy" may mean either "A wisdom which is God's" or "A wisdom which man can attain about God." For all practical purposes the latter is to be preferred; for whatever view we take of theosophical truth, we never can be certain that it is the view of God. If Boehme has been called the "Teutonic Theosopher," this is only because he endeavors to penetrate into the depth of man's nature, and seeks for facts which are not to be found upon the surface thereof. Many view such an attempt with feelings akin to those of the hen who sees the ducklings she has hatched out embark boldly upon the pond. They are sure there is no foothold, and that disaster must ensue. There has been, without doubt, in all ages of the world much inquiry calling itself "theosophical" which has been illicit and disastrous. Ducklings that can safely cross a river might be lost in attempting to cross the Atlantic. Everything depends on the spirit in which the inquiry is undertaken. If in a self-sufficient pride and confidence in our own powers, or out of mere curiosity and love of the wonderful and obscure, the inquiry is illicit and likely to end in spiritual and moral disaster. One sort of spirit alone can undertake the inquiry with safety. It must be entered on for the one and only purpose of learning what we actually are, so that by this knowledge we may be enabled to shape our life and form our personal character in accordance with the eternal Fact.
Neither must we undertake to pursue the inquiry by our own natural and unaided reason and intellect. We must seek and expect guidance; that guidance which is ever afforded to those who seek it from a true motive, which is never a mere desire to explore and talk about the recondite and profound. So narrow is the gate that leads to the real divine truth that no self-sufficiency can ever enter in. Only the meek and lowly of heart, who desire to be able better to serve, rather than to pose as profound thinkers, can pass it and walk in the straitened way that will be found within. Such are known at once by this: that their whole interest is centered on what can be turned to practical account in life and conduct and character; and if, as they study, they do not find themselves becoming nearer to the divine character in love and sympathy and service, they feel that something is wrong. They are never so filled with wonders discovered as to rest content with this success; for they seek not truth for its own sake, but only for the sake of its good. They watch themselves closely, and turn aside from any knowledge that does not bear fruit in a greater earnestness in service, and in a character growing ever more pure and sympathetic and set on things above. All this Boehme is careful to say again and again.
Understood in this sense, and fenced about by these safeguards, theosophy loses all its dangers, and the man who loves God, and is dissatisfied with the mere notional apprehension of Him with which most are content; who feels that he himself is more than he as yet knows, and would understand for what he was created, and to what end he is meant to arrive; who regards this life as needing to be interpreted rather than no more than it seems; who wishes so to live here that, after death, he may not find himself in a new and "other" world with every fiber of habit, every longing and liking, of a nature which, in that world, is impossible and must prove a torment — such an one need not despair. There is a way, a wisdom, an operation which, taken, searched out and attempted, will lead him, teach him and form him so that he will not only reach the eternal (which all must do), but reach it to find himself in rightful relation to it, at home in it, conformed to it. Harmony with environment is heaven: the contrary is hell. If, of human writers, Kant is the man of philosophical first principles, Boehme is equally certainly the man of theosophical first principles. And if there appear signs (as surely is the case) that our Christian religion is not producing that national righteousness which its aim is to produce, and we suspect that we have not got our first principles right, there is no author (outside Holy Scripture) to whom it will be more profitable to go back. It will be impossible in a brief introduction to enter on a full explication of Boehme's marvelous system, for this would require a volume to itself. All that can be attempted is to indicate the general lines of that system, and to give some clue to the reader, whereby first difficulties may be surmounted, and the secret of Boehme Indicated.
The Divine One; The Human Two.
Human apprehension is admittedly limited. The nature of this limitation may be thus expressed: What in God's comprehension is one is, to human apprehension, two. "The darkness and the light to Thee are both alike." But to man it is said, "Woe to those who put darkness for light, and light for darkness." As darkness and light are contraries, so it follows that the two into which (for man) the divine one or whole is broken up are always contraries, and therefore the life of man's apprehension is the contrary of God's life. Hence it is said: "The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God." What to us is wise, to Him is folly; what to us is strong, to Him is weak; what to us is life, to Him is Death.
This is the mystic truth in its simplest expression: there is really a great deal more to be grasped. The reason why man's thought is the contrary of God's is that God's concept is so vast that before the human mind can apprehend it, it must be broken up into two. Thus the actual one thing becomes, for man, two things, as darkness and light, weakness and strength, wisdom and folly. The truth is not that — of these two — God holds one and man the other, but that God apprehends both as one; and man, unable to do this, has to hold God's one as a two, one of which he clings to and rejects the other. One he calls right, the other wrong; one truth, the other falsehood; and so on. Thus in what man holds as right, or true, there is an element, present in God's comprehension of it, which man fails to integrate. Both man's "right" and his "wrong" are imperfect to God, for God's "right" is man's "right" and "wrong" synthesized, or atoned. The Hegelian triad of "thesis, antithesis and synthesis," is based on this philosophy. Of English writers, no one has more clearly explicated it than the late Prof. G. Boole, in his Laws of Thought — a work now unhappily very rare. Boole was a mathematician, and expressed his philosophy in terms of mathematical notation. Take (he says in effect) any one genus of things, and you can divide it by dichotomy into two classes. "Men "can be divided into "white men" and "not white men," or "clever men" and "not clever men." Qualities also can be thus dichotomized. Whatever genus you take and divide thus he calls "universe of thought"; and his formula is: "Universe of thought equals unity." And as (as has been shown) this universe can be divided into contraries, he suggested the following formula as a graphic picturing of the philosophy: x + not x = 1. This will be plainer when we show the practical application of it. As thus: John Smith (we will say) is an orthodox Churchman, and believes that what he holds is right and what William Brown (who is a Nonconformist) holds is wrong. He divides his "universe of Thought" (men) into "churchmen and not churchmen"; assuming that the former have all the truth and the latter all the error. This he assumes too easily; unaware that God's Truth is too vast to be all included in the ideas of any single school or party. There is something in the Nonconformist's apprehension which is lacking in his, and something in his which is lacking in the Nonconformist's. This means that in each apprehension there is some truth and some error. Deduct the error of each, and you get two truths, the Churchman's and the Nonconformist's. But, according to Boole's formula, these two equal one; if these two can be united, harmonized, atoned, then we have the divine Truth. And what becomes of the two errors? Really, that which John Smith regards as William Brown's error is that complementary truth to his own truth which he, not seeing as truth, has to regard as error: for truth not rightly understood, not seen in its right relation, is regarded as error. Is there therefore no such thing as error? Certainly. If William Brown asserts that no Churchman can be right, that is an error. If John Smith asserts that no Nonconformist can be right, that is an error. And we may safely generalize that in all our negations there is error, and in our affirmations truth. Therefore it is plain that x + not x = 1, means, "The truth I see and hold, and the truth I yet do not see nor hold, equals the whole, single divine Truth." The full following up of this idea (which here I have not space to give) would lead to this unexpected conclusion: that if I want to find that complementary truth which I require to make my apprehension approximate as closely as may be to the divine, I must seek it in the opinions of those whom I believe to be most mistaken and wrong. This does not mean that I must abandon my own views and adopt theirs; for that would be to exchange the thesis for the antithesis — both equally short of the full Truth. It means that I must try to detect the idea at the bottom of their tenets, find out what it is they are trying in those tenets to express; and this will be the complementary that I require to integrate with the idea that, in my tenets, I am trying to express. Thus I shall reach the synthesis, which alone is perfect and complete.
The Hidden Base and the Manifested Quality. If man as he is here is limited, it follows that he cannot see the whole of God's One, and if he cannot see the whole of God's One, it follows that a part of it is hidden from him. This means that when he tries to see God's One there will be a moiety that he will see and a moiety that he will not see.
In all creaturely seeing the sight is of the surface alone. And herein it may be said that man is doubly limited, for he does not see all even of what is on the surface. A gazer on the shore of the Atlantic cannot see all of even the surface of that mighty ocean. So we must say that he sees only that part of the surface that falls within the limit of his vision. But he is much more disastrously limited as to sight of the depths of the ocean, into which he can only look to some very slight extent. Translating this into its spiritual analogue, we say that man can see phenomena but not the power that causes phenomena. It is true that he can sometimes see something of the way the power works, and may even be able himself to set it to work, and thereby produce certain effects; but the knowledge whereby he does this is purely empirical. He has first to watch nature's working, and then try to imitate it: his work is a making, not a creating.
It might be thought a presumptuous attempt to seek to penetrate to the mystery of God's creating; but Boehme undertakes to defend the reasonableness of the attempt. Man is, he says, in his spiritual nature the child of God; and, as our Lord said, "The Father loveth the Son, and showeth him all things that Himself doeth." Therefore the whole question of our justification in attempting this deep searching is whether we approach it as children of God, relying on our Father's illumination and guidance, or whether we undertake it in our own fancied self-ability. If in the latter, the presumption, the folly, the sin of the attempt cannot be exaggerated. If in the former, then the attempt, is right and no disaster will result. God gives the Holy Spirit to all who earnestly desire it, and "the spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God." Boehme asserts that he sought in this spirit; that the knowledge he thus meekly sought came to him; and this is the account he gives of it.
Before any created "thing" was, God (who is "nothing" because "everything" in one, immanent in all, and yet also transcendent) existed in a state which Boehme calls the "Still Rest." In the One All-consciousness every "thing" which, after manifestation, became an "each-consciousness" was, but un-put-forth. One Will ruled alone, a Will to abide still in the same state; and had not a contrary will arisen, all would have remained as One. God would have known His own infinite content, but there had been no creatures, self-conscious, and capable of knowing and rejoicing in their Creator.
Since it is clear that manifestation has taken place, we must say that the necessary, second and contrary will did arise: how, we must not seek to inquire. It is not revealed, because not necessary for us to know. We may be sure that it does not indicate any change in content in the Infinite, to which nothing can be added; but only a change in arrangement. The effect of this contrary will was to produce conditions the contrary of what had been before. Before, all had been light and peace and joy; now, darkness, strife and wrath arose. At once we must ask, How can these evil things arise in God? The reply is, first, these things very obviously are now; and if they have not their origin in God, in whom have they their origin? There is no other originating power but God, who says of Himself, "I form the light and I create darkness, I make peace and create evil, I am the Lord that doeth all these things." *
* Isa. xlv. 7. Note that these words are addressed to Cyrus, who as a follower of the Magian religion, believed in two Gods — one who made all things good, and the other all things evil. This fact adds greatly to the significance of the words. But, secondly, we can reply that what really thus arose was not darkness, strife and wrath, but a spiritual principle which, if allowed to take on form, or quality, would then — but then only — appear as these evil things. If this idea is clearly grasped, most of the obscurity of Boehme's system will disappear, and all will be lucid. For, according to him, any quality is the surface appearance of an unseen, hidden power or spirit which, so long as it remains as invisible spirit, is unknown, has no name, no consciously cognized quality. But it is possible to bring it up out of the hiddenness, and then it appears as a definite quality; and then, for the first time, it gets a name; and is either love or hate, darkness or light, falsehood or truth, according to the nature of the spirit of which it is the manifestation.
But why should God permit any spirit to be which, when manifested, must appear as these evil qualities? Boehme's reply is that contrariety is the very condition and basis of manifestation; and that, apart from the existence of a contrary, manifestation could not be. For a single will does nothing new; and had the will of the Still Rest not been met and crossed by a contrary will, the Still Rest had been the ceaseless condition, and manifestation would not have taken place. And there is very much to be said for this presentation of the case. Contraries do exist for us; and we must either suppose that they exist against the will of God (which is hard to believe, for "Who hath resisted His will?"), or that they exist by His will, and subserve some necessary purpose, as Boehme asserts. We know, too, that it is through opposition that consciousness is effected. Where there is no opposition, no work can be consciously done. If things had no weight to resist our strength, we should never know we possessed strength. If we could never do wrong, we should never know that we could do right. Abstract terms are nothing to us, apart for some concrete embodiment. Strength is unknown to us apart from the strong thing, showing its strength in what it does. Colors would be unknown were there no "bodies" that were red or blue or green. So "strong," "powerful," "good," "thick," "heavy," "light," "dark," "hard," "soft," "sweet," "bitter," etc., etc. are all Adjectives — that is, they are qualities of things which we only know through the things of which they are the qualities. We know that we cannot conceive of pure, abstract spirit apart from some visible or cognizable thing in and through which it manifests; but this is part of the predication, for if we could know it, it would be manifested and not hidden. We know that God is Spirit, and that God is unknowable and incognizable apart from His self-revelation of Himself in His Son, who is His manifestation.
Therefore there can be no inherent impossibility in the idea here suggested that every known quality must have some unknown, hidden basis. Nor in the further idea that the hidden and the manifested will necessarily be (to us) contraries. Consider such a quality as "love." It appears so weak that it cannot threaten or use force to compel response; it prefers to seem to yield, to give way; yet always, in the end, it wins. It is the one invincible force. Why is this? If Boehme is right, it is because in everything there is a quality on the surface, and a power in the hiddenness; and if the quality appears weak, the power is strong; and if the quality appears strong, the power is weak. The man who scoffs at love, and prefers to compel and dominate in his own power, in the end always fails to accomplish his end. Strange, therefore, as the idea may seem to us at first sight, and the reverse of all that we should naturally be inclined to expect, yet deep reflection will show that there is very much to be said for it, and that it is well worthy of consideration; especially as it affords such a splendid and effective explanation of things as we find them.
Had the true, divine Order not been transgressed, the fact of the second will arising had never produced manifested evil. It stands in the very nature of the case that — being, ex hypothesi, a contrary will — if it should be manifested, it must manifest as the contrary to the manifestations of the first will. But the divine Order is that it never should be manifested, but remain always in the hiddenness, and so be the basal might and secret power of what does manifest. And there is a double sense in which this principle can be understood. In heaven, where good alone manifests, all that — if manifested — would manifest as evil is always kept in the hiddenness. On earth, where the conditions of heaven are reversed, the law is that what we would be recognized as possessing in heaven we must be content to seem not to possess while on earth, and in the recognition of earthly-minded people. If there we would wear the crown, here we must be content to bear the cross. If there we would possess the true riches, here we must be poor in spirit: that is, if God gives us wealth here, we must not boast of it and glory in it, and use it as if it were our own, but hold it as only a stewardship, and be — in the eyes of the world — none the richer for it; not use it to command luxuries and display, and all that the world esteems money as able to procure. If in heaven we would be wise, here we must be willing to be thought fools. For what is manifested on earth is hidden in heaven, and what is manifested in heaven is hidden on earth. Which is why all God's saints have to go the covered way, and enter into the kingdom through much tribulation.
Knowing this they can well "glory in infirmities"; for they know that the high court of heaven will reverse the verdict of earth, given according to the earthly spirit, and from the earthly point of view; and that the decision of heaven will stand for ever, and the decision of earth but for a "little while."
I have dealt at this length with Boehme's doctrine of the Hidden and the Manifested because I regard it as the main and preponderating element in his teaching, and in an especial way his "secret." Grasp this, and all the rest will follow easily. For all the rest, the seven forms of Nature, the three Principles, etc., which go to complete his philosophy of origins, are but the details of this main principle; as will be seen from what follows.
The Seven Forms of Nature. These, present from the first in real but uncognized fact, appear and become recognizable and definable with the arising of the second, or contrary, will. The first will, being a one will, was to remain unchanged, to go on still as ever. Hence from it arises the first form, which Boehme calls "Harshness," by which I think he means that hard and strong resistance to change, which is the great primal conservative force, tending to give permanence to things, to resist new combinations, and maintain the status quo.
The second arises from the contrary will, and is necessarily the contrary to the first. Boehme calls it "Attraction," meaning that restless flux, ever seeking new combinations, which is the principle of all variety, and the cause of differences and of evolution. These two being now face to face with each other, at once the contrariety between them produces the third form, which Boehme calls "Bitterness"; meaning thereby the strife of the two first, the one to resist change, the other to produce it.
These first three will perhaps be better understood if we call them (in modern terminology) homogeneity, heterogeneity, and strain. These three, he says, are the bases of all manifested things. Apart from difference there had been no possibility of different things coming into being; and difference involves opposition, a conflict of forces, and out of the conflict arises first the difference in essence, then the difference in the particular manifestation. For the essence is spiritual, and spirit always at once puts on a form which is its manifestation, and the smallest difference in. the essence result is a corresponding difference in the form.
Thus in the attainment of the third form of Nature, the process reaches the point at which the particular manifestation is practically determined as to its first and earliest degree and quality. This is the fourth form, which Boehme calls Fire, and the term may stand; for all Being is a fire; from God, the fire of love, down to the most brutal and degraded creatures, a fire of hate and malice.
Here, then, in the fourth form, arises the first personality. Here begins the idea of "self," and I am conscious that I am I. But in this stage of the process — which is, ex hypothesi, incomplete — the personality stands in this "fire," in its unmodified aspect of a raging, consuming element. For the basis of it is as yet the contrariety of the two first forms, represented in the third and personified in the fourth. "We can easily see the fire in characters yet unregenerate; where the whole spirit is to get; and lust, avarice and pride rule unmodified by any light of true knowledge of what real good is. Probably, no actual man stands in the fire alone; in some the light is so minute as to be practically darkness; but it is the rarest thing to find any character with absolutely no smallest, faintest trace of some generous emotion at odd times and in particular directions. But Boehme uses Lucifer as an example of what a character would be if it stood all and only in the might of the fire. It does not concern us practically to know whether there is actually such a character. Boehme seems to assert that there is, and that he will abide forever in the fire, as this is his sole and entire element, in which only he can live. That is as it may be. Perceptions have dawned on men since Boehme's time which suggest to a different conclusion; and — great and wonderful as is Boehme's illumination — we need not suppose that he knew everything. His knowledge was purely intuitive. He himself often laments that he had not more learning. If he had had this, he might have been able to distinguish between "no evidence that it is not so "and "evidence that it is so." It ought to be easy for us now to distinguish between his positive affirmations and what in his teaching is positively asserted in form, but is (to logic) practically negative, and based on what had not been revealed rather than on what had.
To proceed. That which can qualify the fire and practically put it — in its immediate aspect of raging, consuming — into the hiddenness, is Light. This is Boehme's fifth form, and the term needs no amendment. "Whatsoever doth make manifest is light" (literally, "make to appear"). If man is an evolution, gradually being perfected, then clearly his first ideas and impressions are not in accordance with actual fact, or no evolution would be needed. What he takes himself as seeing is not what is there, but what is there seen in a dimness of greater or less extent. Boehme says — very rightly — that in perfect light all darkness is in the hiddenness. Correspondingly, in semi-light some of the darkness is hidden and some manifested. Our Lord spoke of the light that is in us being darkness; and he who is in darkness, and yet thinks he sees, is sure to see wrongly and imperfectly.
As the light increases, many things before unseen come into view. It is as if, as the light increases, the first three forms for the first time see their true place and function, which is not to emphasize and express themselves as themselves, but to be basal powers to that which can come to manifestation when they are hidden.
In reading Boehme, one has constantly to be on the watch for what he is seeking to convey. He had the rough idea, but not the training in literary expression which would have enabled him to convey it clearly and with no liability of misapprehension.
For I take it that what he really means is this. He says that the first three forms, the harshness, the attraction, and the bitterness, should always remain in the hiddenness, and never be manifested. But what is in the hiddenness is utterly unknown and can have no name at all, for we cannot name (define) what we do not know. Hence the names harshness, attraction, bitterness, only belong to these when they are manifested. Not manifested, they are basal forces of no known quality, and not rightly regarded as hidden evil, but as hidden bases which, if manifested, must manifest as evil, but are not evil so long as they are not manifested.
The corollary of this is most interesting. If Lucifer can be put into the hiddenness, he would cease to be evil; for evil is only evil when brought out of the hiddenness into manifestation. But this is just what Boehme says will happen in the end. The first principle and all contained in it will be so shut up that no knowledge of it can ever obtain in the second principle. If this is not the equivalent of being put into the hiddenness, I know not to what it is equivalent. Lucifer is clearly (in Boehme's system) the external and open manifestation of certain basal forces which should never be explored, or known, or come to manifestation. So long as they do not, they are necessary and right, and are the very fountain powers to manifestation which, apart from them, could not be effected. I find here the most profound and suggestive hint at the solution of the problem of evil that has ever been given to the world. Here it is impossible to do more than merely indicate it roughly. Evil is not a positive "thing," but a negative appearance: it is what seems to arise when the right thing is in the wrong place; on the surface when it should be underneath. To cause it to appear needs no strong, positive "let there be." Mighty and powerful for harm as it appears, its power lies only in the power of a false imagination. In a state where no false imagination could arise, no evil could arise; therefore there is a sense in which it cannot exist for God: and yet there is a sense in which it can, for God must deal with all that appears to be to man. But He sees it only, so to speak, through fallen human eyes; and not as a real thing, but as a delusion of His creatures. We know it is not in heaven; and — unless we can conceive that in the infinite there can be anything real lacking — we must allow that whatever is not in heaven is not real in the absolute sense.
Boehme, it is true, does not himself develop this philosophy. That he saw it, I am persuaded; or he never could have spoken as complacently as he does about the results of evil on Lucifer and unrepentant men. But he feared to speak too plainly, lest any should so sadly misunderstand him as to suppose him to mean that evil did not matter. It matters with an infiniteness of fatality to the false imagination; that is, to you, my evil-loving friend, who wish to feel free to indulge your evil desires unrestrainedly. If you could distinguish between yourself and your false imagination, you would never wish to do any evil. But the whole point is that you cannot, do not. And to the false imagination, evil is real, and its consequences end only with the ending of the false imagination. The idea that you are in eternal torment may be, will certainly be, only a false imagination; but this will be no comfort to you who are not only unaware that the imagination is false, but are absolutely certain that it is not, but real and actual.
The remaining forms of Nature are the sixth, Sound, and the seventh, Figure. By Sound Boehme means any particular expression to sense of those qualities which arise after the creature has determined whether the fire shall remain fire, or pass into light; that is, whether it will stand in the false imagination, or allow the light to enter and change this into the true imagination by showing things as they actually are instead of as they are falsely imagined. "Whatever nature it elects to stand in, this it sounds forth, by voice and speech, by cries (in animals), by color, scent, taste, properties, and whatsoever conveys an idea of its quality.
The seventh form is the Figure, the creature definitely constituted and embodied in form and material according to, answering to, the quality of its spirit. The seventh is the crown and completion of all the six: good, if the light has modified the fire; evil, if it has not. If good, the sound is pleasing and the embodiment beautiful. If evil, the sound is displeasing and the embodiment hideous.
The Three Principles.
By the first Principle Boehme means a state in which the creatures stand in the false imagination, in the might of the fire, and refuse to allow the light to shine and show things as they really are. In such a state, he says, the first three forms are manifested in their own self-quality as Harshness, Attraction, and Bitterness. The love of that state is "self-love," which is hate; the light is "self-light," which is darkness. Every "self" is a personified "love "; but the love may be particular or universal, the love of one (myself), or of all (God). And love is a Fire; therefore every "self" is a fire, but it may be a fire that seeks to consume all else into itself, or a fire that — like light — gives itself freely to all.
So he calls the first Principle the Principle of Fire, and the second Principle the Principle of Light. And these two, he says, are eternally distinct. Whichever is manifested, the other remains absolutely hidden; and neither can know the other. There is absolutely nothing manifested as good in the first Principle: there is absolutely nothing manifested as evil in the second.
But the third Principle stands in both good and evil; and by it he means our present state here on earth. Here somewhat of good is manifested, and somewhat of evil. Between these two, man has here to make what is to him an eternal choice. In every manifested creature the basal "real" is hidden, and he knows only by and through imagination, persuasion, sense of certitude. He only directly contacts the real who is in fully realized and conscious touch with the whole. We all therefore "know in part," and such knowledge is but an imagination, compared with the absolute knowledge of God, who is the whole, yet transcends the whole.
There are times when one cannot but suspect Boehme of being purposely obscure. He seems to me to be thus when he speaks of the first Principle being the Principle of the Father, and the second of the Son: though he hastens to add that, in the actual Fact, the Father can never be so much as thought of as apart from the Son. What he means I take to be somewhat as follows: He regards the Father as being the hidden, basal spirit, force, potency of the qualities which, in the Son, come to manifestation. The Son is the Father in manifestation: the Father is that which the Son manifests. More than this we cannot say, for the unmanifest has no name nor qualities in itself and as apart from its manifestation. So it is said, "God, whom no one hath seen, or can see"; but the Son says, "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." But the distinction is verbal and notional only; and is an instance of that truth expressed above, that God's One must become distinguished as an apparent two before human apprehension can grasp it. Boehme also says that it is only "according to the first Principle that God is called a consuming fire and a jealous God." If he had said that it is only according to a false imagination that God could so much as appear thus, he would have been more easily understood. For "God according to the first Principle "is God as He never is, for "the Father cannot even be so much as thought of as apart from the Son ": that is, in a true imagination. The whole point is, that by a false imagination He can be thus falsely thought of, but only in imagination, never in reality. Our very surest knowledge is but an image of the true: how true or false an image we never can know till we know all things. Thus we are (till then) shut up to imagination; and when we say, "Thus it is," we mean, "Thus it seems to me." We have absolutely no right to say "I know it is so," save of truths that stand in an agreement in definition, or of things whose content we know exhaustively. Thus we may say we know that all radii of a circle are equal, for this pertains to the definition of a circle; or, "I know that my friend was in town today," for this is a matter that we can know all about. When Boehme says, "God is called a consuming fire and a jealous God according to the first Principle," he very evidently means, according to. the first Principle as manifested, and by those who stand in it and are of its nature: that is, are of the false imagination. He says much that merits deep reflection as to the danger of awaking the fire in the Turba, that is, in the wrath. Instances of this we find in the imprecatory Psalms, in the command to slaughter the heathen inhabitants of Canaan; in Elisha cursing the children who mocked him, etc. The truly divine command is, "Overcome evil with good." But sometimes the spirit of patience gives way under great strain, and the wrath is appealed to vindicate the right. But this could never be done by the true imagination, such as was the Lord's. He says of those who would awake the wrath, "Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of"; and He predicted, "They that take the sword shall perish with the sword." In the false imagination the sword is permitted; but there is always a "more excellent way" for such as have grace to find and take it. All that we can know about God we know of Him as manifested in His Son, as love and light and life. If we think we know Him as to the first Principle (that is, as apart from the Son) as manifested might and compelling force showing itself ostensibly such, this we only know in a false imagination. Yet in that imagination it is real, and can only seem not so, only be put into the hiddenness, after the true imagination has arisen.
Regeneration.
There is much more that ought to be said, but space forbids. I must conclude this very imperfect Introduction by a few words of Boehme's teaching as to Regeneration.
Put briefly, that process of regeneration consists in finding out how to pass from the fire to the light, from the false imagination to the true. There is only one way, the way of death. We must cease to think and act according to the false imagination. By doing this we do actually put it into death, that is, into the hiddenness. The difficulty of doing this increases with every day lived in the false imagination, for every day confirms and strengthens the habit of the false. There is a difficulty, of course, in awaking to the fact that that which seems to us so real, so universally admitted and practiced, is a false imagination; but the idea once seen is instantly grasped. As to knowledge, we may pass from death to life in a moment; but knowledge is not at once and immediately power. We have now to face the much longer and harder task of eradicating old habit, and — with the best will in the world — this is never done without long and very earnest effort; and it might be said that the difficulty increases as the square of the time we have remained in the habit.
We have said that the process is "death." Scripture calls it "birth": a new birth. But death and birth are the two sides of a single act: one, the leaving of the old; the other, entering the new. The product of regeneration is a "new creation." To the old, false imagination sin is proper; that is, is its propriety, and so long as we stand in the false imagination, no amount of tinkering of it up, or attempts to put on the fruits of the true upon the false, will be of any avail. For a hope of heaven, or even to win a reputation for respectability on earth, men will "do" many things; not from a real love of the things, but from a desire for what is believed will be their reward. So the cup of cold water must be given "because ye belong to Christ," which can only be done by those who love Christ, and not because Christ will reward the act. Every good act has its reward; but the reward is always according to the spirit which prompted the act, and not according to the mere act itself.
Thus though men constantly try to simulate regeneration, they can never succeed; because God sees the heart, the motive at the root of the act; and a right act may have a wrong motive. Regeneration is therefore, as Boehme so constantly says, a matter of very great and real earnestness; far greater than is required to put on the external appearance of the fruits of regeneration. We must take our false imagination, which will seem to us to be our very life, to the Cross of Christ, and nail it thereon; which means that we must with courage and endurance do everything that is most distasteful to the false imagination. Then, through lack of the nourishment which comes of indulgence, it will gradually weaken and at length die. Then the new birth will take place and the new creation come to conscious being.
Conclusion. Some of Boehme's learned friends had put in his hands the works of Paracelsus; and it was from this author that he took much of his alchemical terminology. The reader will at first be perplexed by these terms. The three principal ones which he uses most frequently are Sulfur, Mercury, and Salt. I think that if the reader takes these as indicating Spirit, Soul, and Body, he will not be far wrong. Each has, says Boehme, a good and a bad quality; for there is an evil spirit as well as a holy; a blind as well as an enlightened soul; and a gross four elemental matter as well as the "One Pure Element."
The "Virgin," the "Pearl," the "Grain of Mustard Seed," mean our heavenly, divine nature which at the Fall went into the hiddenness and are now lost to us. Yet only "lost," and it should be the work of our lives to recover them. The "Virgin" expresses that this lost something is no abstract quality, but of human form, only far more glorious than the body we now bear, made "like the beasts that perish." Somewhat of this is in me now; and it is because of this that I am human and not animal. But the greater part is in the hiddenness, and is of the contrary sex to that manifested in me here. In the union of the two, the two (as sex distinctions) disappear; just as in the union of oxygen and hydrogen the separate elements disappear and an entirely different "body" comes out of the hiddenness, in which they are, but not manifested.
By the "Pearl" and the idea of it in our Lord's parable, Boehme seeks to express the transcending preciousness and value of the "Virgin ": worth all our external life and its possessions. By the "Mustard Seed" he would express that though to the earthly mind it may seem small and of no value, it will, if cultivated, manifest an unexpected fullness of content; and prove, in fact, the basis and potency of every joy and delight.
Lastly, may I say this? You, my friend, who are about to study an aspect of truth hidden from the world, remember you cannot open this mystery and yet remain in the same relation to the world as you were before. The inexorable condition of its opening to you is that, when opened, you shall be resolved to live in the light of it. It is the lack of these perceptions, grasped and acted on, that makes this world a fallen world; that sets human life in the power of the Fire, and makes civilization a real war of conflicting interests. The moment you see the truth, you become bound to be a witness to it, either in word or in deed (and the latter is the more efficacious). For these are not matters of intellectual interest merely; but eternal verities that touch and color every department of life, and are endowed with the divine creative force. So that they must and will, and cannot but, be dynamic. That is, they must work something; if not good, then harm. You cannot see these truths, and yet be no different for the seeing. "The whole creation," says St Paul, "is waiting for the manifesting of the sons of God." Boehme's philosophy gives us some rough but practical idea how to begin to operate towards this end in our own case. He never thought of himself as a great teacher; but only as a humble guide to the one great Teacher, the Holy Spirit, by indicating how, and in what attitude of heart and mind, He must be approached: a meekness which is too strong to be frightened or ashamed; a love which is too mighty to say, "That I cannot do." The world is not all and only evil: the good is in it, only in a hiddenness, and needs not creating but only developing. In some around you it may be so near the surface that but a word, a faithful example, may be all that is needed to bring it to manifestation. Therefore if God opens in you the knowledge, do not disappoint the "earnest expectation of the creation." "Let your light shine," and doubt not that some will catch the glimpse of it. Then at once the fury of the Fire in which they have been living will be quenched and put into the hiddenness, and the light of everlasting life spring up: a feeble spark perhaps at first, but "shining more and more unto the perfect day." George W. Allen. Bretby Vicarage, Burton-On-Trent
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