Luther retained much of the spirit of the German Mystics, but neither he nor his immediate followers seem to have adopted their theology. The mystical succession was broken in Germany for more than a century. It was then taken up by Jacob Böhme, the philosophical shoemaker of Görlitz. Böhme was a member of the Lutheran church, the authorities of which treated him as the Catholic church did Eckart and Tauler. Böhme's meaning is often obscure. He had not the learning of the pre-Reformation Mystics, but what he wants in learning he amply makes up for in originality.

We can either, he says, begin at man and reason up to God, or we can begin at God and reason down to man; the conclusion either way will be the same. To know ourselves is to know God, for we are a similitude of the Deity-a living image of the eternal divine nature. That which is in the triune God is manifested in nature, and creation; and of this entire nature and creation, man is the epitome.

Beginning with the consideration of the Infinite Being, we can contemplate Him as He is in Himself; as He is in His Word or eternal nature; and as He is in the visible creation, "the out-spoken or visible word." In Himself, God is an eternal Unity; an eternal Nothing; an Abyss without time or space. He needs no habitation, for He is without and within the world equally alike; deeper than thought; higher than imagination; no numbers can express His greatness, for He is endless and infinite. He manifests Himself in His word, eternal nature-the All of the universe. He fills all things, and is in all things. "The Being of God is like a wheel in which many wheels are made one in another, upwards, downwards, crossways, and yet continually all of them turn together." The whole of nature; heaven, earth and above the heavens is the body of God. The powers of the stars are the fountain veins in this natural body, which is the world or universe.

The process of the Divine going forth from nothing to something is on this wise. In the abyssal Nothing there is an eternal Will, which is the Father; and an apprehending mind, which is the Son. From the will and mind there is a procession which is the Spirit. The Father eternally generates the Son. The Son is the wisdom in which all things are formed. The Spirit expresses the egress of the will and mind; "standing continually in the flash wherein life is generated." This triune Being is yet but one essence, which is the Essence of all essences. It is enough to name Him God, but with the very conception of God

ETERNAL NAture.

there is introduced that of eternal nature.

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Of this nature God

is the root and the ground; but He is not before it, for it is co-eternal with Him. The external world is the out-birth of this nature. In the one are all the principles that are found in the other. But though eternal nature is divine, for into it God enters as He is in Himself an eternal Good, yet the external world cannot be so unreservedly called divine, for into it He enters both as wrath and love. God is in all things as the sap in the green and flourishing tree. and flourishing tree. He lives in the stars and the elements of nature. He is present in the meanest of insects, and the tiniest of herbs. By His wisdom, and of His essence is all creation made. In the stillness of the evening twilight we may feel the presence of the Holy Spirit, in whose kingdom all creatures rejoice to live. If our eyes are purified we may see God everywhere. He is in us, and we are in Him, and if our lives are holy we may know ourselves to be God. All lies in man, he is the living book of God and all things.

These doctrines are repeated in Böhme's writings times without number, and with so many modifications, and further developments, as to make it difficult to set them forth definitely as constituting an harmonious system. The root idea seems to be a dualism, like what is found among the Gnostics, but with this difference, that Böhme receives no principle as independent of the being of God, but posits a duality of principles in the very essence of God.

In this essence is an opposition of darkness and light, fierceness and tenderness, and from this proceeds all opposition in the life of nature and of spirit, and even the opposition of good and evil. There is a duality of principles of which the first which is dark, fierce, and astringent, is not God in His highest Being; yet it is God, or at least it belongs to the essence of God. "Since man knows that he is twofold, possessing both good and evil, then is it highly necessary to him that he know himself; how he was created; whence his good and evil impulses; what is good and evil and on what they depend; what is the origin of al! good and of all evil, how or when evil came into the devil, or men, and all creatures; if the devil was a holy angel, and man too was created good, why such misery is found in all creatures, and why every one is biting, beating, pushing, and crushing each other, and there is such opposition not only in living things but in stones, elements, earth, metals, wood, leaves, and grasses: in all is poison and wickedness, and it must be so, otherwise there would be neither life, nor movement, nor

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THE FIRST PRINCIPLE.

color, nor virtue, nor thickness, nor thinness, nor perception of any kind, but all would be a nothing. In such a high consideration we find that all such comes from and out of God, and that it is of His substance, and evil belongs to formation and movement, and good to love, and the severe or counter-willing to joy." This opposition which Böhme found in all nature, he was compelled to carry up to God; for following the analogy he had laid down, what he saw in the creature he must posit in the Abyssal Deity. Though God, in the first conception, is a simple Unity in whom difference is not supposed to exist; yet when we enquire into the origin of love and anger, we find that they come from the same fountain, and that they are the children of one parent. We cannot say that the dark, fiery, astringent principle is in God any more than earth, air, or water, and yet these have all come from God. Sorrow, death, and hell, cannot be in God, and yet they have their origin in the divine Nothing. The enquiry must be into the cause of the evil not only in creatures but in the divine Essence, for in the root or original all is one. All comes from the essence of God considered in His threefold nature. God in the first principle is not properly God, but wrath and terror, the origin of bitterness and evil. Though this is not God it is yet the innermost first fountain which is in God the Father, according to which He calls Himself an angry and a jealous God. This fountain is the first principle and in it the world has its origin. It is the principle of severity and anger, resembling a brimstone-spirit, and constituting "the abyss of hell, in which Prince Lucifer remained after the extinction of his light." This dark principle is not God, yet it is the essence out of which God's light and heart are eternally produced. In it is the eternal mind which generates the eternal will, and the eternal will generates the eternal heart of God, and the heart generates the light, and the light the power, and the power the Spirit, and that is the Almighty God, who is in an unchangeable Will. The Godhead is thus:-God the Father, and the light makes the will-longing power, which is God the Son, since in the power the light is eternally generated; and in the light out of the power proceeds the Holy Spirit, which again in the dark mind generates the will of the eternal Being. "See now, dear soul," says Böhme, "this is the Godhead and contains in itself the second or middle principle, therefore God is alone good; He is love, light and power. Consider now that there would not have been in God such eternal wisdom and knowledge had not the mind stood in the darkness."

THE TRINITY.

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Such is the eternal birth of the divine Essence. By this, God Himself realizes the eternal idea of His Being. The moments of the eternal birth are differently set forth in Böhme's writings, according as the Divine Being is considered in Himself, or in His relation to Satan, the world, or man. Again, in the first relation, there are different points of view under which we may regard the eternal birth of the Deity.

The life process in God constitutes a Trinity, which is the eternal and necessary birth of God, who produces Himself, and without this life-process could not be thought of as a living God. Böhme says, "When we speak of the Holy Ternary we must first say there is one God-He who is called the Father and Creator of all things, who is therefore Almighty, and all in all. All is His. All has originated in Him, and from Him, and remains eternally in Him. Then we say He is threefold in persons and has from all eternity generated His Son, who is His heart, light, and love, so that the Father and the Son are not two beings, but only one. Then we say from the Holy Scriptures, that there is a Spirit who proceeds from the Father and the Son, and is one essence in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. "See then," says Böhme, "since the Father is the most original Essence of all essences, if the other principle did not appear and go forth in the birth of the Son, then the Father would be a dark valley. You see now that the Son, who is the heart, life, light, beauty, and gentle beneficence of the Father, discloses in His birth another principle, and reconciles the angry terrible Father, and makes Him loving and merciful, and is another person than the Father, since in His centre is nothing but pure joy, love, and delight. You may now see how the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. When the heart or light of God is begotten in the Father, there arises in the kindling of light, in the fifth form, out of the water-fountain or gentleness, in light, a very loving, pleasant, and agreeable spirit, that is the spirit which in the original was the bitter sting in the astringent mother, and which now makes in the water fountain many thousand, yea innumerable centres. You may now understand that the birth of the Son is originated in the fire, and He receives His personality and name in the kindling of the soft, white, and clear light which is Himself, and which makes the sweet odor, savor and gentle beneficence in the Father, and is most truly the heart of the Father, and is yet another person, since it bears and unfolds the other principle in the Father, and is His being, form, and light, therefore is it rightly

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THE FOUNTAIN SPIRITS.

called the power of God. The Holy Spirit was not known in the original of the Father before the light but when the soft fountain rises to the light, then it issues forth as a strong Almighty Spirit, with great joy, out of the water-fountain and light, and is the power of the water-fountain and light. It now makes forms and figures, and is the centre in all essences where the light of life originates in the light of the Son, or heart of the Father. The Holy Ghost is therefore called a separate person, because it goes forth as the living power of the Father, and the Son, and confirms the eternal birth of the Trinity." The Holy Spirit is in the manifold what the Son is in the Unity. It is the creative power of God; the formative principle which moves the power of the Father and unfolds the immeasurable and innumerable centres in the birth of the heart of God.

As the Ternary of the Divine Nature may be reduced to a unity or a duality, so may it be increased to a Septenary of powers or principles-the ground relationship remaining the same. God the Father is all power, He is the well-spring of all" in Him is light and darkness, air and water, heat and cold, hard and soft, thick and thin, sound and tone, sweet and sour, astringent and bitter." The properties or fountain spirits in God, are divided into seven kinds. The first is the astringent; a property of seed or concealed essence, a sharpness, contracting or penetrating of the sharp and bitter nitre, which produces the heat and the cold, when it is kindled it produces the salt-like sharpness. The other property, or spirit of God, in the divine nitre or in the Divine Power, is the sweet property which works in the astringent and softens it so that it becomes entirely loving and soft. It is then a conquering of the astringent; the fountain of the mercy of God, which overcomes wrath. The third property is the bitter: a penetrating aud compressing of the sweet and astringent. The fourth is the heat; it is the proper beginning of life, and also the right spirit of life, it kindles all the properties, for when the heat works in the sweet moisture it produces the light in all qualities so that everyone sees the other; therein arise sense and thought, in this light arises the flash of life. The fifth property is the blessed, friendly, and joyful love. When the heat arises in the sweet property and kindles the sweet fountain, then arises the friendly love-light-fire in the sweet property, and kindles the bitter and the astringent, and eats and drinks them with sweet love-juice, and refreshes them, and makes them loving and friendly, and then when the sweet light love power comes to them that they taste of it, and receive