Chapter 3

Another unfinished fragment that Behmen's readers seek for and treasure up like very sand of gold is his _Holy Week_. This little work, its author tells us, was undertaken upon the entreaty and desire of some loving and good friends of his for the daily exercise of true religion in their hearts and in the little church of their families. The following is Behmen's method of prayer for Monday, which is the only day's prayer he got finished before his death: 'A short prayer when we awake early and before we rise. A prayer and thanksgiving after we are risen. A prayer while we wash and dress. A prayer when we begin to work at our calling. A prayer at noon. A prayer toward evening. A prayer when we undress. A prayer of thanks for the bitter passion and dying of JESUS CHRIST.' What does the man mean? many of his contemporaries who came upon his _Holy Week_ would say, What does the madman mean? Would he have us pray all day? Would he have us pray and do nothing else? Yes; it would almost seem so. For in his _Supersensual Life_ the Master says to the disciple who has asked, 'How shall I be able to live aright amid all the anxiety and tribulation of this world?': 'If thou dost once every hour throw thyself by faith beyond all creatures into the abysmal mercy of GOD, into the sufferings of CHRIST, and into the fellowship of His intercession, then thou shalt receive power from above to rule over the world, and death, and the devil, and hell itself.' And again, 'O thou of little courage, if thy will could but break itself off every half-hour from all creatures, and plunge itself into that where no creature is or can be, presently it would be penetrated with the splendour of the Divine glory, and would taste a sweetness no tongue can express. Then thou wouldst love thy cross more than all the glory and all the goods of this world.' The author had begun a series of reflections and meditations on the Ten Commandments for devotional use on Tuesday, but got no further than the Fifth. Behmen is so deep and so original in his purely philosophical, theological, and speculative books, that in many places we can only stand back and wonder at the man. But in his _Holy Week_ Behmen kneels down beside us. Not but that his characteristic depth is present in his prayers also; but we all know something of the nature, the manner, and the blessedness of prayer, and thus it is that we are so much more at home with Behmen, the prodigal son, than we are with Behmen, the theosophical theologian. When Behmen begins to teach us to pray, and when the lesson comes to us out of his own closet, then we are able to see in a nearer light something of the originality, the greatness, the strength, and the true and genuine piety of the philosopher and the theologian. When Behmen's philosophy and theology become penitence, prayer, and praise, then by their fruits we know how good his philosophy and his theology must be, away down in their deepest and most hidden nature. I agree with Walton that those prayers are full of unction and instruction, and that some of them are of the 'highest magnetical power'; and that, as rendered into modern phraseology, they are most beautiful devotional compositions, and very models of all that a divinely illuminated mind would address to GOD and CHRIST. For myself, immediately after the Psalms of David I put Jacob Behmen's _Holy Week_ and the prayers scattered up and down through his _True Repentance_, and beside Behmen I put Bishop Andrewes' _Private Devotions_. I have discovered no helps to my own devotional life for a moment to set beside Behmen and Andrewes.

_A Treatise on Baptism and the Lord's Supper_; _A Key to the Principal Points and Expressions in the Author's Writings_; and then a most valuable volume of letters--_Epistolae Theosophicae_--complete the extraordinarily rich bibliography of the illuminated and blessed Jacob Behmen.

Though there is a great deal of needless and wearisome repetition in Jacob Behmen's writings, at the same time there is scarcely a single subject in the whole range of theology on which he does not throw a new, an intense, and a brilliant light. In his absolutely original and magnificent doctrine of GOD, while all the time loyally true to it, Behmen has confessedly transcended the theology of both the Latin and the Reformed Churches; and, absolutely unlettered man though he is, has taken his stand at the very head of the great Greek theologians. The Reformers concentrated their criticism upon the anthropology and soteriology of the Church of Rome, and especially upon the discipline and worship connected therewith. They saw no need for recasting any of the more fundamental positions of pure theology. And while Jacob Behmen, broadly speaking, accepts as his own confession of faith all that Luther and Calvin and their colleagues taught on sin and salvation, on the corruption and guilt of sinners, and on the redeeming work of our LORD, he rises far above the greatest and best of his teachers in his doctrine of the GODHEAD. Not only does he rise far higher in that doctrine than either Rome or Geneva, he rises far higher and sounds far deeper than either Antioch, or Alexandria, or Nicomedia, or Nice. On this profound point Bishop Martensen has an excellent appreciation of Behmen. After what I have taken upon me to say about Behmen, the learned Bishop's authoritative passage must be quoted:--'If we compare Behmen's doctrine of the Trinity,' says the learned and evangelical Bishop, 'with that which is contained in the otherwise so admirable Athanasian Creed, the latter but displays to us a most abstruse metaphysic; a GOD for mere thought, and in whom there is nothing sympathetic for the heart of man. Behmen, on the contrary, reveals to us the LIVING GOD, the GOD of Goodness, the Eternal Love, of which there is absolutely no hint whatever in the hard Athanasian symbol. By this attitude of his to the affections of the human heart, Behmen's doctrine of the Trinity is in close coherence with the Reformation, and with its evangelical churches. . . . Behmen is anxious to state a conception of GOD that will fill the hiatus between the theological and anthropological sides of the dogmatical development which was bequeathed by the Reformation; he seeks to unite the theological and the anthropological. . . . From careful study of Behmen's theology,' continues Bishop Martensen, 'one gains a prevailing impression that Behmen's GOD is, in His inmost Being, most kindred to man, even as man in his inmost being is still kindred to GOD. And, besides, we recognise in Behmen throughout the pulse-beat of a believing man, who is in all his books supremely anxious about his own salvation and that of his fellow-men.' Now, it is just this super-confessional element in Behmen, both on his speculative and on his practical side, taken along with the immediate and intensely practical bearing of all his speculations, it is just this that is Behmen's true and genuine distinction, his shining and unshared glory. And it is out of that supreme, solitary, and wholly untrodden field of Behmen's super-confessional theology that all that is essential, characteristic, distinctive, and fruitful in Behmen really and originally springs. The distinctions he takes within, and around, and immediately beneath the Godhead, are of themselves full of the noblest light. The Divine Nature, Eternal Nature, Temporal Nature, Human Nature, when evolved out of one another, and when related to one another, as Behmen sees them evolved and related, are categories of the clearest, surest, most necessary, and most intensely instructive kind. And if the height and the depth, the massiveness, the stupendousness, and the grandeur, as well as the sweetness, and the beauty, and the warmth, and the fruitfulness of a doctrine of GOD is any argument or evidence of its truth, then Behmen's magnificent doctrine of the GODHEAD is surely proved to demonstration and delight. GOD is the Essence of all Essences to Behmen. GOD is the deepest Ground, the living and the life-giving Root of all existence. At the same time, the Divine Nature is so Divine; It is so high and so deep; It is so unlike all that is not Itself; It is so beyond and above all language, and all thought, and all imagination of man or angel, that universe after universe have had to come into existence, and have had to be filled, each successive universe after its own kind, with all the fulness of GOD, before that universe of which we form a part, and to which our utmost imagination is confined, could have come into existence, and into recognition of itself. Behmen's Eternal Nature must never be taken for the Eternal GOD. The Divine Nature, the Eternal Godhead, exists in the Father, in the Son, and in the Holy Ghost; and then, after the Eternal Generation of the Son, and the Eternal Procession of the Holy Ghost, there comes up in order of existence Eternal Nature. Eternal Nature is not the Divine Nature, but it is as near to the Divine Nature in its qualities and in its powers as any created thing can ever by any possibility be. Now, if we are still to follow Behmen, we must not let ourselves indolently think of the production of Eternal Nature as a divine act done and completed in any past either of time or of eternity. There is neither past nor future where we are now walking with Behmen. There is only an everlasting present where he is now leading us. For, as GOD the Father generates the Son eternally and continually; and as the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son eternally and continually, so GOD the Word eternally and continually says, 'Let this Beginning of all things be, and let it continue to be.' And, as He speaks, His Word awakens the ever-dawning morning of the ever new-created day. And He beholds Eternal Nature continually rising up before Him, and He pronounces it very good. The Creator so transcends the creation, and, especially, that late and remote creation of which we are a part, that, as the Creator's first step out of Himself, and as a step towards our creation, is His creation, generation, or other production of a nature or universe that shall be capable of receiving immediately into itself all that of the Creator that He has purposed to reveal and to communicate to creatures,--a nature or universe which shall at the same time be itself the beginning of creation, and the source, spring, and quarry out of which all that shall afterwards come can be constructed. Eternal Nature is thus the great storehouse and workshop in which all the created essences, elements, principles, and potentialities of all possible worlds are laid up. Here is the great treasury and laboratory into which the Filial Word enters, when by Him GOD creates, sustains, and perfects the worlds, universe after universe. Here, says Behmen, is the great and universal treasury of that heavenly clay of which all things, even to angels and men, are made; and here is the eternal turning-wheel with which they are all framed and fashioned. Eternal Nature is an invisible essence, and it is the essential ground out of which all the visible and invisible worlds are made. For the things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. In that radiant original universe also all the thoughts of GOD which were to usward from everlasting, all the Divine ideas, patterns, and plans of things, are laid open, displayed, copied out and sealed up for future worlds to see carried out. 'Through this Kingdom of Heaven, or Eternal Nature,' says William Law, in his _Appeal to all that Doubt_, 'is the invisible GOD eternally breaking forth and manifesting Himself in a boundless height and depth of blissful wonders, opening and displaying Himself to all His heavenly creatures in an infinite variety and an endless multiplicity of His powers, beauties, joys, and glories. So that all the inhabitants of heaven are for ever knowing, seeing, hearing, feeling, and variously enjoying all that is great, amiable, infinite, and gracious in the Divine Nature.' And again, in his _Way to Divine Knowledge_: 'Out of this transcendent Eternal Nature, which is as universal and immense as the Godhead itself, do all the highest beings, cherubims and seraphims, all the hosts of angels, and all intelligent spirits, receive their birth, existence, substance, and form. And they are one and united in one, GOD in them, and they in GOD, according to the prayer of CHRIST for His disciples, that they, and He, and His Holy Father might be united in one.' A little philosophy, especially when the philosopher does not yet know the plague of his own heart, tends, indeed, to doubt and unbelief in the word of GOD and in the work of CHRIST. But the philosophy of Behmen and Law will deepen the mind and subdue the heart of the student till he is made a prodigal son, a humble believer, and a profound philosopher, both in nature and in grace, like his profound masters.

Behmen's teaching on human nature, his doctrine of the heart of man, and of the image of GOD in the heart of man, has a greatness about it that marks it off as being peculiarly Behmen's own doctrine. He agrees with the catechisms and the creeds in their teaching that the heart of man was at first like the heart of GOD in knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness. But Behmen is above and beyond the catechisms in this also, in the way that he sees the heart of man still opening in upon the Divine Nature, as also upon Eternal and Temporal Nature, somewhat as the heart of GOD opens on all that He has made. On every page of his, wherever you happen to open him, Behmen is found teaching that GOD and CHRIST, heaven and hell, life and death, are in every several human heart. Heaven and all that it contains is every day either being quenched and killed in every human heart, or it is being anew generated, rekindled, and accepted there; and in like manner hell. 'Yea,' he is bold to exclaim, 'GOD Himself is so near thee that the geniture of the Holy Trinity is continually being wrought in thy heart. Yea, all the Three Persons are generated for thee in thy heart.' And, again: 'GOD is in thy dark heart. Knock, and He shall come out within thee into the light. The Holy Ghost holds the key of thy dark heart. Ask, and He shall be given to thee within thee. Do not let any sophister teach thee that thy GOD is far aloft from thee as the stars are. Only offer at this moment to GOD thine heart, and CHRIST, the Son of GOD, will be born and formed within thee. And then thou art His brother, His flesh, and His spirit. Thou also art a child of His Father. GOD is in thee. Power, might, majesty, heaven, paradise, elements, stars, the whole earth--all is thine. Thou art in CHRIST over hell, and all that it contains.' 'Behmen's speculation,' Martensen is always reminding us, 'streams forth from the deepest practical inspiration. His speculations are all saturated with a constant reference to salvation. His whole metaphysic is pervaded by practical applications.' And conspicuously so, we may here point out, is his metaphysic of GOD and of the heart of man. The immanence of GOD, as theologians and philosophers call it; the indwelling of GOD, as the psalmists and the apostles and the saints call it; the Divine Word lightening every man that comes into the world, as John has it,--of the practical and personal bearings of all that Behmen's every book is full. Dost thou not see it and feel it? he continually calls to his readers. Heaven, be sure, is in every holy man, and hell in every bad man. When thou dost work together with GOD then thou art in heaven, and thy soul dwells in GOD. In like manner, also, thou art in hell and among the devils when thou art in any envy, malice, anger, or ill-will. Thou needest not to ask where is heaven or where is hell. Both are within thee, even in thy heart. Now, then, when thou prayest, pray in that heaven that is within thee, and there the Holy Ghost shall meet with thee and will help thee, and thy soul shall be the whole of heaven within thee. It is a fundamental doctrine of Behmen's that the fall would have been immediate and eternal death to Adam and Eve had not the Divine Word, the Seed of the woman, entered their hearts, and kept a footing in their hearts, and in the hearts of all their children, against the fulness of time when He would take our flesh and work out our redemption. And thus it is that Behmen appeals to all his readers, that if they will only go down deep enough into their own hearts--then, there, down there, deeper than indwelling sin, deeper than original sin, deep down and seated in the very substance and centre of their souls--they will come upon secret and unexpected seeds of the Divine Life. Seeds, blades, buddings, and new beginnings of the very life of GOD the Son, in their deepest souls. Secret and small, Behmen exclaims, as those seeds of Eden are, despise them not; destroy them not, for a blessing for thee is in them. Water those secret seeds, sun them, dig about them, and they will grow up in you also. The Divine Life is in you, quench it not, for it is of GOD. Nay, it is GOD Himself in you. It depends upon yourself whether or no that which is at this moment the smallest of all seeds is yet to become in you the greatest and the most fruitful of all trees.

'Man never knows how anthropomorphic he is,' is a characteristic saying of a fellow-countryman of Behmen's. And Behmen's super-confessional and almost super-scriptural treatment of that frequent scriptural anthropomorphism,--'unavoidable and yet intolerable,'--the wrath of GOD, must be left by me in Behmen's own bold pages. Strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. Behmen's philosophical, theological, and experimental doctrine of sin also, with one example, must be wholly passed by. 'If all trees were clerks,' he exclaims in one place, 'and all their branches pens, and all the hills books, and all the water ink, yet all would not sufficiently declare the evil that sin hath done. For sin has made this house of heavenly light to be a den of darkness; this house of joy to be a house of mourning, lamentation, and woe; this house of all refreshment to be full of hunger and thirst; this abode of love to be a prison of enmity and ill-will; this seat of meekness to be the haunt of pride and rage and malice. For laughter sin has brought horror; for munificence, beggary; and for heaven, hell. Oh, thou miserable man, turn convert. For the Father stretches out both His hands to thee. Do but turn to Him and He will receive and embrace thee in His love.' It was the sin and misery of this world that first made Jacob Behmen a philosopher, and it was the sinfulness of his own heart that at last made him a saint. Behmen's full doctrine and practice of prayer also; his fine and fruitful treatment of what he always calls 'the process of CHRIST'; and, intimately connected with that, his still super- confessional treatment of imputation,--of all that, and much more like that, I cannot now attempt to speak. Nor yet of his superb teaching on love. 'Throw out thy heart upon all men,' he now commands and now beseeches us. 'Throw open and throw out thy heart. For unless thou dost exercise thy heart, and the love of thy heart, upon every man in the world, thy self-love, thy pride, thy contempt, thy envy, thy distaste, thy dislike will still have dominion over thee. The Divine Nature will be quenched and extinguished in thee, till nothing but self and hell is left to thee. In the name, and in the strength of GOD, love all men. Love thy neighbour as thyself, and do to thy neighbour as thou doest to thyself. And do it now. For now is the accepted time; and now is the day of salvation!'

Jacob Behmen died in his fiftieth year. He was libelled and maligned, harassed and hunted to death by a world that was not worthy of such a gift of GOD. A sudden and severe sickness came upon Behmen till he sank in death with his _Aurora_ and his _Holy Week_ and his _Divine Vision_ all lying still unfinished at his bedside. 'Open the door and let in more of that music,' the dying man said to his weeping son. Behmen was already hearing the harpers harping with their harps. He was already taking his part in the song they sing in heaven to Him who loved them, and washed them from their sins in His own blood. 'And now,' said the prodigal son, the blessed Behmen, 'I go to-day to be with my Redeemer and my King in Paradise,' and so died.