boehm boehme bohm böhm behmen und so weiter BOEHME (Jacob), théosophe célèbre, et l'un des plus importants des
Mystiques modernes, né en 1575 près de Gœrlitz. mort dans cette ville,
en 1624.
D'une famille pauvre, mais honnête1, il exerça le métier de cordonnier
toute sa vie, à Gœrlitz.

Les doctrines de Boehme ont une grande parenté avec celles qui ont flori
dans l'Allemagne contemporaine, avec Schelling, Hegel, etc.
Il est presque un précurseur de Spinoza.

La première édition de ses Œuvres a paru en Hollande, par les soins de
Henri Bctke, Mais la plus complète est celle donnée par Gichtel, à
Amsterdam, en 1682 (10 vol. in-8° quelquefois réunis en 6).

[185]
1288 BOEHME( Jacob. — Des gottseeligen hoch-erleuchteten Jacob Bomens
alleThesophischen Wercke, darinnen alle theosophischen Wercke, darinnen
alle tieffe Geheimnusse Gottes, der ewigen und zeitlichen Natur und
Creatur samt dem wahren grunde christlicher Religion und der
Gottseeligkeit, nach dem apostolischen Gezengnuszoftenbahret weiden,
Theils aus des Authoris eigenen Originalen, theils aus den ersten und
nachgesehenen besten Copyen aulls fleissigste corrigiret: und in
Beyfugung etlichcr Clavim so vorhin noch nie gedruck, nebenst einem
zweyfachen Register. Amsterdam, Welstein. 1682, pet. in-8°, 6 vol.
(()-2 à 10

C'est le titre général de l'édition des Œuvres du célèbre théosophe
allemand, due aux soins de Johann Georg Gichtel : édition réunie
habituellement en 6 vol. et dont voici le détail :

1), — Un vol. avec le titre général indiqué ci-dessus, et composé de
LXXIII ff. non chiffr., avec 2 pl.
Presque tout ce volume est empli par Jacob Bohmens Lebens-Lautf. par
Abraham von Franckenberg.

2). — Morgenrotc im Aufgang, das ist : die Wurtzel oder Mutter der
Philosophiae, Astrologiae und Theologiae, aus rechtem Grunde ; oder
Beschreibung der Natur, wie alles gewesen und im Anfang worden ist : wie
die Natur und Elementa Creatrülich worden seynd :... dulch Jacob Böhme,
in Gorliz, im J. Christi 1612, .seines Alters 37 J.. Dienstag in
Pfingsten ; alles von neuem übersehen, und mit Fleisz nach des Authoris
eigenem Manuscripto corrigiret und verbessert.
Amsterdam, (Wetstein) 1682 - pet. in-8 de XXVI- 300-III pp. avec 1 PI.
[186] Autre édit. Amsterdam, 1656. in-12 de LXXII- *18pp. front. (D²-. 0002

3). — Beschreibung der drey Principien göttliches Wesens das its : von
der ohn Ursprüngewigen Gebuhrt der Dreyfaltigkeit Gottes, und wie durch
uns aus derselben sind gcschaffen worden die Engel, so wol die Himmel
auch die Sterne und Elementa... fürnemlich vom dem Menschen. woraus
ergeschaffen worden. und zu waserley Endc : und dan wie der aus seiner
ersten paradisischcn Herrligkeit gefallen in die zornige Grimmigkcit...
und dan auch was der Zorn Gottes (Sünde. Todt, Teuffel und Hölle) sey :
wie derselbe in ewigcr Ruhe. und in grosser Freude gestanden : auch wie
alles in dieser Zeit seinen Anfang genommen, und wie sichs treibet, und
cndlich wieder herden wird, durch Jacob Böhmen. Amsterdam, (Wetstein)
1682. pet. in-8 de II-448-VII pp. avec pl.
Autre :
Amsterdam. bey H. Belkio 1620, in-8 de XIV-624 pp. front. [D². 0000
4). — Hohe und tieffe Gründe von dreyfachen Leben des Menschen, nach dem
Geheimnüz der dreyen Principien gottlicher Offenbarung. Geschrieben nach
gottlicher Erleuchtung durch Jacob Böhmen. im J. 1620.
Âmsterdam. (Wetstein), 1682, pet. in-8 de II-307-III pp.. avec 2 pl.
dont une grande.

5). Viertizg Fragen von der Seellen Urstand, Essentz. Wesen. Natur und
Eigenschafft. was sie von Ewigkeit in Ewigkeit sey ; verfasset von Dr.
Balthasar Walter. Liebhaber der grossen Geheimnüssen, und beantwortet
durch Jacob Böhme dabey am Ende beygefüget ist das ungewandte Auge von
Seelen und ihrer Bildnüsz.
Amsterdam. (Wetstein) . 1682 , pet . in-8 de II-163-II pp. avec 2 pl.
dont 1 double.
|D²-. 6004 (1)

Quarante questions sur la substance, l'essence, la nature, et les
facultés de l'âme.

6). — Von der Menschwerdung Jesu Christi. wie das ewige Wort sey Mensch
worden. und von Maria der Jungfrauen, wer sie von ihrem Urstand gewesen.
und was sie sey in der Empfängnüsz ihres Sohnes Jesu Christi fur eine
Mutter worden. in drey Theil abgetheilet. Geschrieben nach gottlicher
Erleuchtung durch Jacob Böhme. in J. 1620. Amsterdam. (Wetstein) . 1682,
pet. in-8 de II-204-IV pp. avec fig. une en-tête de chaque partie. (D².
0064(2)
7). — Von Sechs Puncten hohe und tieffe Gründung, 1. wom Gewächse der
drey Principien ; was ein jedes in sich und aus sich selber für einem
Baum oder Leden gebähre...
II. von dem vermischten Baum Boses und Gutes... III. vom Urstandc des
Widerwertigkeit des Gewächses, in dehme das Leben in sich selber
streitig wird. IV. wie der heiltige und gute Baum des ewigen Lebens aus
allen Gewachsen... V. vom Baum und Lebens. Gewachse der Verderbnüsz VI.
vom Leben der Finsternüsz. darrinnen. die Teufel wohnen... durch Jacob
Böhmen. im Jahr 1620. Amsterdam. (Wetstein). 1682. pet. in-8 de II-104
pp. avec 2 pl.
Ce traité remplit les 70 premières pages, puis viennent : Eine kurtze
Erklärung nachfolg. Sechs Puncten (pp. - 77-90)- et Gründlicher Bericht
vom... Mysterio (pp. 01 et suiv.) [D². 0064 (3)
Établissement solide et profond de 6 points: 1. Des trois principes, ce
qu'est chacun en soi. et quel arbre ou quelle vie il produit de
lui-même. (Comment on doit interroger et pénétrer les fonds intimes de
la nature., etc.

8). Der Weg zu Christo, verfasset in Bneun üchlein, das 1) von wahrer
Busse ; 2) vom heiligen Gebeth : 3) ein Schlüssel gottlicher Geheimnüsse
; 4) von wahrer Gelassenheit, 5) von der Wiedergebuhrt : 6) vom
übersinnlichen Leben : 7) von [187] gottlicher Beschnuligkeit ; 8) von
der erleuchteten und unerleuchtetcn Seele ; 9) von den vier
Complixioncn. Gestellet ans gottlichen Erkäntnüsz durch Jacob Bohmc.
Amsterdam , (Wetstein), 1682 , pet. in-8 de II-245 pp. avec fig.

Ce sont les traités IX à XIV, XXIII et XXIV de l'édition de 1713.
Il existe une réimpression Martiniste de cette collection. S. I,. 1803.
in-8 6 tr. (Bodin). Autre édition ; S. L. 1635 in-12 de 243 pp. [D. 20203

9). — Bedencken über Esaiae Stifels Büchlein von dreyerley Zustand des
Menschen, im dessen New Gebuhrt Geschriben A. Chr. 1622 von Jacob Böhme.
Amsterdam (Wetstein) 1682. pet. in-8' de II-308 pp. Avec 1 fig
…
1290 BOHME. (Jacob). — L'Aurore naissante ou la Racine de la
philosophie, de l'astrologie et de la théologie ; contenant une
description de la nature, dans laquelle on explique comment tout a été
dans le commencement ; comment la nature et les éléments sont devenus
créaturels : ce que sont les deux qualités bonne et mauvaise, dont toute
chose tire son origine ; comment ces deux dualités existent et agissent
maintenant, et ce qu'elles seront à la fin des temps ; ce qu'est le
royaume de Dieu et le royaume infernal ; et comment les hommes opèrent-
créaturellement dans l'un et dans l'autre : le tout exposé avec soin,
d'après une base vraie, dans la connaissance de l'esprit, et par
l'impulsion divine : ouvrage traduit de l'allemand, de Jacob Bêhme
(sic). sur l'édit. d'Amsterdam, de 1682 : par le Philosophe inconnu
(Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin). Paris, impr. De Laran, an IX (1800). 2
vol. in-8 de lV-200. et IV-342 pp. (40 fr.). |R. 11588-9 (0-37 (g-74

1291 BOHME (Jacob). — Bedencken über Essaiae Stiffels Büchlein: …
geschrieben anno Chr. 1621 Jacob Bohmen. Amsterdam. H. Belkins. 1676
pet. in-12 de 38 pp.
1292 BOEHME (Jacob). — Le chemin pour aller à Christ, compris en neuf
petits traités réduits ici en huit, par Jacob Böhme du vieux Seidenbourg
nommé communément le Théo Philosophe Teutonique. Berlin. 1722, in-8. (40
fr.). (G-1174
…
1300 BOEHME (Jacob). — Miroir temporel de l'Éternité : auquel est
représenté, comment toutes choses, sont marquées extérieurement selon
leur forme intérieure. Comment ce monde visible, qui comprend les
astres, les animaux, végétaux et minéraux, nous conduit en celui qui est
invisible. Comment le sublime procès Philosophal nous découvre notre
Régénération. Ecrit par Jac. Boem, nommé Philosophe Teutonique, et trad.
de l'allem. en fr. par le Sr Jean Macle doct. et médecin très célèbre.
(Publié par S. L. B.). S. l. n. a. 1787. in-8 de 300 pp. dont 2 pour
l'errata.
…
1305, BOEHME (Jacob). — De la Triple vie de l'homme, selon le mystère
des trois principes de la manifestation divine, écrit d'après une
élucidation divine par Jacob Bêhme (Bœhme). autrement dit le philosophe
teutonicus. en l'année 1620, imprimé à Amsterdam en 1682, trad. de
l'allem. en français par un Ph. In. En 1793 ; (de Saint-Martin). Paris,
Migneret, 1809, in-8 de VII1-552 pp. avec 1 pl. (40 fr.).

Une des plus rares traductions de Boëhme

1306 BOEHME (Jacob). — Des trois Principes de l'essence divine, ou de
l'éternel Engendrement sans origine. De l'homme ; d'où il a été créé et
pour quelle fin: (Comment tout prend son commencement dans le temps,
comment tout poursuit son cours, et ce que tout reviendra à la fin ; par
Jacob Bèhme, du vieux Seidenbourg, nommé le philosophe Teutonique, trad.
de l'allem. sur l'édit. d'Amsterdam, de 1682 ; par le philosophe inconnu
(Saint-Martin ). Paris. imprimerie et librairie de Laran (Migneret). An
X-1802. 2 vol. in-8 de IV-XXI-350. et IV-402 pp. (40 fr.).
De la plus grande rareté. (cet ouvrage est celui qui résume le mieux
toute la doctrine de Bohm et en offre un tableau presque synthétique.
(O-58
(G-80 et 81
…

  ¶ 9:27 AM

  WILLIAM LAW AND THE MYSTICS *CHAPTER XII *

*WILLIAM LAW AND THE MYSTICS *

To speak of mystical thought in the first half of the eighteenth century in England seems almost a contradiction in terms ; for the predominating character of that age, its outlook on life and its mind as expressed in philosophy, religion and literature, was in every way opposed to what is understood by mystical. In literature, shallowness of thought is often found combined with unrivalled clearness of expression ; in general outlook, the conception of a mechanical world made by an outside Creator; in religion and philosophy, the practically universal appeal to "rational" evidence as supreme arbiter. In no age, it would seem, have men written so much about religion, while practising it so little. The one quality in Scripture which interests writers and readers alike is its credibility, and the impression gathered by the student of the religious controversies of the day is that Christianity was held to exist, not to be lived, but, like a proposition in Euclid, only to be proved.

This view, however, of the main tendency of the time, though representative, is not complete. There is also an undercurrent of thought of a kind that never quite disappears and that helps to keep the earth green during the somewhat dry and arid seasons when rationalism or materialism gains the upper hand.

This tendency of thought is called mysticism, and it may be described in its widest sense as an attitude of mind founded upon an intuitive or experienced conviction of fundamental unity, of alikeness in all things. All mystical thought springs from this as base. The poet mystic, looking out on the natural world, rejoices in it with a purer joy and studies it with a deeper reverence than other men, because he knows it is not something called ' matter ' and alien to him, but that it is — as he is — spirit itself made visible. The mystic philosopher, instead of attempting to reason or analyse or deduce, seeks merely to tell of his vision; whereupon, words [306] generally fail him, and he becomes obscure. The religious mystic has for goal the union of himself with God, the actual contact with the Divine Presence, and he conceives this possible because man is ' a God though in the germ,' and, therefore, can know God through that part of his nature which is akin to Him.

There were many strains of influence which, in the seventeenth century, tended to foster this type of thought in England. The little group of Cambridge Platonists gave new expression to great neo-Platonic ideas, the smouldering embers of which had been fanned to flame in the ardent forge of the Florentine renascence^1 <#sdfootnote1sym>^1 ; but, in addition to this older thought, there were not only new influences from without but, also, new conditions within which must be indicated.

A strong vein of mysticism had been kept alive in Amsterdam, whither the first body of exiled separatists had gone in 1593. Elizabeth, thinking to quell independent religious thought at home, had planted nurseries of freedom in Holland, which waxed strong and sent back over seas in the next century a persistent stream of opinion and literature^2 <#sdfootnote2sym>^2 . To this can be traced the root-ideas which animated alike quakers, seekers, Behmenists, anabaptists, familists and numberless other sects which embodied a reaction against forms and ceremonies that, in ceasing to be understood, had become lifeless. They all agreed in deeming it more important to spiritualize this life than to dogmatize about the life to come. They all believed in the ' innerlight,' in the immediate revelation of God within the soul as the supreme and all-important experience. They all held that salvation was the effect of a spiritual principle, a seed quickened invisibly by God, and, consequently, they considered learning useless, or even mischievous, in dealing with the things of the spirit. So far, these various sects were mystical in thought; though, with the exception of familists, Behmenists and seekers, they cannot unreservedly be classed as mystics. Large numbers of these three sects, however, became ' children of light,' thus helping to give greater prominence to the strong mystical element in early quakerism.

It only needed the release from the crushing hand of Laud, and the upheaval of the civil war, to set free the religious revival [307] which had long been seething, and to distract England, for a time, with religious excitement. Contemporary writers refer with horror to the swarm of ' sects, heresies and schisms ' which now came into being^3 <#sdfootnote3sym> ^1 , and Milton alone seems to have understood that the turmoil was but the outward sign of a great spiritual awakening^4 <#sdfootnote4sym>^2 . Unhappily, there were few who, with him, could perceive that the 'opinion of good men is but knowledge in the making,' and that these many sects were but various aspects of one main movement towards freedom and individualism, towards a religion of the heart rather than of the head. The terrible persecutions of the quakers under Charles II^5 <#sdfootnote5sym> ^3 tended to withdraw them from active life, and to throw them in the direction of a more personal and introspective religion^6 <#sdfootnote6sym> ^4 It was then that the writings of Antoinette Bourignon, Madame Guyon and Fénelon became popular, and were much read among a certain section of thinkers, while the teachings of Jacob Boehme, whose works had been put into English between the years 1644 and 1692, bore fruit in many ways^7 <#sdfootnote7sym>^5 Whether directly or indirectly, they permeated the thought of the founders of the Society of Friends^8 <#sdfootnote8sym>^6 , they were widely read both in cottage and study^9 <#sdfootnote9sym> ^7 and they produced a distinct Behmenite sect^10 <#sdfootnote10sym>^8 . Their influence can be seen in the writings of Thomas Tryon, John Pordage, George Cheyne, Francis Lee, Jane Lead, Thomas Bromley, Richard Roach and others ; in the foundation and transactions of the [308] Philadelphian society; in the gibes of satirists^11 <#sdfootnote11sym>^1 ; in forgotten tracts; in the increase of interest in alchemy^12 <#sdfootnote12sym>^2 ; in the voluminous MS commentaries of Freher, or even in Newton's great discovery ; for *it is almost certain that the idea of the three laws of motion first reached Newton through his eager study of Boehme*.

The tracing of this mystical thought, however, during the period under discussion and later, mainly among obscure sects and little-known thinkers, would not form part of a history of English literature, were it not that our greatest prose mystic lived and wrote in the same age.

William Law had a curiously paradoxical career. After graduating as B.A. and M.A. at Cambridge, in 1708 and 1712, and being, in 1711, ordained and elected fellow of his college (Emmanuel), he refused to take the oaths of allegiance to George I, and thus lost his fellowship and vocation. Though an ardent high churchman, he was the father of methodism. Though deprived of employment in his church, he wrote the book which, of all others for a century to come, had the most profound and far-reaching influence upon the religious thought of his country. Though a sincere, and, so he believed, an orthodox Christian, he was the classic exponent of Boehme, a thinker abhorred and mistrusted alike by eighteenth century divines and by Wesleyan leaders.

About the year 1727, Edward Gibbon selected Law as tutor for his only son, the father of the historian, and, in 1730, when his pupil went abroad. Law lived on with the elder Gibbon in the ' spacious house with gardens and land at Putney,' where he was ' the much honoured friend and spiritual director of the whole family^13 <#sdfootnote13sym> ^3 '

During these years at Putney, Law's reputation as a writer became assured. He was already known as the ablest defender of nonjuror principles; the publication of /A Serious Call/ in 1729 had brought him renown, and he was revered and consulted by an admiring band of disciples. His later life was spent at his birthplace. King's Cliffe, near Stamford. He settled there in 1737 or 1740, and was joined by Hester Gibbon, the historian's aunt, and Mrs Hutcheson, a widow with considerable means. This oddly assorted trio gave themselves to a life of retirement and good deeds, the whole being regulated by Law. With a united income of over £3000 a year, they lived in the simplest fashion.

They spent large sums in founding schools and almshouses, and in general charity, which took the form of free daily distribution of food, money and clothes, no beggar being turned away from the door, until the countryside became so demoralized with vagrants that the inhabitants protested and the rector preached against these proceedings from the pulpit^14 <#sdfootnote14sym>^1 . The trouble, however, seems to have abated when the three kindhearted and guileless offenders threatened to leave the parish, and, possibly, it may have caused them to exercise a little discrimination in their giving.

Here, at King's Cliffe, after more than twenty years of residence, passed in the strictest routine of study and good works, Law died, after a short illness, almost in the act of singing a hymn.

Law's writings fall naturally into three divisions, controversial, practical and mystical. His three great controversial works are directed against a curious assortment of opponents: Hoadly, latitudinarian bishop of Bangor, Mandeville, a sceptical pessimist, and Tindal, a deistical optimist. These writers represent three main sections of the religious opinion of the day, and much light is thrown on Law's character and beliefs by the method with which he meets them and turns their own weapons against themselves.

It was a time of theological pamphleteering, and the famous Bangorian controversy is a good specimen of the kind of discussion which abounded in the days of George I. It is, on the whole, good reading, clear, pointed and even witty, and, if compared with similar controversies in the reign of Charles I, presents an admirable object lesson as to the advance made during the intervening years in the writing of English prose.

When queen Anne died, and the claims of the Stewarts were set aside in favour of a parliamentary king from Hanover, the church, committed absolutely to the hereditary, as opposed to the parliamentary, principle, found itself on the horns of a dilemma. High churchmen were forced either to eat their own words, or to refuse to take the oaths of allegiance to the new king and of abjuration to the pretender^15 <#sdfootnote15sym> ^2 . Law is a prominent example of this latter and smaller class, the second generation of non-jurors. Feeling naturally ran very high when, in answer to the posthumous [310] papers of George Hickes^16 <#sdfootnote16sym>^1 , the nonjuring bishop, who charged the church with schism, Benjamin Hoadly, bishop of Bangor, the king's chaplain, came forward as champion of the crown and church.

Hoadly was an able thinker and writer, and, in his /Preservative against the Principles and Practices of the Non-Jurors/, he attempts to justify the civil power by reducing to a minimum the idea of church authority and even that of creeds. He tells Christians to depend upon Christ alone for their religion, and not upon His ministers, and he urges sincerity as the sole test of truth. On this last point he dwells more fully and exclusively in his famous sermon. /The Nature of the Kingdom of Christ,/ preached before the king on 31 March 1717. Hoadly's pamphlet and sermon raised a cloud of controversy^17 <#sdfootnote17sym>^2 ; but by far the ablest answer he received on the part of the nonjurors was that contained in Law's Three Letters to the Bishop of Bangor (1717 — 19). The bishop never replied to Law, and, indeed, he gave strong proof of his acuteness by leaving his brilliant young opponent severely alone^18 <#sdfootnote18sym> ^3 .

Law instantly detected that Hoadly's arguments tended to do away altogether with the conception of the church as a living spiritual society, and his answer is mainly directed against the danger of this tendency^19 <#sdfootnote19sym> ^4 . He begins by pointing out that there are no libertines or loose thinkers in England who are not pleased with the bishop, for they imagine that he intends to dissolve the church as a society ; and, indeed, they seem to have good grounds for their assumption, since the bishop leaves neither authorised ministers, nor sacraments, nor church, and intimates that 'if a man be not a Hypocrite, it matters not what Religion he is of^20 <#sdfootnote20sym>^5 '.

Law deals with church authority, and shows that if, as Hoadly says, regularity of ordination and uninterrupted succession be mere niceties and dreams, there is no difference between the episcopalian communion and any other lay body of teachers^21 <#sdfootnote21sym>^6 . He demolishes Hoadly's remarks on the exclusion of the papist [311] succession, and he ends the first letter by refuting the bishop's definition of prayer, as a ' calm, undisturbed address to God^22 <#sdfootnote22sym> ^1 in a passage which is one of the finest pleas in our language for the right use of passion, and which admirably sums up the fundamental difference of outlook between the mystic and the rationalist temper in the things of the spirit.

Law's next work, /Remarks on the Fable of the Bees/ (1723), is an answer to Mandeville's poem^23 <#sdfootnote23sym>^2 , the moral of which is that 'private vices are public benefits,' and Law, characteristically seizing on the fallacy underlying Mandeville's clever paradoxes, deals with his definition of the nature of man and of virtue in a style at once buoyant, witty and caustic.

/ The Case of Reason/ (1731) is Law's answer to the deists, and, more especially, to Tindal's Christianity as /Old as the Creation /(1730). To reply to such arguments as those of Tindal and the deists in general was, to a man of Law's insight and intellect, an easy task. He brings out well the fundamental difference between his and their points of view. Deists saw a universe governed by fixed laws, a scheme of creation which was 'plain and perspicuous^24 <#sdfootnote24sym>^3 ,' capable of accurate investigation, and they believed in a magnified man God outside the universe, whose nature, methods and aims were, or should be, perfectly clear to the minds of his creatures. Law saw a living universe, wrapped in impenetrable mystery, and believed in a God who was so infinitely greater than man, that, of His nature, or of the reason or fitness of his actions, men can know nothing whatsoever. Why complain of mysteries in revelation, he says, when 'no revealed mysteries can more exceed the comprehension of man, than the state of human life itself^25 <#sdfootnote25sym>^4 ' ?

Tindal asserts that the ' fitness of things ' must be the sole rule of God's actions. ' I readily grant this,' says Law, 'but what judges are we of the fitness of things? ' We can no more judge the divine nature than we can raise ourselves to a state of infinite wisdom ; and the rule by which God acts 'must in many instances be entirely inconceivable by us . . . and in no instances fully known or perfectly comprehended^26 <#sdfootnote26sym> ^5 '

In short, the fundamental assumption of the deists, that human reason is all-sufficient to guide us to truth, is the great error which [312] William Law and the Mystics Law, in his later writings especially, set himself to combat ; in his opinion, it is devilish pride, the sin by which the angels fell^27 <#sdfootnote27sym> ^1 .

In the further development of his position in /The Case of Reason/, we can see many indications of the future mystic ; for the crudely material thought of his opponent seems to have called into expression, for the first time, many of Law's more characteristic beliefs. There is, throughout, a strong sense of man's capacity for spiritual development, and a settled belief that the human mind cannot possibly know anything as it really is, but can only know things in so far as it is able to apprehend them through symbol or analogy. Things supernatural or divine, he says, cannot be revealed to us in their own nature, for the simple reason that we are not capable of knowing them. If an angel were to appear to us, he would have to appear, not as he really is, but in some human bodily form, so that his appearance might be suited to our capacities. Thus, with any supernatural or divine matter, it can only be represented to us by its likeness to something that we already naturally know^28 <#sdfootnote28sym>^2 . This is the way in which revelation teaches us, and it is only able to teach so much outward knowledge of a great mystery as human language can represent^29 <#sdfootnote29sym>^3 ; reason is impotent in face of it, and only by the spiritual faculty that exists in us can the things of the spirit be even dimly apprehended^30 <#sdfootnote30sym>^4 .

Law's practical and ethical works, A Practical Treatise upon Christian Perfection (1726) and A Serious Call (1728), have been more read and are better known than any other of his writings ; moreover, they explain themselves, being independent both of local controversies and of any special metaphysic. For these reasons, comparatively little need be said about them here. Both treatises are concerned with the practical question of how to live in accordance With the teachings of Christ, and they point out with peculiar force that the way consists, not in performing this or that act of devotion or ceremony, but in a new principle of life, an entire change of temper and of aspiration.

Christian Perfection, though somewhat gloomy and austere in tone, has much charm and beauty ; but it was quite overshadowed by the wider popularity of what many consider Law's greatest work, A Serious Call, a book of extraordinary power, delightful and persuasive style, racy wit and unanswerable logic. Never have the inconsistency between Christian precept and practice been so ruthlessly exposed and the secret springs of men's hearts so [313] uncompromisingly laid bare. Never has the ideal of the Christian life been painted by one who lived more literally in accordance with every word he preached. That is the secret of /A Serious Call/; it is written from the heart, by a man in deep earnest; and in an age distinguished for its mediocrity and easygoing laxness, Law's lofty ideals acted as an electric current, setting aflame the hearts of all who came under their power.

Few books in English have wielded such an influence. John Wesley himself acknowledged that /A Serious Call/ sowed the seed of methodism^31 <#sdfootnote31sym>^1 , and, undoubtedly, next to the Bible, it contributed more than any other book to the spread of evangelicalism. It made the deepest impression on Wesley himself; he preached after its model^32 <#sdfootnote32sym> ^2 ; he used it as a text-book for the highest class at Kingswood school ; and, a few months before his death, he spoke of it as 'a treatise which will hardly be excelled, if it be equalled, in the English tongue, either for beauty of expression or for justice and depth of thought.' Charles Wesley, Henry Whitfield, Henry Venn, Thomas Scott, Thomas Adam and James Stillingfleet are among other great methodists and evangelicals who have recorded how profoundly it affected them. But it did not appeal only to this type of mind. Dr Johnson, who praised it in no measured terms, attributes his first serious thoughts to the reading of it. 'I became,' he says, ' a sort of lax talker against religion, for I did not much think against it ; and this lasted till I went to Oxford^33 <#sdfootnote33sym>^3 .' When there,

I took up Law's /Serious Call to a Holy Life/, expecting to find it a dull book (as such books generally are)... But I found Law quite an over-match for me; and this was the first occasion of my thinking in earnest of religion.

Gibbon^34 <#sdfootnote34sym>^4 and the first Lord Lyttelton (who, taking it up at bedtime, was forced to read it through before he could go to rest)^35 <#sdfootnote35sym>^5 are two among many other diverse characters who felt its force.

Such, very briefly, were Law's views and writings until middle age. Although, before that time, they do not show any marked mystical tendency, yet we know that, from his undergraduate-ship onwards, Law was a 'diligent reader' of mystical books^36 <#sdfootnote36sym> ^6 and, when at Cambridge, he wrote a thesis entitled /Malebranche, and /[314]/ the Vision of All Things in God/. There is no question that he was strongly attracted to, and probably influenced by, Malebranche's view that all true knowledge is but the measure of the extent to which the individual can participate in the universal life; that, unless we see God in some measure, we do not see anything ; and that it is only by union with God we are capable of knowing what we do know^37 <#sdfootnote37sym>^1 . On the other hand, there are points in Malebranche's philosophy — which curiously stops short of its logical conclusion — quite opposed to Law's later thought: more especially the belief, which Malebranche shared with Descartes on the one side and Locke on the other, that body and spirit are separate and contrary existences ; whereas, in Law's view, body and spirit are but inward and outward expressions of the same being^38 <#sdfootnote38sym>^2 . Among other mystics studied by Law were Dionysius the Areopagite, the Belgian and German writers Johannes Ruysbroek, Johann Tauler, Heinrich Suso and others, and the seventeenth century quietists, Fénelon, Madame Guyon and Antoinette Bourignon. The last two were much admired by Byrom, who loved to recur to them in writing and in talk ; but they were not altogether congenial to Law ; they were too diffuse, sentimental and even hysterical to please his essentially robust and manly temper. When, however, he was about forty-six (c. 1733), he came across the work of the seer who supplied just what he needed, and who set his whole nature aglow with mystical fervour. Jacob Boehme (or Behmen, as he has usually been called in England), the peasant shoemaker of Gorlitz, is one of the most amazing phenomena in an amazing age. He was the son of a herdsman, and, as a boy, helped his father to tend cattle; he was taught how to write and read, was apprenticed to a shoemaker, married the daughter of a butcher and lived quietly and humbly, troubled only by years of bitter persecution from his pastor, who stirred up the civil authorities against him. This was his outer life, sober and hard-working, like that of his fellow-seer, William Blake, but, like him also, he lived in a glory of inner illumination, by the light of which he caught glimpses of mysteries and of splendours which, even in Boehme's broken and faltering syllables, dazzle and blind the ordinary reader. He saw with the eye of his mind into the heart of things, and he wrote down so much of it as he could understand with his reason. He had a quick and supple intelligence, and an intense power of [315] visualizing. Everything appears to him as an image, and, with him, a logical process expresses itself in a series of pictures. Although illiterate and untrained, Boehme was in touch with the thought of his time, and the form of his work, at any rate, owes a good deal to it. The older speculative mysticism which rather despised nature, and sought for light from within, coming down from Plotinus through Meister Eckhart and Tauler, had, in Germany, been carried on and developed by Caspar von Schwenckfeld and Sebastian Franck ; while a revival of the still older practical or ' perceptive mysticism of the east, based on a study of the natural sciences (in which were included astrology, alchemy and magic), had been brought about by Cornelius Agrippa and Paracelsus, both of whom owed much to the Jewish Cabbala. These two mystical traditions, the one starting from within, the other from without, were, to some extent, reconciled into one system by the Lutheran pastor Valentin Weigel, with whose mysticism Boehme has much in common.

The older mystics — eastern and western alike — had laid supreme stress on unity as seen in the nature of God and all things. No one more fully believed in ultimate unity than did Boehme ; but he lays peculiar stress on the duality, or, more accurately, the trinity in unity, and the central point of his philosophy is the fundamental postulate that all manifestation necessitates opposition. He asserted the uniformity of law throughout all existence, physical and spiritual, and this law, which applies throughout nature, divine and human alike, is that nothing can reveal itself without resistance, good can only be known through evil, and weakness through strength, just as light is only visible when reflected by a dark body^39 <#sdfootnote39sym>^1

Thus, when God, the triune principle, or will under three aspects, desires to become manifest. He divides the will into two, the ' yes ' and the ' no,' and so founds an eternal contrast to Himself out of His own hidden nature, in order to enter into a struggle with it, and, finally, to discipline and assimilate it The object of all manifested nature is the transforming of the will which says 'no' into the will which says 'yes,' and this is brought about by seven organizing spirits or forms. The first three of these bring nature out of the dark element to the point where contact with light is possible. Boehme calls them harshness, attraction and anguish, which, in modern terms, are contraction, expansion, and rotation. The first two are in deadly antagonism, and, being [316] forced into collision, form an endless whirl of movement. These two forces, with their resultant effect, are to be found all through manifested nature, within man and without, and are called by different names : good, evil and life ; God, the devil and the world ; homogeneity, heterogeneity, strain, or the three laws of motion, centripetal and centrifugal force, resulting in rotation. They are the outcome of the 'nature' or 'no will,' and are the basis of all manifestation. They are the 'power' of God, apart from the 'love,' hence, their conflict is terrible. At this point, spirit and nature approach and meet, and, from the shock, a new form is liberated, lightning or fire, which is the fourth moment or essence ; in the spark of the lightning, all that is dark, gross and selfish in nature is consumed ; the flash brings the rotating wheel of anguish to a standstill, and it becomes a cross. A divine law is accomplished ; for all life has a double birth, suffering is the condition of joy and only in going through fire or the Cross can man reach light. With the lightning ends the development of the negative triad, and the evolution of the three higher forms then begins ; Boehme calls them light or love, sound and substance ; they are of the spirit, and, in them, contraction, expansion and rotation are repeated in a new sense^40 <#sdfootnote40sym>^1 The first three forms give the stuff or strength of being ; the last three manifest the quality of being, good or bad ; and evolution can proceed in either direction.

These principles of nature can be looked at in another way. If they are resolved into two sets of three, in the first three the dark principle which Boehme calls fire is manifested, while the last three form the principle of light. These two are eternally distinct, and, whichever is manifested, the other remains hidden. This doctrine of the hidden and manifest is peculiar to Boehme, and lies at the root of his explanation of evil. A spiritual principle becomes manifest by taking on a form or quality. The ' dark ' or harsh principle in God is not evil in itself when in its right place, i.e., when hidden, and forming the necessary basis for the light or good. But, through the fall of man, the divine order has been transgressed, and the dark side has become manifest and appears to us as evil Many chemical processes help to give a crude illustration of Boehme's thought. Suppose 'water' stands for complete good or reality as God sees it. Of the two different gases, [317] hydrogen (= evil) and oxygen (= good) each is manifested separately, with peculiar qualities of its own, but, when they combine, their original form goes 'into hiddenness,' and we get a new body ' water.' Neither of them alone is water, and yet water could not be if either were lacking.

In reading Boehme, it must not be forgotten that he has a living intuition of the eternal forces which lie at the root of all things. He is struggling to express the stupendous world-drama which is ever being enacted, in the universe without and in the soul of man within ; and, to this end, he presses into his service symbolical, biblical and alchemical terms, although he fully realizes their inadequacy. 'I speak thus,' he says, ' in bodily fashion, for the sake of my readers' lack of understanding.' Unless this be remembered, Boehme's work, in common with that of all mystics, is liable to the gravest misunderstanding. He is never weary of explaining that, although he is forced to describe things in a series of images, there is no such thing as historical succession, 'for the eternal dwells not in time^41 <#sdfootnote41sym>^1 He has to speak of the generation of God as though it were an act in time, although to do so is to use 'diabolical' (i.e., knowingly untrue) language, for God hath no beginning. Everything he describes is going on always and simultaneously, even as all the qualities he names are in everything which is manifested. 'The birth of nature takes place today, just as it did in the beginning.'

It would be impossible to give here any adequate account of Boehme's vision; but the four fundamental principles which he enunciated and emphasized may be thus summarized : will or desire as the original force; contrast or duality as the condition of all manifestation ; the relation of the hidden and the manifest ; development as a progressive unfolding of difference, with a final resolution into unity. The practical and ethical result of this living unity of nature is simple. Boehme's philosophy is one which can only be apprehended by living it Will, or desire, is the root-force in man as it is in nature and in the Godhead, and, until this is turned towards the light, any purely historical or intellectual knowledge of these things is as useless as if hydrogen were to study all the qualities of oxygen, expecting thus to become water; whereas, what is needed is the actual union of the elements.

The whole of Boehme's practical teaching, as, also, that of Law, might be summed up in the story told of an Indian sage who was importuned by a young man as to how he could find God. For [318] some time, the sage did not give any answer ; but, one evening, he bade the youth come and bathe with him in the river, and, while there, he gripped him suddenly and held his head under the water until he was nearly drowned. When he had released him, the sage asked, 'What did you want most when your head was under water?' and the youth replied, 'A breath of air.' To which the sage answered, 'When you want God as you wanted that breath of air you will find Him.'

This realization of the momentous quality of the will is the secret of every religious mystic^42 <#sdfootnote42sym>^1 ; the hunger of the soul, as Law calls it^43 <#sdfootnote43sym>^2 , is the first necessity, and all else will follow. Such was the thought of the writer who, spiritually, was closely akin to our two greatest English mystics. William Blake saw visions and spoke a tongue like that of the illuminated cobbler ; and of Law, who was not a seer^44 <#sdfootnote44sym>^3 , we learn that, when he first read Boehme's works, they put him into ' a perfect sweat. ' Only those who combine intense mystical aspiration with a clear and imperious intellect can fully realize what the experience must have been.

The two most important of Law's mystical treatises are /An Appeal to all that Doubt (1740), and The Way to Divine Knowledge/ (1752). The first of these should be read by anyone desirous of knowing Law's later thought, for it is a clear and fine exposition of his attitude with regard more especially to the nature of man, the unity of all nature and the quality of fire or desire. The later book is an account of the main principles of Boehme, with a warning as to the right way to apply them, and it was written as an introduction to the new edition of Boehme's works which Law contemplated publishing. Law's later, are but an expansion of his earlier, views ; the main difference being that, whereas, in the practical treatises (/Christian Perfection and A Serious Call/), he urges certain temper and conduct because it is our duty to obey God, or because it is right or lawful, in his later writings — Boehme having furnished the clue — he adds not only the reason for this conduct being right, but the means of attaining it, by expounding the working of the law itself. The following aspect, then, of Boehme's teaching is that which Law most consistently emphasizes.
[319]
Man was made out of the breath of God ; his soul is a spark of the Deity. It, therefore, cannot die, for it ' has the unbeginning unending life of God in it.' Man has fallen from his high estate through ignorance and inexperience, through seeking separation, taking the part for the whole, desiring the knowledge of good and evil as separate things. The assertion of self is, thus, the root of all evil ; for, so soon as the will of man ' turns to itself, and would, as it were, have a sound of its own, it breaks off from the divine harmony, and falls into the misery of its own discord.' For it is the state of our will that makes the state of our life. Hence, by 'the fall,' man's standpoint has been dislocated from the centre to the circumference, and he lives in a false imagination. Every quality is equally good, for there is nothing evil in God, from whom all comes ; but evil appears to be through separation. Thus, strength and desire in the divine nature are necessary and magnificent qualities, but when, as in the creature, they are separated from love, they appear as evil. The analogy of the fruit is, in this connection, a favourite one with both Law and Boehme. When a fruit is unripe {i.e. incomplete), it is sour, bitter, astringent, unwholesome ; but, when it has been longer exposed to the sun and air, it becomes sweet, luscious and good to eat. Yet it is the same fruit, and the astringent qualities are not lost or destroyed, but transmuted and enriched, and are thus the main cause of its goodness^45 <#sdfootnote45sym> ^1 . The only way to pass from this condition of 'bitterness' to ripeness, from this false imagination to the true one, is the way of death. We must die to what we are before we can be born anew^46 <#sdfootnote46sym>^2 ; we must die to the things of this world to which we cling, and for which we desire and hope, and we must turn towards God. This should be the daily, hourly exercise of the mind, until the whole turn and bent of our spirit 'points as constantly to God as the needle touched with the loadstone does to the north^47 <#sdfootnote47sym> ^3 .' To be alive in God, before you are dead to your own nature, is 'a thing as impossible in itself, as for a grain of wheat to be alive before it dies^48 <#sdfootnote48sym>^4 '.

The root of all, then, is the will or desire^49 <#sdfootnote49sym>^5 It is the seed of everything that can grow in us ; 'it is the only workman in nature, and everything is its work ' ; it is the true magic power. And this will or desire is always active ; every man's life is a continual state [320] of prayer, and, if we are not praying for the things of God, we are praying for something else^50 <#sdfootnote50sym>^1 For prayer is but the desire of the soul. Our imaginations and desires are, therefore, the greatest realities we have, and we should look closely to what they are^51 <#sdfootnote51sym>^2 .

It is essential to the understanding of Law, as of Boehme, to remember his belief in the reality and actuality of the oneness of nature and of Law^52 <#sdfootnote52sym>^3 . Nature is God's great book of revelation, for it is nothing else but God's own outward manifestation of what He inwardly is, and can do. The mysteries of religion, therefore, are no higher, and no deeper than the mysteries of nature^53 <#sdfootnote53sym>^4 . God Himself is subject to this law. There is no question of God's mercy or of His wrath^54 <#sdfootnote54sym> ^5 , for it is an eternal principle that we can only receive what we are capable of receiving ; and, to ask why one person does not gain any help from the mercy and goodness of God while another does gain help is ' like asking why the refreshing dew of Heaven does not do that to flint which it does to the vegetable plant^55 <#sdfootnote55sym>^6 ?'

Self-denial and mortification of the flesh are not things imposed upon us by the mere will of God : considered in themselves, they have nothing of goodness or holiness ; but they have their ground and reason in the nature of the thing, and are as ' absolutely necessary to make way for the new birth, as the death of the husk and gross part of the grain is necessary to make way for its vegetable life^56 <#sdfootnote56sym>^7 .'

Law's attitude towards learning, which has been somewhat misunderstood, is a part of his belief in the ' Light Within,' which he shares with all mystical thinkers. In judging of what he says as to the inadequacy of book knowledge and scholarship, it is necessary to call to mind the characteristics of his age and public. When we remember the barren controversies about externals in matters religious which raged all through his lifetime, and the exaltation of the reason as the only means whereby man could know anything of the deeper truths of existence, it is not surprising that, with Law, the pendulum should swing in the opposite direction, and that, with passionate insistence, he should be driven to assert the utter inadequacy of the intellect by itself in all spiritual concerns^57 <#sdfootnote57sym>^8 .

He, says Law, who looks to his reason as the true power and light of his nature, 'betrays the same Ignorance of the whole Nature, Power and Office of Reason as if he were to smell with his Eyes, or see with his Nose^58 <#sdfootnote58sym> ^1 ' All true knowledge, he urges, must come from within, it must be experienced ; and, if it were not that man has the divine nature in him, no omnipotence of God could open in him the knowledge of divine things. There cannot be any knowledge of things but where the thing itself is ; there cannot be any knowledge ' of any unpossessed Matters, for knowledge can only be yours as Sickness and Health is yours, not conveyed to you by a Hearsay Notion, but the Fruit of your own Perception^59 <#sdfootnote59sym> ^2 .'

Law, liberal scholar, clear reasoner and finished writer, was no more an enemy of learning than Ruskin was an enemy of writing and reading because he said that there were very few people in the world who got any good by either. Their scornful remarks on these subjects often mislead their readers; yet the aim of both writers was not to belittle these things in themselves, but solely to put them in their right place^60 <#sdfootnote60sym>^3 .

Law is among the greatest of English prose writers, and no one ever more truly possessed than he ' the splendid and imperishable excellence of sincerity and strength.' Those who least understand his later views, who look upon them as 'idle fancies,' and on the whole subject of his mystical thought as 'a melancholy topic ' are constrained to admit, not only that he writes fine and lucid prose in /A Serious Call/, but that, in his mystical treatises, his style becomes mellower and rises to greater heights than in his earlier work^61 <#sdfootnote61sym>^4 . The reason for this cumulative richness is that the history and development of Law's prose style is the history and development of his character. As applied to him, Buffon's epigram was strictly true. Sincerity is the keynote of his whole nature, sincerity of thought, of belief, of speech and of life. Sincerity implies courage, and Law was a brave man, never shirking the logical outcome of his convictions, from the day when he ruined his prospects at Cambridge, to the later years when he suffered his considerable reputation to be eclipsed by his espousal of an un-comprehended and unpopular mysticism. He had a keen, rather than a profound, intellect, and his thought is lightened by brilliant flashes of wit or of grim satire. On this side, his was a true [322] eighteenth century mind, logical, sane, practical, with, at the same time, a touch of whimsey, and a tendency to a quite unexpected lack of balance on certain subjects. Underneath a severe and slightly stiff exterior lay, however, emotion, enthusiasm and great tenderness of feeling. When he was still a young man, the logical and satirical side was strongest; in later years, this was much tempered by emotion and tenderness.

This description of Law's character might equally serve as a description of his style. It is strong, sincere, rhythmical, but, except under stress of feeling, not especially melodious. A certain stiffness and lack of adaptability, which was characteristic of the man, makes itself felt in his prose, in spite of his free use of italics and capital letters. Law's first object is to be explicit, to convey the precise shade of his meaning, and, for this purpose, he chooses the most homely similes, and is not in the least afraid of repetition, either of words or thoughts. A good instance of his method, and one which illustrates his disregard for iteration, his sarcastic vein and his power of expressing his meaning in a simile, is the parable of the pond in A Serious Call, which was versified by Byrom^62 <#sdfootnote62sym>^1

Again, if you should see a man that had a /large pond of water/, yet living in continual thirst, not suffering himself to drink /half a draught/, for fear of lessening his pond; if you should see him wasting his time and strength, in /fetching more/ water to his pond, always /thirsty/, yet always carrying a bucket of water in his hand, watching early and late to catch the /drops/ of rain, gaping after every cloud, and running greedily into every /mire/ and /mud/, in hopes of water, and always studying how to make every /ditch/ empty itself into his /pond/. If you should see him grow grey and old in these anxious labours, and at last end /a careful, thirsty life/, by falling into his own /pond/, would you not say, that such a one was not only the author of all his own disquiets, but was foolish enough to be reckoned amongst /idiots and madmen/ ? But yet foolish and absurd as this character is, it does not represent half the follies, and absurd disquiets of the /covetous man/.

Law's use of simile and analogy in argument is characteristic. By means of it, he lights up his position in one flash, or with dexterity lays bare an inconsistency. His use of analogies between natural, and mental and spiritual, processes is frequent, and is applied with power in his later writings, when the oneness of law in the spiritual and natural worlds became the very ground of his philosophy. He had the command of several instruments and could play in different keys. Remarks upon the /Fable of the Bees (1723), and The Spirit of Prayer/ (1749—50), while exhibiting different sides of the man, are excellent examples of the variety and [323] range of his prose. The earlier work is biting, crisp, brilliant and severely logical, written in pithy sentences and short paragraphs, containing a large proportion of words of one syllable, the printed page thus presenting to the eye quite a different appearance from that of his later work. Remarks displays to the full Law's peculiar power of illustrating the fallacy of an abstract argument, by embodying it in a concrete example. Mandeville's poem is a vigorous satire in the Hudibrastic vein, and, in Law's answer, it called out the full share of the same quality which he himself possessed. ' Though I direct myself to you,' he begins, in addressing Mandeville, ' I hope it will be no Offence if I sometimes speak as if I was speaking to a Christian.' The two assertions of Mandeville which Law is chiefly concerned to refute are that man is only an animal, and morality only an imposture. ' According to this Doctrine,' he retorts, ' to say that a Man is dishonest, is making him just such a Criminal as a Horse that does not dance.' This is the kind of unerring homely simile which abounds in Law's writing, and which reminds us of the swift and caustic wit of Mrs Poyser. Other examples could be cited to illustrate the pungency and raciness of Law's style when he is in the mood for logical refutation. But it is only necessary to glance at the first half page of /The Spirit of Prayer/ to appreciate the marked difference in temper and phrasing. The early characteristics are as strong as ever ; but, in addition, there is a tolerance, a tender charm, an imaginative quality and a melody of rhythm rarely to be found in the early work. The sentences and phrases are longer, and move to a different measure ; and, all through, the treatise is steeped in mystic ardour, and, while possessed of a strength and beauty which Plotinus himself has seldom surpassed, conveys the longing of the soul for union with the Divine.

In /A Serious Call/, Law makes considerable use of his power of character drawing, of which there are indications already in /Christian Perfection/. This style of writing, very popular in the seventeenth century, had long been a favourite method for conveying moral instruction, and Law uses it with great skill. His sketches of Flavia and Miranda, ' the heathen and Christian sister 'as Gibbon calls them, are two of the best known and most elaborate of his portraits. Law's foolish, inconsistent and selfish characters, such as the woman of fashion, the scholar, the country gentleman or the man of affairs, are more true to life, and, indeed, more sympathetic to frail humanity, than the few virtuous characters he has drawn. This is a key, perhaps, to the limitations of Law's outlook, [324] and, more especially, of his influence ; for, in his view, a man's work in the world, and his more mundane characteristics, are as nothing, so that one good person is precisely like another. Thus, a pious physician is acceptable to God as pious, but not at all as a physician^63 <#sdfootnote63sym> ^1 .

/A Serious Call/, as a whole, is a fine example of Law's middle style, grave, clear and rhythmical, with the strong sarcastic tendency restrained ; not, on the one hand, so brilliant as the /Remarks/, nor, on the other, so illumined as /The Spirit of Prayer/. Yet, it throbs with feeling, and, indeed, as Sir Leslie Stephen — himself not wholly in sympathy with it — has finely said, its ' power can only be adequately felt by readers who can study it on their knees.' One can well imagine how repugnant it would have been to the writer that such a work should be criticised or appraised from a purely literary point of view; and yet, if William Law had not been a great literary craftsman, the lofty teaching of his /Serious Call/ would not have influenced, as it has, entire generations of English-speaking people.

On the whole, the distinguishing and peculiar characteristic of Law as a prose writer is that, for the most part, he is occupied with things which can only be experienced emotionally and spiritually, and that he treats them according to his closely logical habit of mind. The result is an unusual combination of reason and emotion which makes appeal at once to the intellect and the heart of the reader.

Although Law's spiritual influence in his own generation was probably more profound than that of any other man of his day, yet he had curiously few direct followers. It is easy to see that he was far too independent a thinker to be acceptable even to the high churchmen whose cause he espoused, and, though he was greatly revered by methodists and evangelists, his later mysticism was wholly abhorrent to them^64 <#sdfootnote64sym>^2 . The most famous members of the little band of disciples who visited him at Putney were the Wesleys, John and Charles, who, two or three times yearly, used to travel the whole distance from Oxford on foot in order to consult their 'oracle^65 <#sdfootnote65sym> ^3 ' Later, however, there was a rupture between them, when Wesley, on his return from Georgia in 1738, having joined the Moravians, seems suddenly to have realized, and to have contended, in very forcible language, that, [325] although Law, in his books (/A Christian Perfection and A Serious Call/), put a very high ideal before men, he had, nevertheless, omitted to emphasize that the only means of attaining it was through the atonement of Christ^66 <#sdfootnote66sym> ^1 . This was largely the quarrel of Wesley, as, also, of the later methodists, with mysticism in general ; 'under the term mysticism,' he writes from Georgia, 'I comprehend those and only those who slight any of the means of grace^67 <#sdfootnote67sym>^2 '

George Cheyne, fashionable doctor, vegetarian and mystic, was another of Law's friends at this time ; but the most charming and most lovable of his followers was his devoted admirer, John Byrom. The relationship between these two men much resembles that of Johnson and Boswell, and we find the same outspoken brusqueness, concealing a very real affection, on the part of the mentor, with the same unswerving devotion and zealous record of details — even of the frequent snubs received — on the part of the disciple. Byrom, in many ways, reminds us of Goldsmith; he possesses something of the artless simplicity, the rare and fragrant charm, which is the outcome of a sincere and tender nature; he has many forgivable foibles and weaknesses, a delightful, because completely natural, style in prose and a considerable variety of interests and pursuits. He travelled abroad and studied medicine, and, though he never took a medical degree, he was always called Doctor by his friends; he was an ardent Jacobite, a poet, a mystic and the inventor of a system of shorthand, by the teaching of which he increased his income until, in 1740, he succeeded to the family property near Manchester.

Byrom, though a contemporary of Law at Cambridge, evidently did not know him personally until 1729, and his first recorded meeting with his hero, as, also, the later ones, form some of the most attractive passages of an entirely delightful and too little known book, /The Private Journal and Literary Remains of John Byrom/. It is from this journal that we gather most of our information about Law at Putney, and from it that, incidentally, we get the fullest light on his character and personality.

On 15 February 1729, Byrom bought /A Serious Call/, and, on the following 4 March, he and a friend named Mildmay went down in the Fulham coach to Putney to interview the author. This was the beginning of an intimacy which lasted until Law's death, and [326] which was founded on a strong community of tastes in matters of mystical philosophy, and on the unswerving devotion of Byrom to his 'master^68 <#sdfootnote68sym> ^1 '. They met at Cambridge, where Byrom gave shorthand lessons, and Law shepherded his unsatisfactory pupil ; at Putney, in Somerset gardens and, later, at King's Cliffe^69 <#sdfootnote69sym>^2 .

Byrom, though scarcely a poet, for he lacked imagination, had an unusual facility for turning everything into rime. He sometimes wrote in very pleasing and graceful vein^70 <#sdfootnote70sym>^3 , and he had an undoubted gift of epigram^71 <#sdfootnote71sym>^4 ; but he was particularly fond of making verse paraphrases of prose writings, and especially of those of William Law. His two finest pieces of this kind are /An Epistle to a Gentleman of the Temple/ (1749), which versifies Law's /Spirit of Prayer/; and the letter on /Enthusiasm/ (1752), founded on the latter part of Law's /Animadversions upon Dr Trapp's Reply/. This last poem is written with admirable clearness and point; Law's defence of enthusiasm is one of the best things he wrote, and Byrom does full justice to it. 'Enthusiasm,' meaning, more especially 'a misconceit of inspiration^72 <#sdfootnote72sym> ^5 ' the laying claim to peculiar divine guidance or 'inner light,' resulting in anything approaching fanaticism or even emotion, was a quality equally abhorred and feared in the eighteenth century by philosophers, divines and methodists, indeed, by everyone except mystics. The first care of every writer and thinker was to clear himself of any suspicion of this 'horrid thing^73 <#sdfootnote73sym> ^6 ' Law's argument, which is to the effect that enthusiasm is but the kindling of the driving desire or will of every intelligent creature, is well summarized by Byrom: — [327]
Think not that you are no Enthusiast, then!
All Men are such, as sure as they are Men.
The Thing itself is not at all to blame
'Tis in each State of human Life the same,
...
That which concerns us therefore, is to see
What Species of Enthusiasts we be^74 <#sdfootnote74sym>^1 .

Byrom hoped that, by turning them into verse, Law's later teachings might reach a larger public^75 <#sdfootnote75sym>^2 , and, in this. Law evidently agreed with him, looking upon him as a valuable ally. Byrom's work certainly did not lack appreciation by his contemporaries; Warburton — who had no cause to love him — thought highly of it, and Wesley, who ascribes to him all the wit and humour of Swift, together with much more learning, says that in his poems are 'some of the noblest truths expressed with the utmost energy of language, and the strongest colours of poetry^76 <#sdfootnote76sym> ^3 .'

Henry Brooke^77 <#sdfootnote77sym>^4 was another writer who was deeply imbued with Boehme's thought, and his expression of it, imbedded in that curious book /The Fool of Quality/ (1766 — 70), reached, probably, a larger public than did Law's mystical treatises^78 <#sdfootnote78sym> ^5 . In many ways, Brooke must have been a charming character, original, tender-hearted, overflowing with sentiment, but entirely incapable of concentration or even continuity of thought. His book is a brave one, full of high ideals. It is an extraordinary mixture of schoolboy pranks, romantic adventures, stories — ancient and modern — ethical dialogues, dissertations on mystical philosophy, political economy, the British constitution, the relation of the sexes, the training of a gentleman and many other topics. Mr Meekly and Mr Fenton (or Clinton) are Brooke's two exponents of a very general and diluted form of 'Behmenism.' The existence of the two wills, the formation of Christ within the soul, the reflection of God's image in matter as in a mirror, the nature of beauty, of man and of God, the fall of Lucifer and the angels, and of Adam — all these things are discussed and explained in mystical language, steeped in emotion and sentiment^79 <#sdfootnote79sym>^6 .
[328]
/The Fool of Quality/ found favour with John Wesley, who reprinted it in 1781, under the title /The History of Henry Earl of Moreland/. In doing this, he reduced it from five volumes to two, omitting, as he says in his preface, ' a great part of the mystic Divinity, as it is more philosophical than Scriptural.' He goes on to speak of the book with the highest praise, 'I now venture to recommend the following Treatise as the most excellent in its kind of any that I have seen, either in the English, or any other language' ; its greatest excellence being 'that it continually strikes at the heart ... I know not who can survey it with tearless eyes, unless he has a heart of stone.' Launched thus, with the imprimatur of their great leader, it became favourite reading with generations of devout Wesleyans, and, in this form, passed through many editions^80 <#sdfootnote80sym> ^1 .

Mystics, unlike other thinkers, scientific or philosophical, have little chronological development, since mysticism can neither age nor die. They rarely found schools of thought in their own day. It is, therefore, not surprising that, in spite of various strains of a mystic tendency, the mysticism of Law and his small circle of followers had no marked influence on the main stream of eighteenth century thought. The atmosphere of the age was antagonistic to it, and it remained an undercurrent only, the impulse given by Law in this direction spending itself finally among little-known dreamers and eccentrics^81 <#sdfootnote81sym>^2 .

Later, some of the root - ideas of Boehme returned to England by way of Hegel, Schelling, Jung-Stilling and Friedrich Schlegel, or through Boehme's French disciple, Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin. They influenced Coleridge^82 <#sdfootnote82sym> ^3 , and profoundly modified nineteenth century conceptions, thus preparing the way for the better understanding of mystical thought. Blake's prophetic books are only now, after a hundred years, beginning to find readers, and, undoubtedly, Law's Appeal, if it were more widely known, would, in the twentieth century, win the response for which it has long been waiting.

1 <#sdfootnote1anc> See vol. VIII, chap. x

2 <#sdfootnote2anc> 2 For an interesting detailed account of this phase
of religious life, with full references to original documents, see
Studies in Mystical Religion, 1909, by Jones, K. M., chaps. XVI and XVII.

3 <#sdfootnote3anc> See, for instance, Pagitt's /Heresiography/, 1645,
dedication to the lord mayor ; or Edwards, who, in his /Gangraena/,
1646, names 176, and, later, 23 more, ' /errors, heresies, blasphemies/.'

4 <#sdfootnote4anc> /Areopagitica, 1644/

5 <#sdfootnote5anc> 3 13,562 Friends suffered imprisonment during the
years 1661 — 97, while 198 were transported overseas and 338 died in
prison or of their wounds. See Inner Life of the Religious Societies of
the Commonwealth, by Barclay, pp. 474 — 8.

6 <#sdfootnote6anc> For further observations on early quakerism in its
connection with literature, see vol. VIII, chap. IV.

7 <#sdfootnote7anc>Charles I, who, shortly before his death, read
Boehme's Forty Questions, just then translated into English, much
admired it. See a most interesting MS letter in Latin from Francis Lee
to P. Poiret in Dr Williams's library, C 5 . 30.

8 <#sdfootnote8anc> Jacob Behmont's Books were the chief books that the
Quakers bought, for there is the Principle or Foundation of their
Religion.' A Looking Glass for George Fox, 1667, p. 5. But Boehme was
not wholly approved of even among the early quakers ; see Liner Life of
the Religious Societies, p. 479. For the influence of Boehme on Fox and
Winstauley, see Studies in Mystical Religion, pp. 494—5; cf., also.
Fox's Journal for 1648, 8th ed., vol. i, pp. 28 — 9, with Boehme's Three
Principles, chap, xx, §§ 39 — 42 ; also, life of J. B. in ' Law's
edition,' vol. i, p. xiii, or the Signatura Rerum.

9 <#sdfootnote9anc> See Way to Divine Knowledge, Law's Works, vol. vii,
pp. 84, 85 ; Byrom's Journal vol. I, part 2, pp. 560, 598 ; vol. II,
part 2, pp. 193, 216, 236, 285, 310—11, 328, 377, 380.

10 <#sdfootnote10anc> See Eichard Baxter's Autobiography, Reliquiae
Baxterianae, 1696, part I p. 77.

11 <#sdfootnote11anc> "He Anthroposophus and Floud,

And Jacob Behmen understood."

Hudibras, i, canto 1, cf. A Tale of a Tub, sect, v, and Martinus
Scriblerus, end of chap. I.

12 <#sdfootnote12anc> See Aubrey's Lives.

13 <#sdfootnote13anc> Gibbon's Memoirs, ed. Hill, G. B., 1900, p. 24.

14 <#sdfootnote14anc> 1 See Walton's Notes, p. 499. The duty on which
Law most insisted was charity ; see his defence of indiscriminate
giving, in A Serious Call, Works, vol. iv, pp. 114 — 18.

15 <#sdfootnote15anc> For an excellent illustration of the principles
and arguments on both sides, compare Law's letter from Cambridge,
written to his brother at the time, with that of his future friend Byrom
at the same date. Both are quoted by Overton, J. H., William Law, Non
juror and Mystic, 1881, pp. 13 — 16.

16 <#sdfootnote16anc> The Constitution of the Catholic Church, and the
Nature and Consequences of Schism. 1716.

17 <#sdfootnote17anc> 2 In the course of July 1717, 74 pamphlets
appeared on the subject, and, at one crisis, for a day or two, the
business of the city was at a standstill, little was done on the
Exchange and many shops were shut. See Hoadly's Works, vol. ii, pp. 385,
429 ; also Sir Leslie Stephen's English Thought in the 18th Century,
vol. ii, p. 156.

18 <#sdfootnote18anc> 3 See Hoadly's Works, vol. ii, pp. 694 — 5, where
he gives his reasons for not answering Law.

19 <#sdfootnote19anc> 4 For some of the side issues which were
vehemently discussed by other writers, Bee Leslie Stephen, vol. ii, p. 157.

20 <#sdfootnote20anc> 5 Works, vol. I, Letter 1, pp. 6, 7.

21 <#sdfootnote21anc> 6 Ibid. pp. 14, 15.

22 <#sdfootnote22anc> 1 So defined by Hoadly in his sermon /The Nature
of the Kingdom or Church of Christ/, p. 7.

23 <#sdfootnote23anc> 2 The Grumbling Hive, first printed 1705, republished with explanatory notes under the title The Fable of the Bees, 1714.

24 <#sdfootnote24anc> Christianity as Old as the Creation, p. 20.

25 <#sdfootnote25anc> 4 The Case of Reason, Works, vol. ii, p. 9.

26 <#sdfootnote26anc> 5 Ibid, p, 7.

27 <#sdfootnote27anc> 1 The Case of Reason, p. 3

28 <#sdfootnote28anc> 2 Ibid. p. 37

29 <#sdfootnote29anc> 3 Ibid. p. 39.

30 <#sdfootnote30anc> 4 Ibid. pp. 16, 17.

31 <#sdfootnote31anc> 1 Sermon CVII, Wesley's Works, 11th ed., 1856,
vol. VII, p. 194

32 <#sdfootnote32anc> 2 Letter to Law of 1738, quoted by Overton, p. 33.

33 <#sdfootnote33anc> 3 Boswell's Life of Johnson, ed. Hill, G.
Birkbeck, 1887, vol. i, p. 68, also vol. ii, p. 122

34 <#sdfootnote34anc> 4 Gibbon's Memoirs, ed. Hill, G. B., 1900, p. 23.

35 <#sdfootnote35anc> 5 Byrom's Journal, vol. ii, part 2, p. 634.

36 <#sdfootnote36anc> 6 See Some Animadversions upon Dr Trapp's late
Reply, Works, vol. vi, p. 319.

37 <#sdfootnote37anc> 1 See /Recherche de la Vérité/, specially livre iii, chap, vi, /Que nous voyons toutes choses en Dieu./

38 <#sdfootnote38anc> 2 See /The Spirit of Love, Works/, vol. viii, pp.
31 and 33.

39 <#sdfootnote39anc> 1 'Without contraries is no progression,' as Blake
/puts it in his development of the same thesis in The Marriage of Heaven
and Hell/.

40 <#sdfootnote40anc> 1 Boehme refers to these seven forces in all his
writings, but see his Threefold Life of Man, chap, i, §§ 23—32 ; chap,
ii, §§ 27—36, 73 ; chap, ni, § 1 ; chap, iv, §§ 5, 12 ; or Signatura
Rerum, chap, xiv, §§ 10 — 15.

41 <#sdfootnote41anc> 1 Mysterium Magnum, part i, chap, VIII.

42 <#sdfootnote42anc> 1 Cf. St Augustine, ' /To will God entirely is to
have Him/,' /The City of God/, book xi, chap. IV ; or Ruysbroek's answer
to the priests from Paris who came to consult him on the state of their
souls : '/You are as you desire to b/e.'

43 <#sdfootnote43anc> 2 ' /Hunger is all/, and in all worlds everything
lives in it, and by it.' See Law's letter to Langcake, 7 September 1751,
printed in Walton's Notes and Materials, p. 541.

44 <#sdfootnote44anc> 3 See Law's letter to W. Walker, Byrom's Journal,
vol. i, part 2, p. 559.

45 <#sdfootnote45anc> 1 /An Appeal to all that doubt or disbelieve the
Truths of the Gospel, Works/, vol. vi, pp. 27—8.

46 <#sdfootnote46anc> 2 /The Spirit of Prayer, Works/, vol. vii, p. 24.

47 <#sdfootnote47anc> 3 Ibid. p. 23.

48 <#sdfootnote48anc> 4 Ibid. p. 20.

49 <#sdfootnote49anc> 5 /The Way to Divine Knowledge, Works,/ vol. vii,
pp. 138 — 9.

50 <#sdfootnote50anc> 1 See /The Spirit of Prayer, Works/, vol. vii, pp. 150 — 1.

51 <#sdfootnote51anc> 2 /An Appeal, Works/, vol. vi, p. 169.

52 <#sdfootnote52anc> 3 Ibid. pp. 19—20.

53 <#sdfootnote53anc> 4 Ibid. pp. 69, 80

54 <#sdfootnote54anc> 5 /The Spirit of Prayer, Works/, vol. vii, pp. 23, 27.

55 <#sdfootnote55anc> 6 /The Way to Divine Knowledge, Works/, vol. vii,
p. 60.

56 <#sdfootnote56anc> 7 /The Spirit of Prayer, Work/s, vol. vii, p. 68.
See, also, ibid. pp. 91 — 2.

57 <#sdfootnote57anc> 8 See /The Way to Divine Knowledge/, Works, vol.
vii, pp. 118 — 28.

58 <#sdfootnote58anc> 1 See /The Way to Divine Knowledge, Works/, vol.
vii, pp. 50—1.

59 <#sdfootnote59anc> 2 Ibid. p. 127.

60 <#sdfootnote60anc> 3 Ibid, p. 93.

61 <#sdfootnote61anc> 3 See Bigg, Charles, in his introduction to /A
Serious Call/, pp. xxv and xxviii; also, for a view of Law's later
thought, Stephen, Leslie, /English Thought in the 18th Century, /vol.
II, pp. 405 — 9

62 <#sdfootnote62anc> 1 Cf. The Pond, in The Poems of John Byrom
(Chetham Society, 1894), part i, pp. 196—202.

63 <#sdfootnote63anc> 1 See Bigg's introduction to A Serious Call, 1899,
p. xxix.

64 <#sdfootnote64anc> 2 See Overton, chap, xxi, Law's opponents.

65 <#sdfootnote65anc> 3 Works, vol. IX, Letter ix, p. 123.

66 <#sdfootnote66anc> 1 For a full account of the relations of Wesley
and Law, and the text of their two famous letters, see Overton, pp. 80 —
92, and see, also, the account in Byrom's Journal, vol. II, part 1, pp.
268—70.

67 <#sdfootnote67anc> 2 See Byrom's Journal, vol. ii, part 1, p. 181,
and for later methodist views, The Life of the Rev. Charles Wesley, by
Thomas Jackson, 1841, vol. i, pp. 52, 53, 112, 113.

68 <#sdfootnote68anc> 1 ' how much better he from whom I draw

Though deep yet clear his system — "Master Law."

/Master/ I call him...' (/Epistle to a Gentleman of the Temple/.)

69 <#sdfootnote69anc> 2 See, for an example of their conversations,
which, in the variety of its topics, and distinctive character of its
sentiments, throws much light on Law's thoughts and ideals, that of
Saturday, 7 June 1735.

70 <#sdfootnote70anc> 3 Especially in his song 'Why prithee now' (Poems,
i, 115), or his early pastoral, ' My Time, ye Muses.'

71 <#sdfootnote71anc> 4 As in the famous lines upon Handel and
Bononcini, often attributed to Swift (Poems, I, 35), and the Pretender
toast (Poems, i, 572).

72 <#sdfootnote72anc> 5 Henry More, /Enthusiasmus Triumphatus/, 1662, § 2.

73 <#sdfootnote73anc> 6 Bishop Butler, when talking once to Wesley,
exclaimed, ' Sir, the pretending to extraordinary revelation or gifts of
the Holy Ghost is a horrid thing, a very horrid thing.' For an admirable
account of ' Enthusiasm,' see The English Church in the 18th Century, by
Abbey and Overton, vol. i, chap, ix ; also a note by Ward, A. W., in
Byrom's Poems, vol. ii, pt. 1, pp. 169—79; and a note by Hill, G.
Birkbeck, in Gibbon's Memoirs, 1900, p. 22.

74 <#sdfootnote74anc> 1 Byrom's /Poems/, II, 1, pp. 190 — 1.

75 <#sdfootnote75anc> 2 ' Since different ways of telling may excite

In different minds Attention to what's right,
And men (I measure by myself) sometimes,

Averse to Reas'ning, may be taught by Rimes.' /Poems/, ii, 1, 164.

76 <#sdfootnote76anc> 3 Wesley's Journal, Monday, 12 July 1773.

77 <#sdfootnote77anc> 4 The uncle of the Henry Brooke of Dublin, who
knew Law and greatly admired him.

78 <#sdfootnote78anc> 5 Brooke also wrote a large number of plays and
poems, two of the latter being full of mystical thought. /Universal
Beauty/ (1735 — (i) and /Redemption/ (1772). As to Brooke's novels of.
vol. x, chapter III, post.

79 <#sdfootnote79anc> 6 See /The Fool of Quality/, ed. Baker, E. A., 1906, pp. 30, 31, 33, 39, 133—6, 142, 258—60, 328—30, 336, 367—9, 394.

80 <#sdfootnote80anc> 1 Wesley's alterations in wording are most
instructive and interesting, for he has not hesitated to alter as well
as to omit passages. Cf. Clinton's account of the nature of man and God
in Wesley, ed. of 1781, vol. ii, pp. 286 — 7, with Brooke, 1 vol. ed.
1906, p. 367.

81 <#sdfootnote81anc> 2 As, for instance, Francis Okely, or, later, J.
P. Greaves and Christopher Walton. There remains, however, to be traced
an influence which bore fruit in the nineteenth century. Thomas Erskine
of Linlathen was indebted to both Law and Boehme, and he, in his turn,
influenced F. D. Maurice and others.

82 <#sdfootnote82anc> 3 Coleridge also knew both Law and Boehme at first
hand ; for his appreciation of them see Biographia Literaria, chap, ix.
Aids to Reflexion, conclusion, and notes to Southey's Life of Wesley,
3rd ed., 1846, vol. i, p. 476. For his projected work on Boehme, and in
connection with his philosophy, see letter to Lady Beaumont, 1810, in
Memorials of Coleorton, ed. Knight, W., 1887, vol. ii, pp. 105—7.

  ¶ 12:28 PM

  martinistes Saint-Martin pascalis martinez Russie point de vue d'un catholique :

C'est encore en France que se développèrent les Martinistes. Mais quel
est le fondateur de cette secte? car on peut choisir entre Saint-Martin
et Martinez, par lequel il fut initié aux mystères théurgiques11.
Martinez Pascalis, dont on ignore la patrie, que cependant on présume
être Portugais, et qui est mort à Saint Domingue en 17992, trouvait dans
la cabale judaïque la science qui nous révèle tout ce qui concerne Dieu
et les intelligences créées par lui3 2: Martinez admettait la chute des
anges, le péché originel, le Verbe réparateur, la divinité des saintes
Ecritures. Quand Dieu créa l'homme, il lui donna un corps matériel :
auparavajit ( quoi ! avant d'exister ! ), il avait un corps élémentaire
Le monde aussi était dans l'état d'élément : Dieu coordonna l'état de
toutes les créatures physiques à celui de l'homme.
Saint-Martin, né à Amboise en iy43, fit ses études à Pont-le-Voy, fut
d'abord avocat, puis officier au régiment de Foix. Etant à Bordeaux, il
eut occasion de connaître Martinez Pascalis, qu'il cite pour son premier
instituteur. Son goût ne s'accordant pas avec le tumulte des armes, il
obtint sa retraite, voyagea en Italie et en Angleterre, passa trois mois
à Lyon, puis vint se fixer à Paris où il demeura jusqu'à la révolution,
et mourut à Aulnay près Paris, en 18044.
Saint-Martin prend le titre de philosophe inconnu, en tête de plusieurs
de ses ouvrages. Le premier, qui parut en 1775, avait pour titre : Des
Erreurs et de la Vérité, ou les hommes rappelés aux vrais principes de
la science5 3. « C'est à Lyon, dit-il, que je l'ai écrit par
désœuvrement et par colère contre les philosophes ; j'étais indigné de
lire, dans Boulanger, que les religions n'avaient pris naissance que
dans la frayeur occasionnée par les catastrophes de la nature. C'est
pour avoir oublié les principes dont je traite, que toutes les erreurs
dévorent la terre, et que les «hommes ont embrassé une variété
universelle de dogmes et de systèmes. Cependant, quoique la lumière soit
faite pour tous les yeux, il est encore plus certain que tous les yeux
ne sont pas faits pour la voir dans son éclat; et le petit nombre de
ceux qui sont dépositaires des vérités que j'annonce est voué à la
prudence et à la discrétion par les engagements les plus formels. Aussi
me suis-je promis d'en user avec beaucoup de réserve dans cet écrit, et
de m'y envelopper d'un voile que les yeux, les moins ordinaires ne
pourront pas toujours percer, d'autant que j'y parle quelquefois de
toute autre chose que de ce dont je parais traiter. » II s'est ménagé,
comme on le voit, le moyen d'être inintelligible; et il s'est si bien
enveloppe, que ce qu'il y a da plus clair dans le livre, c'est le titre.
Il fit ensuite paraître son Tableau de l'ordre naturel, [Homme de désir,
Lettre sur la révolution française, un opuscule sur les Institutions
propres à fonder la morale d'un peuple, un Essai sur les signes.
Lui-même nous apprend qu'il a fait Ecce homo, d'après une notion vive
qu'il avait eue à Strasbourg. C'est dans cette ville qu'il a écrit le
Nouvel homme, à l'instigation d'un neveu de Swedenborg.
Le tome 2 de l'ouvrage intitulé : De l'esprit des choses6 1, offre clos
morceaux intéressants, par lesquels il justifie divers faits consignés
dans l'Ecriture sainte et sur lesquels les incrédules avaient formé des
objections ; par exemple, le matérialisme dont ils ont accusé Moïse.
Mais à quelques vues saines s'intercalent une foule de choses
inintelligibles, au milieu desquelles la raison s'égare.
Le Ministère de l'homme esprit, par le philosophe inconnu, parut en
180272. Dans un parallèle entre le christianisme et le catholicisme,
comme si ces deux choses n'étaient pas identiques, il s'est donné libre
carrière à dénaturer et calomnier le catholicisme, « qui n'est, dit-il,
que le séminaire, la voie d'épreuves et de travail, la région des
règles, la discipline du néophyte pour arriver au christianisme. — Le
christianisme repose immédiatement sur la parole non écrite, il porte
notre foi jusque dans la religion lumineuse de la parole divine : le
catholicisme repose, en général, sur la parole écrite ou sur l'Evangile,
et particulièrement sur la messe ; il borne la foi aux limites de la
parole écrite ou de la tradition. — Le christianisme est le terme, le
catholicisme n'est que le moyen ; le christianisme est le fruit de
l'arbre, le catholicisme ne peut en être que l'engrais ; le
christianisme n'a suscité la guerre que contre le péché, le catholicisme
l'a suscitée contre les hommes8 1. » L'auteur étaye sans doute de
quelques preuves ses assertions ? Non ; assurer d'un air tranchant, cela
lui suffit.
Saint-Martin a publié aussi un Eclair sur l'association humaine9 2. Le
philosophe inconnu, qui ne se croyait pas digne de dénouer les cordons
de Boehm10 3, s'est cru digne au moins de traduire divers écrits de ce
visionnaire : les Trois principes de l'essence divine, la Triple vie,
l'Aurore naissante. « On a voulu tout matérialiser, dit le traducteur;
mais l'époque approche où les sciences divines seront réconciliées11
avec les sciences naturelles : à force de scruter celles-ci, et de
tourmenter les éléments, on remontera à la source. L'aurore naissante
n'est que le premier bourgeon de » la branche12 4. »
On sera surpris peut-être de ne pas trouver ici un précis raisonné des
idées de S. Martin, un corps de doctrine ; mais à qui la faute? Ses
disciples contestent la faculté de l'apprécier à quiconque n'est pas
initié dans son système : tel ne l'est qu'au premier degré; tel autre au
second, au troisième. A merveille ! Mais, si le système de Votre maître
est, comme vous le prétendez, si intéressant, si avantageux pour
l'humanité, pourquoi ne pas le mettre à la portée de tout le monde? De
cette région élevée où vous le dites placé, ne pourrait-il s'abaisser
jusqu'à l'intelligence du vulgaire? — Non, répondez-vous: c'est chose
impossible. — Alors, permettez-nous d'élever des doutes sur l'importance
et l'avantage de son système ; car en fait de religion et morale, il est
dans la bonté de Dieu, et dans l'ordre essentiel des choses, que ce qui
est utile à tous, soit accessible à tous. Au surplus, Saint-Martin nous
dit : « II n'y a que le développement radical de notre essence intime
qui puisse nous conduire au spiritalisme actif13 5. » Et si ce
développement radical ne s'est pas encore opéré chez bien des gens, il
n'est pas surprenant qu'ils soient encore à grande distance du
spiritalisme actif, et que, n'étant que des hommes du torrent, ils ne
puissent comprendre l'Homme de désir.
La conformité des dogmes des Martinistes français avec ceux d'une secte
qui naquit dans l'université de Moscou vers la fin du règne de Catherine
II, et qui eut pour chef le professeur Schwarts, a fait donner le nom de
Martinistes aux membres de cette secte. Ils étaient nombreux à la fin du
XVIIIe siècle14 1.Mais ayant traduit en russe quelques-uns de leurs
écrits, et cherché à répandre leur doctrine, plusieurs furent
emprisonnés, puis élargis quand Paul monta sur le trône. Actuellement,
ils sont réduits à un petit nombre. Ils admirent Swedenborg, Boehm,
Ekartshausen, et d'autres écrivains mystiques. Ils recueillent les
livres magiques et cabalistiques, les peintures hiéroglyphiques,
emblèmes des vertus et des vices, et tout ce qui tient aux sciences
occultes. Ils professent un grand respect pour la parole divine, qui
révèle non-seulement l'histoire de la chute et de la délivrance de
l'homme, mais qui, selon eux, contient encore les secrets de la nature;
aussi cherchent-ils partout dans la Bible des sens mystiques. Tel est à
peu près le récit que faisait Pinkerton de cette secte en 1817 152.

  ¶ 8:02 AM

  rites masonic martinism cohen & more * Rite* The Latin word ritus, whence we get the English rite, signifies an approved usage or custom, or an external observance. Vossius derives it by metathesis from the Greek ***, whence literally it signifies a trodden path, and, metaphorically, a long-followed custom. As a Masonic term its application is therefore apparent. It signifies a method of conferring Masonic light by a collection and distribution of degrees. It is. in other words, the method and order observed in the government of a Masonic system.

The original system of Speculative Masonry consisted of only the three Symbolic degrees, called, therefore, Ancient Craft Masonry. Such was the condition of Free-masonry at the time of what is called the revival m 1717. Hence, this was the original Rite or approved usage, and so it continued in England until the year 1813, when at the union of the two Grand Lodges the "Holy Royal Arch'' was declared to be a part of the system; and thus the English Rite was made legitimately to consist of four degrees.

But on the Continent of Europe, the organization of new systems began at a much earlier period, and by the invention of what are known as the high degrees a multitude of Rites was established. All of these agreed in one important essential. They were built upon the three Symbolic degrees, which, in every instance, constituted the fundamental basis upon which they were erected. They were intended as an expansion and development of the Masonic ideas contained in these degrees. The Apprentice. Fellow-Craft, and Master's degrees were the porch through which every initiate was required to pass before he could gain entrance into the inner temple which had been erected by the founders of the Rite. They were the text, and the high degrees the commentary.

Hence arises the law, that whatever may be the constitution and teachings of any Rite as to the higher degrees peculiar to it, the three symbolic degrees being common to all the Rites, a Master Mason, in any one of the Rites, may visit and labor in a Master's Lodge of every other Rite. It is only after that degree is passed that the exclusiveness of each Rite begins to operate.

There has been a multitude of these Rites. Some of them have lived only with their authors, and died when their parental energy in fostering them ceased to exert itself. Others have had a more permanent existence, and still continue to divide the Masonic family, furnishing, however, only diverse methods of attaining to the same great end, the acquisition of Divine Truth by Masonic light. Ragon, in his Tuileur Général supplies us with the names of a hundred and eight, under the different titles of Rites, Orders, and Academies. But many of these are unmasonics, being merely of a political, social, or literary character. The following catalogue embraces the most important of those which have hitherto or still continue to arrest the attention of the Masonic student.

1. York Rite.
2. Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite.
3. French or Modem Rite.
4. American Rite.
5. Philosophic Scottish Rite.
6. Primitive Scottish Rite.
7. Reformed Rite.
8. Reformed Helvetic Rite.
9. Fessler's Rite.
10. Schröder's Rite.
11. Rite of the Grand Lodge of the Three Globes.
12. Rite of the Elect of Truth.
13. Rite of the Vielle Bru.
14. Rite of the Chapter of Clermont.
15. Pemetty's Rite.
16. Rite of the Blazing Star.
17. Chastanier's Rite.
18. Rite of the Philalethes.
19. Primitive Rite of the Philadelphians.
20. Rite of Martinism.
21. Rite of Brother Henoch.
22. Rite of Misraim.
23. Rite of Memphis.
24. Rite of Strict Observance.
25. Rite of Lax Observance.
26. Rite of African Architects.
27. Rite of Brothers of Asia.
28. Rite of Perfection.
29. Rite of Elected Cohens.
30. Rite of the Emperors of the East and West.
31. Primitive Rite of Narbonne.
32. Rite of the Order of the Temple.
33. Swedish Rite.
34. Rite of Swedenborg.
35. Rite of Zinnendorf .
36. Egyptian Rite of Cagliostro.
37. Rite of the Beneficent Knights of the Holy City.
[627 vue 196]
These Rites are not here given in the order of date or of importance. The distinct history of each will be found under its appropriate title.

*Rite des Elus Coens, ou Prêtres*. A system adopted in 1750, but which did not attain its full vigor until twenty-five years thereafter, when Lodges were opened in Paris, Marseille, Bordeaux, and Toulouse. The devotees of Martinez Pasqualis, the founder, were called Martinistes, and were partly Hermetic and partly Swedenborgian^1 <#sdfootnote1sym> in their teachings. Martinez was a religious man, and based his teachings partly on the Jewish Kabbala and partly on Hermetic supernaturalism. The grades were as follows: 1. Apprenti; 2. Compagnon; 3. Maître; 4. Grand Elu; 5. Apprenti Coen; 6. Compagnon Coen; 7. Maître Coen; 8. Grand Architecte; 9. Grand Commandeur.

1 <#sdfootnote1anc> Il est possible d'attribuer cette erreur à une
lecture papusienne d'informations.

  ¶ 6:43 AM

  paschalis martinez martinès de pasqually élu cohen saint-martin quelques erreurs de mackey Paschalis Martinez. The founder of a new Rite or modification of Masonry, called by him the Rite of elected Cohens or Priests. It was divided into two classes, in the first of which was represented the fall of man from virtue and happiness, and in the second, his final restoration. It consisted of nine degrees, namely:
1. Apprentice; 2. Fellow-Craft; 3. Master; 4 Grand Elect: 5. Apprentice Cohen; 6. Fellow-Craft Cohen; 7. Master Cohen; 8. Grand Architect; 9. Knight Commander.
Paschalis first introduced this Rite into some of the Lodges of Marseille, Toulouse, and Bordeaux, and afterward, in 1767, he extended it to Paris, where, for a short time, it was rather popular, ranking some of the Parisian literati among its disciples. It has now ceased to exist.

Paschalis was a German^1 <#sdfootnote1sym>, born about the year 1700, of poor but respectable parentage. At the age of sixteen he acquired a knowledge of Greek and Latin^2 <#sdfootnote2sym>. He then traveled through Turkey Arabia, and Palestine, where he made himself acquainted with the Kabbalistic learning of the Jews. He subsequently repaired to Paris, where he established his Rite.

Paschalis was the Master of St. Martin, who afterward reformed his Rite. After living for some years at Paris, he went to St. Domingo, where he died in 1779. Thory, in his histoire de la Fondation du Grand Orient de Francs (pp. 239-253), has given very full details of this Rite and of its receptions.

1 <#sdfootnote1anc> Quelle est la source de cette « erreur », une de
plus sur l'ensemble des erreurs de l'article?

2 <#sdfootnote2anc>Martinès was unable to any translation from latin to
french ! C'est à Paris avec l'abbé Fournié qu'il semble avoir traduit de
latin à français des textes importants pour son rite!

  ¶ 11:00 AM

  past master ancien vénérable maitre passé passé maître Past. An epithet applied in Masonry to an officer who has held an office
for the prescribed period for which he was elected, and has then
retired. Thus, a Past Master is one who has presided for twelve months
over a Lodge, and the Past High Priest one who, for the same period, has
presided over a Chapter. The French use the word passé in the same
sense, but they have also the word ancien, with a similar meaning. Thus,
while they would employ Maître passé to designate the degree of Past
Master, they would call the official Past Master, who had retired from
the chair at the expiration of his term of service, an Ancien Vénérable
or Ancien Maître.

Past Master. An honorary degree conferred on the Master of a Lodge at
his installation into office. In this degree the necessary instructions
are conferred respecting the various ceremonies of the Order, such as
installations, processions, the laying of comer-stones, etc.

When a brother, who has never before presided, has been elected the
Master of a Lodge, an emergent Lodge of Past Masters, consisting of not
leas than three, is convened, and all but Past Masters retiring, the
degree is conferred upon the newly elected officer.

Some form of ceremony at the installation of a new Master seems to have
been adopted at an early period after the revival. In the ''manner of
constituting a new Lodge," as practised by the Duke of Wharton, who was
Grand Master in 1723, the language used by the Grand Master when placing
the candidate in the chair is given, and he is said to use "some other
expressions that are proper and usual on that occasion, but not proper
to be written." (Constitutions, 1738, p. 150.) Whence we conclude that
there was an esoteric ceremony. Often the rituals tell us that this
ceremony consisted only in the outgoing Master communicating certain
modes of recognition to his successor. And this actually, even at this
day, constitutes the essential ingredient of the Past Master's Degree.

The degree is also conferred in Royal Arch Chapters, where it succeeds
the Mark Master's Degree. The conferring of this degree, which has no
historical connection with the rest of the degrees, in a Chapter, arises
from the following circumstance: Originally, when Chapters of Royal Arch
Masonry were under the government of Lodges in which the degree was then
always conferred, it was a part of the regulations that no one could
receive the Royal Arch Degree unless he had previously presided in the
Lodge as Master. When the Chapters became independent, the regulation
could not be abolished, for that would have been an innovation; the
difficulty has, therefore, been obviated, by making every candidate for
the degree of Royal Arch a Past Virtual Master before his exaltation.

[Under the English Constitution this practise was forbidden in 1826, but
seems to have lingered on in some parts until 1850.]

Some extraneous ceremonies, by no means to their inventor, were at an
early period introduced into America. In 1856, the General Grand
Chapter, by a unanimous vote, ordered these ceremonies to be
discontinued, and the simpler mode of investiture to be used; but the
order has only been partially obeyed, and many Chapters still continue
what one can scarcely help calling the indecorous form of initiation
into the degree.

For several years past the question has been agitated in some of the
Grand Lodges of the United States, whether this degree is within the
jurisdiction of Symbolic or of Royal Arch Masonry. The explanation of
its introduction into Chapters, just given, manifestly demonstrates that
the jurisdiction over it by Chapters is altogether an assumed one. The
Past Master of a Chapter is only a quasi Past Master; the true and
legitimate Past Master is the one who has presided over a Symbolic Lodge.

Past Masters are admitted to membership in many Grand Lodges, and by
some the inherent right has been claimed to sit in those bodies. But the
most eminent Masonic authorities have made a contrary decision, and the
general, and, indeed, almost universal opinion now is that Past Masters
obtain their seats in Grand Lodges by courtesy, and in consequence of
local regulations, and not by inherent right.

The jewel of a Past Master in the United States is a pair of compasses
extended to sixty degrees on the fourth part of a circle, with a sun in
the center. In England it was formerly the square on a quadrant, but is
at present the square with the forty-seventh problem of Euclid engraved
on a silver plate suspended within it.

The French have two titles to express this degree. They apply Maitre
passé to the Past Master of the English and American system, and they
call in their own system one who has formerly resided over a Lodge an
Ancien Maître. The indiscriminate use of these titles sometimes leads to
confusion in the translation of their rituals and treatises.

  ¶ 9:19 AM

  Masonry, maçonnerie meaning of a word sens d'un mot Masoney. Used in the Strassburg Constitutions, and other German works of the Middle Ages, as equivalent to the modem Masonry.
Kloss translates it by Masonhood,
Lessing derives it from masa, Anglo-Saxon, a table, and says it means a Society of the Table.
Nicolai deduces it from the Low Latin massonya, which means both a club and a key, and says it means an exclusive society or club, and so, he thinks, we get our word Masonry,
Krause traces it to mas, mass, food or a banquet.
It is a pity to attack these speculations, but we are inclined to look at Masonry as simply a corruption of the English Masonrie.
mackey encyclopaedia

ceci posé, les délires maçonniques sont amusants
ainsi, les maçons seraient les "enfants de la table ou l'on partage le pain et le vin"
certains maçons se réjouiront, d'autres vont en mourir d'envie

si maçon et messe tournent autour de la table, du plateau, ou de l'autel...

  ¶ 8:51 AM