William Law · 6 of 13

The Second Dialogue · Part 2

[Way-2-32] How easy was it for me to have seen with Rusticus, that all this labyrinth of learned enquiry into such a dark, thorny wilderness of notions, facts, and opinions, could signify no more to me now, to my own salvation, to my interest in Christ, and obtaining the Holy Spirit of God, than if I had lived before it had any beginning! But the blind appetite of learning gave me no leisure to apprehend so plain a truth. Books of divinity indeed I have not done with; but I will esteem none to be such, but those that make known to my heart the inward power and redemption of Jesus Christ. Nor will I seek for anything even from such books, but that which I ask of God in prayer; viz., how better to know, more to abhor and resist the evil that is in my own nature; and how to attain a supernatural birth of the divine life brought forth in me: all besides this is pushpin. The shipwrecked man wants only to get to shore. Did we see the truth of our state as he does, we should have but one want, and that would be, to get possession of our first created state. There is no misery but in the evil that is in our own fallen state; this is our shipwreck, and great distress; nor is there any happiness, but in having the first life of God, and all goodness, opened again in the soul. He that is not intent upon this one thing needful, is not a wise Christian, much less a divine, or one qualified to make known to others the mystery of the power of Christ in the work of redemption.

[Way-2-33] But now I go back to that which I first spoke of; and though I give up all that I said of putting out Jacob Behmen in new language, with comments. yet I must still desire, that, some way or other, he may be made more plain and intelligible; call it by what name you please.

[Way-2-34] Theophilus. Jacob Behmen may be considered, (1.) as a teacher of the true ground of the Christian religion. (2.) As a discoverer of the false anti-Christian church, from its first rise in Cain, through every age of the world, to its present state in all and every sect of the present divided Christendom. (3.) As a guide to the truth of all the mysteries of the kingdom of God. In these three respects, which contain all that anyone can possibly want to know or learn from any teacher; he is the strongest, the plainest, the most open, intelligible, awakening, convincing writer, that ever was. As to all these three matters, he speaks to everyone, as himself saith, in the sound of a trumpet. And here to pretend to be an explainer of him, or make him fitter for our apprehension, in these great matters, is as vain, as if a man should pipe through a straw, to make the sound of a trumpet better heard by us.

[Way-2-35] Further, he may be considered, (4.) as a relater of depths opened in himself, of wonders which his spirit had seen and felt in his ternario sancto. Now in this respect he is no teacher, nor his reader a learner; but all that he saith is only for the same end as St. Paul spoke of his having been in the third heaven, and hearing things not possible to be spoken in human words. And yet in these matters it is, that most of his readers, especially if they are scholars, are chiefly employed; everyone in his way trying to become masters of them. Thus, when he first appeared in English, many persons of this nation, of the greatest wit and abilities, became his readers; who, instead of entering into his one only design, which was their own regeneration from an earthly to an heavenly life, turned chemists, and set up furnaces to regenerate metals, in search of the philosopher's stone. And yet, of all men in the world, no one has so deeply, and from so true a ground, laid open the exceeding vanity of such labor, and utter impossibility of success in it from any art or skill in the use of fire. And this must with truth be affirmed of him, that there is not any possible error, that you can fall into in the use of his books, but what he gives you notice of beforehand, and warns you against it in the most solemn manner; and tells you, that the blame must be yours, if you fall into it. Neither is there any question that you can put, nor advice or direction that you can ask, but what he has over and over spoke to; telling you, in the plainest manner, what the mystery is which his books contain; how, and by whom, and for what end, they are to be read.

[Way-2-36] There are two sorts of people to whom he forbids the use of his books, as uncapable of any benefit from them, and who will rather receive hurt, than any good from them. The first sort he shows in these words: "Loving reader, if thou lovest the vanity of the flesh still, and art not in an earnest purpose of the way to the new birth, intending to be a new man, then leave the above-written words in these prayers unnamed, or else they will turn to a judgment of God in thee."* {*Repent. p. 42} Again, "Reader, I admonish you sincerely, if you be not in the way of the prodigal, or lost son, returning to his father again, that you leave my book, and read it not; it will do you harm. But if you will not take warning, I will be guiltless; blame nobody but yourself." {**Three Prin.}

[Way-2-37] In this advice, so different from that of other writers, he shows the truth and reality of his own regenerated state; and that the very same spirit speaks in him, as formerly said, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Unless a man deny himself, and forsake all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple. No man can come unto me, except the Father draweth him. Except a man be born again from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God. He that is of God, heareth God's word. Come unto me, all ye that labor, are weary and heavy-laden." For all these texts of scripture say that very self-same thing that Jacob Behmen doth, when he absolutely requires his reader to be in the way of the returning prodigal. It is not rules of morality observed, or an outward blameless form of life, that will do: for pride, vanity, envy, self-love, and love of the world, can be, and often are, the heart of such a morality of life. But the state of the lost son is quite another thing; and must be the state of every man: as soon as he comes to himself, and has seeing eyes, he will then, like him, see himself far from home; that he has lost his first paradise, his heavenly Father, and the dignity of his first birth; that he is a poor, beggarly slave in a foreign land, hungry, ragged, and starving, amongst the lowest kind of beasts, not so well fed and clothed as they are: when thus finding himself, he saith, "I will arise, and go to my Father," then has he his first fitness for the mysteries opened in Jacob Behmen's writings; for they are addressed to man only in this supposed state; they have no fitness to him but in this state; and therefore no one, whether Jew, Christian, or Deist, who does not find and feel himself to be the very lost son described in the parable, has any capacity to receive benefit from them, but they will be a continual stumbling block to him. And it is just thus with the gospel itself; wherever it is received and professed, without something of this preparation of heart, without this sensibility of the lost son, there it can only be a stone of stumbling, and help the earthly man to form a religion of notions and opinions from the unfelt meaning of the letter of the gospel.

[Way-2-38] Secondly, the other sort of people, whom he excludes from his books, and for whom he has writ nothing, are the men of reason, who give themselves up to the light of reason, as the true touchstone of divine truths. To these he declares over and over, that he has not his light from reason; and that he writes nothing to reason. "The rational man," saith he, "understands nothing in reference to God; for it is without and not in God." Again, "The true understanding must flow from the inward ground, out of the living Word of God. In which inward ground, all my knowledge concerning the divine and natural ground, hath taken its rise, beginning, and understanding. I am not born of the school of this world, and am a plain simple man; but by God's Spirit and will am brought, without my own purpose and desire, into divine knowledge in high natural searchings."* {*Epist. p. 121.} Again, "He that will learn to understand the true way, let him depart from and forsake his own reason." {**p. 138} "If my writings," says he, "come into your hands, I would that you should look upon them as of a child's, in whom the highest has driven his work; for there is that couched therein, which no reason may understand or comprehend." {Ibid. p. 141.} Again, "Reason must be blinded, kept under, and not allowed to stir."* {*p. 68.} Again, "Reason must yield up its own hearing and life, and give itself up to God, that God may live in the understanding of man, else there is no finding in the divine wisdom. All that is taught and spoken concerning God, without the Spirit of God, is but Babel." {**Epist. p. 9} Again, "We must wholly reject our own reason; it is not available to help us to the light, but is a mere leading astray, and keeping us back. This we intimate to the reader, that he may know what he readeth. Let none account it for a work of outward reason." Again, "Speaking of the mystery, {Three-fold L. p. 68,88.} he saith, "pray to God the most high, that he would be pleased to open the door of knowledge, without which no man will understand my writings; for they surpass the astral reason; they apprehend and comprehend the divine birth; and therefore only the like spirit can understand them aright. No reasoning or speculating reacheth them, unless the mind be illuminated from God, to the finding of which the way is faithfully shown to the seeking reader."* {*Epist. p. 138}

[Way-2-39] And now, Academicus, you may see how needless it is to ask me, or anyone else, to help you to understand his works: he himself has given you all the assistance that can be given: he has laid open before you, in the utmost plainness, both the nature of the mystery, and the one only possible way that you can partake of it.

[Way-2-40] Academicus. You speak often of the mystery: pray, what am I to understand by it?

[Way-2-41] Theophilus. You are to understand by it, the deep and true ground of all things. A mystery, in which the birth and beginning of eternal nature, or the first workings of the inconceivable God, opening and manifesting his hidden triune Deity in an outward state of glory in the splendor of united fire, light, and spirit, all kindled and distinguished, all united and beatified by the hidden three. In this eternal nature, all inward powers, all the hidden riches of the incomprehensible Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, are from eternity to eternity brought forth into outward majesty, and visible glory. In which triune opening of heavenly glory, power, and majesty, the triune God beholdeth himself as in his own manifestation, is clothed as with his own garment, dwelleth as in his own habitation, and worketh all his wonders of wisdom and omnipotence in and by, and according to, the possible powers of this eternal nature. For this eternal nature is the first possibility of all after-beings and things; for before, or without, this eternal nature, all is an eternal, silent, still, unmovable, unperceivable nothingness; and this eternal nature is the first manifestation, the first opening of the divine omnipotence; and in it are included, in its own infinite bounds, all the height and depth, and extent, of the divine wisdom and powers. All that God is, and can do, or bring forth from himself, is done in and by the working of his triune spirit in this eternal nature.

[Way-2-42] This is the great scene of his eternal wisdom and omnipotence, in which new wonders are eternally rising up, and declaring the fathomless depths of the riches of the invisible triune Deity. And to say, that God can do no more, than what he can do through and by the possible powers of this eternal nature, is only saying, that he can do more than what he can do by himself, because this eternal nature is the eternal manifestation of the total God, or an out-birth of that which the Deity is, in its invisible power and Deity.

[Way-2-43] Out of this transcendent eternal nature, which is as universal and immense as the Deity itself, do all the highest beings, cherubims and seraphims, all the hosts of angels, and all intelligent spirits, receive their birth, existence, substance, and form. They are all so many different, finite, bounded forms of the heavenly fire, and light of eternal nature, into which creaturely beings the invisible triune God breatheth his invisible Spirit, by which they become both the true children and likeness of the invisible Deity, and also the true offspring of his eternal nature; and are fitted to rejoice with God, to live in the life of God, and live and work, and have their being, in that eternal nature, or kingdom of heaven, in which the Deity itself liveth and worketh. And they are one, united in one, God in them, and they in God, according to the prayer of Christ for his disciples; that they, and he, and his holy Father, might be united in one.* {*John xvi.}

[Way-2-44] This is in part what you are first to understand concerning the mystery.

[Way-2-45] But, secondly, it is a mystery, in which the creation and fall of angels, with all its consequences in them, and their kingdom; in which the system of this visible universe, why, and from what, and how it came to be as it is; the birth of the sun and the planets, why and how they come to have such difference in nature, place, and office, as also of all the stars; the nature of every creaturely life, and ground of its vast variety; the cause of every inanimate dead thing; a mystery in which the creation, dignity, and perfection, of the first angelic man in paradise; the whole kingdom of nature, and kingdom of grace; their connection, difference, and mutually affecting and working upon one another under the providence of the invisible Spirit of God, from the beginning to the end of time, are all unfolded from their first root and cause.

[Way-2-46] Thirdly, it is a mystery, in which the ground of Christian redemption, its whole nature, absolute necessity, and the working of all its parts both in the redeemer and in the redeemed, are set forth in the utmost degree of clearness; where the whole process of Christ, as incarnate, living, suffering, dying, rising from the dead, ascending into heaven, and sitting at the right hand of God, and governing his church on earth by his Holy Spirit; and all the practical duties of the gospel, whether of faith and hope, or of self-denial; dying to this world, and strict conformity to the life and Spirit of Christ; are all demonstrated from the deepest ground of the nature of things, to be absolutely necessary to the recovery and redemption of the fallen human nature.

[Way-2-47] This, sir, is, in some degree, the mystery which it has pleased the Spirit of God to open in this plain and unlearned man.

[Way-2-48] Academicus. Well, Theophilus, I entirely consent to this account you have given of it, and think it is sufficiently supported by what is to be found in his books; they seem to mean all these great matters which you mentioned. But then, sir, give me leave to tell you, that I think it is impossible for you to defend what you have said above concerning reason; or to show the unreasonableness of my demanding rational illustrations and comments. For if this is the truth, that his works contain the ground and philosophy of nature, and all creatures; surely they must not only allow the use of our reason, but call for the highest and most acute exercise of it. For what can enter into the reasons and philosophy of things, but reason? Or what do all these great matters appeal to, but to our reason? I see no possibility of denying this; and if this be granted, all that has been said about silencing our reason, must be given up.

[Way-2-49] Theophilus. The conclusion, my friend, that you here think to be so just and strong, as not possible to be denied, is so far from being so, that it is a glaring absurdity; and the quite contrary to that one only true conclusion, which you should have made, and which so easily and naturally flowed from what was said. For if the mystery is the deep ground of all things, of all nature, and all creatures. then the one conclusion that infallibly flows from it, is this, that no acuteness or ability of natural reason can so much as look into it. For natural reason is no older than flesh and blood; it has no higher a nature or birth than natural doubting; it had no existence when nature began its first workings, and therefore can bear no witness to them. It was not present, had no eyes, when things first came forth; it never stood in the center, from whence the birth of everything must arise; it never saw the forming of the first seeds of every life: and yet the mystery, you see, contains all this: and therefore the one plain and necessary conclusion is this; that natural reason is, and must be, as incapable of entering into this mystery, as flesh and blood is incapable of entering into the kingdom of heaven.

[Way-2-50] Behold, now, what a flagrant proof you have given of the vanity, weakness, and blindness of natural reason in divine matters. Your reason saw, with the utmost certainty, that the mystery must be an appeal to reason, merely because it contained such an height and depth of a divine philosophy; and yet the height and depth of its matters is the one full proof, that reason can have nothing to do with it. This may show you by what means Babel has built itself all over the Christian world. For, by the light of this Babylonian reason, the defenders and opposers of doctrines confute one another with such a certainty and strength of reason, as you saw, that reason must be the only judge of the mystery, from which it is just as much excluded by its own nature, as the mole under ground is, by its nature, excluded from the flight and sight of the towering eagle.

[Way-2-51] Academicus. Pray then tell me, how a man is to attain the knowledge of the mystery, or have any share in the light of it.

[Way-2-52] Theophilus. There is but one possible way, and that is this: it must be born in you. All true knowledge, either of God or nature, must be born in you. You cannot possibly know anything of God, but so far as God is manifested in you; so far as his light and Holy Spirit is born in you, as it is born in him, and liveth and worketh in you, as it liveth and worketh in him. A distant, absent, separate God, is an unknown God. For God can only manifest God, as light can only manifest light, and darkness make darkness to be known.

[Way-2-53] Again, you can have no real knowledge of nature, and its inward working power, but so far as the workings of nature, and the birth of things, are a working and birth in yourself. Natural reason may trade in the outside of things; it may measure, and make drafts of magnitude, height, and distance of things on the earth, and above the earth; it may make many and fine experiments of the powers of every element: but then this is going no farther into the ground of nature, than when the potter makes curious vessels with his clay and fire.

[Way-2-54] To count the stars, to observe their places or motions, is just the same height of natural knowledge, as when the shepherd counts his sheep, and observes their time of breeding.

[Way-2-55] This world, with all its stars, elements, and creatures, is come out of the invisible world; it has not the smallest thing, or the smallest quality of anything, but what is come forth from thence; and therefore every quality of everything is what it is, and worketh that which worketh, by a secret power and nature in and from the invisible world. Bitter, sweet, sour, hard, soft, hot, cold. have all of them their first seed and birth in the invisible world, called eternal nature. The irrational animals of this world feel all these things: the rational man goes farther; he can reason and dispute about their outward causes and effects: but the mystery of eternal nature must first be opened in man, before he can give the divine philosophy of them. For as they all come from thence, have their nature, birth, and growth, from thence; so no philosophy, but that which comes from thence, can give the true ground of them.

[Way-2-56] If man himself was not all these three things, viz., (1.) a birth of the holy Deity; (2.) a birth of eternal nature; and, (3.) also a microcosm of all this great outward world; that is, of everything in it, its stars and elements; and if the properties of every creaturely life were not in an hidden birth in him; no omnipotence of God could open the knowledge of divine and natural things in him.

[Way-2-57] For God can only manifest that, which there is to be manifested; and therefore only open that, which before lay unopened, and as in a state of hiddenness or death. Nothing can come forth from man, or any creature, but that which first had its seed in him; and to think, that any knowledge can be put into him, but that which is a birth of his own life, is as absurd as to think, that the tree and its branches may first grow, and then be brought to the root.

[Way-2-58] We are led into mistakes about this matter from the common practice of the world, which calls everything knowledge, that the reason, wit, or humor of man prompts him to discourse about; whether it be fiction, conjecture, report, history, criticism, rhetoric, or oratory: all this passes for sterling knowledge; whereas it is only the activity of reason, playing with its own empty notions.

[Way-2-59] From this idea of knowledge it is, that when this rational man turns his thoughts to the study of divinity, he is content with the same knowledge of divine matters, as he had in these exercises of his reason; and he proceeds in the same manner, as when he studied history and rhetoric.

[Way-2-60] He turns his mind to hearsay, to conjecture, to criticism, and great names; and thinks he is then a member of the true church, when he knows it as plainly as he knows the ancient commonwealth of Rome. His knowledge of the being of God stands upon the same bottom, and is made known to him by the same means and methods of proof, as he comes to be assured, that once upon a time there was a first man, and his name was Adam. His knowledge of the kingdom of heaven is looked upon to be sufficient, as soon as he knows it, as he knows that there is such a place as Constantinople. When he turns his inquiries into the mysteries of Christian redemption, he looks as much out of himself as when he is searching into the antiquities of Greece; and appeals to the same helps for his knowledge, as when he wants to know the inward structure of Solomon's temple, and all its services.

[Way-2-61] This is the great delusion which has long overspread the Christian world; and all countries, and all libraries, are the proof of it. It is this power and dominion of reason in religious matters, that Jacob Behmen so justly calls the anti-Christ in Babel; for it leads men from the life and truth of the mysteries of Christ, to put a carnal trust in a confused multitude of contrary notions, inventions, and opinions. And the thing is unavoidable, it cannot be otherwise with reason; it cannot do more good with, or make a better use of, gospel doctrines; it is anti-Christ as soon as ever it is admitted to debate and state the nature of any divine truth. And that for these two great reasons: first, because it has absolutely the same incapacity for it, as the man that is born blind hath for the light. Wherein now lieth the incapacity of the blind man, to speak or think anything truly about light? It is because he is born and bred in another world, where nothing of light ever did or can enter; it is because there is the gulf of a whole birth betwixt him and the light of this world; and therefore, though he lives ever so long, reasons ever so much, or hears ever so many speeches, about the light, all that he gets by it is only more false ideas of the unknown thing.

[Way-2-62] Now this is strictly the incapacity of reason, to speak, or think anything truly of the divine life. It is because it is born and bred in another world, in the darkness of flesh and blood, into which no perception or sensibility of God and heaven can enter; it is because there is the gulf of a whole birth betwixt it, and the light of God and heaven; and therefore, let reason, from age to age, hear, read, and dispute ever so much about the light of God and heaven, all that it can get by it, is only to be enriched with more and more fictions and falsities about the unknown thing.

[Way-2-63] Secondly, natural reason, whenever judging or ruling in divine matters, must be anti-Christ, because it cannot make any other use of the mysteries of religion, or do anything else with them, but in the same spirit, and for the same ends, that it receiveth and useth the things of this world. It matters not, what are the names or natures of the things, whether you call them spiritual or temporal: natural reason can make but one and the same use of them; it can only turn them to an earthly use, to worldly prosperity, to private interest, honor, power, or distinction. And the thing is unavoidable, it is impossible to be otherwise; it is not a fault that reason might amend, if it would; but is as much its own nature, as it is natural to flame to ascend. Now everything must act according to its nature; every kind of life must be for itself, for its own good. Now reason has no higher a birth and nature, than the spirit of this world; it must be as worldly as its birth is, and cannot possibly have anything else but worldly views, and the interests of its own flesh and blood, in everything that it can make any use of. This is as essential to the natural reason of man, as to the natural subtlety of every beast; for they have both the same original from the light and life of this world, have both the same earthly nature, and can act only in an earthly manner, to serve the same ends of an earthly life. The reason of the one has no more of God and the divine nature in it, than the subtlety of the other. And hence it is, that man, following only the cunning of his natural reason, is often more mischievous than the worst of beasts. And thus, you see how reason, ruling in divine things, is and must be anti-Christ: first, as it turns the living mysteries of God into lifeless ideas, and vain opinions; and, secondly, as it sets up a worldly kingdom of strife, hatred, envy, division, and persecution, in defense of them. And therefore it is a fundamental truth, that man has no capacity for divine knowledge, till the particle of divine life, lost in the fall, is awakened; in which alone, the mystery of God and the divine nature can have a birth.

[Way-2-64] Academicus. You have carried your point, Theophilus, with a high hand, and I rejoice in seeing this matter so well proved. But still I would ask you something, that I know not how to express; I would fain understand more clearly, how this mystery of God, and eternal nature, is to be born in me.