The Confessions of Jacob Boehme

In that Light the one sees the other, feels the other, smells the other, tastes the other, and hears the other, and is as if the whole Deity rose up therein.

Herein the spirit sees into the depth of the Deity ; for in God near and far off is all one ; and that same God is in his threefoldness as well in the body of a holy soul as in heaven.

From this God I take my knowledge and from no other thing ; neither will I know any other thing than that same God. And he it is which makes that assurance in my spirit, that I steadfastly believe and trust in him.

Though an angel from heaven should tell this to me, yet for all that I could not believe it, much less lay hold on it ; for I should always doubt whether it was certainly so or no. But the Sun itself io CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME arises in my spirit, and therefore I am most sure of it.

The soul liveth in great danger in this world ; and therefore this life is very well called the valley of misery, full of anguish, a perpetual hurly-burly, pulling and hauling, warring, fighting, struggling and striving.

But the cold and half-dead body does not always understand this fight of the soul. The body does not know how it is with it, but is heavy and anxious ; it goes from one business to another, and from one place to another ; it seeketh for ease and rest.

And when it comes where it would be, yet it finds no such thing as that which it seeks. Then doubtings and unbelief come upon it ; sometimes it seems to it as if God had quite cast it off. It doth not understand the fight of the spirit, how the same is sometimes down and sometimes uppermost.

CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME n

Thou must know that I write not here as a story or history, as if it was related to me from another. I must continually stand in that combat, and I find it to be full of heavy strivings wherein I am often struck down to the ground, as well as all other men.

But for the sake of the violent fight, and for the sake of the earnestness which we have together, this revelation has been given me, and the vehement driving or impulse to bring it so to pass as to set all down on paper.

What the total sequel is, which may follow upon and after this, I do not fully know. Only sometimes future mysteries in the depth are shown to me.

For when the flash rises up in the centre, one sees through and through, but cannot well apprehend or lay hold on it ; for it happens to such an one as when there is a tempest of lightning, where the flash of fire opens itself and suddenly vanishes.

p. 12

So it goes also in the soul when it breaks quite through in its combat. Then it beholds the Deity as a flash of lightning ; but the source and the unfolding of sins covers it suddenly again. For the old Adam belongs to the earth, and does not, with the flesh, belong to God.

In this combat I had many hard trials to my heart's grief. My Sun was often eclipsed or extinguished, but did rise again ; and the oftener it was eclipsed the brighter and clearer was its rising again.

I do not write this for my own praise, but to the end that the reader may know wherein my knowledge stands, that he might not seek from me that which I have not, or think me to be what I am not.

But what I am, that all men are who wrestle in Jesus Christ our King for the crown of the eternal Joy, and live in the hope of perfection.

I marvel that God should reveal himself thus fully to such a simple man, and thatp. 13 he thus impels him also to set it down in writing ; whereas there are many learned writers which could set it forth and express it better, and demonstrate it more exactly and fully than I, that am a scorn and fool to the world.

But I neither can nor will oppose him ; for I often stood in great striving against him, that if it was not his impulse and will he would be pleased to take it from me ; but I find that with my striving against him I have merely gathered stones for this building.