The Confessions of Jacob Boehme

such acceptance of history saved none. " A true Christian is not a mere historical new man " — he is a biological fact, the crown of the "great work" of spiritual alchemy. Christian history is only "the cradle of the Child " ; the framework within which the law of regeneration is perpetually manifested, and the " heavenly man," citizen of the eternal light- world, is brought forth in the world of time. This, says Boehme, " we heartily wish that the titular and Lip-Christians might once find by experience in themselves, and so pass from the history into the substance." It was from the fulness of his own experience that he wrote, as this collection of his personal declarations shows. In it we see how close was the connection between his inner life and his " mystical " vision ; the great moral demands and perpetual conflicts which conditioned his intuitive knowledge of reality. That knowledge was the fruit of the "earnest seeking" pursued

INTRODUCTION xxxv

from adolescence to the end of his earthlylife : of a will and craving persistently yet humbly set on the only rational object of desire, and turning to its purposes every element of his threefold nature. Such completeness of dedication is the foundation of all sane mysticism, and works in those who achieve it a veritable change of consciousness, an enhancement of life, inconceivable to other men.

" Make trial in this manner," says Boehme again, "and thou wilt quickly see and feel another man with another sense and thoughts and understanding. I speak as I know and have found by experience ; a soldier knows how it is in the wars. This I write out of love as one who telleth in the spirit how it hath gone with himself, for an example to others, to try if any would follow him and find out how true it is."

EVELYN UNDERHILL

THE CONFESSIONS OF
JACOB BOEHME

CHAPTER I

ART has not wrote this, neither was there any time to consider how to set it punctually down, according to the right understanding of letters, but all was ordered according to the direction of the Spirit, which often went in haste ; so that in many words letters may be wanting, and in some places a capital letter for a word. The Penman's hand, by reason he was not accustomed to it, did often shake ; and though I could have wrote in a more accurate, fair, and plain manner, yet the reason I did not was this, that the burning fire often forced forward with speed, andp. 2 the hand and pen must hasten directlyafter it ; for that fire comes and goes as a sudden shower. I can write nothing of myself but as a child which neither knows nor understands anything, which neither has ever been learnt ; and I write only that which the Lord vouchsafes to know in me according to the measure as himself manifests in me.

I never desired to know anything of the Divine Mystery, much less understood I the way to seek and find it. I knew nothing of it, which is the condition of poor laymen in their simplicity.

I sought only after the heart of Jesus Christ, that I might hide myself therein from the wrathful anger of God and the violent assaults of the Devil. And I besought the Lord earnestly for his Holy Spirit and his grace, that he would please to bless and guide me in him, and take that away from me which turned me from him. I resigned myself wholly to him,p. 3 that I might not live to my own will, but his ; and that he only might lead and direct me, to the end I might be his child in his son Jesus.

In this my earnest and Christian seeking and desire (wherein I suffered many a shrewd repulse, but at last resolved rather to put myself in hazard than leave off), the Gate was opened to me, that in one quarter of an hour I saw and knew more than if I had been many years together at an University, at which I exceedingly admired and thereupon turned my praise to God for it.

So that I did not only greatly wonder at it, but did also exceedingly rejoice ; and presently it came powerfully into my mind to set the same down in writing, for a memorial for myself, though I could very hardly apprehend the same in my external man and express it with the pen. Yet, however, I must begin to labour in this great mystery as a child that goes to school.