The confessions of Jacob Boehme

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THE CONFESSIONS OF
JACOB BOEHME

THE
CONFESSIONS OF
JACOB BOEHME

COMPILED AND EDITED BY

W. SCOTT PALMER

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY

EVELYN UNDERHILL

First Published in igso

NOTE BY THE EDITOR

ONE day last winter, in a moment
which I must confess to have been
idle, I took up Dr, Alexander Whyte's
" Appreciation " of Behmen as, following
William Law, he calls him. There I
found the following passage :

" While we have nothing that can
properly be called a biography of Jacob
Behmen, we have ample amends made to
us in those priceless morsels of auto-
biography that lie scattered so plentifully
up and down all his books. And nothing
could be more charming than just those
incidental and unstudied utterances of
Behmen about himself. Into the very
depths of a passage of the profoundest
speculation Behmen will all of a sudden

vi CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

throw a few verses of the most childlike
and heart-winning confidences about his
own mental history and his own spiritual
experience. And thus it is that, without
at all intending it, Behmen has left behind
him a complete history of his great mind
and his holy heart in those outbursts of
diffidence, depreciation, explanation, and
self-defence, of which his philosophical
and theological, as well as his apologetic
and experimental, books are all so full.
It were an immense service done to our
best literature if some of Behmen's
students would go through all Behmen's
books, so as to make a complete collection
and composition of the best of these
autobiographic passages. ... It would
then be seen by all, what few, till then,
will believe, that Jacob Behmen's mind
and heart and spiritual experience all com-
bine to give him a foremost place among
the most classical masters in that great
field."

NOTE BY THE EDITOR vii

I turned at once to the massive volumes
of English translation which the eighteenth
century has bequeathed to us. My copy
has the name of Maurice on the title-
page — Frederick Denison Maurice — for
whom Boehme was, he said, "a generative
thinker," and on the fly-leaf there is John
Sterling, whose granddaughter gave me
the books. There I found, where before
I had looked for the doctrine only, the
man himself. I determined to do my
best to extract from the formless mass
of writings what was necessary to show
that man.

The old translation was known to be as
faithful as could fairly be hoped for, and
nothing better existed or could now be
made. Twentieth-century English would
not do. So I used my own copy and
followed it very closely. No translation is
as sacred as an original, and I have there-
fore allowed myself to make small changes
in the interests of clearness and accuracy,

viii CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

while carefully respecting both the style
of the translator and the mind and mean-
ing of the author.

My task has been in the main one of
rigorous omission ; I have kept only what
was precious for my purpose. Everything
that did not reveal the man himself I have
rejected ; but some of his doctrine is emin-
ently the man, and this I have retained.
The outcome, I believe, is a spiritual
autobiography which, although it is by a
writer who was born nearly three hundred
and fifty years ago and has been read and
studied by thousands, has never been seen
in its continuity before.

W. S. P.

Im Wasser lebt der Fisch, die Pflanze in der Erden,
Der Vogel in der Luft, die Sonn' am Firmament,
Der Salamander muss im Feu'r erhalten werden,
Und Gottes Herz ist Jakob Boehmes Element.

Angelus of Silesia.

INTRODUCTION

I

JACOB BOEHME, who reveals to us
in this book some of the secrets of
his inner life, was among the most original
of the great Christian mystics. With a
natural genius for the things of the spirit,
he also exhibited many of the character-
istics of the psychic, the seer, and the
metaphysician ; and his influence on philo-
sophy has been at least as great as his
influence on religious mysticism.

No mystic is born ready-made. He is,
like other men, the product of nurture no
less than of nature. Tradition and environ-
ment condition both his vision and its
presentation. So, Boehme's peculiar and

xii CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

often difficult doctrine will better be under-
stood when we know something of his
outer life and its influences. He was
born of peasant stock in 1575, at a village
near Gorlitz on the borders of Saxony and
Silesia, and as a boy tended cattle in the
fields. Of a pious, dreamy, and brood-
ing disposition, even in childhood he is
said to have had visionary experiences.
Not being sufficiently robust for field-work,
he was apprenticed to a shoemaker ; but,
his severe moral ideas causing disputes
with the other workmen, he was dismissed
and became a travelling cobbler. During
this enforced exile, which coincided with
the most impressionable period of youth,
Boehme learned something of the un-
satisfactory religious conditions of his
time ; the bitter disputes and mutual
intolerance which divided Protestant
Germany, the empty formalism which
passed for Christianity. He also came
into contact with the theosophic and

INTRODUCTION xiii

hermetic speculations which distinguished
contemporary German thought, and seemed
to many to offer an escape into more
spiritual regions from the unrealities of
institutional religion. He was himself full
of doubts and inward conflict ; tortured not
only by the craving for spiritual certainty
but also by the unruly impulses and
passionate longings of adolescence — that
" powerful contrarium " of which he so
constantly speaks — which are often felt
by the mystic in their most exaggerated
form. His religious demands were of the
simplest kind : " I never desired to know
anything of the Divine Majesty ... 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." Like St. Augustine
in his study of the Platonists, Boehme was
seeking "the country which is no mere
vision, but a home " ; and in this he already
showed himself a true mystic. H is longings

xiv CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

and struggles for light were rewarded, as
they have been in so many seekers at the
beginning of their quest, by an intuition
of reality, resolving for a time the dis-
harmonies that tormented him. Conflict
gave way to a new sense of stability and
" blessed peace." This lasted for seven
days, during which he felt himself to be
" surrounded by the Divine Light " : an
experience paralleled in the lives of many
other contemplatives.

At nineteen, Boehme returned to Gorlitz,
where he married the butcher's daughter.
In 1599 he became a master-shoemaker
and settled down to his trade. In the
following year, his first great illumination
took place. Its character was peculiar,
and indicative of his abnormal psychic
constitution. Having lately passed through
a new period of gloom and depression, he
was gazing dreamily at a polished pewter
dish which caught and reflected the rays
of the sun. Thus brought, in a manner

INTRODUCTION xv

which any psychologist will understand,
into a state of extreme suggestibility, the
mystical faculty took abrupt possession of
the mental field. It seemed to him that
he had an inward vision of the true
character and meaning of all created things.
Holding this state of lucidity, so marvellous
in its sense of renovation that he compares
it to resurrection from the dead, he went
out into the fields. As Fox, possessed by
the same ecstatic consciousness, found that
"all creation gave another smell beyond
what words can utter," so Boehme now
gazed into the heart of the herbs and
grass, and perceived all nature ablaze with
the inward light of the Divine.

It was a pure intuition, exceeding his
powers of speech and thought : but he
brooded over it in secret, "labouring in
the mystery as a child that goes to school,"
and felt its meaning " breeding within him "
and gradually unfolding " like a young
plant." The inward light was not constant ;

xvi CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

his unruly lower nature persisted, and often
prevented it from breaking through into
the outward mind. This state of psychic
disequilibrium and moral struggle, during
which he read and meditated deeply, lasted
for nearly twelve years. At last, in 1610,
it was resolved by another experience, co-
ordinating all his scattered intuitions in one
great vision of reality. Boehme now felt
a strong impulse to write some record of
that which he had seen, and began in
leisure hours his first book, the Aurora.
The title of this work, which he describes
as "the Root or Mother of Philosophy,
Astrology, and Theology," shows the extent
to which he had absorbed current theo-
sophic notions : but his own vivid account
— one of the most remarkable first-hand
descriptions of automatic or inspirational
writing that exists — shows too how small
a part his surface mind played in the com-
position of this book, which he " set down
diligently in the impulse of God."

INTRODUCTION xvii

Boehme, like the ancient prophets and
many lesser seers, was possessed by a
spirit which, whether we choose to regard
it as an external power or a phase of his
own complex nature, was dissociated from
the control of his will, and "came and
went as a sudden shower." It poured
itself forth in streams of strange and
turbid eloquence, unchecked by the critical
action of the intellect. He has told us
that during the years when his vision was
breeding within him he "perused many
masterpieces of writing." These almost
certainly included the works of Valentine
Weigel and his disciples, and other
hermetic and theosophic books ; and the
fruit of these half-comprehended studies is
manifest in the astrological and alchemical
symbolism which adds so much to the
obscurity of his style. Like many vision-
aries, he was abnormally sensitive to the
evocative power of words, using them as
often for their suggestive quality as for

xviii CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

their sense. A story is told of him that,
hearing for the first time the Greek word
" Idea," he became intensely excited, and
exclaimed : " I see a pure and heavenly
maiden ! " It is to this faculty that we
must probably attribute his love of al-
chemical symbols and the high-sounding
magical jargon of his day.

A copy of the manuscript of the Aurora
having fallen into the hands of Gregorius
Richter, the Pastor Primarius of Gorlitz,
Boehme was violently attacked for his
unorthodox opinions, and even threatened
with immediate exile. Finally he was
allowed to remain in the town but for-
bidden to continue writing. He obeyed
this decree for five years ; for him, a period
of renewed struggle and gloom, during
which he was torn between respect for
authority and the imperative need for self-
expression. His opinions, however, became
known. They brought him much perse-
cution— "shame, ignominy, and reproach,"

INTRODUCTION xix

he says, "budding and blossoming every
day " — but also gained him friends and
admirers of the educated class, especially
among the local students of hermetic
philosophy and mysticism. It was under
their influence that Boehme — hisvocabulary
now much enriched and his ideas clarified as
the result of numerous discussions — began
in 1619 to write again. In the five years
between this date and his death, he com-
posed all his principal works. Their bulk
— and also, we must confess, their frequent
obscurities and repetitions — testify to the
fury with which the spirit often drove
"the penman's hand." Some, however,
do seem to have been written with
conscious art, to explain special points of
difificulty ; for Boehme's first confused and
overwhelming intuitions of reality had
slowly given place to a more lucid vision.
The "Aurora" had turned to "a lovely
bright day," in which his vigorous intellect
was able to deal with that which he had

XX CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

seen " couched and wrapt up in the
depths of the Deity." Thus the Forty
Questions gives his answers to problems
stated by the learned Dr. Walther, principal
of the chemical laboratory at Dresden.
His reputation had now spread through
Germany, and eminent scholars came to
his workshop to learn from him. In 1622
he left off the practice of his trade and
devoted himself entirely to writing and
exposition.

The publication of the beautiful Way to
Christ, which was privately printed by one
of these admirers in 1623, caused a fresh
attack on the part of his old enemy Richter.
For once, Boehme condescended to con-
troversy, and replied with dignity to the
violent accusations of blasphemy and
heresy brought against him. He was
nevertheless compelled by the magistrates
to leave the town, where he now had a
large number of disciples. He went first
to the electoral court of Dresden ; there

INTRODUCTION xxi

meeting the chief theologians of the day,
who were deeply impressed by his prophetic
earnestness and intense piety, and refused
to uphold the charge of heresy. In August
1624, the death of Richter allowed him to
return to Gorlitz ; but he was already
mortally ill, and died on November 21st of
that year, at the age of forty-nine.

II

In trying to estimate the character of
Boehme's teaching, it is important to realize
the sources of his principal conceptions.
Though his early revelations, abruptly
surging up from the unconscious region,
seemed to him to owe nothing to the art
of reason, yet it is undeniable that they
were strongly influenced by memories of
books read, beliefs accepted, and ex-
periences endured. The " lightning-flash "
in which he had his sudden visions of the
Universe, also illuminated the furniture of
his own mind and gave to it a fresh signifi-

xxH CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

cance and authority. Thus it is often his
own interior drama which he sees reflected
on the cosmic screen ; a proceeding which
the " theosophic " doctrine of man as the
microcosm of the Universe helped him to
justify. His unstable temperament, with
its alternations between gloom and illu-
mination, its constant sense of struggle,
its abrupt escapes into the light — the
"powerful contrarium" with which he
" stood in perpetual combat " — conditions
his picture of the eternal conflict between
light and darkness at the very heart of
creation ; the crude stuff of striving nature
and the formative Spirit of God. The
"living running fire" which he feels in
his own spirit, is his assurance of the
Divine fiery creative energy.

Further, the Lutheran Christianity
which formed the basis of his religious life
contributed many elements to his scheme.
Thence came the intense moral dualism,
the Pauline opposition between the " dark-

INTRODUCTION xxiii

world " of unregenerate nature and the
** light-world " of grace, the doctrines of
the Trinity and of regeneration, and
generally those credal symbols which he
often uses in a theosophic sense. He is
familiar with the Bible, making constant
though sometimes fantastic use of its
language and imagery. Finally, the
German mystics and hermetic philosophers
of the Renaissance, in whom he was deeply
read, gave him much of the raw material
of his philosophy. Alchemy in his day
was still a favourite toy of speculative
minds ; being understood partly in the
physical, partly in the transcendental sense.
The "doctrine of signatures," which is
the subject of one of Boehme's later works,
was still taken seriously as a guide to
practical medicine ; the stuffed crocodile
hung in the laboratory, the toad and the
spider were carefully distilled. Yet for
the spiritual alchemists the quest of the
Stone was the quest of an unearthly per-

xxiv CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

fection, and human nature was the true
matter of the "great work." This
"hermetic science," in which chemistry,
magic, and mysticism were strangely com-
bined, plainly made a strong appeal to
Boehme ; and its influence upon his work
was not always fortunate. But his debt to
the more genuinely mystical writers of the
sixteenth century, especially the Silesian re-
former, Caspar Schwenckfeld, and Valentine
Weigel, is of far greater importance.
Certainly through Weigel, and perhaps also
at first-hand, he became acquainted with
Paracelsus, whose doctrine of humanity
as the sum of three orders — the natural,
the astral, and the divine — he adopts in
the Threefold Life of Man and Three
Principles of the Divine Essence . Through
Weigel, too, he traces his descent from
the great German mystics of the fourteenth
century ; for the saintly pastor of Zschopau
was soaked in the works of Tauler, and
edited that pearl of Christian mysticism

INTRODUCTION xxv

the Theologia Germanica, Boehme, there-
fore, was far from being an isolated spiritual
phenomenon. He was fed from many
sources ; but all that he received was fused
and remade in the furnace of his own inner
life. The result was a new creation, as
unique as the White Stone which the
alchemist made from his mercury, sulphur,
and salt ; but we do it no honour by
ignoring the elements from which it sprang.
It is not possible to extract from
Boehme's vast, prolix, and often difficult
works any closed system of philosophy.
Often he repeats himself, sometimes con-
tradicts himself, or hides his meaning
behind a haze of inconsistent symbols ;
for his writing never wholly lost its
inspirational character. But as we study
these writings we gradually discern certain
guiding lines, certain fixed characters,
which help us to find our way through the
maze. These, thoroughly grasped, enable
us to recognize order and meaning in that

xxvi CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

which is often an apparent chaos ; to enjoy
and understand something of that revelation
which transformed the little Saxon cobbler
into a prophet of the Kingdom of God.

Boehme's map of reality is based, like
that of most mystics, on the number three,
and has several interesting points of contact
with Neoplatonism. The universe in its
essence consists of three worlds, which are
"none other than God Himself in His
wonderful works." Without and beyond
Nature is the Abyss of the Deity, "the
Eternal Good that is the Eternal One " :
a Plotinian definition of the Absolute which
may have reached Boehme through
Eckhart and his school. The three worlds
are the trinity of emanations through which
the transcendent Unity achieves self-
expression. Boehme calls them the fire-
world, the light-world, and the dark-world.
They are not mutually exclusive spheres,
but aspects of a whole. By them "we are
to understand a threefold Being, or three

INTRODUCTION xxvii

worlds in one another " ; and all have their
part in the production of that outward
world of sense in which we live.

Fire is the eternal energetic Divine will
towards creation ; that unresting life, born
of a craving, which inspires the natural
world of becoming. *' What ever is to come
to anything must have Fire " : it .is the self-
expression of the Father. From the primal
fire or fount of generation in its fierceness
are born the pair of opposites through
which the Divine energy is manifested : the
** dark-world " of conflict, evil, and wrath
which is Eternal Nature in itself, and the
" light-world " of wisdom and love, which
is Eternal Spirit in itself — the Platonic
Nous, the Son of Christian theology.
The dark-world represents that quality in
life which is recalcitrant to all we call
divine; " unregenerate nature," which was
for Boehme no illusion but a dreadful fact.
It is the sphere of undetermined non-
moral striving, and of all "biting, hating,

xxviii CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

and striking and arrogant self-will among
men and beasts." The light-world is the
sphere of all determined goodness and
beauty ; the state of being towards which
the fiery impulse of becoming should tend.
It is the Word, or " Heart of God," as
distinguished from His Will, and holds
within itself all those values which we
speak of as divine. In the Light is "the
eternal original of all powers, colours, and
virtues." Here again, we perceive the
Platonic ancestry of one of Boehme's most
characteristic ideas. In and through this
Light the crude strivings of the fiery life-
force are sublimated ; its titanic zest is
transformed into " the desire of love and
joy." The Dark is necessary to it, because
" nothing without opposition can become
manifest to itself."

The outer world in which we dwell
according to the body is the creation of
the Fire and the Light. Ignoring the
separate existence of the dark-world, which

INTRODUCTION xxix

is then looked upon as one aspect of the
Fire, Boehme sometimes speaks of this
physical order as the third Divine Principle,
or sphere of the Holy Spirit, the " Lord
and Giver of Life " ; who is thus assigned
a position very close to the Plotinian
Psyche, or "soul of the world." This
outer world, he says, is "both evil and
good, both terrible and lovely," since in it
love and wrath strive together. " The
Nature-life works unto Fire, and the
Spirit-life unto Light." The business
alike of universal and of human life, the
essence of its " salvation," is the bringing
of the Light out of its fiery origin —
spiritual beauty out of the raw stuff of
energetic nature. This perpetual shoot-
ing up of life from nature-dark to spirit-
light is sometimes called by Boehme the
"new birth of Christ" and sometimes the
"growing up of the Lily." It is happen-
ing all the while ; the triumphant self-
realization of the perfection of God. He

XXX CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

sees the universe as a vast alchemic pro-
cess, a seething pot, perpetually distilling
the base metals into celestial gold.

As with the cosmos, so with its micro-
cosm man. He, too, is in process of
becoming. The " great work " of the
hermetists must be accomplished in him,
and he must accept its " anguish " — the
conflict of the fire and the light. " Man
must be at war with himself, if he wishes
to be a heavenly citizen." The combat is
inevitable, and the victory is possible, be-
cause we have the essence of all three
worlds within us, and are " made of all
the powers of God." The eternal Light
" glimmers " in every consciousness.
" When I see a right man," says Boehme,
"there I see three worlds standing.'
Hence human life is "a hinge between
light and darkness ; to whichever it gives
itself up, in that same does it burn." Its
possibilities of adventure are infinite. The
arc through which it may swing is as wide

INTRODUCTION xxxi

as the difference between hell and heaven.
Fire — anguish, effort, and conflict — it can-
not escape ; this is the manifestation of
that will which is life. But it can choose
between the torment of its own separate
dark fire — the self-centred craving which
is the essence of sin — and self-abandon-
ment to the divine fire of God's unresting
will towards perfection. The one sets up
a whirlpool within the eternal process : the
other contributes its store of energy and
love to that universal work which trans-
mutes the dark elements into the light,
and heals the apparent cleavage between
"nature" and "spirit." "Our whole
teaching," says Boehme, " is nothing else
than how a man should kindle in himself
God's light- world." That world is here
and now ; and his one aim was to open
the eyes of other men to this encompass-
ing and all-penetrating reality. All lies in
the direction of the will : " What we make
of ourselves, that we are."

xxxii CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

For him, the universe was primarily a
religious fact : its fiery energies, its impulse
towards growth and change, were signifi-
cant because they were aspects of the life
of God. His cosmic vision was the direct
outcome of spiritual experience ; he told it,
because he wished to stimulate in all men
the spiritual life, make them realize that
" Heaven and Hell are present every-
where, and it is but the turning of the will
either into God's love or into His wrath,
that introduceth into them." When the
restlessness of becoming, the anxious
craving, which should lead both cosmic
and human life to its bourne, is turned
back on itself and becomes a fiery self-
devouring desire, a "wheel of anguish,"
the alchemic process goes wrong. Then
is produced the condition which Boehme
calls the turba ; and the turba is the
essence of hell. But everyone who yields
himself to the impulse of the Light stands
by that very act in the heaven of God's

INTRODUCTION xxxiii

heart ; for " Heaven is nothing but a mani-
festation of the Eternal One, wherein all
worketh and willeth in quiet love."

Hence at the end of this vast dynamic
vision, this astonishing harmony of the scien-
tific and the Christian universe, we find that
the imperatives which govern man's entry
into truth are moral : patience, courage,
love, and surrender of the will. These
evangelical virtues are the condition of our
knowledge of reality ; for though " God
dwells in all things, nothing comprehends
Him unless it be one with Him." This is
the doctrine of all the great mystics, and
they have proved its truth in their own
lives. Such an attunement of human to
divine life is the real object of Christianity :
and we must not forget that Boehme was
before all else a practical Christian, for
whom his religion was a vital process, not
merely a creed. He complained that the
orthodox of his day were content to believe
that Christ had once died for them ; but

xxxiv 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 con-
flicts which conditioned his intuitive know-
ledge of reality. That knowledge was the
fruit of the "earnest seeking" pursued

INTRODUCTION xxxv

from adolescence to the end of his earthly-
life : 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 founda-
tion 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, and

2 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

the hand and pen must hasten directly
after 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,

COxNFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 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 seek-
ing 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 Uni-
versity, 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.

4 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

I saw it as in a great deep in the internal ;
for I had a thorough view of the Universe,
as a complex moving fulness wherein all
things are couched and wrapped up ; but it
was impossible for me to explain the same.

Yet it opened itself in me, from time to
time, as in a young plant. It was with me
for the space of twelve years, and was as
it were breeding. I found a powerful instiga-
tion within me before I could bring it forth
into external form of writing ; but what-
ever I could apprehend with the external
principle of my mind, that I wrote down.

Afterwards, however, the Sun shone
upon me a good while, but not constantly,
for sometimes the Sun hid itself, and then
I knew not nor well understood my own
labour. Man must confess that his know-
ledge is not his own but from God, who
manifests the Ideas of Wisdom to the soul,
in what measure he pleases.

It is not to be understood that my reason
is greater or higher than that of all other

CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME s

men living ; but I am the Lord's twig or
branch, and a very mean and little spark
of his light ; he may set me where he
pleases, I cannot hinder him in that.

Neither is this my natural will, that I
can do it by my own small ability ; for
if the Spirit were withdrawn from me,
then I could neither know nor understand
my own writings.

O gracious amiable Blessedness and
great Love, how sweet art thou ! How
friendly and courteous art thou ! How
pleasant and lovely is thy relish and taste !
How ravishing sweetly dost thou smell !
O noble Light, and bright Glory, who can
apprehend thy exceeding beauty ? How
comely adorned is thy love ! How curious
and excellent are thy colours ! And all
this eternally. Who can express it?

Or why and what do I write, whose
tongue does but stammer like a child which
is learning to speak .'* With what shall I

6 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

compare it ? or to what shall I liken it ?
Shall I compare it with the love of this
world ? No, that is but a mere dark
valley to it.

O immense Greatness ! I cannot com-
pare thee with any thing, but only with
the resurrection from the dead ; there will
the Love-Fire rise up again in us, and
rekindle again our astringent, bitter, and
cold, dark and dead powers, and embrace
us most courteously and friendly.

O gracious, amiable, blessed Love and
clear bright Light, tarry with us, I pray
thee, for the evening is at hand.

CHAPTER II

I AM a sinful and mortal man, as well
as thou, and I must every day and
hour grapple, struggle, and fight with the
Devil who afflicts me in my corrupted lost
nature, in the wrathful power which is in
my flesh, as in all men continually.

Suddenly I get the better of him,
suddenly he is too hard for me ; yet, not-
withstanding, he has not overcome or
conquered me, though he often gets the
advantage over me.

If he buffets me, then I must retire and
give back, but the divine power helps me
again ; then he also receives a blow, and
often loses the day in the fight.

But when he is overcome, then the
heavenly gate opens in my spirit, and then

8 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

the spirit sees the divine and heavenly
Being, not externally beyond the body,
but in the well-spring of the heart.
There rises up a flash of the Light
in the sensibility or thoughts of the
brain, and therein the Spirit does con-
template.

For man is made out of all the powers
of God, out of all the seven spirits of God,
as the angels also are. But now seeing
he is corrupted, therefore the divine
moving does not always unfold its
powers and operate in him. And
though it springs in him, and if indeed
it shines, yet it is incomprehensible to
the corrupted nature.

For the Holy Ghost will not be held
in the sinful flesh, but rises up like
a lightning - flash, as fire sparkles and
flashes out of a stone when a man
strikes it.

But when the flash is caught in the
fountain of the heart, then the Holy Spirit

CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 9

rises up, in the seven unfolding fountain
spirits, into the brain, like the dawning of
the day, the morning redness.

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 three-
foldness 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

lo 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 some-
times uppermost.

CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME ii

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.

12 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

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 that

CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 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.

Now I am climbed up and mounted so
very high that I dare not look back for
fear a giddiness should take me ; and I
have now but a short length of ladder to
the mark to which it is the whole desire,
longing, and delight of my heart to reach
fully. When I go upward I have no
giddiness at all ; but when I look back
and would return, then am I giddy and
afraid to fall.

14 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

Therefore have I put my confidence in
the strong God, and will venture, and see
what will come of it. I have no more
but one body, which nevertheless is mortal
and corruptible ; I willingly venture that.
If the light and knowledge of my God do
but remain with me, then I have sufficiently
enough for this life and the life to come.

Thus I will not be angry with my God,
though for his Name's sake I should endure
shame, ignominy, and reproach, which
springs, buds, and blossoms for me every
day, so that I am almost inured to it : I
will sing with the prophet David, Though
my body and soul should faint and fail,
yet thou, O God, art my trust and
confidence ; also my salvation and the
comfort of my heart.

CHAPTER III

ME N have always been of the opinion
that heaven is many hundred, nay,
many thousand, miles distant from the
face of the earth, and that God dwells
only in that heaven.

Some have undertaken to measure this
height and distance, and have produced
many strange and monstrous devices.
Indeed, before my knowledge and reve-
lation of God, I held that only to be the
true heaven which, in a round circumference,
very azure of a light blue colour, extends
itself above the stars ; supposing that God
had therein his peculiar Being, and did
rule only in the power of his Holy Spirit
in this world.

But when this had given me many a

1 6 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

hard blow and repulse, doubtless from the
Spirit, which had a great longing yearning
towards me, at last I fell into a very deep
melancholy and heavy sadness, when I
beheld and contemplated the great Deep
of this world, also the sun and stars, the
clouds, rain and snow, and considered in
my spirit the whole creation of the world.

Wherein then I found, in all things,
evil and good, love and anger ; in the
inanimate creatures, in wood, stones, earth
and the elements, as also in men and
beasts.

Moreover I considered the little spark
of light, man, what he should be esteemed
for with God, in comparison of this great
work and fabric of heaven and earth.

And finding that in all things there was
evil and good, as well in the elements as
in the creatures, and that it went as well
in this world with the wicked as with the
virtuous, honest and godly ; also that the
barbarous people had the b§st countries in

CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 17

their possession, and that they had more
prosperity in their ways than the virtuous,
honest and godly had ; I was thereupon
very melancholy, perplexed and exceed-
ingly troubled, no Scripture could comfort
or satisfy me though I was very well
acquainted with it and versed therein ; at
which time the Devil would by no means
stand idle, but was often beating into me
many heathenish thoughts which I will
here be silent in.

Yet when in this affliction and trouble I
elevated my spirit (which then I under-
stood very little or nothing at all what it
was), I earnestly raised it up into God,
as with a great storm or onset, wrapping
up my whole heart and mind, as also all
my thoughts and whole will and resolution,
incessantly to wrestle with the Love and
Mercy of God, and not to give over
unless he blessed me, that is, unless he
enlightened me with his Holy Spirit,
whereby I might understand his will

1 8 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHMfi

and be rid of my sadness. And then
the Spirit did break through.

But when in my resolved zeal I gave
so hard an assault, storm, and onset upon
God and upon all the gates of hell, as if
I had more reserves of virtue and power
ready, with a resolution to hazard my
life upon it (which assuredly were not in
my ability without the assistance of the
Spirit of God), suddenly my spirit did
break through the gates of hell, even into
the innermost moving of the Deity, and
there I was embraced in love as a bride-
groom embraces his dearly beloved bride.

The greatness of the triumphing that
was in my spirit I cannot express either
in speaking or writing ; neither can it be
compared to any thing but that wherein
life is generated in the midst of death. It
is like the resurrection from the dead.

In this light my spirit suddenly saw
through all, and in and by all, the creatures ;
even in herbs and grass it knew God,

CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 19

who he is and how he is and what his
will is. And suddenly in that light my
will was set on by a mighty impulse to
describe the Being of God.

But because I could not presently ap-
prehend the deepest movings of God and
comprehend them in my reason, there
passed almost twelve years before the
exact understanding thereof was given me.

And it was with me as with a young
tree, which is planted in the ground and
at first is young and tender, and flourishing
to the eye, especially if it comes on lustily
in its growing ; but does not bear fruit
presently, and though it has blossoms they
fall off: also frost and snow and many a
cold wind beat upon it before it comes to
any growth and bearing of fruit.

So also it went with my spirit : the first
fire was but a beginning and not a con-
stant and lasting light ; since that time
many a cold wind blew upon it, yet never
extinguished it.

20 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

The tree was also often tempted to try
whether it could bear fruit, and showed
itself with blossoms ; but the blossoms
were struck off till this very time, wherein
it stands in its fruit.

From this light now it is that I have
my knowledge, as also my will, impulse
and driving ; and therefore I will set down
the knowledge in writing according to my
gift, and let God work his will. Though
I should enrage the whole world, the
Devil, and all the gates of hell, I will
look on and wait what the Lord intends
with it.

For I am too, too weak to know his
purpose ; and though the Spirit affords in
the light some things to be known which
are to come, yet according to the outward
man I am too weak to comprehend them.

The animated or soulish spirit, which
unfolds its powers and unites with God,
comprehends it well ; but the animal body
attains only a glimpse thereof ; just as by

CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 21

a lightning-flash. This is the state of the
innermost moving of the soul, when it
breaks through the outermost in an eleva-
tion by the Holy Ghost. But the outer-
most presently closes again, for the wrath
of God is stirred up there as fire is struck
from the stone, and holds it captive in its
power.

Then the knowledge of the outward
man is gone, and he walks up and down,
afflicted and anxious, as a woman with
child who is in her travail, and would
willingly bring forth, but cannot and is
full of throes.

Thus it goes also with the animal body
when it has once tasted of the sweetness
of God. Then it continually hungers and
thirsts after it ; but the Devil in the power
of God's wrath opposes exceedingly, and
so a man in such a course must continu-
ally be anxious ; and there is nothing but
fighting and warring for him.

I write not this for my own glory, but

2 2 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

for a comfort to the reader, so that if
perhaps he be minded to walk with me
upon my narrow bridge, he should not
suddenly be discouraged, dismayed, and
distrustful, when the gates of hell and
God's wrath meet him and present them-
selves before him.

When we shall come together, over this
narrow bridge of the fleshly working, to
be in yonder green meadow to which the
wrath of God does not reach, then we
shall be fully requited for all our damages
and hurts we have sustained ; though in-
deed at present the world accounts us for
fools, and we must suffer the Devil to
domineer, rush, and roar over us.

Now observe : if thou fixest thy thoughts
concerning heaven, and wouldst willingly
conceive in thy mind what it is and where
it is and how it is, thou needst not to cast
thy thoughts many thousand miles off, for
that place, that heaven, is not thy heaven.

And though indeed that is united with

CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 23

thy heaven as one body, and so together
is but the one body of God, yet thou art
not become a creature in that very place
which is above many hundred thousand
miles off, but thou art in the heaven of
this world, which contains also in it such
a Deep as is not of any human numbering.

The true heaven is everywhere, even in
that very place where thou standest and
goest ; and so when thy spirit presses
through the astral and the fleshly, and
apprehends the innermost moving of God,
then it is clearly in heaven.

But that there is assuredly a pure glori-
ous heaven in all the three movings aloft
above the deep of this world, in which
God's Being together with that of the holy
angels springs up very purely, brightly,
beauteously, and joyfully, is undeniable.
And he is not born of God that denies it.

Thou must know that this world in
its innermost unfolds its properties and
powers in union with the heaven aloft

24 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

above us ; and so there is one Heart,
one Being, one Will, one God, all in all.

The outermost moving of this world
cannot comprehend the outermost moving
of heaven aloft above this world, for they
are one to the other as life and death, or
as a man and a stone are one to the other.

There is a strong firmament dividing
the outermost of this world from the outer-
most of the upper heaven ; and that firma-
ment is Death, which rules and reigns
everywhere in the outermost in this world,
and sets a great gulf between them.

The second moving of this world is in
the life ; it is the astral, out of which is
generated the third and holy moving ; and
therein love and wrath strive one with
the other.

For the second moving stands in the
seven fountain spirits of this world, and is
in all places and in all the creatures as in

CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 25

man. But the Holy Ghost also rules and
reigns in that second, and helps to generate
the third, the holy moving.

This, the third, is the clear and holy
heaven which unites with the Heart of
God, distinct from and above all heavens,
as one heart.

Therefore, thou child of man, be not dis-
couraged, be not so timorous and pusil-
lanimous ; if thou in thy zeal and earnest
sincerity sowest the seed of thy tears, thou
dost not sow it in earth but in heaven ;
for in thy astral moving thou sowest, and
in thy soulish moving thou reapest, and in
the kingdom of heaven thou possessest
and enjoy est it.

If man's eyes were but opened he should
see God everywhere in his heaven ; for
heaven stands in the innermost moving
everywhere.

Moreover, when Stephen saw the heaven
opened and the Lord Jesus at the right

26 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

hand of God, then his spirit did not
first swing itself aloft into the upper
heaven, but it penetrated into the inner-
most moving wherein heaven is every-
where.

Neither must thou think that God is
such a* kind of Being as is only in the
upper heaven, and that the soul, when it
departs from the body, goes aloft many
hundred thousand miles off. It needs not
do that ; it is set in the innermost moving,
and there it is with God and in God, and
with all the holy angels, and can suddenly
be above and suddenly beneath ; it is not
hindered by any thing.

For in the innermost the upper and
nether Deity is one body and is an open
gate. The holy angels converse and walk
up and down in the innermost of this world
by and with our King Jesus Christ ; as well
as in the uppermost, aloft in their quarters,
courts or region.

Where then would or should the soul

CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 27

of man rather be than with its King and
Redeemer Jesus Christ ? For near and
afar off in God is one thing, one compre-
hensibility, Father, Son and Holy Ghost,
everywhere.

The gate of God in the upper heaven is
no other, also no brighter, than it is in this
world. And where can there be greater
joy than in that place where every hour
and moment beautiful, loving, dear, new-
born children and angels come to Christ,
which are passed through death into life ?
Where can there be greater joy than where
in the midst of death life is generated
continually ? Does not every soul bring
along with it a new triumph .-* and so there
is nothing else but an exceedingly friendly
welcoming and salutation there.

Dost thou think my writing is too
earthly ? If thou wert to come to this
window of mine thou wouldst not then say
that it is earthly. Though I must indeed
use the earthly tongue, yet there is a true

28 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

heavenly understanding couched under it,
which in my outermost moving I am not
able to express.

I know very well that the word con-
cerning the three movings cannot be com-
prehended or apprehended in every man's
heart, especially where the heart is too
much steeped, soaked, or drowned in the
flesh. But I cannot render it otherwise
than as it is, for it is just so ; and though
I write mere spirit, as indeed and in truth
it is no other, yet such a heart understands
only flesh.

Thou shouldst not suppose that which
I write here to be as a doubtful opinion,
questionable whether it be so or no ; for
the gate of heaven and hell stands open
to the spirit, and in the Light it presses
through them both and beholds them, also
proves and examines them.

And though the Devil cannot take the
Light from me, yet he hides it often with
the outward and fleshly moving, so that

CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 29

the astral is in anxiety and in a strait, as
if it were imprisoned.

But these are only his blows and strokes
whereby the seed of paradise is covered
and obscured. Concerninor which also the
holy apostle Paul saith that a great thorn
was given him in his flesh and he besought
the Lord earnestly to take it from him,
whereupon the Lord answered. Let my
grace be sufficient for thee.

For he also was come to this place and
would fain have had the Light without
obstruction or hindrance, as his own in the
astral moving. But it could not be ; for
wrath abides in the fleshly moving, and he
must endure corruption there. If wrath
should be wholly taken away from the
astral, then in that he would be like God
and know all things as God himself does.

Which now in this life that soul only
knows which unfolds its powers in union
with the Light of God, and even that soul
cannot perfectly bring it back again into the

30 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

astral. Just as an apple on a tree cannot
bring its smell and taste back again into
the tree or into the earth, though it be
indeed the son of the tree, so it is also in
the nature of man.

The holy man Moses was so high
and deep in this Light that it glorified,
clarified, or brightened the astral also,
whereby the outermost of the flesh in
his face was clarified, brightened, or
glorified.

He also desired to see the light of God
perfectly in the astral ; but it could not be,
for the bar of the wrath lies before it.
Even the whole and universal nature of
the astral in this world cannot comprehend
the Light of God ; and therefore the Heart
of God is hidden, though it dwells in all
places and comprehends all.

Thou seest how the wrath of God in the
outermost of nature lies hid and rests, and
cannot be awakened unless men themselves
awaken it, who with their fleshly moving

CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 31

unfold their powers to stir up and unite with
the wrath in the outermost of nature.

Therefore if anyone should be damned
into hell he ought not to say that God has
done it, or that he wills it to be so. Man
awakens the wrath-fire in himself, and this,
if it grows burning, afterwards unites with
God's wrath and the hellish fire, as one
thing.

For when thy light is extinguished, then
thou standest in the darkness. Within
the darkness the wrath of God is concealed,
and if thou awakenest it, then it bums in
thee.

There is fire even in a stone : if you
do not strike upon it the fire remains
concealed ; but, if you strike it, then the
fire springs forth, and if any combustible
matter be near it, that will take fire and
burn, and so there comes to be a great
fire. Thus it is also with man, when he
kindles the wrath-fire which is otherwise
at rest.

CHAPTER IV

WHEN thou beholdest the deep above
the earth thou oughtest not to say
that it is not the gate of God where God
in his holiness dwells : No, no, think not
so, for the whole Holy Trinity, God the
Father, Son and Holy Ghost, dwells in
the centre under the firmament of heaven,
though that very firmament cannot compre-
hend him.

Indeed all is as it were one body, the
outermost and the innermost moving to-
gether with the firmament of heaven, as
also the astral moving therein, in and
with which the wrath of God unfolds ; but
yet they are one to another as the govern-
ment, frame or constitution in man.

The flesh marks the outward moving,

CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 33

which is the house of death. The second
moving in man is the astral, in which the
Hfe stands, and wherein love and wrath
wrestle one with another. Thus far man
himself knows himself, for the astral
generates the life in the outermost, that is,
in the flesh. The third moving is gener-
ated between the astral and the outermost,
and is called the animated or soulish moving,
or the soul, and is as great as the whole
man.

That moving the outward man neither
knows nor comprehends, neither does the
astral comprehend it ; but every fountain
spirit comprehends its innate source, which
resembles the heaven.

The animated or soulish man must
press through the firmament of heaven
to God, and live with God, else the
whole man cannot come into heaven to
God.

Man cannot be wholly pure from wrath
and sin, for the movings of the depth in
3

34 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

this world are not fully pure before the
Heart of God ; always love and wrath
wrestle one with another.

In the second, the astral, wherein now
the love and the wrath are against one
another, is a spirit of the life, and of the
firmament of heaven which is of the midst
of the spirit.

And the Devil can reach half into this
moving, so far as the wrath reaches and
no farther ; therefore the Devil cannot
know how the other part in this moving
has its source. This other part of the
astral, which abides in the love, is
the firmament of heaven holding captive
the kindled wrath ; together with all the
devils, for they cannot enter thereinto.
In that heaven dwells the Holy Spirit,
which goes forth from the Heart of
God, and strives against the wrath, and
generates to himself a temple in the
midst of the fierceness of the wrath of
God.

CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 35

And in this heaven dwells the man that
fears God, even while alive in the body-
here upon earth ; for that heaven is as
well in man as in the deep above the
earth. And as the deep above the earth
is, so is man also, both in love and
wrath, till after the departure of the soul ;
but when the soul departs from the body,
then it abides either only in the heaven of
love or only in the wrath.

And in this heaven the holy angels
dwell amongst us, and the devils in the
other part. In this heaven man lives
between heaven and hell, and must suffer
from the wrath and endure many hard
blows, temptations, persecutions ; and,
many times, torments and oppression.

The wrath is called the Cross, and the
love-heaven is called patience, and the
spirit that rises up therein is called hope
and faith, which unites with God and
wrestles with the wrath till it overcomes
and gets the victory.

36 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

0 ye theologists, the spirit here opens a
door and gate for you ! If you will not now
see and feed your sheep and lambs on a
green meadow, instead of a dry, parched
heath, you must be accountable for it
before the severe, earnest and wrathful
judgement of God ; therefore look to it.

1 take heaven to witness that I do here
what I must. The Spirit drives me to it,
so that I am wholly led captive thereby,
and cannot be freed from it whatever may
befal me hereafter, or ensue upon it.

The third moving in the body of God in
this world is hidden. In it is the almighty
and holy Heart of God, wherein our King,
Jesus Christ, with his natural body, sits at
the right hand of God, as a King and
Lord of the whole body of this world.

The body of Christ is no more in the
hard palpability, but in the divine palpa-
bility, of nature, like the angels. Our
bodies also at the resurrection will have no

CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 37

more such hard flesh and bones, but be
like the angels ; and though indeed all
forms and powers shall be therein, yet we
shall not have the hard palpability.

Christ says to Mary Magdalen in
Joseph's garden at the Sepulchre, after his
resurrection, Touch me not, for I am not
yet ascended to my God and to your God,
as if he would say, I have not now the
animal body any more, although I show
myself to thee in my form or shape which
I had, because otherwise thou in thy
animal body couldst not see me.

So during the forty days after his
resurrection he did not always walk
visibly among the disciples, but invisibly,
according to his heavenly and angelical
property. When he would speak or talk
with his disciples, then he showed himself
in a palpable manner and form, that thereby
he might speak natural words with them,
for corruption cannot apprehend the divine.
Also it sufficiently appears that his body

38 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

was of an angelical kind, in that he went
to his disciples through the doors, being
shut.

Thus thou must know that his body
unites with all the seven spirits in nature
in the astral moving in the part of love ;
and holds sin, death and the Devil captive
in its wrath part.

Thou seest also how thou art in this
world everywhere in heaven and also in
hell, and dwellest between heaven and hell
in great danger. Thou seest how heaven
is in a holy man, and that everywhere,
wheresoever thou standest, goest or liest,
if thy spirit does but co-operate with God,
then as to that part thou art in heaven and
thy soul is in God. Therefore says Christ :
My sheep are in my hands, no man can
pull them away from me.

In like manner thou seest also how thou
art always in hell among all the devils as
to the wrath ; if thine eyes were but open
thou wouldst see wonderful things, but

CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 39

thou standest between heaven and hell,
and canst see neither of them, and
walkest upon a very narrow bridge.

Some men have many times, in the
astral spirit, entered in thither, being
ravished in an ecstasy, as men term it,
and have in this life known the gates of
heaven and of hell, and have shown and
declared how that many men dwell in hell
with their living bodies. Such indeed
have been scorned, derided or laughed at,
but with great ignorance and indiscretion,
for it is just so as they declare.

CHAPTER V

THE Simple says, God made all things
out of nothing ; but he knows not
God, neither does he know what he him-
self is. When he beholds the earth
together with the deep above the earth,
he thinks verily all this is not God ; or
else he thinks God is not there. He always
imagines with himself that God dwells
only above the azure heaven of the stars,
and rules, as it were, by means of some
spirit which goes forth from him into this
world ; and that his body is not present
here upon the earth or in the earth.

Just such opinions and tenets I have
read also in the books and writing^s of
Doctors, and there are also very many
opinions, disputations and controversies

CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 41

risen about this very thing among the
Learned.

But seeing God opens to me the gate
of his Being in his great love, and re-
members the covenants which he has
with man, therefore I will faithfully and
earnestly, according to my gifts, set wide
open all the gates of God, so far as he
will give me leave.

It is not so to be understood, as that I
am sufficient in these things, but only so
far as I am able to comprehend.

For the Being of God is like a wheel,
wherein many wheels are made one in
another, upwards, downwards, crossways,
and yet continually turn all of them
together.

At which indeed, when a man beholds
the wheel, he highly marvels, and cannot
at once in its turning learn to conceive
and apprehend it. But the more he
beholds the wheel the more he learns its
form ; and the more he learns the greater

42 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

longing he has towards the wheel, for he
continually sees something that is more
and more wonderful, so that a man can
neither behold nor learn it enough.

Thus I also. What I do not fully
describe in one place concerning this great
mystery, that you will find in another
place ; and what I cannot describe here
in regard of the greatness of this mystery
and my incapacity, that you will find else-
where.

For here is the first sprouting or
vegetation of this twig, which springs in its
mother, and is as a child which is learning
to walk and is not able to run apace at
the first.

Though the spirit sees the wheel and
would fain comprehend its form in every
place, yet it cannot do it exactly enough
because of the turning of the wheel. But
when it comes about that the spirit can
see the first apprehended form again, then
continually it learns more and more, and

CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 43

always loves and delights in the wheel,
and longs after it still more and more.

Now observe : The earth has just such
qualities and quality-expressing or fountain
spirits as the deep above the earth, or as
heaven has, and all of them together belong
to one only body. The universal God is
that one only body. But sin is the cause
that thou dost not wholly see and know
him. With and by sin thou, within this
great divine body, liest shut up in the
mortal flesh ; and the power and virtue of
God is hidden from thee, even as the
marrow in the bones is hidden from the
flesh.

But if thou in the spirit breakest through
the death of the flesh, then thou seest the
hidden God. For the mortal flesh belongs
not to the moving of life, so it cannot
receive or conceive the Life of the Light
as proper to itself ; but the Life of the
Light in God rises up in the flesh and
generates to itself, from out of it, another.

44 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

a heavenly and living, body, which knows
and understands the Light.

The mortal body is but a husk from
which the new body grows, as it is with
a grain of wheat in the earth. The husk
shall not rise and be living again, no more
with the body than with the grain, but
will remain for ever in death.

Behold the mystery of the earth : as
that brings forth so must thou bring forth.
The earth is not that body which is brought
forth, but is the mother of that body ; as
also thy flesh is not the spirit but is the
mother of the spirit.

And in both of them, in the earth and
in thy flesh, the Light of the clear Deity is
hidden, and it breaks through and gathers
to itself a body for each after its kind.

As the mother is, so also is the child :
man's child is the soul which is born in
the astral moving from the flesh ; and the
earth's child is the grass, the herbs, the
trees, silver, gold, and all mineral ores.

CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 4S

Out of the earth sprang grass, herbs and
trees ; and in the earth silver, gold, and all
manner of ore came to be. In the deep
above the earth sprang the wonderful
forming of power and virtue.

I now invite all lovers of the holy and
highly to be esteemed arts of philosophy
and theology before this mirror wherein
I lay open the root and ground of these
matters.

I use not their tables, formulas, or
schemes, rules and ways, for I have not
learned from them. I have another
teacher, which is the living fountain of
nature.

What could I, simple layman, teach or
write of their high art if it was not given
to me by the Spirit of nature, in whom I
live and am ? Should I oppose the Spirit
that he should not open where and in whom
he pleases ?

O thou child of man, open the eyes of

46 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

thy spirit, for I will show thee here the
right and real proper gate of God.

Behold ! that is the true, one, only God
out of whom thou art created and in whom
thou livest ; and when thou beholdest the
deep and the stars and the earth, then thou
beholdest thy God. In that same thou
livest and hast thy being ; and that same
God rules thee also, and from that same
God thou hast thy senses. Thou art a
creature from him and in him ; else thou
wouldst never have been.

Now perhaps thou wilt say that I write
in a heathenish manner. Hearken and
behold ! Observe the distinct understand-
ing how all this is so ; for I write not
heathenishly, but in the love of wisdom ;
neither am I a heathen, but I have the true
knowledge of the one only great God who
is All.

When thou beholdest the deep, the stars,
the elements and the earth, then thou
comprehendest not with thine eyes the

CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 47

bright and clear Deity, though indeed he
is there and in them ; but thou seest and
comprehendest, with thine eyes, first death
and then the wrath of God.

But if thou Hftest up thy thoughts and
dost consider where God is, then thou shalt
comprehend the astral moving, where love
and wrath move one against another.
And when by faith thou drawest near to
God who rules in holiness in this dominion,
then thou layest hold on him in his holy
Heart.

When this is done, then thou art as
God is, who himself is heaven, earth, stars
and the elements.

CHAPTER VI

WHERE will you seek for God?
Seek him in your soul that is
proceeded out of the eternal nature, the
living fountain of forces wherein the divine
working stands.

O that I had but the pen of a man, and
were able therewith to write down the
spirit of knowledge ! I can but stammer
of great mysteries like a child that is be-
ginning to speak ; so very little can the
earthly tongue express of that which the
spirit comprehends. Yet I will venture to
try whether I may incline some to seek the
pearl of true knowledge, and myself labour
in the works of God in my paradisical
garden of roses ; for the longing of the

eternal nature-mother drives nie on to write

48,

CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 49

and to exercise myself in this my know-
ledge.

No money, nor goods, nor art, nor power
can bring you to the eternal rest of the
eternal paradise, but only the knowledge in
which you may steep your soul. That is
the pearl which no thief can steal away ;
seek after it and you will find the noble
treasure.

Our skill and understanding are so
cramped and narrowed that we have no
more any knowledge of paradise at all.
And except we be born anew, the veil of
Moses lies continually before our eyes, and
we suppose that was paradise whereof he
said : God placed Adam in the garden of
Eden which he had planted, that he might
till it.

O beloved man, paradise is the divine
Joy. It is the divine and angelical Joy,
yet it is not outside the place of this world.
When I speak of the fountain and joy of
paradise, and of its substance, what it is, I
4

50 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

have no similitude for it in this world ; I
stand in need of angelical speech and
knowledge to express it ; and though I had
them yet I could never express it with this
tongue. It is well understood in the mind,
when the soul rides in the chariot of
the Spirit, but I cannot express it with
the tongue ; yet will I stammer with the
children till another mouth be given me
to speak with.

And seeing somewhat is lent me from
the grace of the power of God, that I might
know the way to paradise, seeing also that
it behoves everyone to work the works of
God in which he stands, I will not neglect
my task but will labour as much as I can
on the way.

Although I shall scarce be able to spell
out the letters in this so high a way, yet my
labour shall be enough that many will have
to learn in it all their life long. He that
thinks he knows it well, he has not yet
learnt the first letter of paradise, for no

CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 51

Doctors are to be found in this school, but
only learners.

There is nothing that is nearer to you
than heaven, paradise, and hell. Unto
which of them you are inclined and towards
which of them you walk, to that in this life-
time you are most near. There is a moving
between each two of them ; and you have
both movings in you. God beckons to you
in the one, and calls you ; and the Devil
beckons to you in the other, and calls you ;
with whom you go, with him you enter in.
The Devil has in his hand power, honour,
pleasure, and worldly happiness ; and the
root of these is death and hell-fire. God
has in his hands crosses, persecution,
misery, poverty, ignominy and sorrow ; and
the root of these is a fire also. But in this
fire there is a light, and in the light virtue
and in the virtue paradise. In paradise are
the angels, and among the angels is Joy.
Dim and fleshly eyes cannot behold it ; but
when the Holy Ghost comes into the soul

52 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

it is born anew in God, and then it becomes
a child of paradise and has the key of
paradise, and sees into the midst thereof.

If you be born of God, then you under-
stand God, paradise, the kingdom of
heaven and hell, the entrance thereinto of
the creatures and the creation of this world ;
but if not, then the veil is before your eyes
as it was before the eyes of Moses.
Therefore saith Christ : Seek and ye shall
find, knock and it shall be opened unto you.
If you do not understand this writing,
seek the humble lowly Heart of God, and
that will bring a small seed from the tree of
paradise into your soul ; and if you abide in
patience then a great tree will grow out of
that seed, as you will think has come to
pass with this author. For he is to be
esteemed as a very simple person, in com-
parison of the great learned men ; but
Christ saith : My power is strong in the
weak ; yea Father, it hath so pleased thee
to hide these things from the wise and

CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 53

prudent, and thou hast revealed them to
babes and sucklings ; the wisdom of this
world is foolishness in thy sight. And
although now the children of the world are
wiser in their generation than the children
of light, yet their wisdom is but a corrupt-
ible thing, and this wisdom continues
eternally.

Seek for the noble pearl ; it is much
more precious than this whole world ; it will
never more depart from you. Where the
pearl is, there will your heart be also ; you
need not in this life seek any further after
paradise, joy and heavenly delight ; seek
but the pearl, and when you find that, then
you find paradise and the kingdom of
heaven.

I have perused many masterpieces of
writing, hoping to find the high and deep
wisdom of God, the pearl of the under-
standing of man ; but I could find nothing
of that which my soul lusted after. I have
found very many contrary opinions, and at

54 COxNFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

times I have found some who forbid me to
search, but I cannot know with what reason
except it be that the blind grudge at the
eyes of them that see.

With all this my soul is become very
disquiet within, and has been as full of pain
and anguish as a woman at her travail ; and
yet to no end till I followed the words of
Christ when he said : You must be born
anew, if you will see the kingdom of God.
This at first confounded me ; I supposed
that such a thing could not be done in this
world, but only at my departure out of this
world. And then my soul was at first in
anguish, longing after the pearl ; but, yield-
ing itself, at last obtained the jewel.
Therefore I will write, for a memorial to
myself and for a light to them that seek.
For Christ said : None lights a candle and
puts it under a bushel, but sets it upon a
table that all that are in the house may see
by the light of it. To this end he gives
the pearl of divine wisdom and knowledge

CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 55

to them that seek, that they should impart
it to the desirous for their healing, as he has
very earnestly commanded.

Indeed Moses writes that God made man
of the dust of the earth. And that is the
opinion of very many. I also should not
have known how that was to be understood,
and I should not have learned it out of
Moses, nor out of the glosses put upon his
words. The veil would have continued
still before my eyes, though I was much
troubled thereby. But when I found the
pearl, then I looked Moses in the face, and
found that he had wrote very right, but
that I had not rightly understood it.

Now the question is : What is God's
image? Behold, and consider the Deity,
and then you will light upon it. God is
not an animal man ; and man should be
the image and similitude of God, wherein
God may dwell. God is a spirit ; three
principles are in him, that is, the sources
and powers of the darkness, of the light,

56 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

and of this world. He would make such
an image as should have all these three
and so be rightly a similitude of himself.
Therefore Moses may be well understood
to say that God created man and did not
make him of a lump of earth. But the
forming power in which God created him
is the matrix of the earth, out of which the
earth was generated ; and the matter in
which he created him is a quintessence of
the stars and elements, and came forth from
the heavenly matrix which is also the root
of the earth.

Now the soul stands in two gates, and
touches two principles, the eternal darkness
and the eternal light of the Son of God,
as God the Father himself does. Thus it
may be in heaven and in paradise, and
enjoy the unutterable joy of God the
Father which he has in his Son, and it
may hear the inexpressible words of the
Heart of God.

There the soul feeds on all the words of

CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 57

God, for these are the food of its life ; and
it sings the paradisical songs of praise
concerning the pleasant fruit of paradise
which grows in the divine virtue and is
the food of the heavenly and eternal body.
Can this be no joy and rejoicing?
Should not that be a pleasant thing, to
eat heavenly bread with the many thousand
sorts of angels, and to rejoice in their
communion and fellowship ? What can
possibly be named which can be more
pleasant ? Where there is no fear, no
anger, no death ; where every voice and
speech is of the divine salvation, power,
strength and might ; and this voice going
forth into eternity. There is the place
where Paul heard words unutterable that
no man can express.

CHAPTER VII

THANKS be to God who has re-
generated me, by water and the Holy
Ghost, to be a Hving creature, so that I
can in his Light see my great inbred vices,
which are in my flesh.

Thus now I Hve in the spirit of this
world in my flesh, and my flesh serves the
spirit of this world ; but my mind serves
God. My flesh is generated in this world
and is ruled by the quintessence of the
stars and elements, which dwells in it
and is master of the body and the out-
ward life ; but my mind is regenerated
in God and loves God. And although
I cannot now comprehend and hold fast
the divine wisdom, because my mind

falls into sins, yet the spirit of this world

58

CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 59

shall not always thus hold captive my
mind.

For the Virgin, the divine Wisdom, has
given me her promise not to leave me in
any misery ; she will come to help me in
the Son of Wisdom, I must hold fast
to him, and he will bring me to her in
paradise. I will make the venture, and
go through the thistles and thorns as well
as I can, till I find my native country
where Wisdom dwells. I rely upon her
faithful promise, when she appeared to me,
that she would turn all my mourning into
great joy. When I lay upon the mountain at
midnight, so that all the trees fell upon me
and all the storms and winds beat upon me,
and Antichrist gaped at me with his open
jaws to devour me, then she came and
comforted me and took me for her own.

Therefore I am but the more cheerful,
and care not for him ; he rules over me no
further than over the transitory house of
flesh, whose patron he is ; he may take

6o CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

that quite away, but so I shall come into
my native country. Yet he is not absolute
lord over that house, he is but God's ape ;
for as an ape plays all manner of tricks
and pranks to make itself sport, and would
fain seem to be the finest and the nimblest
of beasts, so also does he. His power
hangs on the great tree of this world, and
a storm of wind can blow it away.

Thou wilt ask, What is the new regenera-
tion ? or how is that done in man ? Hear
and see, close not thy mind, let it not be
filled by the spirit of this world with its
might and pomp. Lay hold upon thy
mind and break through the spirit of this
world entirely ; yield thy mind unto the
kind love of God ; make thy purpose
earnest and strong to overcome the pleasure
of this world and not to regard it. Consider
that thou art not at home in this world,
but art a strange guest, made captive in a
prison ; cry and call to him who has the

CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 6i

key of the prison ; yield thyself up to
him in obedience, righteousness, humility,
purity and truth. And seek not so
eagerly after the kingdom of this world ;
it will stick close enough to thee without
that. Then the pure Virgin, the Wisdom
of God, will meet thee in the height and
depth of thy mind, and will lead thee to
him who has the key to the gate of the
deep. Thou must stand before him and
he will give thee to eat of the heavenly
manna which will quicken and refresh
thee. Thou wilt be strong, and wilt break
through the gate of the deep as the morn-
ing star, and though thou liest captive here
in the night yet the rays of the dawn will
appear to thee in paradise, where thy pure
Virgin stands, waiting for thee with the joy
of the angels, who will kindly receive thee
in thy newborn mind and spirit. And
though indeed here thou must walk, as to
thy body, in the dark night, yet the noble
Virgin will help thee still.

62 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

Look well to it, close not thy mind and
understanding ; when thy mind says, Turn,
then know that so thou art called by the
Wisdom of God ; turn instantly, and con-
sider where thou art lodged, in how hard
a house of bondage thy soul lies im-
prisoned ; seek thy native country from
whence thy soul is wandered and whither
it should return again.

Then if thou wilt follow the counsel of
the Wisdom of God thou wilt find in
thyself, not only after this life, but also in
this life in thy regeneration, that Wisdom
will very worthily meet thee. And thou
wilt see out of what kind of spirit this
author has wrote.

CHAPTER VIII

MY beloved Reader, I tell thee this,
that everything has its impulse in
its own form. It always makes that very
thing with which the spirit is impregnated ;
and the body must always labour in that
wherein the spirit is kindled. When I
consider and think why I thus write many
wonders and leave them not for other
sharper wits, I find that my spirit is
kindled in this matter whereof I write ;
for there is a living running fire of these
things in my spirit, and thereupon (let me
purpose what I will) yet they continually
come uppermost, so that I am made captive
thereby, and it is laid upon me as a work
which I must do. Therefore, seeing it is

my work wherein my spirit drives, I will

63

64 COx\FESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

write it down for a memorial in such a
manner as I know it in my spirit and as I
attained to it ; I will set down no other thing
than that I myself have tried and known,
that I be not found a liar before God.

Now, then, if there be any that have a
desire to follow me and would fain have
the knowledge whereof I write, I advise
him to accompany me in this way, not at
present with the pen, but with the labour
of his mind ; and then he shall find how I
could come to write thus.

Seeing I have in hand the matter of
repentance, therefore I certify the reader
than in my earnestness this pen was given
me, which the Oppressor would have
broke. With him I began an earnest
fight, insomuch that he would have cast
me down to the ground under his feet had
not the Spirit of God helped me, so that
now I stand up.

Therefore, if we will speak of this most
serious matter, we must go from Jerusalem

CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 65

to Jericho, and see how we lie among
murderers who have so wounded and
beaten us that we are half dead ; and
must look about us for the Samaritan with
his beast, that he may dress our wounds
and bring us into his inn. O how lament-
able and miserable it is, that although we
are so beaten by the murderer that we are
half dead, yet we feel our smart no more !
Oh, if the physician would come and dress
our wounds, that our soul might revive
and live, how we should rejoice ! Thus
speaks desire, and has such longing heart-
felt wishes ; yet although the physician is
here, the mind can in no wise apprehend
him, because it is so much wounded and
lies half dead.

My dear Mind, thou supposest thou art
very sound, but thou art so beaten that
thou feelest thy disease no more. Art
thou not very near unto death ? How
then canst thou account thyself to be
sound? O my dear Soul, boast not of
5

66 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

thy soundness. Thou liest fettered in
heavy bonds, yea, in a very dark dungeon ;
thou swimmest in a deep water which rises
up to thy very lips, and thou must continu-
ally expect death. Besides, the Oppressor,
thine own corrupt nature, is behind thee
with a great company of thy worst enemies,
whereby he draws thee continually down
by his chains towards the horrible deep,
the abyss of hell ; and his crew assault
thee, and run upon thee on all sides, as
hounds upon their quarry.

Then says Reason, Why do they so ?
O my dear Soul, they have great cause
for it ; thou hast been their hind, and thou
art broken out of their park ; besides thou
art so strong that thou hast broken down
their park-wall and taken possession of
their dwelling. Thou art their worst
enemy and they thine ; and if thou wast
but gone out of their enclosure they would
be content, but thou being in it still the
strife continues, and has no end till the

CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 67

Ancient of Days comes, who will part you
asunder.

Dost thou suppose that I am mad that
I write thus. If I did not see and know
it I should be silent. Dost thou still say
thou art in the garden of roses? If thou
thinkest thou art there, see well whether
thou art not in the Devil's pasture, and art
his most beloved hind which he fattens to
the slaughter for his food.

O dear Soul, turn, and let not the Devil
capture thee ; regard not the scorn of the
world ; all thy sorrow must be turned into
great joy. And though in this world thou
hast not great honour, power and riches,
that is nothing ; thou knowest not whether
to-morrow it will come to be thy turn to
die. Why then dost thou contend and
strive so much after worldly honour that is
transitory ? Rather endeavour after the
tree of paradise, which thou mayst carry
with thee and wherein thou shalt rejoice
eternally for its growth and fruit.

68 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

Oh ! is not that a blessed welfare
when the soul dares to look into the
Holy Trinity, wherewith it is filled, so
that its powers grow and blossom in
paradise, where songs of praise break
forth, where the ever-growing fruit springs
up endlessly according to thy desire, where
there is no fear, envy, nor sorrow, where
there is love one of another, where every-
one rejoices in the form and beauty of
another ?

Beloved Mind, if thou hast a desire to
this way and wouldst attain it, then thou
must use great earnestness ; it must be no
lip-labour, with the heart elsewhere. No,
thou canst not attain it thus. Thou must
collect thy mind with all thy purposes and
reason, wholly together in one will and
resolution, and desire to turn from thy
abominations ; and thou must set thy
thoughts upon God and goodness with a
steadfast confidence in his mercy. Then
thou wilt attain it.

CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 69

Thou must continue steadfast in this
resolute purpose ; and though thou gainest
no strength into thy heart, and though
the Devil should beat down thy tongue so
that thou canst not pray to God, yet thou
must continually hold and go on in this
thought and purpose. The more thou
pressest forward the weaker the Devil is ;
the more earnestly thou pressest forth from
the Devil and thy sins, the more mightily
does the kingdom of God press into thee.
Have a care that thou dost not depart from
this thy will before thou hast received the
jewel, the pearl of divine wisdom and
knowledge ; though it holds off from
morning till night, and still from day to
day, if thy earnestness be great, then thy
jewel will also be great which thou shalt
receive in thy victory.

None knows what it is but he that has
found it by experience. It is a most
precious guest ; when it enters into the
soul there is a very wonderful triumph

70 CONFESSIOxNS OF JACOB BOEHME

there ; the bridegroom embraces his be-
loved bride, the hallelujah of paradise
sounds. Oh ! must not the earthly body
needs tremble and shake at it? Yet
though it knows not what it is, all its
members rejoice. What beauteous know-
ledge does the Virgin of the Divine
Wisdom bring with her ! She makes
learned indeed ; and though one were
dumb, yet the soul is crowned in God's
works of wonder, and must speak of his
wonder ; there is nothing in the soul but
longing to do so ; the Devil must begone,
he is quite weary and faint.

Thus the seed of paradise is sown. But
observe it well ; it is not instantly become
a tree. How many storms must the soul
undergo and endure ! How often is it
overwhelmed by sins ! For all in this
world is against it, it is as it were left
alone and forsaken ; even the children of
God themselves assault it ; and the Devil
does plague the poor soul, trying to lead

CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 71

it astray, either with flattery that it may
flatter itself, or else with the burden of
sins in the conscience. He never ceases,
and thou must always strive against him ;
for so the tree of paradise grows, as corn
does in the tempestuous winds. If it
grows high and comes to blossom, then
thou wilt enjoy the fruit ; and thou wilt
understand better what this pen has written
and what moved me to write. For I was
a long time in this condition, many storms
went over my head. Therefore this shall
be for a lasting memorial and continual
remembrance to me.

Now, says Reason, I see no more in
thee, nor in any such as thou art, than in
other poor sinners ; thine must needs be
but a hypocritical pretence ; besides, says
Reason, I also have been in such a way,
and yet remain in wickedness still and do
that which I would not do ; I am still
moved to anger, covetousness and malice.
What is the matter that a man does not

72 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

perform what he purposes, but that he
does even what himself reproves in others,
and that which he knows is not right ?

Here the tree of paradise is not dis-
cerned. Behold, my beloved Reason, this
tree is not sown into the outward man, he
is not worthy of it, he belongs to the
earth ; and the poor soul is often brought
into sins to which it does not consent, the
body being drawn into that which the soul
rejects. Now when this is so, it is not
the soul that works it. The soul says,
This is not right, nor well ; but the body
says, We must have it that we may live
and have enough. So it is, one time after
another. And a true Christian knows
not himself ; how then should he be known
by others ? Also the Devil can hide him
sufficiently that he may not be known ;
that is his masterpiece, when he can
bring a true Christian into wickedness,
to fall into sins, while this is not dis-
cerned by him, but he reproves the

CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 73

sins of others yet is sinning, outwardly,
himself.

I do not say that sin in the old man
is no hurt ; though indeed it cannot sway
the new man yet it scandalizes him. We
must with the new man live to God and
serve him, though it is not possible to be
perfect in this world ; we must continually
go on and hold out : the new man is in
a field where the ground is cold, bitter,
sour and void of life.

CHAPTER IX

THOU Sophister, I know thou wilt
accuse me of pride because I saw
so far into the Deep. But it is said that
you look only upon the wisdom of this
world : I do not esteem it or care for it ;
it affords me no joy at all. I rejoice at
this, that my soul moveth in wonders to
the praise of God, so that I know his
wondrous works, in which my soul de-
lighteth.

Now, since I know the wonders shall I
be silent ? Am I not born to this, as are
all creatures, that I should open the wonders
of God? Therefore now I labour in my
work and another in his ; and thou, proud
Sophister, in thine.

We stand all in God's field, and we

CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 75

grow to God's glory and to his works of
wonder, as well the wicked as the godly.
But every fruit groweth in its own manner :
when the mower shall cut it down, then
every fruit shall come into its own barn,
each receiveth that which is its own.
Then the field in its nature, out of which
each is grown, shall be made manifest ;
there are two centres in eternity, the love
and the wrath, and each centre brings forth
its own crop.

Therefore consider, O man, what you
condemn, that you fall not upon the sword
of the Spirit of God, and that your work
be not consumed in the fire of wrath.

Thou, Sophister, runnest on wittingly
to the Devil, for thine own profit, for thy
transitory voluptuousness and honour, and
dost not see the open gate which the
Spirit showeth thee. If thou wilt not,
then it is as was said : We have piped unto
you but ye have not danced. We have
called you, but you are not come to us ;

^6 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

I have been hungry after you, but you
have not fed me ; you are not grown in
my garden of roses, therefore you are none
of my food ; your heart hath not been
found in my praise, therefore you are not
my food. And the bridegroom passeth
by ; then cometh the other, and gathereth
what he findeth into his barn.

O dear children, if you understood this,
how would you tread underfoot the con-
tentions of the Sophisters ! Much consisteth
therein which shall hereafter be shown
you, so far as we ought ; let none be
wilfully blinded, nor be offended by the
simplicity of this hand.

If we will enter into the kingdom of
heaven we must be children, and not
cunning and wise in the understanding
of this world ; we must depart from
our earthly reason and enter into obedi-
ence to our eternal first Mother. So we
shall receive the spirit and life of our

CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME ^^

Mother, and then also we shall know her
habitation.

No wit of our own attaineth the crown
of the mystery of God. It is indeed
revealed in the writings of the Saints,
but the spirit of this world apprehendeth
it not. No Doctors, though they have
studied ever so much, have any ability in
their own wit to attain the crown of God's
hidden mysteries.

No one can in his own power apprehend
anything of the depths of God and teach
it to another ; all are children and scholars
in their ABC. Although I write and
speak in high fashion thereof, yet the
understanding is not my own ; the spirit
of the Mother speaketh out of her children
what it will ; it revealeth itself in many
ways, in one otherwise than in another,
for its wondrous wisdom is a deep without
measure, and you should not marvel that
the children of God have not one manner
of speech and word, for each speaketh

78 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

out of the wisdom of the eternal Nature-
Mother whose diversity is infinite.

But the goal is the Heart of God ; they
all run thither, and herein lies the test
whereby you shall know whether the spirit
of a man speaketh from God or from the
Devil.

Hereby we know that we are God's
children and generated of God. God is
himself the Being of all beings ; and we
are as Gods in him, through whom he
revealeth himself.

Now therefore I set before you the
ground of the heavens, the stars and
elements, that you may see what is
heavenly and what is earthly, what is
transitory and mortal, and what is eternal
and enduring. To which end I have now
purposed to myself to write ; not to boast
of my high knowledge but out of love in
Christ, as a servant and minister of Christ.

For the Lord hath both the willing and

CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 79

the doing in his hands ; I am able to do
nothing; also my earthly reason under-
standeth nothing : I am yielded into our
Mother's bosom and do as the Mother
showeth me ; I know not from anybody
else, I am not born with knowledge from
the wisdom of this world, neither do I
understand it ; but what is bestowed upon
me that I bestow again. I have no other
purpose herein, neither do I know to what
end I must write these high things : what
the Spirit showeth me, that I set down.

Thus I labour in my vineyard, in which
the Master of the house hath put me ;
hoping also to eat of the pleasant sweet
grapes, which indeed I have very often
received out of the paradise of God. I
will so speak as for the use of many, and
yet I think I write it but for myself : the
fiery driving will have it so as if I did
speak of and for many ; and yet I know
nothing of this while I write.

Therefore if it shall happen to be read,

8o CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

let none account it for a work of the out-
ward reason ; for it hath proceeded from
the inward hidden man, according to
which this hand hath written it without
respect of any person.

I exhort the reader that he will enter
into himself and behold himself in the
inward man ; then I shall be welcome to
him. This I speak seriously and faithfully.

When we consider ourselves aright in
this knowledge we see clearly that we have
been locked up and led as it were blind-
fold. The wise of this world have shut
and barred us up in their art and reason,
so that we are made to see with their eyes.
And this spirit which hath so long led us
captive may well be called Antichrist ; I
find no other name in the light of nature,
which I can call it by, but Antichrist in
Babel.

CHAPTER X

THE law of God and also the way to
life is written in our hearts ; it lies
in no man's supposing, nor in any historical
opinion, but in a good will and well doing.
The will leadeth us to God or to the Devil ;
it availeth not that thou hast the name of
a Christian, salvation doth not consist there-
in. A heathen and a Turk is as near to
God as thou who art under the name of
Christ ; if thou bringest forth a false un-
godly will in thy deeds, thou art as much
without God as a heathen that hath no
desire nor will to him. And if a Turk
seeketh God with earnestness, though he
walketh in blindness, yet he is of the
company of those that are children with-
out understanding, and he reacheth to God

82 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

with the children which do not yet know
what they speak ; for this lies not in the
knowing but in the will.

We are all blind concerning God ; but
we put our earnest will into him and into
goodness, and so desire him ; then we
receive him into our will, so that we are
born in him in our will.

Dost thou boast of thy calling, that thou
art a Christian ? Indeed let thy conversa-
tion be accordingly, or else thou art but a
heathen in the will and in the deed. He
that knoweth his Master's will and doeth
it not must receive many stripes.

Dost thou not know what Christ said
concerning the two sons ? When the
father says to one of them, Go and do
such a thing, and he said he would ; and
the other said. No ; the first went away
and did it not, but the other, that said
No, went away and did it, and so did the
will of his father ; the one that was under
the name of obedience did it not

CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 83

And we are all such, one and another ;
we bear the name of Christ and are called
Christians and are within his covenant :
we have said, Yes, we will do it ; but they
that do it not are unprofitable servants and
live without the will of the Father.

But if the Turks, as also the Jews, do
the Father's will, who say to Christ, No,
and discern him not ; who is now their
judge to thrust them out from the will of
the Father? Is not the Son the Heart of
the Father? If they honour the Father
they lay hold also on his Heart, for
beyond his Heart there is no God.

Dost thou suppose that I encourage
them in their blindness that they should
go on as they do ? No : I show thee thy
blindness, O thou that bearest the name of
Christ ! Thou judgest others, and yet dost
the same thing which thou judgest in
others, and so thou wilfully bringest the
judgement of God upon thyself.

He that saith : Love your enemies, do

84 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

well to them that persecute you, doth not
teach you to condemn and despise, but he
teacheth you the way of meekness ; you
should be a light to the world, that
heathens may see that you are the
children of God.

If we consider ourselves according to
the true man, who is a similitude and
image of God, then we find God in us,
yet ourselves without God. And the only
remedy consisteth herein, that we enter
again into ourselves and so enter into God
in our hidden man. If we incline our wills
in true earnest singleness of mind to God,
then we go with Christ out from this world,
out from the stars and elements, and enter
into God ; for in the will of earthly reason
we are children of the stars and elements,
and the spirit of this world ruleth over us.

But if we go out from the will of this
world and enter into God, then the spirit
of God ruleth in us and establisheth us for
his children. Then also the garland of

CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 85

paradise is set upon the soul, and it
becometh a child without understanding
after this world. It hath lost the ruler of
this world, who once ruled it and led it in
the earthly reason.

O man ! consider who leadeth and
driveth thee, for eternally without end is
very long. Temporal honour and goods
are but dross in the sight of God ; it all
falleth into the grave with thee and
Cometh to nothing : but to be in the
will of God is eternal riches and honour ;
there, there is no more care, but our
Mother careth for us in whose bosom we
live as children.

Thy temporal honour is thy snare and
thy misery ; in divine hope and confidence
is thy garden of roses.

Dost thou suppose again that I speak
from hearsay ? No, I speak the very life
in my own experience ; not in an opinion
from the mouth of another, but from my
own knowledge. I see with my own eyes ;

86 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

which I boast not of, for the power is the
Mother's. I exhort thee to enter into the
bosom of the Mother, and learn also to
see with thy own eyes : so long as thou
dost suffer thyself to be rocked in a cradle
and dost desire the eyes of others thou
art blind. But if thou risest up from the
cradle and dost go to the Mother, then
thou shalt discern the Mother and her
children.

O how good it is to see with one's own
eyes ! We are all asleep in the outward
man, we lie in the cradle and suffer our-
selves to be rocked asleep by the outward
reason ; we see with the eyes of the dis-
simulation of our play-actors, who hang
bells and baubles about our ears and
cradles, that we may be lulled asleep or
at least play with baubles, and they may
be lords and masters in the house.

Rise up from thy cradle : art thou not
a child of the Mother, and moreover a
child and lord of the house, and an heir

CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 87

to its goods ? Why sufferest thou thy
servants thus to use thee ? Christ saith :
I am the Light of the World, he that
followeth me shall have the light of the
eternal life. He doth not direct us to the
play-actors, but only to himself. With the
inward eyes we must see in his light : so
we shall see him, for he is the Light ; and
when we see him then we walk in the
light. He is the Morning Star and is
generated in us and riseth in us, and
shineth in our bodily darkness.

0 how great a triumph is there in the
soul when he ariseth ! Then a man seeth
with his own eyes, and knoweth that he
is in a strange lodging, concerning which
I here write what I see and know in the
light.

1 declare unto you that the eternal
Being, and also this world, is like man.
Eternity bringeth to birth nothing but
that which is like itself ; as you find man
to be, just so is eternity. Consider man

88 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

in body and soul, in good and evil, in joy
and sorrow, in light and darkness, in power
and weakness, in life and death : all is in
man, both heaven and the earth, stars, and
elements ; also the threefold God.

O man ! seek thyself and thou shalt
find thyself. Open the eyes of thy inward
man and see rightly.

This is the noble precious stone, the
philosopher's stone, which wise men find.
O thou bright crown of pearl, art thou not
brighter than the sun ? There is nothing
like thee ; thou art so very manifest, and
yet so very secret that among many
thousand in this world thou art scarce
rightly known of anyone. Yet thou art
borne by many that know thee not.

Christ saith. Seek and thou shalt find.
The noble stone must be sought for ; a
lazy man findeth it not ; though he carrieth
it about with him he knoweth it not. To
whomsoever it revealeth itself, he hath all
joy therein, for its virtue is endless. He

CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 89

that hath it doth not give it away ; if he
doth impart it to any it is not profitable
to him that is lazy, who diveth not into its
virtue to learn that.

The seeker findeth the stone and its
virtue and benefit together. When he
findeth it and knows that he is certain
of it, there is greater joy in him than the
world is able to apprehend ; no pen can
describe nor any tongue express it in the
manner of the world.

It is accounted in the world's eyes the
meanest of all stones and is trodden under
foot. If a man light upon it he casteth
it away as an unprofitable thing. None
enquire after it, though there is none upon
earth but desires it. All great ones and
wise seek it. Indeed they find one and
think it the true stone ; but they mistake
it. They ascribe power and virtue to it
and think they have it and will keep it.
But the true stone is not thus : it needeth
no virtue to be ascribed to it, all virtue

90 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

lies hid in it. He who has it, and has
knowledge of it, if he seeks, may find all
things whatsoever, in heaven and in earth.
It is the stone which is rejected of the
builders, the chief corner-stone.

0 you Sophisters ! that out of envy
often revile honest hearts according to
your own pleasure, how will you be able
to stand with those lambs whom you
should have led into the fresh green
pastures of the way of Christ, into love,
purity and humility ?

1 speak not this out of a desire to
reproach any man ; I discover only the
smoky pit of the Devil that it may be
seen what is in man, as well in one as
in another, unless he be born anew and
resisteth the spirit of the Devil and
thrusteth it away from him.

There is another Devil more crafty
and cunning than this, a glistering angel
with cloven feet, He, when he seeth a

CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 91

poor soul afraid, and desiring to repent
and amend, saith. Pray, and be devout ;
repent for once in a way. But when the
poor soul goes about to pray, he slippeth
into his heart and taketh away the under-
standing of the heart, and putteth it into
mere doubting, as if God did not hear it.

So the heart standeth and repeateth
over the words of a prayer, as if it were
learning to say something without book ;
and the soul cannot reach the centre of
nature ; it hath only rehearsed words, not
in the spirit of a soul in the centre where
the fire is kindled, but only in the mouth,
in the spirit of this world. Its words
vanish in the air or as those wherein
God's name is taken in vain.

There belongeth great earnestness to
prayer ; for praying is calling upon God,
entreating him and speaking with him,
going out of the house of sin and enter-
ing the house of God. If the Devil offers
to hinder it, then storm his hell. Set

92 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

thyself against him as he setteth himself
against thee, and then thou shalt find what
is here told thee. If he opposes strongly,
then oppose thou the more strongly ; thou
hast, in Christ, greater power than he.

Do but fix thy trust and confidence
upon the promise of Christ, and let thy
storming be grounded in the death of
Christ, in his sufferings and wounds, and
in his love. Dispute no further about thy
sins, for the Devil involveth himself therein
and upbraideth thee for them, that thou
mightest despair. If thou doubtest of the
grace of God thou dost sin greatly, for he
is always merciful ; there is no other will
in him at all but to be merciful. He
cannot do otherwise ; his arms are spread
abroad day and night towards the poor
sinner.

Make trial in this manner, and thou wilt
quickly see and feel another man, with
another sense and thoughts and under-
standing. I speak as I know and have

CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 93

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.

CHAPTER XI

GOD has set light and darkness be-
fore everyone ; thou mayest embrace
which thou wilt, thou dost not thereby
move God in his being. His Spirit goes
forth from him and meets all those that
seek him. Their seeking is his seeking, in
which he desireth humanity ; for humanity
is his image, which he has created accord-
ing to his whole being, and wherein he
will see and know himself. Yea, he dwells
in man, why then are we men so long
a-seeking? Let us but seek to know
ourselves, and when we find ourselves
we find all ; we need run nowhere to
seek God, for we can thereby do him no
service ; if we do but seek and love one
another, then we love God ; what we do

CONFESSIOxNS OF JACOB BOEHME 95

to one another, that we do to God ;
whosoever seeketh and findeth his brother
and sister hath sought and found God.
In him we are all one body of many
members, everyone having its own office,
government and work ; and that is the
wonder of God.

Before the time of this world we were
known in his wisdom, and he created us
that there might be a sport in him.
Children are our schoolmasters ; in all
our wit and cunning we are but fools to
them ; their first lesson is to learn to play
with themselves, and when they grow
bigger they play one with another. Thus
hath God from eternity in his wisdom, in
our hidden childhood, played with us :
when he created us in knowledge and
skill we should then have played one
with another ; but the Devil grudged us
that and made us fall out at our sport.
Therefore it is that we are always at
variance, in contention ; but we have

96 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

nothing to contend about but our sport ;
when that is at an end we lie down to
our rest and go to our own place. Then
come others to play and strive and con-
tend also till the evening, till they go to
sleep and into their own country out of
which they are come.

Dear children, what do we mean that
we are so obedient to the Devil ? Why
do we so contend about a tabernacle which
we have not made? Here we contend
about a garment, because one brother has
a fairer garment than another ; are we not
all our Mother's children ? Let us be
obedient children, and then we shall rejoice.

We go into the garden of roses, and
there are lilies and flowers enough ; we
will make a garland for our sister, and
then she will rejoice with us ; we have a
round to dance and we will all hold hands
together. Let us be very joyful ; there
is no more might to hurt us, our Mother
taketh care for us. We will go under

CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 97

the fig-tree, how abundant is its fruit !
How fair are the pine trees in Lebanon !
Let us be glad and rejoice that our Mother
may have joy of us.

We will sing a song of the Oppressor
who hath set us at variance. How is he
made captive ! Where is his power ?
How poor he is ! He domineered over
us, but now he is fast bound. O great
Power, how art thou thus brought to
scorn ! Thou that didst fly aloft above
the cedars art now laid underfoot and art
void of thy power. Rejoice, ye heavens
and ye children of God ; for he that was
our oppressor, who plagued us day and
night, is made captive. Rejoice, ye angels
of God, for men are delivered, and malice
and wickedness laid low.

Dear children and brethren in Christ,
let us in this world join our hearts, minds
and wills in humility into one love, that
we may be one in Christ. If thou art

7

98 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

highly advanced to power, authority and
honour, then be humble, despise not the
simple and miserable ; grind not the
oppressed, afflict not the afflicted. If
thou art fair, beautiful and comely of
body, be not proud ; be humble that thy
brother and sister may rejoice in thee,
and present thy beauty to the praise of
God.

Thou that art rich, let thy streams flow
into the houses of the miserable that their
soul may bless thee.

Dear brethren and sisters in the con-
gregation of Christ, bear with me ; let us
a little rejoice one with another : I bear
a hearty love towards you and speak out
of the Spirit of the eternal Wisdom of
God.

Christ earnestly teaches us love, humility
and mercifulness ; and the cause why God
is become man is for our salvation and
happiness' sake, that we should not turn
back from his love : God has spent his

CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 99

heart that we may be his children and
remain so for ever. Therefore, dearly
beloved children, do not so reject and
cast from you the love and grace of God,
else you will lament it for ever. Learn
divine wisdom, and learn to know what
God is ; do not set any image of any
thing before you ; there is no image of
him but in Christ. We live and are in
God ; we have heaven and hell in our-
selves. What we make of ourselves that
we are : if we make of ourselves an angel,
and dwell in the Light and Love of God
in Christ, we are so ; but if we make of
ourselves a fierce, false and haughty devil
which contemns all love and meekness in
mere covetousness, greedy hunger and
thirst, then also we are so. After this
life it is otherwise with us than here ;
what the soul here embraces that it
has there ; and so, though the outward
breaks in death, yet the will retains that
embraced thing as its own and feeds upon

loo CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

it. How that will subsist in the paradise
of God and before his angels, you your-
self may consider : I would faithfully set
it before you for a warning, as it is given
to me.

CHAPTER XII

WHEN Christ asked his disciples,
Whom do the people say that the
Son of Man is ? they answered : Some
say thou art Elijah, some, that thou art
John the Baptist. Then he asked them
and said : Whom say ye that I am ? Peter
answered him, Thou art Christ the Son of
the living God. And he answered them
and said, Of a truth, flesh and blood hath
not revealed it unto thee, but my Father
in heaven.

Seeing it is a familiar, intimate and
native work to the children of God, where-
with they should exercise themselves daily
and hourly, go forth from the earthly
reason to enter into the incarnation of
Christ, and so in this miserable life be

I02 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

born in the birth of Christ ; I have there-
fore undertaken to write of this high
mystery, according to my knowledge and
gifts, for a memorial. Seeing that I also,
together with others the children of God
and Christ, stand in this birth, I have
undertaken it as an exercise of faith,
whereby my soul may thus, as a branch
in its tree Jesus Christ, quicken itself from
his sap and virtue.

And that not with wise and high
eloquence of art, or from the reason of
this world, but according to the knowledge
which I have from Christ. But though
I search sublimely and deep, and shall set
it down very clearly, yet this must be said
to the reader, that without the Spirit of
God it will be to him a hidden mystery.

We should rightly understand the incar-
nation of Christ, the Son of God, thus : he
is not become man in the Virgin Mary
only, so that his divinity was confined
thereto. No, it is in another manner.

CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 103

As little as God, who is the fulness of
all things, dwells alone in one only place,
so little also has God manifested himself
by one spark of his light.

God is not measurable ; for him is no
place found unless he makes a place for
himself in a creature ; yet he is totally
within the creature and without and beyond
the creature. He is not divisible, but total
everywhere ; where he manifests himself
there he is totally manifest.

Understand it right : God has longed
to become flesh and blood ; and although
the pure clear Deity continues Spirit, yet
it is become the Spirit and Life of flesh
and works in the flesh. So we may say
that when we with our imagination enter
into God, and wholly give up ourselves
unto him, we enter into God's flesh and
blood and live in God. For the Word is
become man, and God is the Word.

We do not thus take away the creature
of Christ, that he should not be a creature ;

I04 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

I will give you a similitude thereof in the
sun and its lustre and take it thus : in a
similitude we liken the sun to the creature
of Christ, which is indeed a body ; and we
liken the whole deep of this world to the
eternal Word in the Father.

Now we see plainly that the sun shines
in the whole deep, and gives it warmth
and power. But we cannot say that in
the deep beyond the body of the sun there
is not also the power of the sun ; if that
was not there then would the deep not
receive the power and lustre of the sun.
One power and one lustre receives the
other ; the deep with its lustre is hidden.

If God would please, the whole deep
would be a mere sun ; then would the
lustre of the sun shine everywhere.

Know also that I understand that the
Heart of God hath rested from eternity ;
but that with the moving and entering into
the Wisdom it is become manifested in all
places ; though in God there is neither

CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 105

place nor mark but merely in the creature
of Christ, where the total holy Trinity has
manifested itself in a creature and so by
the creature through the whole heaven.

He is gone thither and has prepared the
place for us, where we shall see his light
and dwell in his wisdom and share in his
divine substantiality.

Were we not in the beginning made out
of God's substantiality ? Why should we
not also abide therein ?

For this has the Heart of God moved
itself, destroyed death, and regenerated
the Life.

Thus now to us the birth and incarnation
of Christ is a joyful and very weighty
matter. The abyssal Heart of God hath
moved itself; and therewith the heavenly
substantiality, which was shut up in death,
is become living again.

So we may now say with good ground
that God himself hath withstood his anger,
and with the centre of his Heart, which

io6 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

filleth eternity, has again opened himself,
taken away the power of death, and broke
the sting of the fierce wrath, inasmuch as
love has opened itself and quenched the
power of the fire.

In our imagination we become impreg-
nated of his opened Word and of the power
of the heavenly and divine substantiality,
which indeed is not strange to us though
it seems strange to our earthliness.

The Word has opened itself everywhere,
in every man's light of life ; and there is
wanting only this, that the soul-spirit give
itself up thereto. In that soul-spirit God
is born.

CHAPTER XIII

OUTWARD reason saith, How may
a man in this world see into God,
into another world, and declare what God
is ? That cannot be : it must needs be
a fancy wherewith the man amuses and
deceives himself.

Thus far such reason comes : it cannot
search further that it might rest ; and if I
staid in that same art, then would I also
say the same ; for he who sees nothing
says nothing is there ; what he sees,
that he knows, and further he knows of
nothing but that which is before his
eyes.

I would have the scorner and wholly
earthly man asked whether the heaven is

blind, as also hell and God himself.

107

io8 CONFESSIONS OF .JACOB BOEHME

Or whether there is any seeing in the
divine world ; whether also the Spirit
of God sees both in the love-light world
and in the fierce wrath in the anger-
world.

Does he say there is a seeing therein ?
as indeed is very true : then he should
look to it that he himself does not often
see with the Devil's eyes in his purposed
malice.

If he would drive the Devil out, then
he would see his great folly which the
Devil has prompted him to. Yet he is so
blinded that he knows not that he sees
with the Devil's eyes.

In like manner the holy man sees with
God's eyes ; what God purposes, that the
Spirit of God in the new birth sees out of
the right human eyes of the image of
God. It is to the wise a seeing and also
a doing.

In the way through the death of Christ
the new man sees into the angelical world ;

CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 109

it is to him much easier and clearer to
apprehend than the earthly world ; it is
done naturally, not with fancying but with
seeing eyes, with eyes of that spirit which
goes forth out of the soul's fire.

That spirit sees into heaven ; it beholds
God and eternity. It is the noble image
according to the similitude of God.

Out of such seeing has this pen written,
not from other masters, nor out of con-
jecture whether it be true or no.

Though now indeed a creature is but a
piece and not a total consummation, so
that we see only in part, yet what is
written here is to be searched into, and is
fundamental.

The Wisdom of God suffers not itself
to be written, for it is endless, without
number and comprehension ; we know
only in part.

And though indeed we know much
more, yet the earthly tongue cannot exalt
itself and declare it : it speaks only words

no CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

of this world and not words of the inward
world, though the mind retains them in
the hidden man.

Therefore one always understands other-
wise than another, according as each is
endued with the Wisdom ; and so also he
apprehends and explains it.

Everyone will not understand my writ-
ings according to my meaning and sense ;
indeed there may not be one who does so ;
but everyone will understand according to
his gifts, for his benefit ; one more than
another, according as the Spirit has its
property in him.

For the Spirit of God is often subject
to the spirits of men, if they will that which
is good or well ; and it furthers what man
wills, that his good work be not hindered,
but that everywhere, above all, God's
willing and desire be done.

What is there now that is stranofe to us
or in us, that we cannot see God ? This
world and the Devil are the cause that we

COxNFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME in

see not with God's eyes, else there is no
hindrance.

Now if anyone saith I see nothing
divine, he should consider that flesh and
blood, together with the subtlety and craft
of the Devil, is oftentimes a hindrance to
him, in that he willeth in his high-minded-
ness for his own honour to see God, and
oftentimes in that he is filled and blinded
with earthly malignity.

Let him look into the footsteps of Christ
and enter into a new life, and give himself
to be under the Cross of Christ, and desire
only the entrance of Christ into himself ;
what shall hinder him then from seeing
the Father, his Saviour Christ, and the
Holy Spirit?

Is the Holy Spirit blind when he dwells
in man ? Or write I this for my own
boasting ?

Not so, but that the reader may forsake
his error, and that with the divine eyes he
may see the wonders of God, and so God's

112 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

will may be done. To which end this pen
has written very much, and not for its own
honour or for the sake of the pleasures of
this life.

Dear children of God, you who seek
with much sighing and tears, I say to you
in earnest sincerity : Our sight and know-
ledge is in God ; he manifests to everyone
in this world as much as he will, as much
as he knows is profitable for the man.

He that sees from God, he has God's
work to manage ; he should and must
order, speak, and do that which he sees,
else his sight will be taken from him ; for
this world is not worthy of God's vision.

But for the sake of the wonders and of
the revelation of God it is given to many
to see ; that the Name of God may be
manifested to the world. We are not
our own, but his whom we serve in his
light. We know nothing of God ; he, God
himself, is our knowing and seeing ; we
are nothing that he may be all in us. We

CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 1 1 3

should be blind, deaf and dumb, and know
no life in us, that he may be our life and
vision, and our work be his.

If we have done anything that is good,
our tongue should not say, This have we
done, but, This hath the Lord in us done ;
his name be highly praised.

But what does this evil world now ? If
anyone says. This has God in me done ;
if it be good, then saith the world. Thou
fool ! thou hast done it ; God is not in
thee ; thou liest. Thus they make fool
and liar of the Spirit of God.

When you see that the world fighteth
against you, persecutes you, despises,
slanders you because of your knowledge
and the Name of God, then consider that
you have the black Devil before you.
Then sigh, and long that God's kingdom
may come to us, and the Devil's sting may
be destroyed, that the man, so influenced
by the Devil, may through your longing,
sighing and prayer be released. Then you

114 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

labour rightly in God's vineyard and pre-
vent the Devil of his kingdom.

In love and meekness we become new-
born out of the wrath of God ; in love and
meekness we must strive and fight against
the Devil in this world. For love is his
poison ; it is a fire of terror to him wherein
he cannot stay. If he knew the least spark
of love in himself he would cast it away,
or would destroy himself that he might be
rid of it. Therefore is love and meekness
our sword, wherewith we can fight with
the Devil and the world.

Love is God's fire ; the Devil and the
world are an enemy to it. Love hath
God's eyes and sees in God ; anger has
the eyes of the fierce wrath that sees in
hell, in torment and in death.

The world supposes merely that a man
must see God with the earthly and the
starry eyes ; it knows not that God dwells
in the inward and not in the outward.

If it sees nothing admirable or wonder-

CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 115

ful in God's children it says, Oh, he is a
fool, he is an idiot, he is melancholy ; thus
much it knows.

O hearken, I know well what melancholy
is ; I know also well what is from God.
I know them both, and thee also in thy
blindness ; but such knowledge is not
purchased by melancholy, only by a
wrestling to victory.

It is given to none without striving,
unless he is a vessel chosen of God ;
otherwise he must strive for the garland.

Indeed many a man is chosen to it in
his mother's womb, chosen to open and
disclose the wonders which God intends ;
but not all are chosen thus. Many are
accepted out of their zealous seeking ; for
Christ saith. Seek and ye shall find, knock
and so it will be opened unto you. Also,
whosoever come to me, those I will not
cast out.

Herein lies the seeing out of Christ's
spirit, out of God's kingdom, in the power

Ii6 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

of the Word, with the eyes of God and not
with the eyes of this world and of the out-
ward flesh.

Thus, thou bHnd world, know wherewith
we see when we speak and write of God,
and let thy false judging alone : see thou
with thine eyes and let God's children see
with their eyes ; see from out thy gifts, let
another see from out his gifts.

As everyone is called, so let him see ;
and so let him converse. We manage not
all one and the same conversation, but
everyone according to his gift, and his
calling to serve God's honour and wonders.

The Spirit of God suffers not itself to
be tied or bound up, as outward reason
supposes, with decrees, canons and councils,
whereby always one chain of Antichrist is
linked to another so that men come to judge
about God's Spirit, and to hold their own
conceits or opinions to be God's covenant,
as if God was not at home in this world, or
as if they were Gods upon earth.

CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 117

I say that all such compacts and binding
is Antichrist and unbelief, let it seem or
flatter how it will. God's Spirit is unbound,
he enters not into such compacts or obliga-
tions, but enters freely the seeking, humble,
lowly mind, according to its gift and
capacity.

He is also even subjected to it, if it does
but earnestly desire him ; what then can
institutions in human wit and prudence of
this world do for that mind, since it belongs
to the honour of God ?

Friendly conference and colloquy is very
good and necessary, wherein one presents
or imparts his gifts to another ; but com-
pacts are a chain against God.

God has once made one covenant with
us in Christ ; that is enough for eternity,
he makes no more. He has once taken
mankind into the covenant and sealed it
by blood and death ; there is enough in
that.

It is not so slight a thing to be a right

ii8 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

true Christian, it is the very hardest thing
of all ; the will must be a soldier, and fight
against the corrupted will. It must sink
itself down out of the earthly reason into
the death of Christ, and break the power of
the earthly will.

This must be with so hardy and bold a
courage that it will hazard the earthly life
upon it and not give over till it has broke
the earthly will ; which indeed has been a
strong battle with me.

It is no slight matter to fight for the
garland of victory ; for no one wins that
unless he overcomes ; which yet of his own
might he cannot do.

He must make his will as it were dead,
and so he lives to God and sinks into God's
love ; though he lives now in the outward
kingdom.

I speak of the garland of victory which
he getteth in the paradise world if he once
presses in ; for there the noble seed is sown,
and he receives the highly precious pledge

CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 119

and earnest of the Holy Spirit, which after-
wards leads and directs him.

And though he must in this world wander
through a dark valley, wherein the Devil
and the world's wickedness continually rush
and roar tumultuously upon him, and often
cast the outward man into evils and so hide
the noble seed, yet it will not suffer itself to
be kept back.

Thence it sprouts forth, and a tree grows
out of it in God's kingdom, despite all the
raging and raving of the Devil and his
followers and dependents.

And the more the noble tree is cherished,
the more swiftly and strongly it grows ; it
suffers not itself to be destroyed though it
costs the outward life.

God is in Christ become man, and the
faith-spirit is also in Christ born man. In
that the will-spirit converses or walks in
God, for it is one spirit with God, and
works with God divine works.

And though it may be that the earthly

120 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

life so hides it that a man knows not his
work which he has generated in the faith,
yet in breaking the earthly body it will be
manifest. Seeing we know this we should
let no fear or terror keep us back, for we
shall well reap and enjoy eternally. What
we have here sown in anguish and weari-
ness, that will comfort us eternally. Amen.

CHAPTER XIV

WE cannot say that the outward world
is God, or the speaking Word ; or
that the outward man is God. That is
only the expressed Word, which has
stiffened itself in union with the elements.
I say, the inward world is the heaven where
God dwells ; and the outward world is
expressed out of the inward, through the
moving of the eternal speaking Word,
and enclosed between a beginning and
an end.

The inward world abides in the eternal
speaking Word. The eternal Word
speaks it into Being through Wisdom, out
of its own powers, colours, and virtue, as a
great mystery from eternity. This Being
is a breathing from the Word in the

122 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

Wisdom ; it has the power of generation
in itself, and introduces itself into forms,
after the manner of the generation of the
eternal Word, or, as I might say, out of the
Wisdom in the Word.

Therefore there is nothing nigh unto or
far off from God ; one world is in the other
and all are one as soul and body are in
each other, and time and eternity. The
eternal speaking Word rules through and
over all ; it works from eternity to eternity ;
and though it can neither be apprehended
nor conceived, yet its work is conceived,
for this is the formed Word, of which the
working Word is the life.

The eternal speaking Word is the divine
understanding or sound. That which is
brought forth from the love-desire into
forms, that, I say, is the natural and
creaturely understanding and sound which
was in the Word; as it is said, In him
was life, and that life was the light of men.

The harmony of hearing, seeing, feeling.

CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 123

tasting, and smelling, is the true intellective
life. When one power enters into another,
then they embrace each other in the sound ;
and when they are become one they mutu-
ally awaken and know each other. In
this knowledge consists the true under-
standing, which, according to the nature
of the eternal wisdom, is immeasurable
and abyssal, being of the One which
is All.

Therefore one only will, if it has divine
light in it, may draw from this fountain
and behold infinity. From which con-
templation this pen has wrote.

In the light of God (which is called the
kingdom of heaven) the sound is wholly
soft, pleasant, lovely and pure ; yea, as a
stillness in comparison with our outward
gross speaking and sounding. It is as if
the mind did play and melodize in a
kingdom of joy within itself, and did then
hear in a most entire inward manner a
sweet, pleasing melody and tune ; and

124 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

yet outwardly did neither hear nor under-
stand it. For in the divine Hght all is
subtle, in manner as the thoughts play
and make mutual melody in one an-
other.

And yet there is a real, intelligible, dis-
tinct sound and speech used by the angels,
according to their own property, in the
kingdom of glory. The powers of the
formed and manifested Word, in their
love - desire, do introduce themselves,
according to the property of all the
powers, into an external being, where, as
in a mansion, they may act their love-play,
and so have somewhat wherewith and
wherein mutually to play and melodize
one with another, in their wrestling sport
of love.

God, who is a Spirit, has by and through
his manifestation introduced himself into
distinct spirits, which are the voices of his
eternal pregnant harmony in the mani-
fested Word of his great kingdom of joy :

CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 125

they are God's instrument, in which his
Spirit melodizes in his kingdom of joy ;
they are angels, the flames of fire
and light, in a living, understanding
dominion.

We are not to think that the holy angels
dwell only above the stars beyond the
place of this world, as the outward reason,
which knows nothing of God, fancies.
Indeed they dwell beyond the dominion of
this world, but the place of this world
(although there is no place in eternity),
and also the place beyond this world, is
all one to them. We men see not the
angels or the devils with our eyes ; yet
they are about us and among us. The
evil and the good angels dwell near one
another, and yet there is the greatest
immense distance between them. For
heaven is in hell and hell is in heaven,
and yet the one is not manifest to the
other. Although the Devil should go
many millions of miles, desiring to enter

126 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

heaven and to see it, yet he would still be
in hell and not see it.

If evil was not known, joy would not be
manifest. But if joy be manifest, then is
the eternal Word spoken in joy, to which
end the Word, with nature, has brought
itself into a creation. Whosoever rightly
sees and understands this has no further
question about any thing, for he sees that
he lives and subsists in God, and that he
may further know and will through him
and speak what and how he will. Such
a man seeks only the estate of lowli-
ness, that God may alone be accounted
high.

My will-spirit, which now is in Christ's
humanity, lives in Christ's spirit, that shall
in his power give sap to the dry tree, that
it may arise in the sound of the trumpet
of the divine breath in Christ's voice,
which is also my voice in his breath, and
spring afresh in paradise. Paradise shall

CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 127

be in me ; all whatever God has and is
shall appear in me as an image of the
divine world's being ; all colours, powers
and virtues of his eternal Wisdom shall be
manifest in me, as in his likeness. I shall
be the manifestation of the divine and
spiritual world and an instrument of
God's Spirit, wherein he makes melody
with himself, with this voice which I my-
self am. I shall be his instrument, an
organ of his expressed Word and Voice ;
and not only I, but all my fellow-members
in the glorious choir and instrument of
God. We are all strings in the concert of
his joy ; the spirit from his mouth strikes
the note and tune of our strings.

Therefore God became man, that he
might repair his glorious instrument of
praise, which would not sound according
to the desire of his joy and of his love.
He would bring again the true love-sound
into the strings ; he has brought the voice
which sounds in his presence again into

128 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

us ; he is become that which I am and
has made me that which he is, so I may
say that in my humility I am in him his
trumpet and the sound of his instrument
and his divine voice.

CHAPTER XV

I WILL now speak to those who feel
indeed in themselves a desire to
repent, and yet cannot come to acknow-
ledge and bewail their committed sins ;
the flesh saying continually to the soul,
Stay awhile, it is well enough, or. It is
time enough to-morrow ; and when to-
morrow is come then the flesh says again.
To-morrow ; the soul in the meanwhile,
sighing and fainting, conceiveth neither
any true sorrow for the sins it hath com-
mitted nor any comfort. Unto such an
one, I say, I will write a process or way,
which I myself have gone, that he may
know what he must do and how it went
with me, if peradventure he be inclined to
enter into and pursue the same way.
9

I30 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

When any man findeth in himself,
pressed home upon his mind and con-
science, a hunger or desire to repent, and
yet feeleth no true sorrow in himself for his
sins which he hath committed, but only an
hunger or desire of such sorrow ; so that
the poor captive soul continually sighs,
fears, and must needs acknowledge itself
guilty of sins before the judgement of God ;
such an one, I say, can take no better
course than this, namely, to wrap up his
senses, mind and reason together, and
make to himself instantly, as soon as ever
he perceiveth in himself the desire to re-
pent, a mighty strong purpose and resolu-
tion that he will that very hour, nay, that
minute, immediately enter into repentance,
and go forth from his wicked way, not at
all regarding the power and respect of the
world. Yea, and if it should be required,
that he will forsake and disesteem all things
for true repentance sake ; and never depart
from that resolution again though he

CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 131

should be made the fool and scorn of all
the world for it ; that with the full bent
and strength of his mind he will go forth
from the glory and pleasure of the world,
and patiently enter into the passion and
death of Christ, and set all his hope and
confidence upon the life to come ; that
even now in righteousness and truth he
will enter into the vineyard of Christ and
therein do the will of God ; that in the
Spirit and will of Christ he will begin and
finish all his actions in this world ; and for
the sake of Christ's word and promise,
which holds forth to us a heavenly reward,
willingly take up and bear every adversity
and cross, so that he may be admitted into
the communion and fellowship of the
children of Christ.

He must firmly imagine to himself,
wholly wrapping up his soul in this per-
suasion, that in such his purpose he shall
obtain the love of God in Christ Jesus,
and that God will give unto him that

132 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

noble pledge, the Holy Ghost, for an
earnest ; that in the humanity of Christ
he himself shall be born again, and that
the Spirit of Christ will renew his mind
with love and power and strengthen his
weak faith. Also that in his divine hunger
he shall receive the flesh and blood of
Christ for food and drink in the desire
of his soul, which hungereth and thirsteth
after it as its proper nutriment ; and with
the thirst of the soul drink the water of
eternal life out of the pure fountain of
Jesus Christ.

He must also wholly and firmly imagine
to himself and set before him the great
love of God. He must persuade himself
that God in Christ will much more readily
hear him and receive him to grace than
he come ; that God in the love of Christ,
in the most dear and precious name Jesus,
cannot will any evil ; and that there is no
angry countenance at all in this Name,
but only the highest and deepest love

CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 133

and faithfulness, the greatest sweetness
of God.

In this consideration he must firmly
imagine to himself that this very hour and
instant God is really present within and
without him. He must know and believe
that in his inward man he standeth really
before God on whom his soul hath turned
its back ; and he must, with the eyes of
his mind cast down in fear and deepest
humility, begin to confess his sins and
unworthiness before the face of God in
some such manner as the following :

O thou great unsearchable God, Lord
of all things ; thou who in Christ Jesus,
of thy great love towards us, hath mani-
fested thyself in our humanity : I, poor,
unworthy, sinful wretch, come before thy
presence, though I am not worthy to lift
up mine eyes unto thee, acknowledging
and confessing that I am guilty of breaking
off from thy great love and the grace
which thou hast freely bestowed upon us.

134 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

My soul knoweth not itself because of the
mire of sin ; but accounteth itself a strange
child before thee, not worthy to desire
thy grace.

O God in Christ Jesus, thou who for
poor sinners' sake didst become man to
help them, to thee I complain. The
Devil hath poisoned me so that I know
not my Saviour ; I am become a wild
branch on thy tree. In myself I am
become a fool ; I am naked and bare,
my shame stands before mine eyes, I
cannot hide it ; thy judgement waiteth
for me. What shall I say before
thee, who art the Judge of all the
world ?

O merciful God, it is owing to thy love
and longsuffering that I lie not already in
hell. I lie before thee as a dying man
whose life is passing from his lips, as a
spark of life going out ; kindle it, O Lord,
and lift up the breath of my soul before
thee.

CONFESSIOxNS OF JACOB BOEHME 135

A man must bring a serious mind to
this work. If ever he would obtain the
divine love, and union with the noble
Wisdom of God, he must make an earnest
vow in his purpose and mind.

Beloved Reader, out of love to thee I
will not conceal from thee what is made
known to me. If thou lovest the vanity
of the flesh still, and art not in an earnest
purpose on the way to the new birth,
intending to become a new man, then
leave the above-written words in that
prayer unspoken ; else they will turn to
a judgement of God in thee. Thou must
not take the holy names in vain ; they
belong to the thirsty soul. But if thy
soul be indeed athirst it shall find by
experience what words they are.

Beloved Soul; Christ was tempted in
the wilderness, and, if thou wilt put on
him, thou must go through his whole
progress even from his incarnation to his
ascension. Though thou art not able

136 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

nor required to do that which he hath
done, yet thou must enter wholly into his
process and therein die continually from
corruption. For the Virgin, the Holy
Wisdom, expouseth not herself to the
soul except the soul, through the death
of Christ, spring up as a new plant,
standing in heaven.

Therefore take heed what thou doest :
when thou hast made thy promise keep
it ; then Wisdom will crown thee more
readily than thou wouldst be crowned. But
thou must be sure, when the Tempter
Cometh to thee with the pleasure and
glory of the world, that thy mind reject
it. The free will of thy soul must stand
the brunt as a warrior and champion. If
the Devil cannot prevail against thy soul
with vanity, then he cometh against it
with its unworthiness and its catalogue
of sins. There thou must fight hard, for
in this conflict it goeth so terribly with
many a poor sinner that outward reason

CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 137

thinketh him to be distracted, or possessed
by an evil spirit. In this kind of combat
heaven and hell are fighting one against
the other. Yet a soldier who hath been
in the wars can tell how to fight, and can
teach another that may be in the like
condition.

I have set down here for the help of
the reader a very earnest prayer in temp-
tation, that he may know what to do if
the same should befall him :

Most deep Love of God in Christ Jesus,
leave me not in this distress. I confess I
am guilty of the sins which now rise up
in my mind and conscience ; if thou forsake
me I must perish. But hast thou not
promised me in thy word, saying, If a
mother could forget her child (which can
hardly be), yet thou wilt not forget me ?
Thou hast set me as a sign in thy hands
which were pierced through with sharp
nails, and in thy open side whence blood
and water gushed out. Poor wretch that

138 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

I am ! I can in my own ability do nothing
before thee ; I sink myself down into thy
wounds and death ; into thee I sink down
in the anguish of my conscience ; do with
me what thou wilt.

Beloved Reader, this is no light matter ;
he that accounteth it so hath not yet passed
through the trial. His conscience is still
asleep. Happy is he who passeth through
this fire in the time of his youth, before
the Devil buildeth up in him a stronghold ;
he may prove a labourer in the heavenly
vineyard, and sow his seed in the garden
of Christ, where in due time he shall reap
the fruit. This trial continueth a long
while with many a poor soul, several years
if he do not earnestly and early put on
the armour of Christ. But to him who
with a firm purpose striveth to depart from
his evil ways the temptation will not be
so hard, neither will it continue so long.
Yet he must stand out valiantly till victory

CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 139

be gotten over the Devil. He shall be
mightily assisted, and all shall end in the
best for him ; so that afterwards, when the
day breaketh in his soul, he turneth all to
the great praise and glory of God.

CHAP:TER XVI

ALL sorrow, anguish, and fear concern-
ing spiritual things, whereby a man
is dejected and terrified in himself, pro-
ceedeth from the soul. The outward
spirit, which is from the stars and
elements, is not thus disturbed and per-
plexed ; because it liveth in its own matrix
from which it had its birth. But the poor
soul is entered into a strange lodging, into
the spirit of this world, which is not its
proper home. Whereby that fair creature
is obscured and defaced, and is also held
captive therein, as in a dark dungeon.

The soul is in its first being a magical
fire-source from God's nature. It is an
intense and incessant desire after the
divine Light.

CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 141

So then, the soul, being of itself
a hungry magical fire-spirit, desireth
spiritual virtue in order to sustain and
preserve thereby its fire-life and allay the
hunger of its source.

But seeing that the hungry soul, from
the mother's womb, is involved in the
spirit of the great world and its own
temperament ; therefore it feedeth, im-
mediately from its birth, yea, even in the
mother's womb, of the spirit of this world.

The soul eateth spiritual food accord-
ing to its temperament ; it is the kindling
of its fire. The fuel of its fire must be
either its temperament or a divine susten-
ance from God.

Hence we may understand the cause of
that infinite variety which there is in the
wills and actions of men. Of whatever the
soul eateth, wherewith its fire-life is fed,
according to that the soul's life is led and
governed.

If it goes out from its own temperament

142 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

into God's love-fire, into the heavenly
substantiality which is Christ's, then it
eateth of Christ and of the meekness of
the light of his majesty, wherein is the
fountain of eternal life.

From thence the soul getteth a divine
will, and bringeth the body to do that
which, according to its natural inclination
and the spirit of this world, it would not do.
In such a soul the temperament ruleth not ;
it bears sway only over the outward body.
Such a man hath a continual longing after
God.

Oftentimes when his soul eateth of the
divine love-essence, it bringeth to him an
exulting triumph, and a divine taste into
the temperament itself. So that the whole
body is thereby affected and even trembleth
for joy, being lifted up to such a degree of
divine sensation, as if it was on the very
borders of paradise.

But this rapturous state rarely continueth
long. The soul is soon clouded with some-

CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 143

what of another nature from the spirit of
this world, of which it maketh a looking-
glass wherein it begins to speculate with
its outward imagination. Thus it goeth
out from the Spirit of God and is often
bemired in the dirt of the world, if the
Virgin of Divine Wisdom doth not call it
back again to repent and return to its first
love. Then, if the soul washeth itself
anew in the water of eternal life, through
earnest repentance, it becometh renewed
again in the love-fire of God's meekness
and in the Holy Spirit, as a new child ;
and beginneth again to drink of that water
and recovereth at length its life in God.

There is no temperament in which the
Devil's will and suggestions may be more
clearly discovered, if the soul be once en-
lightened, than in the melancholy, as the
tempted, who have resolutely and success-
fully stormed his stronghold, very well
know.

O how subtilly and maliciously doth the

144 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

Devil spread his nets for such a soul, as a
fowler for the birds ! Oftentimes he terri-
fieth it in its prayers, especially in the night,
when it is dark, injecting his suggestions
into it and filling it with fearful apprehen-
sions that the wrath of God is ready to
seize and destroy it. Thus he maketh a
show as if he had power over the soul of
the man, and it was his property, whereas
he hath not power to touch a hair of his
head. Unless the soul itself despaireth,
and by that means giveth itself up to him,
he dareth not spiritually and really to seize
or even touch it.

He hath more than one temptation for
the melancholy soul. For, if he cannot
persuade it absolutely to despair and so to
give itself up to him that way, he bringeth
it, when over-burthened with fears and
sad apprehensions about its present state
and future doom, and impatient under the
weight thereof, to thoughts and designs
of self-murder. He dareth not destroy a

CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 145

man ; the man himself must do that. For
the soul hath freedom. If it resisteth the
Devil and will not do as he counselleth,
then, however he may tempt, yet hath he
not power to touch even the outward and
sinful body.

The trouble of mind here spoken of is
rather a subject of God's pity than of
wrath. He will not break the bruised
reed, nor extinguish the smoking flax.
Our Lord Jesus Christ, in his blessed call
and promise, saith, Come unto me, all ye
that are weary and heavy laden, and I will
give you rest. Take my yoke upon you
and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly
in heart, so shall ye find rest unto your
souls.

This yoke of Christ is no other than the

Cross of nature and providence. This is

the yoke which a man is required to take

up and carry after Christ with patience,

and with full submission thereto. Then

the affliction, whatever it be, is so far from
10

146 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

hurting the soul that it doeth it much good.
For while it standeth in the house of sorrow
it is not in the house of sin, or in the pride,
pomp, and pleasure of the world. God
holdeth it with tribulation, as with a
father's restraint, from the sinful pleasure
of this world.

The troubled soul is apt to perplex and
torment itself because it cannot open by-
its desire the spring of divine joy in the
heart. It sigheth, lamenteth, and feareth
that God will have nothing to do with it,
because it cannot feel the comfort of his
visible presence.

Before the time of my illumination and
high knowledge it was just so with me. I
went through a long and sore conflict
before I obtained my noble garland. Then
did I first learn to know how God dwelleth
not in the outward fleshly heart, but in the
centre of the soul in himself, in his own
principle.

Then also I first perceived in my inward

CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 147

spirit that it was God himself who had
drawn me to him in and by desire. Which
I understood not before, but thought the
good desire had been my proper own and
that God was far distant from us men.
But afterwards I clearly found, and re-
joiced to find, how it is that God is so
gracious to us. Therefore I write this for
an example and a caution to others, not in
the least to give way to despair when the
Comforter delayeth his coming, but rather
to think of the consolatory encouragement
given in David's psalm, Heaviness may
endure for a night, but joy cometh in the
morning.

It hath fared no otherwise with the
greatest saints of God. They were forced
to wrestle long and earnestly for the noble
garland. With which indeed no man will
be crowned unless he strive for it and
overcome.

It is indeed laid up in the soul, but if a
man will put on that crown in the time of

148 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

this mortal life he must wrestle for it.
Then, if he doth not obtain it in this world,
yet he will certainly receive it after he has
put off this earthly tabernacle. For Christ
saith. In the world ye shall have anxiety
and trouble, but in me peace. And, Be
of good comfort, I have overcome the
world.

I have neither pen that can write nor
words that can express what the exceeding
sweet grace of God in Christ is. I myself
have found it by experience in this my way
and course, and therefore certainly know
that I have a sure ground from which I
write. And I would from the bottom of
my heart most willingly impart the same
to my brethren in the love of Christ, who,
if they will follow my faithful child-like
counsels, will find by experience in them-
selves from whence it is that my simple
mind knows and understands great
mysteries.

CHAPTER XVII

THE disciple said to his Master: Sir,
how may I come to the supersensual
life, so that I may see God, and hear God
speak ?

The Master answered and said : Son,
when thou canst throw thyself into That,
where no creature dwelleth, though it be
but for a moment ; then thou hearest what
God speaketh.

When thou standest still from the
thinking of self and the willing of self;
when both thy intellect and thy will are
quiet, and passive to the impress of the
eternal Word and Spirit ; and when thy
soul is winged up above that which is
temporal, the outward senses and the
imagination being locked up in holy ab-

I50 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

straction, then the eternal hearing, seeing,
and speaking will be revealed in thee. So
God heareth and seeth through thee who
art now the organ of his Spirit ; so God
speaketh in thee and whispereth to thy
spirit, and thy spirit heareth his voice.

Three things are requisite in order to
this. The first is, Thou must resign thy
will to God, and must sink thyself down
to the dust in his mercy. The second
is, Thou must hate thy own will and
forbear from doing that to which thy own
will doth drive thee. The third is. Thou
must bow thy soul under the Cross, heartily
submitting thyself to it, that thou mayest
be able to bear the temptations of nature
and the creature. And if thou doest this,
then thou shalt hear, my Son, what the
Lord speaketh in thee.

Though thou lovest the earthly wisdom
now, yet when thou shalt be clothed upon
with the Heavenly Wisdom, then thou
wilt see that all the wisdom of the world

CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 151

is folly. So shalt thou be able to stand
under every temptation and to hold out to
the end in a course of life above the world
and above sense. In this course thou
wilt hate thyself; and thou wilt also love
thyself; I say, love thyself, and that even
more than ever thou didst yet.

In loving thyself, thou lovest not thyself
as thine own ; but as given thee from the
love of God thou lovest the divine ground
in thee, by which and in which thou lovest
the divine wisdom, the divine goodness,
the divine beauty. Thou lovest also God's
works of wonder, and in this same ground
thou lovest thy brethren. In hating thyself
thou hatest only that wherein the evil sticks
close to thee. There is, there can be, no
selfishness in love ; they are opposed one
to another. Love, that is, divine love (of
which alone we are now discoursing) hates
all evil selfhood. It is impossible that these
two should subsist in one person ; by a neces-
sity of nature the one drives out the other.

152 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME

The height of love is as high as God ;
it brings thee to be as high as God himself
is, by uniting thee with God. Its greatness
is as great as God : there is a latitude of
heart in love which cannot be expressed ;
it enlarges the soul as wide as the whole
creation of God. This shall be experienced
by thee, beyond the compass of all words,
when the throne of love shall be set up in
thy heart. Its power supports the heavens
and upholds the earth ; its virtue is the
principle of all principles, the virtue of all
virtues. It is the worker of all things and
a vital energy through all powers natural
and supernatural. It is the power of all
powers, nothing being able to let or hinder
the omnipotence of love, or resist its
penetrating might. If thou findest it thou
comest into that fountain from whence all
things are proceeded, into that ground
wherein they subsist; and thou art a King
over all the works of God.

Be silent therefore and watch unto

CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 153

prayer, that thy mind may be disposed
for finding that jewel, which to the world
appears as nothing, but which to the
children of Wisdom is all things. The way
to the love of God is folly to the world,
but wisdom to the children of God, for
whom that which is despised of the world
is the most precious treasure ; yea, so
great a treasure it is, that no life can
express, nor tongue so much as name,
what this inflaming, all-conquering love of
God is. It is brighter than the sun ; it is
sweeter than any thing that is called sweet ;
it is stronger than all strength ; it is more
nourishment than any food, more cheering
to the heart than wine, more pleasant than
all the pleasantness of this world. Whoso-
ever obtaineth it is richer than any monarch
on earth, and he who winneth it is nobler
than an emperor and more potent and
absolute than all earthly powers and
authorities.

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