SQLite format 3@  ii!%%atableTopicsTopicsCREATE TABLE Topics (Title NVARCHAR(100), Notes TEXT)  00 Way to Divine Knowledge (1752){\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Times New Roman;}{\f1\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\sl240\slmult1\lang2058\f0\fs24 The Way to ine Knowledge\par \par This electronic copy of William Law's Way to Divine Knowledge has been typed by Warner White (wwhite@tdsnet.com, warner_white.parti@ecunet.org, warnerwhite@fc1.glfn)from the 1974 Georg Olms Verlag (Hildesheim New York) edition of The Works of the Reverend William Law. All of the works of William Law dated from 1737 and on have also been typed up and are being made available electronically. Notations have been added at the beginning of each paragraph containing the abbreviated title (in this case "Way") and the paragraph number to facilitate reference without depending upon a particular pagination. The same has been done for the remaining works in the corpus beginning with A Demonstration of the\'d6Errors of\'d6a Late Book (etc.), 1737 (except for the final Letters to a Lady Inclined to enter into the Communion of the Church of Rome (1779)). There is no copyright notice on the title pages (or backs of the title pages) of the volumes from which these have been typed; so presumably they are in the public domain and may be freely circulated and used.\par \par 6/6/95\par The Way to Divine Knowledge\par \par being several\par \par Dialogues between\par \par Humanus, Academicus, Rusticus, and Theophilus\par As preparatory to a new edition of the works\par \par of Jacob Behmen; and the right use of them\par \par by William Law, A.M.\par \par London\par \par Printed for W. Innys, and J. Richardson, in Pater-noster Row\par \par 1752 \par \par \pard\cf1\f1\fs23\par }  \par [Way-1-1] Humanus. Oh! Theophilus, I must yield, and it is with great pleasure that I now enter into conversation with you. You have taken from me all power of cavilling and disputing. I have no opinions that I choose to maintain, but have the utmost desire of entering further into this field of light, which you have so clearly opened to my view. I shall not trouble you with the relation of what has passed in my soul, nor what struggles I have had, with that variety of heathenish notions which have had their turn in my mind. It is better to tell you, that they are dead and buried, or rather consumed to nothing by that new light, which you have opened in so many great points, that I was quite a stranger to before. To reject all that you have said concerning the fall of angels, the original of this world, the creation and fall of man, and the necessity of a redemption, as great as that of the gospel, is impossible; nothing can do it, or stand out against it, but the most willful and blind obstinacy.\ par \par [Way-1-2] But these great points cannot be received in any true degree, without seeing the vain contention of all those, who either defend or oppose the gospel without any true and real knowledge of them. The one contend for, and the other oppose, not the gospel, but a system of empty words, and historical facts, branched into forms and modes of dividing one church from another; whereas the gospel is no history of any absent, distant, or foreign thing, but is a manifestation of an essential, in herent, real life and death in every son of Adam; grounded on the certainty of his first angelical nature, on the certainty of his real fall from that into an animal earthly life of impure, bestial flesh and blood, and on the certainty of an inward redemption from it, by the divine nature given again into him. These three great points, with all the doctrines, duties, and consequences, that are essentially contained in, or flow from them, are the gospel of Jesus Christ, to which, by your means, I am become a convert. I am now, dear Theophilus, strongly drawn two different ways. First, I am all hunger and thirst after this new light, a glimpse of which has already raised me, as it were, from the dead; and I am in the utmost impatience to hear more and more of this divine philosophy, which, I so plainly see, opens all the mysteries both of nature and grace from the beginning to the end of time. What I have heard from you, when I was obliged to be silent, and what I have since found and felt by much reading t he Appeal, and that Dialogue, obliges me to speak in this ardent manner. They have awakened something in me which I never felt before, something much deeper than my reason, and over which I have no power; it glows in my soul, like a fire, or hunger, which nothing can satisfy, but a further view of those great truths, which I this day expect from your opening to us the mysteries of heaven revealed to that wonderful man, Jacob Behmen.\par \par [Way-1-3] On the other hand, I find in myself a vehement impul se to turn preacher amongst my former infidel brethren; which impulse I know not how to resist: For being just converted myself, I seem to know, and feel the true place, from whence conversion is to arise in others; and by the reluctance which I have felt in my passage from one side to the other, I seem also to know the true ground on which infidelity supports itself. And he only is able to declare with spirit and power any truths, or bear a faithful testimony of the reality of them, who preaches nothing but what he has first seen, and felt, and found to be true, by a living sensibility and true experience of their reality and power in his own soul. All other preaching, whether from art, hearsay, books, or education, is, at best, but playing with words, and mere trifling with sacred things. Being thus divided in myself, I hope to have your direction.\par \par [Way-1-4] Theophilus. Dear Humanus, my heart embraces you with great joy, and I am much pleased with what you say of yourself. This hunger of your soul is all that I wish for; it is the fire of God, the opening of eternity, the beginning of your redemption, the awakener of the angelic life, the root of an omnipotent faith, and the true seeker of all that is lost. For all these things, and much more, are the blessed powers which will soon break forth, and show themselves to be the true workings of this celestial fire, that has begun to glow within you.\par \par [Way-1-5] Your business is now to give way to this heavenly working of the Spirit of God in your soul, and turn from everything either within you, or without you, that may hinder the farther awakening of all that is holy and heavenly within you. For within you is that heavenly angel that died in paradise, and died no other death, than that of being hid a while from your sight and sensibility.\par \par [Way-1-6] For be assured of this, as a certain truth, that corrupt, fallen, and earthly as human nature is, there is nevertheless in the soul of every man, the fire, and light, and love of God, though lodged in a state of hiddenness, inactivity, and death, till something or other, human or divine, Moses and the prophets, Christ or his apostles, discover its life within us.\par \par [Way-1-7] For the soul of every man is the breath and life of the triune God, and as such a partaker of the divine nature; but all this divinity is unfelt, because overpowered by the workings of flesh and blood, till such time as distress, or grace, or both, give flesh and blood a shock, open the long shut-up eyes, and force a man to find something in himself, that sense and reason, whilst at quiet were not aware of. Wonder not therefore at this conflict in your soul, that you are eager after more light, and impatient to communicate that which you have. For you must be thus driven; and both these desires are only two witnesses to this truth, that a heaven-born spirit is come to life in you.\par \par [Way-1-8] Only remember this; look well to the ground on which you stand, keep a watchful eye upon every working of nature, and take care that nothing human, earthly, private, or selfish, mix with this heavenly fire: that is, see that your mind be free, universal, impartial, without regard to here or there, this or that, but loving all goodness, practicing every virtue, for itself, on its own account, because it is so much of God; neither coveting light, nor longing to communicate it to others, but merely and solely for this reason, that the will of God may be done, and the goodness of God brought to life both in you and them. For there is no goodness but God's; and his goodness is not alive, or fruitful in you, but so far, and in such degree, as the good that you mean, and do, is done in and by that Spirit, by which God himself is good. For as there is but one that is good, so there is, and can be but one goodness. And therefore it is, that we are called not to an human, worldly, prudential, partial goodness, suitable to our selfish reason, and natural tempers, but to be perfect, as our Father in heaven is perfect. And the full reason is expressed in the words; for if our Father is in heaven, we must be there too in spirit and life, or we are not his children; if heaven is that for which we are made, and that which we have lost, it is not any human goodness, but a heavenly birth and Spirit of God's own goodness, working in us, as it does in God, that can make us the heavenly children of our Father in heaven. You must love the light of God, as God loves it; you must desire that others may enjoy it, as God desires it. Now God is a free, universal, impartial love, loving and doing every kind of good, for its own sake, because that is the highest and most perfect working of life; and because everything else but goodness, for its own sake, is imperfect, and a degree of evil, misery, and death. And no creature can come out of its imperfection, misery, and death, but by the pure, free, unmixed goodness of God, being born in it. Though you had outwardly all virtues, and seemed doing all that the saints of God have done, yet unless the same Spirit, by which God himself is good, brought forth your goodness, all would be only an earthly labor, that could have no communication with heaven.\par \par [Way-1-9] Therefore, my friend, set out right, and be assured of this truth, that nature, and self, and every particular view, must be totally renounced; or else, be your zeal what it will, ever so pleasing to yourself, or astonishing to the world, you are not working with God.\par \par [Way-1-10] Here now you have the test of truth, by which you may always know, whether it be the Spirit of God, and the love of God, that drives you. If your zeal is after this pure, free, universal goodness of God, then of a truth the Spirit of God breatheth in you; but if you feel not the love of this pure, free, universal goodness, and yet think that you love God, you deceive yourself; for there is no other true love of God, but the loving that, which God is.\par \par [Way-1-11] But if you please, Humanus, pray tell me, in what manner you would attempt to make converts to Christianity.\par \par [Way-1-12] Humanus. I would not take the method generally practiced by the modern defenders of Christianity. I would not attempt to show from reason and antiquity, the necessity and reasonableness of a divine revelation in general, or of the Mosaic and Christian in particular. Nor enlarge upon the arguments for the credibility of the gospel- history, the reasonableness of its creeds, institutions, and usages; or the duty of man to receive things above, but not contrary to, his reason. I would avoid all this, because it is wandering from the true point in question, and only helping the Deist to oppose the gospel with a show of argument, which he must necessarily want, was the gospel left to stand upon its own bottom.\par \par [Way-1-13] And, on the other hand, should the Deist yield up such a cause as this, and change sides, he could only be said to have changed his opinion about facts, without any more altering or bettering his state in God, than if he had only altered his opinion about things in dispute amongst the ancient philosophers.\par \par [Way-1-14] For since the fall of man, implying a real change from his first state, or a total death to his first created life, since the necessity of a new birth of that lost life, by the life of God again restored to, or born in the soul, are two points, quite overlooked by those who defend the truth and reasonableness of the Christian scheme, it may be truly said, that the only ground, and the whole nature of the gospel is quite dropped and given up by those who thus defend it.\par \par [Way-1-15] For the gospel has but one ground, or reason, and that is the fall of man, it has but one nature, and that is to help man again to all that he had lost.\par \par [Way-1-16] How unreasonable would it be, to offer the Christian redemption to glorious angels in heaven? Could anything be more inconsistent with their heavenly, unfallen state? Yet just so unreasonable would it be to offer it to man unfallen from his first created state--for man standing in that first perfection of life, which God breathed into him, and in that very outward state, or world, into which God himself brought him, wants no more redemption, than the most glorious angels do; and to preach to such a man, in order to be reconciled to God, the necessity of dying to himself, and the world he is in, would be as contrary to all sense and reason, as to preach to angels the necessity of dying to themselves, their divine life and the kingdom of heaven, for which God had created them.\par \par [Way-1-17] Thus does it appear, that the fall of man, into the life of this earthly world, is the sole ground of his wanting the redemption, which the gospel offers.\par \par [Way-1-18] Hence it is that the gospel has only one simple proposal of certain life, or certain death to man; of life, if he will take the means of entering into the kingdom of God, of death if he chooses to take up his rest in the kingdom of this world. This is the simple nature, and sole drift of the gospel; it means no more, than making known to man, that this world, and the life of it, is his fall, and separation from God, and happiness, both here and hereafter: and that to be saved or restored to God and happiness, can only be obtained, by renouncing all love, and adherence to the things of this world. Look at all the precepts, threatenings and doctrines of the gospel, they mean nothing, but to drive all earthly-mindedness and carnal affections out of the soul, to call man f rom the life, spirit and goods of this world, to a life of hope, and faith, and trust, and love and desire of a new birth from heaven.\par \par [Way-1-19] To embrace the gospel is to enter with all our hearts into its terms of dying to all that is earthly both within us, and without us; and on the other hand to place our faith, and hope, and trust, and satisfaction in the things of this world, is to reject the gospel with our whole heart, spirit and strength, as much as any infidel can do, notwithstandi!ng we made ever so many verbal assents and consents to everything that is recorded in the New Testament.\par \par [Way-1-20] This therefore is the one true essential distinction between the Christian and the infidel. The infidel is a man of this world, wholly devoted to it, his hope and faith are set upon it; for where our heart is, there, and only there is our hope and faith. He has only such virtues, such goodness, and such a religion, as entirely suits with the interest of flesh and blood, and keeps "the soul happy in the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life: this, and this alone, is infidelity, a total separation from God, and a removal of all faith, and hope from him, into the life of this world. It matters not, whether this infidel be a professor of the gospel, a disciple of Zoroaster, a follower of Plato, a Jew, a Turk, or an opposer of the gospel-history: this difference of opinions or professions alters not the matter, it is the love of the world instead of God, that co#nstitutes the whole nature of the infidel.\par \par [Way-1-21] On the other hand, the Christian renounces the world, as his horrid prison; he dies to the will of flesh and blood, because it is darkness, corruption, and separation from God; he turns from all that is earthly, animal, and temporal, and stands in a continual tendency of faith, and hope, and prayer to God, to have a better nature, a better life and spirit born again into him from above.\par \par [Way-1-22] Where this faith is, there is the$ Christian, the new creature in Christ, born of the Word and Spirit of God; neither time nor place, nor any outward condition of birth, and life, can hinder his entrance into the kingdom of God.\par \par [Way-1-23] But where this faith is not, there is the true, complete infidel, the man of the earth, the unredeemed, the rejector of the gospel, the son of perdition, that is dead in trespasses and sins, without Christ, an alien from the commonwealth of Israel, a stranger from the covenants of promise, ha%ving no hope, and without God in the world.\par \par [Way-1-24] Here therefore I fix my true ground of converting men to Christianity; and how miserably, may I say, do they err, who place Christianity and infidelity in anything else, but in the heart either devoted to this world, or devoted to God!\par \par [Way-1-25] He therefore that opens a field of controversy to the Deist, about revelation in general, of the history of facts, creeds, and doctrines of churches, not only leads him from the merits o&f the gospel, but brings him into a field of battle, where he may stand his ground as long as he pleases. This I can truly say from my own experience, who have been 20 years in this dust of debate; and have always found that the more books there were written in this way of defending the gospel, the more I was furnished with new objections to it, and the less apprehensive of any danger from my not receiving it.\par \par [Way-1-26] For I had frequently a consciousness rising up within me, that the debate 'was equally vain on both sides, doing no more real good to the one than to the other, not being able to imagine, that a set of scholastic, logical opinions about history, facts, doctrines, and institutions of the church, or a set of logical objections against them, were of any significancy toward making the soul of man either an eternal angel of heaven, or an eternal devil of hell. And therefore it was, that I was often tempted rather to think, there was neither heaven, nor hell, than to believe that such( a variety of churches, and systems of opinion, all condemning, and all condemned by one another, were to find the heaven of God opened to receive them, but he who was equally led by opinion to reject them all, was doomed to hell. But you, sir (and how can I thank you for it?) have put a full end to all this vain strife of opinions floating in the brain; you have dispersed the clouds that surrounded my bewildered mind; you have brought me home to myself, where I find heaven and hell, life and death, salva)tion and damnation at strife within me; you have shown me the infinite worth of Christianity, and the dreadful nature of infidelity, not by helping me to a new opinion, for my reason to maintain, but by proving to me this great and decisive truth, that Christianity is neither more nor less, than the goodness of the divine life, light and love, living and working in my soul; and that infidelity in its whole nature, is purely and solely the heart of man living in, governed by, and contented with the evil wo*rkings of the earthly life, spirit and nature.\par \par [Way-1-27] This is the infidelity that you have forced me to fly from, and renounce, and that is the Christianity, to which I am converted with all the strength of my heart and spirit. Away then with all the fictions and workings of reason, either for, or against Christianity! They are only the wanton sport of the mind, whilst ignorant of God, and insensible of its own nature and condition. Death and life are the only things in question; life is Go+d, living and working in the soul; death is the soul living and working according to the sense and reason of bestial flesh and blood. Both this life, and this death are of their own growth, growing from their own seed within us, not as busy reason talks or directs, but as our heart turns either to the one or the other.\par \par [Way-1-28] But, dear Theophilus, I must now tell you that I want to make haste in this new road you have put me in. Time is short, I am afraid of leaving the world, before I have, left all worldly tempers, and before the first holy and heavenly birth be quickened, and brought to life in me.\par \par [Way-1-29] An angel my first father was created, and therefore nothing but the angel belongs to man, and nothing but the angel can enter into heaven. Angelic goodness, therefore, is the one thing that man must look up into God for, because it is the one goodness that he has lost. Everything else, flesh and blood, earth and all earthly tempers, everything that had its rise from the fa-ll of Adam, must be renounced, and given up to death, that the first angelic glory of the life of God in man may be again found in him.\par \par [Way-1-30] Theophilus. Indeed, Humanus, you have made great haste already; for all the haste that we can make, consists in a total dying to all the tempers and passions which we have received from the spirit of this world, by our fall into it. And the more watchfully, earnestly, and constantly, we do this, the more haste we make to our lost country, and heavenl.y glory.\par \par [Way-1-31] It is no extravagance, or overstraining the matter, when we say, that our goodness must be angelic; for no goodness less than that, can be divine and heavenly, or help us to a life in heaven. It is often said, that we are poor, infirm men, and not angels; and therefore must be content with the poverty and infirmity of human virtues. That we are poor, infirm men, is undeniable; but this is the one infallible reason, why a virtue that is according to our nature, or of its own /growth, can do us no good. We were not created poor and infirm men by God, but have lost him, are separated from him; full of misery, because we have changed our first state, and brought all this poverty, corruption, and infirmity, upon ourselves. And therefore, as this infirmity is from ourselves, so we must intend nothing less, or short of the total removal of it, nor think that we have our proper goodness, till we stand in that degree of it, in which God created us. For, be assured of this great truth,0 that nothing in us can be the delight of God, but that very creature, which he created. All therefore must be parted with, that God hath not created and brought to life in us. And no goodness but that of an angel, can overcome the evil that is in us, or do the will of God on earth, as it is done in heaven, which is the only goodness in and for which God created us.\par \par [Way-1-32] Academicus. Pray, Theophilus, give me leave to say, that I should think it better, not to insist so much upon the word 1"angelic," when you speak of the goodness, that ought to be ours. For it seems to me too liable to objection. We have not the high faculties, and exalted powers, of angels; and therefore our goodness cannot rise up to an equality with theirs.\par \par [Way-1-33] Rusticus. Pray, Academicus, give me leave also to say, that if your learning did not lead you to mind words, more than things, you could not have fallen into this critical scruple. For our call to angelic goodness does not suppose or require any2 high stretch, or refined elevation, of our intellectual faculties and powers. A shepherd watching over his flock, a poor slave digging in the mines, may each of them, though so employed to the end of their lives, stand before God in a degree of goodness truly angelic. On the other hand, you may spend all your time in high speculations, writing and preaching upon Christian perfection, composing seraphic hymns of heavenly matters, with a strength of thought and genius that delights both yourself and others3, and yet, so doing to the day of your death, have only a goodness like that of eating and drinking that which most pleases your palate.\par \par [Way-1-34] Would you know the true nature of angelic goodness, see how the Spirit of Christ speaks, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul, and strength, and thy neighbor as thyself. I came into the world not to do my own will, not to seek my own glory or honor, not to have a kingdom in this world, but to promote the kingdom of God, and do t4he will of my Father in heaven. My meat and drink is to do the will of him that sent me. When thou makest a feast, call not thy rich friends and acquaintance, but the poor, the lame, and blind, &c. Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory and praise of God. Thus speaks the Spirit of Christ; and he that in this Spirit thus lives, is an angel, whether he be in heaven, or enclosed in flesh and blood. And all of us are in the way of attaining to this angelic goodness, as soon as we ha5te the selfish tempers of our own earthly life, and earnestly long, in the spirit of prayer, to have the life of God brought forth in us. Now this goodness we must have, or we have none at all; for there is but one God, one good, and one goodness; and it is rightly called angelic, because nothing is capable of it, but the heavenly angelic nature; nor can it have any existence in man, till the workings of our earthly nature are overcome, and brought into subjection to that Spirit, which is not of man, but 6from heaven. For flesh and blood in all its workings can work only for itself; darkness can only be dark, it has no other nature; coldness can only be cold; earth can only be earthly; and the works of light can only proceed from light. Flesh and blood, or that life which is only from the stars and elements of this world, can only work as the stars and elements work, only for time, and a corruptible life; it can only be bestial, and serve the end of a bestial life; it is insensible and incapable of divine 7virtue, and is, and can be of no higher a nature in a man, than in a beast, and must have the same end in both. It is quite incapable of entering into the kingdom of God; and only for this reason, because it is absolutely incapable of having any true and heavenly goodness. It has then only its proper goodness, when it has lost its power of acting, and is governed by a spirit superior to it; whilst it lives and rules, it can only live to itself; is nothing but an earthly own will, own love, own honor, own 8interest, never rising higher, doing better, or coming any nearer to goodness, than its own pride or covetousness, envy or wrath, can carry it. For these tempers, with all their lesser subdivisions, are the atmosphere that sets bounds to the breath of the earthly life; they are essential to it, and as inseparable from it, as hardness and darkness are inseparable from a rock of stone. So long as the stony rock lasts, so long is it hard and dark. And so long as earthly flesh and blood lives and acts, it can9 only live and act for itself; it can seek, love, like, or do no manner of thing, but as its own will, own love, own interest, is some way or other felt, and found in it. Would you know the true ground and reason of this? It is because no life can go out of, or farther than itself; nor can it will anything, but what its own life is. This is absolutely true of every life, whether it be divine, earthly, or hellish; it can seek, love, and delight in nothing, but that which is according to its own life.\par :\par [Way-1-35] See here, Academicus, the folly of your quarrelling with the word "angelic," since the thing itself, angelic goodness, is absolutely necessary; it is the goodness of our first creation, and must be the goodness of our redemption. The falling from it has brought forth all the evils that we are surrounded with, and nothing can deliver us from the death of our fallen state, but a true and full resurrection of all that purity and goodness, which was living in the first creation of man. To be ;content with our infirmities, is to be content with our separation from God; and not to aspire after the one angelic goodness, is to be carnally-minded, which we are told is death, that is, death to the one divine life.\par \par [Way-1-36] A virtue that is only according to the state of this earthly life, is a virtue of art, and human contrivance, a fiction of behavior, modelled according to rule and custom, or education, that can go no deeper, nor rise higher, nor reach farther, than the sense and reasbe a master of morality, is just as powerful as this very anatomist. It can skillfully dissect a dead system of morality, can separate all its parts, tell you the names, nature, distinctions, and connections, of most kinds of good and evil. But when this is done, learned reason, with all its dictates, distinctions, and definitions, can do just as much good to the soul, that has lost its goodness, as the anatomist can do to the carcase, that has lost its life.\par \par [Way-1-39] It is wonderfully astoni?shing, that you men of learning seldom come thus far, as to see, and feel this glaring truth, that goodness must be a living thing; but, blinded with the empty sounds of words in variety of languages, are as content and happy with a religion of nature delineated, or book of axioms, maxims, and deductions, mathematically placed one after another, as if you had really found the tree of life. Whereas, in truth, all this is no better than the reading a lecture upon the use of the heart, liver, and lungs, to a@ dead carcase: for the life of goodness can no more be raised, or brought into the soul, by this art of reasoning, than life can be brought into the carcase, by a discourse upon the heart, live, and lungs, made over it.\par \par [Way-1-40] Oh! Academicus, forget your scholarship, give up your art and criticism, be a plain man, and then the first rudiments of sense may teach you, that there, and there only, can goodness be, where it comes forth as a birth of life, and is the free natural work and fruit oAf that which lives within us. For till goodness thus comes from a life within us, we have in truth none at all. For reason, with all its doctrine, discipline, and rules, can only help us to be so good, so changed, and amended, as a wild beast may be, that by restraints and methods is taught to put on a sort of tameness, though its wild nature is all the time only restrained, and in a readiness to break forth again as occasion shall offer.\par \par [Way-1-41] Thus far the masters of morality and human diBscipline may go; they may tame and reform the outward man, clothe him with the appearance of many images of virtue, which will, some or all of them, be put off, just as time, occasion, and flesh and blood, require it. For the goodness of a living creature must be its own life; it must arise up in it as its own love, or any passion doth; just as the fierceness of the tiger, and the meekness of the lamb, are the birth of their own life. And if goodness is not our natural birth from our natural parents, we mCust of all necessity be born again from a principle above nature, or no goodness can be living in us. Now since goodness is a life, we have a twofold proof, that no goodness can be living in us, till we are born again of the Word and Spirit of God: for nature, as well as scripture, assures us, that God is originally the one good, and the one life; and therefore no good life can possibly be in us, but by the Word, life, and Spirit, of God having a birth in us. And from this birth alone it is, that the freeD, genuine works of goodness flow forth with the freedom of the divine life, wherewith the Spirit of God has made us free; loving and doing all manner of good, merely for goodness-sake; virtuous in all kind of virtue, purely for virtue-sake: then we are the natural true children of our heavenly Father, and do the works of heaven with a cheerful and willing mind. Then it is, that we are good in the manner as God is good, because it is his goodness that is born in us; we are perfect as he is perfect, we loveE as he loves, are patient as he is patient, we give as he gives, we forgive as he forgives, and resist evil only with good as he does.\par \par [Way-1-42] This, Academicus, is angelic goodness; and is the goodness of those who are born again of the Word, and become new creatures in the Spirit of Christ. This goodness our first father lost, when he chose to have the eyes of flesh and blood, and the spirit of this world, opened in him; and therefore our redeemer, who well knew what we had lost, and must hFave again, has taught us in our daily prayer, to ask for angelic goodness in these words, viz., "thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven." But I have done, and I think you must have done, with your learned scruple about the word "angelic." And now, Theophilus, if you please, return to your subject with Humanus.\par \par [Way-1-43] Theophilus. Let me then tell you, Humanus, that I much approve of the way that you intend to proceed in. You are come directly to the truth and heart oGf the matter, and have hit upon the one only method of putting Deism to a full stand, by reducing Christianity to this one single great point, which so evidently contains the whole ground and nature of it.\par \par [Way-1-44] Now this one great point consists of two essential parts; 1st, the fall of man from a divine angelic life into an earthly, bestial, corruptible, miserable life of this world. 2dly, the redemption of man, or his regaining his first angelic perfection, by a new birth of the divine naHture, by the Word and Spirit of God. Stand steadily upon this true Christian ground; and then you will not only stand safely yourself, but you will have left the Deist no ground to stand upon. For here all the labored volumes of infidelity, with which these last ages have swarmed, are at once rendered useless, and cannot put so much as a little finger into this debate. Consult all, from Hobbes to the Moral Philosopher, and you consult in vain; their works are as dead as themselves, and unable to give fortIh one word against this Christianity. They had a much easier task upon their hands; for nothing can be easier than for reason to object, and continue objecting, to the extraordinary matters of the Old and New Testament. I don't mention this as an accusation of the Deists, or to charge them with the crafty contrivance of placing the merits of the cause where it is not. No, the learning of the Christian world must bear the blame of the fruitless disputes: the demonstrators of the truth and reasonableness ofJ Christianity have betrayed their own cause, and left true Christianity unmentioned in their defenses of it. What a reasonableness of Christianity have some great names helped us to? Just as useful, and good to our fallen souls, as the reasonableness of consenting to the death of Pharaoh and his host in the Red Sea. But you, my friend, being rightly converted to Christianity, that began before the scriptures were written, and is as old as the creation and fall of man; keep close to its true and real grounKd; and, instead of showing the reasonableness of believing a long history of things, show the absolute necessity of man's dying to his present life, in order to have a better from God. This is the Christianity that began with the fall, and has been preached ever since to every son of fallen man, in every corner of the world; and by the same preacher that tells every man, that he ought to be better than he is. For was not man fallen from a better state than that he is now in, he could no more be ashamed orL offended at anything that his nature prompts him to do, than the ox is ashamed at breaking into a good pasture. Every man, therefore, from the beginning of the world, has had Christianity and the gospel written and preached within him; as it contains the fall of man, and his want of being raised to a better state. But as we see, that the truth and reality of his fall, and the truth and reality of his redemption by a real birth from above, can be lost, nay disowned, amongst those that are daily reading anMd expounding the scriptures; so it is no wonder that the same should have happened to those, who had no scriptures to read. Justly therefore, Humanus, are churches and creeds, doctrines above and contrary to reason, miracles of the Old and New Testament, and all historical facts and matters, which are so great an harvest to the Deists; justly, I say, are they removed by you out of the debate; and the one great point above-mentioned only insisted upon, as the whole of the matter. For this one point gained,N all is gained; and, till this point is cleared up, all the rest is but a debate about nothing.\par \par [Way-1-45] For if man is fallen from a divine life, no one need be told, that he can only be redeemed or saved from his fall by having the same divine life born in him again, or a second time. Nothing therefore touches the truth of the debate betwixt the Christian and the infidel, but that which proves with certainty, that man has, or has not, lost a divine life.\par \par [Way-1-46] If he is thus fOallen, has died this death to a divine life; then the nature and necessity of the Christian new-birth sufficiently proves itself. But if it can be proved, that he is not thus fallen, but stands in that state and degree of life in which God created him; the Deists have reason enough to reject the Christian scheme of redemption.\par \par [Way-1-47] Strange it is therefore beyond expression, that every man, whether Christian or infidel, should not see, that here lies the whole of the matter; or that any leParned defender of Christianity should think of beginning anywhere, or in anything, but where the redemption itself begins; or imagine there can be the least ground to propose a redemption to man, till he shows why, and from what, he is to be redeemed. Stranger is it still, if you consider, that Christians have nothing to excuse their wandering from this one great point, since both the Testaments bear so open a witness to it. "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die," says the Old TestameQnt. "Except a man be born again from above, of the Word and Spirit of God, he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven," says the New Testament.\par \par [Way-1-48] Thus do these two Testaments begin with the most open declarations of these two things; viz., the death of man to his first created life; 2ndly, his redemption only and solely by a real birth of the divine life, received again from above. What excuse therefore can be made for those who read the scripture, and yet overlook that very one point;R not only so plainly declared, but which, in itself, is the one only ground and foundation upon which all the scripture stands? For had not man died, neither Moses, nor the prophets, had ever been in being. For man not fallen, but abiding in his first created perfection of life, had been as free from any outward law, as the light is from darkness. The keeping his own nature had been the keeping, and doing, and seeing, and knowing all that God required of him. So that neither law nor prophecy have any grouSnd or reason, but because man is dead to his first life.\par \par [Way-1-49] But seeing man is dead to his first life, and living only in an earthly bestial world, under the power and slavery of the evil motions and tempers of gross flesh and blood; therefore Moses must come with his law, to set sin before him, and give him precepts of resisting and dying to all the lusts of this new earthly life, which he is fallen into: therefore, to seek for any other learning in or from Moses, than that of learning Tto resist and die to the tempers and passions of this earthly life, is knowing nothing right of Moses, nor of ourselves.\par \par [Way-1-50] Next after Moses came the prophets, or the spirit of prophecy, with its far-seeing sight, and declaration of glories to come. Now the ground of prophecy is this, it is because man is to be restored to his first glorious state; and therefore the spirit of prophecy comes forth from God to awaken hope and faith, expectation and desire in man; because these are the onlUy powers that can draw him out of the mire of the earthly life, in which he sticks, and carry him up to his first heavenly state again. Nothing therefore is to be sought for in or from the prophets, but the increase of our hope, faith, and desire of the new birth of that glorious life which we have lost, and they foretold was to be had again.\par \par [Way-1-51] Thus, my friend, you see the importance of this one point; Moses and the prophets have no ground or reason but this, that man has lost his diviVne life; and that this same divine life is to be born again in him. Now seeing this is the ground and reason of the scriptures, therefore is it the one unerrring key to the right use of them. They have only this one intent, to make man know, resist, and abhor the working of his fallen earthly nature; and to turn the faith, hope, and longing desire of his heart to God: and therefore we are only to read them with this view, and to learn this one lesson from them. Whatever therefore occurs, that cannot be tuWrned to this general end, but relates to only some temporal, occasional, or private matter, is of no more importance to us, than the cloak and parchments which St. Paul speaks of.\par \par [Way-1-52] How many hundred barns must there be, to hold all the learned volumes, that had never been written, had man looked upon the scriptures as having no other view or end, but to teach him to renounce the tempers of his fallen earthly nature, and live unto God in faith and prayer; to be born again of the divine Xnature! But this one end being overlooked by learned reason, Hebrew and Syriac, Arabic, Greek, and Latin, have been called in, to torture the scriptures into a chaos of confused opinions, that has covered the Christian world with darkness, and lost the only good that was to be had from the written Word of God. Whereas, standing upon the ground on which you stand, with only this one great point at heart, the scriptures are a plain, easy, and certain instruction; and no honest unlearned heart stands in needY of any commentator to help him to all the benefit that can be had from scripture, or secure him from any hurtful error.\par \par [Way-1-53] Humanus. Indeed, Theophilus, my own experience can bear a full testimony to the truth of all that you have said. For upon my reading now the New Testament, with this key in my hand; viz., of man thus fallen, and thus called to a new birth from heaven; everything I read in it has spirit and life, and overflows my soul with such an unction, and sensibility of sweet dZoctrine, as I am not able to express. For whilst I consider it only as written to drive all earthly tempers and passions out of the soul, and inflame the heart with love and desire of the grace, the spirit, and the light and life of the heavenly nature, I can say, as the Jewish officers did, never man spoke like Christ and his apostles.\par \par [Way-1-54] Why was the Son of God made man? It was because man was to be made again a divine creature. Why did man want such a savior? It was because he was bec[ome earthly, mortal, gross flesh and blood. Now take Christ in this light, and consider man in this state, and then all that is said in the gospel stands in the fullest light.\par \par [Way-1-55] Thus, "Come unto me, all ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will refresh you." How poor, how mean, and uncertain a sense is there in this, till you know, that man has lost his divine nature, and is fallen into a world that is all labor, burden, and misery! But as soon as this is known, then how easy, how \plain, is the full and highest sense of these words, "Come unto me, all that labor, are weary and heavy laden, and I will refresh you!" I will bring to life that first happy state which you have lost. This is the note, the paraphrase, the expositor, the key to the true sense of every doctrine of Christ; which, though variously expressed to awaken the heart, is only one and the same thing. Thus, "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted." But why so? Because he that is troubled at the corru]ption, vanity, and impurity of his fallen earthly state, has the comfort of the heavenly life ready for him. Again, "Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled." How plain and great is the sense here, as soon as we know, that Christ is our righteousness; and that the righteous life of Christ in the soul, is that life which our first father lost! Therefore, to hunger and thirst after this righteousness, is the one way to be filled with that divine life, that we ha^d lost. Again, "If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. And out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water." What can the Latin or Greek critic do here? Nothing at all. He will only try to make some excuse for the strangeness of the phrase. But when these words are read by one who knows that he, and all mankind, have lost the divine nature, he tastes and feels the glad tidings which they bring; and is in love with these sweet sounds, which promise such an overflowing return of heaven into h_is soul. Again, "I beseech you," says the apostle, "as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul," &c. The critic looks into his books to see how Latin and Greek authors have used the words "stranger" and "pilgrim," and so some sense or other is given to the apostle; but the Christian, who knows, that man, wandering out of paradise, a colony of heaven, was taken captive by the stars and elements, to live in labor and toil, in sickness and pain, in hunger and thirst, in` heat and cold amongst the beasts of the field; where evil spirits, like roaring lions, seek to devour him; he only knows in what truth and reality man is a poor stranger and distressed pilgrim upon earth. Again, "To the poor," saith Christ, "the gospel is preached." The critic only considers the several kinds of worldly poverty. But the Christian, who knows that the real great poverty of man consists in his having lost the riches and greatness of his first life, knows, that to this poor man the gospel isa preached, because he only, who is sensible of this poverty, can hear and receive it. For to man, insensible of his fallen state, the glad tidings of the gospel are but like news from fairy land; and the cross of Christ can only be a stumbling-block and foolishness to him, whether he be a Christian, a Jew, or a Greek. Thus does it appear, that all the doctrines and sayings of Christ and his apostles are full of a comfortable, divine, and exalted sense, or mere empty words, just as the fall of man from a dbivine life is either owned or disowned. But I have done.\par \par [Way-1-56] Theophilus. Thus far then, Humanus, we are agreed, that the fall of man into the life and state of this world, is the whole ground of his redemption; and that a real birth of Christ in the soul, is the whole nature of it. Let me now only ask you, how you would endeavor to convince a man of his fallen state?\par \par [Way-1-57] Humanus. I would not begin with the account that Moses gives of it, for several reasons; but chieflyc for these two: first, because the fall is not an historical matter; nor would a mere historical knowledge of it be of any use, or do any real good to him. Secondly, because Moses's account is not the proof of the fall, and therefore not to be appealed to as such.\par \par [Way-1-58] Moses is the first historian of natural death, and has recorded the death of the first man, and of many others who were born of him: but the proof that man is mortal lies not in Moses's history of the death of the first mand, but in the known nature of man, and the world from which he has his life. Again, we do not want Moses to assure us, that there was a first man; that he had something from heaven, and something from the earth in him; and must have come into the world in another manner than all those who have descended from him. For every man is himself the infallible proof of this; Moses is only the historian that has recorded the when, and where, and how this first man came into the world, and what was his name. But thee proof and certainty of the fact, that such a first man there must have been, lies not in Moses's account, but stands proved to every man from his own nature and state in this world.\par \par [Way-1-59] Thus it is with the fall; we have no more occasion to go to Moses, to prove that man and the world are in a fallen state, than to prove that man is a poor, miserable, weak, vain, distressed, corrupt, depraved, selfish, self-tormenting, perishing creature, and that the world is a sad mixture of false goodfs, and real evils; a mere scene of all sorts of trials, vexations, and miseries; all arising from the frame, and nature, and condition both of man and the world. This is the full infallible proof of the fall of man; which is not a thing learnt from any history, but shows itself everywhere, and every day, with such clearness as we see the sun. Moses is not the prover of the fact, that man is fallen; but is the recorder of the when and how, and the manner in which the fall happened.\par \par [Way-1-60] Myg first attempt therefore, upon any man, to convince him of the fall, as the ground of the redemption, should be an attempt to do that for him, which affliction, disappointments, sickness, pain, and the approach of death, have a natural tendency to do; viz., to convince him of the vanity, poverty, and misery of his life and condition in this world. For as this is the true proof of the fallen state of man, so man can only be convinced of it, by having this proof truly set before him. I would therefore appeahl at first to nothing but his own nature and condition in the world; and show him how unreasonable, nay, impossible, it is, that a God, who has nothing in himself but infinite goodness and infinite happiness, should bring forth a race of intelligent creatures, that have neither natural goodness, nor natural happiness. The inspired saints of God say thus, "Man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery." Again, "Man walketh in a vain shadow, and disquieteth himself in vaini." Now if what is here truly said of mankind, could be truly said of any order of the beasts and animals of the field, who could defend the goodness of God in bringing such creatures into such a state of life? Now though the Deist rejects the scriptures, considered as a volume of divine revelation, yet everything that he outwardly sees, and inwardly feels, demonstrates this capital truth of scripture, that man is in this poor and miserable state of life. And therefore, everything that we know of God, and jeverything that we know of man, is a daily irresistible proof, that man is in a fallen state. Look at the human infant just come out of the womb, you can hardly bear the sight; it is a picture of such deformity, nakedness, weakness, and helpless distress, as is not to be seen amongst the home- born animals of this world: the chicken has its birth from no sin, and therefore it comes forth in beauty; it runs and pecks as soon as its shell is broken: the pig and the calf go both to play, as soon as the dam iks delivered of them; they are pleased with themselves, and please the eye that beholds their frolic state and beauteous clothing; whilst the new-born babe of a woman, that is to have an upright form, that is to view the heavens, and worship the God that made them, lies for months in gross ignorance, weakness, and impurity; as sad a spectacle when he first begins to breathe the life of this world, as when in the agonies of death he breathes his last.\par \par [Way-1-61] What is all this, but the strongeslt proof, that man is the only creature that belongs not to this world, but is fallen into it through sin? And therefore his birth, in such distress, bears all the marks of shame and weakness. Had he been originally of this world, it is necessary to suppose, that this world had done the highest honor to its highest creature; and that he had begun his life in greater perfection than any other animal, and brought with him a more beautiful clothing than the finest lilies of the field have. But, to go on: whenm the human infant is set upon his legs, and begins to act for himself, he soon becomes a more pitiable object than when crying in the cradle. The strength of his life is a mere strength of wild passions; his reason is craft, and selfish subtlety; he loves and hates only as flesh and blood prompt him, jails and gibbets cannot keep him from theft and murder. If he is rich, he is tormented with pride and ambition; if poor, with murmuring and discontent: be he which he will, sooner or later, disordered passionns, disappointed lusts, fruitless labor, pains and sickness will tear him from this world in such travail as his mother felt, when she brought forth the sinful animal.\par \par [Way-1-62] Now all this evil and misery are purely the natural and necessary effect of his birth in the bestial flesh and blood of this world, and there is nothing in his natural state that can put a stop to it; he must be evil and miserable so long as he has only the life of this world in him. Therefore the absolute certainty ofo the fall, and the absolute necessity of a new birth, are truths, independently of scripture, plain to a demonstration. Thus, God is in himself infinite goodness, and infinite happiness; but man, in his present earthly birth and life, can neither have goodness or happiness, therefore his present state of life could not be brought forth by a God who is all goodness and happiness. Thus every man, that believes in a creator infinitely perfect, is under a necessity of believing the whole ground of Christian rpedemption, namely, that man hath some way or other lost that perfection of life which he had at first from his creator.\par \par [Way-1-63] But the Christian has yet an additional proof of his matter, because the scriptures, which with him are infallible, so frequently and openly bear witness to it.\par \par [Way-1-64] Thus, "Let us make man in our image; according to our own likeness." How great, how divine, is this beginning of man? How can there be any evil or misery, any vanity or weakness, in a cqreature so brought forth? But now what is become of this man? For if you look at man just coming out of the womb, the pitiable object above described, what can be so absurd, as to call this birth, his creation in the likeness and after the image of God? Now what is said of the first man, is not spoken of one person, but of the human nature; for the first man was only the first instance of that which mankind were to be. He had no perfection peculiar to himself, but that of being the first man; and had he srtood, all that came from him, had come to life as he did, in the same strength and glory of perfection, and not been born of a bestial womb, like the wild ass's colt. Again, set the following text against Moses's perfection of the first image of God, "Man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery."\par \par [Way-1-65] Is not this a full proof, that the first created life of man is quite dead, and that an earthly life of misery is risen up instead of it? Again, the aposstle saith, "The natural man knoweth not the things of God; they are foolishness unto him." Can this natural man, the man of earthly flesh and blood, that can have no acquaintance with, or knowledge of God, to whom the "things of God are foolishness"; can this be the man first created in the image and likeness of God? What can be more absurd than such a thought? Or what excuse can be made for that learning which cannot see from so plain a scripture, that human nature, now, is not that human nature, which itt was at first created, but is dead to that first life, which it had in the image and likeness of God, or the things of God could not possibly be foolishness to it? But I will end this matter with these borrowed words, "We were no more created to be in the sorrows, burdens, and anguish of an earthly life, than the angels were created to be in the wrath and darkness of hell. It is as contrary to the will and goodness of God towards us, that we are out of paradise, as it is contradictory to the designs and ugoodness of God towards the angels, that some of them are out of heaven, prisoners of darkness.\par \par [Way-1-66] "The grossness, impurity, sickness, pain, and corruption of our bodies, is brought upon us by ourselves, in the same manner as the hideous, serpentine, form of the devils are brought upon them. How absurd, and even blasphemous would it be, to say with the scripture and the church, "that we are children of wrath, and born in sin," if we had that nature, which God at first gave us? What a revproach upon God, to say, that this world is a valley of misery, a shadow of death, full of disorders, snares, evils, and temptations, if this was an original creation, or that state of things for which God created us? Is it not as consistent with the goodness and perfection of God, to speak of the misery and disorder that unfallen holy angels find above, and of the vanity, emptiness, and sorrow of their heavenly state, as to speak of the misery of men, and the sorrows of this world, if men and the world wwere in that order, in which God at first had placed them? If God could make any place poor and vain, and create any beings into a state of vanity and vexation of spirit, he might do so in all places, and to all beings."* \{*Serious Answer to Dr.Trapp on the Sin, &c. of being Righteous overmuch, p. 35.\}\par \par [Way-1-67] Theophilus. You have put the fall, Humanus, upon its right proof, and shown great judgment in your intended method of converting anyone to the belief of it. You have set the whole matxter in so just a light, that I have nothing that I would add to it.\par \par [Way-1-68] Humanus. Give me leave, gentlemen, just to put in a word or two concerning another plain indication, that man has lost that life and nature, in which he was first created. Reason has been my god, and is the vain idol of modern Deism, and modern Christianity; and yet human ignorance, infirmity, and mortality; they all began together; they are inseparable; they generate and are generated from one another; they are the ylife of each other; and they must live and die together, and all bear the same witness to the fallen state of man. For no creature can come from the hands of God into a state of any ignorance of anything, that is fit and proper to be known by it. This is as impossible as for God to have an envious, or evil will. Now all right and natural knowledge, in whatever creature it is, is sensible, intuitive, and its own evidence. But opinion, reasoning, or doubting (for they are all but one thing) can only then bezgin when the creature has lost its first right and natural state, and is got somewhere, and become somewhat, that it cannot tell what to make of. Then begins doubting, from thence reasoning, from thence debating; and this is the high birth of our magnified reason, as nobly born, as groping is, which has its beginning in and from darkness, or the loss of light. Hence we have a full proof, that man has lost his first natural state in which God created him. For reasoning, doubt, and perplexity in any creatur{e, is the effect of some fall, or departure from its first state of nature, and shows, that it wants, and is seeking, something that its nature would have, but knows not how to come at it. The beasts seek not after truth; a plain proof, that it has no relation to them; has no suitableness to their nature, nor ever belonged to them. Man is in quest of it, in perplexity about it, cannot come at it; takes lies to be truth, and truth to be lies; a plain proof, both that he has it not, and yet has had it, was |created in it, and for it; for nothing can seek for anything, but that which is lost, and is wanted; nor could it form the least idea of it, but because it has belonged to it, and ought to be his.\par \par [Way-1-69] The beasts have no ignorance of anything, that concerns them; but have all the sensible, intuitive knowledge of everything that is the good of their nature. But man left to his reason is all over ignorance, doubt, conjecture, and perlexity in matters of the highest moment, about what he him}self is, what is his chief good, where he is to seek it, and how to obtain it. For to ask your reason, how God is your God, how you are in him, and from him, what he is in himself, and what he is in you, is but like asking your hands to feel out the thickness, or the thinness, of the light. To ask your reason, whether the soul of man is immortal in its nature, is to as good purpose, is going no father out of the way, than if you was to ask your eyes to show you, where extension begins, and where it ends. ~To ask your reason, whether man has anything of God, or the divine nature in him, is just as suitable to the nature and power of your reason, as if you was to ask your nose, whether this or that sweet, aromatic smell in the garden, has any heavenly power mixed with, and opening itself in it.\par \par [Way-1-70] Reason, therefore, is so far from being able to help man to that knowledge, which his nature and condition wants, that it can only help his ignorance to increase and fructify in doubts, fictions, and absurd debates. And the thing cannot be otherwise; man must walk in a vain shadow, so long as reason is his oracle. For nothing can act suitably to nature, find its true state in nature, or answer the end of its creation by the power of reason; because reason is not the life, the power, or former of nature; and therefore has no more power over nature, than over the powers and principles of vegetation, either in the body of man, or any other creature. He therefore who turns to his reason, as the true power and light of his nature, betrays the same ignorance of the whole nature, power, and office of reason, as if he was to try to smell with his eyes, or see with his nose. For as each of these senses has only its one work or power, which it cannot alter, or exceed; so reason has only its one work or power, which it cannot alter, or exceed; and that one work is, to be a bare observer and comparer of things that manifest themselves to it by the senses. This is as much its one only power, as seeing is the one only power of the eyes. When therefore reason takes upon it to determine on things not manifested to it by the senses, as to judge about divine new birth, a divine light, and divine faith; or how the soul wants, or does not want God, &c. it is then as much out of its place and office, as the eye that takes upon it to smell; and its true name and nature is, whim, humor, caprice, conjecture, opinion, fancy, and every other species of blindness, and passion.\par \par [Way-1-71] Now suppose man to come thus into the world, with this chief difference from other creatures; that he is at a loss to find out what he is, how he is to live, and what he is to seek, as his chief happiness; what he is to own of a God, of providence, religion, &c. Suppose him to have faculties that put him upon this search, and no faculties, that can satisfy his inquiry; and what can you suppose more miserable to himself, or more unworthy of a good creator? Therefore, if you will not suppose a God, that has been good to all creatures, and given every animal its proper light of nature, except man, you must be forced to own, that man has certainly lost the true light and perfection of his nature, which God at first gave him.\par \par [Way-1-72] But I believe Academicus wants to say something, and therefore I have done.\par \par [Way-1-73] Academicus. I was only going to say, that every attribute of God, everything that sense and reason force us to see, and know, and feel, both of ourselves, and the world, join with the letter and spirit of all scripture in attesting, that man has certainly had a divine life, to which he has certainly died. But yet I must own it is very difficult to conceive, how a creature brought forth in so high perfection, in such enjoyment of the life, light, and Spirit of God, could either deceive himself, or be deceived by another.\par \par [Way-1-74] Theophilus. All that we want to know, my friend, is the certainty of the fact, and this is of the greatest moment to us: for this is it, that takes us from the herd of earthly animals, and lays the foundation of religion, and divine virtue. For had not a divine life at first been in us, we should be now at the same distance from all true virtue and goodness, and as incapable of forming the least thought or desire of it, as other animals; and should have nothing to do, but to look to ourselves, live to our earthly nature, and make the most of this world. For this is the only wisdom and goodness, that an earthly nature is capable of, whether it be a man, or a fox. The certainty therefore of the fact, of our first divine birth, is all; nothing more need be inquired after. For on this ground stands all our comfort; hence it is, that, in faith and hope, we can look up to God as our Father, to heaven as our native country, and have the honor to be accounted only as strangers and pilgrims upon earth.\par \par [Way-1-75] But however, to remove your difficulty, I shall give you a little sketch of the possibility of man's falling, although created in the perfection abovementioned.\par \par \pard [Way-1-76] Now supposing God to have brought a new intelligent creature into a new world, all the attributes of God oblige us to suppose this creature to be created in a perfect state both inwardly and outwardly. As intelligent, it must partake of the divine understanding; as living, it must have a degree of the divine life in it; as good, it must have a birth of the divine goodness in it; as an offspring of divine love, it must have a divine happiness, for the enjoyment of which the love of God created it. Now there is but one possible way, for this intelligent creature, thus endowed, to fall from, or lose the happiness of its first created state. It cannot knowingly choose misery, or the loss of its happiness: therefore it can only fall by such an ignorance, or power of falling as is consistent with its perfect state. Now this power lay wholly in the newness of its life: it only began to find itself an intelligent being; and yet had a power of looki\cf1\f1\fs23\par }  00 Way to Divine Knowledge (1752){\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Times New Roman;}{\f1\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\sl240\slmult1\lang2058\f0\fs24 The Way to Div Q=01 First Dialogue{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Times New Roman;}{\f1\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\sl240\slmult1\lang2058\f0\fs24 The First Dialogue\par en, of speaking first this afternoon; for though I have been much pleased with what passed betwixt Humanus and Theophilus in the morning, yet I must own to you all, that I was quite disappointed; for I came in full expectation of hearing everything, that I wish, and want to know, concerning Jacob Behmen, and his works. For though I have been reading, for more than two years, some one or other of his books, with the utmost attention, and I everywhere find the greatest truths of the gospel most fundamentally asserted, yet presently I am led into such depths, as I know not where I am, and talked to in such new, intricate, and unintelligible language, as seems quite impossible to be comprehended. Sometimes I almost suspect, that the author understood not himself: for I think, if I knew any truths, though ever so deep or uncommon; yet, if I understand them plainly myself, I could set them before others in the same plainness, that they appeared to me.\par \par [Way-2-2] All my acquaintance have the same complaint that I here make; but some hope, and others say, that if you live to publish any of his books, you will remove most of his strange and unintelligible words; and give us notes and explications of such as you don't alter. Surely a kind of commentary upon him, would reconcile many to the reading of him, who, in the state he is in, cannot have patience to puzzle their heads about him.\par \par [Way-2-3] Rusticus. Oh this impatient scholar! How many troubles do I escape, through the want of his learning? How much better does my old neighbor John the shepherd proceed? In winter evenings, when he comes out of the field, his own eyes being bad, the old woman his wife puts on her spectacles, and reads about an hour to him, sometimes out of the scriptures, and sometimes out of Jacob Behmen; for he has had two or three of his books some years. I sat by one evening, when my old dame, reading Jacob, had much ado to get on: "John," said I, "do you understand all this?" "Ah," says he, "God bless the heart of the dear man, I sometimes understand but little of him; and mayhap Betty does not always read right; but that little which I often do understand, does me so much good, that I love him where I don't understand him."\par \par [Way-2-4] "John," said I, "shall I bring a man to you, that knows the meaning of all of Jacob's hard words, and can make all his high matters as plain to you, as the plainest things in the world?" "No, no," replied John, "I don't want such a man, to make a talking about Jacob's words; I had rather have but a little of his own, as it comes from him, than twenty times as much at second-hand. Madam, the squire's wife, of our town, hearing how Betty and I loved the scriptures, brought us, one day, a huge expounding book upon the New Testament; and told us, that we should understand the scripture a deal better, by reading it in that book, than the Testament alone. The next Lord's Day, when two or three neighbors, according to custom, came to sit with us in the evening; 'Betty,' said I,'bring out madam's great book, and read the fifth chapter of St. Matthew.' When she had done that, I bid her read the fifteenth chapter of the first Epistle to the Corinthians. The next morning, said I to Betty, 'Carry his expounding book again to my mistress, and tell her, that the words of Christ, and his apostles, are best by themselves, and just as they left them.'\par \par [Way-2-5] "And, as I was that morning going to my sheep, thought I to myself, this great expounding book seems to have done just as much good to this little book of the Testament, by being added to it, and mixed with it, as a gallon of water would do to a little cup of true wine, by being added to it, or mixed with it. The wine indeed would be all there; but its fine taste, and cordial spirit, which it had, when drank by itself, would be all lost and drowned in the coldness and deadness of the water.\par \par [Way-2-6] "When my Betty used to read this, or some such words of Christ, 'Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven'; she used to stop a little, that my heart might have time to be affected with them, to love the blessed thing there spoken of, and lift up itself to God in desire of it. But this great book takes this good work from my heart; and only calls upon my mind, to behold the many parts which the text may be split into, and the many meanings, some better and some worse, some higher and some lower, that every part has, and may be taken in, by some doctor of some church or other. Therefore, Rusticus, I sent the great book to madam again; and am, for the same reason, utterly against hearing your expounder of Jacob Behmen. If Jacob has more truths than other folks, he is the best able to tell me what they are; and if he has some matters too high for me, I don't desire any lesser man to make them lower.\par \par [Way-2-7] "When he, like an Elijah, in his fiery chariot, is caught up into such heights, and sees and relates such things, as I cannot yet comprehend; I love and reverence him for having been where I never was; and seeing such things as he cannot make me to see: just as I love and reverence St. Paul for having been caught up into the third heaven, and hearing and seeing things not possible to be uttered in human words.\par \par [Way-2-8] "As I have but one end in hearing the scriptures read to me, to fill me with the love of God, and every kind of goodness; so every part of scripture, whether plain or mysterious, does me the same good, is alike good to me, and kindles the same heavenly flame in my soul. Thus these plain words, 'Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly of heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls'; give me, without any expounder of their meaning, such an aversion and dislike of all vanity and pride, fill me with such sweet contentment in every lowliness of life, that I long to be the servant of every human creature. On the other hand, these lofty words of scripture, 'Behold, a throne was set in heaven; and he that sat thereon, was, to look upon, like a jasper-stone; and there was a rainbow round about the throne; and four-and-twenty seats; and upon the seats, four-and-twenty elders in white raiment, and crowns of gold upon their heads: and out of the throne proceeded lightnings, and thunders, and voices: and before the throne were seven lamps of fire, which are the seven spirits of God: and before the throne there was a sea of glass like unto crystal: and in the midst of the throne, and round about it, were four beasts full of eyes before and behind: and the first beast was like a lion, the second like a calf, the third had a face as a man, and the fourth was like a flying eagle: and the four beasts had each of them six wings, and were full of eyes; and they rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy Lord God almighty, which was, and is, and is to come. And when these beasts give glory, and honor, and thanks, to him that sat on the throne, the four-and-twenty elders fall down before him that sat on the throne, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying, Thou are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor, for thou hast created all things,' &c.* \{*Revelations, iv. ver. 2 &c.\}\par \par [Way-2-9] "Now these lofty and mysterious words, instead of puzzling my head, lay hold of my heart, which, all inflamed with them, rises up with the eyes and wings of the beasts in their song of praise and honor; and bows down with the elders that worship the high and mighty Lord of heaven and earth. And thus I want no Hebrew or Greek scholar to tell me this or that, what are the seven spirits of God, why four kinds of beasts, why neither more nor less than six wings, who were the elders, and why twenty-four; but the whole matter, as if a glance of the majesty of heaven had just passed by me, strikes my heart with such good transports of wonder and joy, as makes me all longing and desire to be one of those, who are always singing the praises and wonders of the majesty of God. And thus, Rusticus, all that the scriptures give me to drink, whether high or low, is equally a cup of blessing to me, and equally helps forward the growth of heaven in my soul.\par \par [Way-2-10] "Bring not therefore your cunning man, that has skill in words, to me; for words are but words; and though they be spoken even by the messengers of God, as angels, or prophets, or apostles; when they do their best, they can only do, as John the Baptist did, bear witness to the light: but the light itself, which can only give light to the soul, is God himself. And therefore not he that can best speak with the tongues of men and angels, but he that most loves God, that is, that most loves the goodness of the divine nature; he has most of God, and the light of God within him."\par \par [Way-2-11] Thus ended honest old John the shepherd. And now, Academicus, if your learned curiosity could be as much affected with what he has said, as my ignorant simplicity is, you would drop all that you had said, as the effect of such impatience as is much fitter to bring darkness than light into your soul. You own, that, in the works of Behmen, the greatest points of Christianity are most fundamentally opened. And how can you be more self-condemned, than by desiring more?\par \par [Way-2-12] But the truth is, you have only heard these fundamental matters; you have only received them as good notions; are content with the hearsay of them; and are therefore impatient to have more of this hearsay knowledge, that you may become more learned in high matters, and more able to talk about the ground and depth of Christian doctrines. You know, as well as I can tell you, that this is your joy in Jacob Behmen; and thence it is, that you have no patience, when you can't come at his meaning, so as to add it to your number of notions. And thus you forget how often he tells you, and how fundamentally he proves to you, that this notional knowledge, the treasure of human reason, is the very builder of Babel. Whilst you are under the guidance of our own Babylonian reason, you can have no good either from the scriptures, or the writings of Jacob Behmen; but will be hunting after notes and commentaries to help you to notions which only delude your mind with the empty shadows of knowledge. Would you know the truths of Jacob Behmen, you must see that you stand where he stood; you must begin where he began, and seek only, as he tells you he did, the heart of God, that he might be saved from the wrath of sin and Satan; and then it was, that the light of God broke in upon him. But you, full of the power of your own reason, want to stand upon the top of his ladder, without the trouble of beginning at the bottom, and going up step by step. But I believe you had rather have Theophilus speak than me; and therefore I shall now leave you to him.\par \par [Way-2-13] Theophilus. Truly, Academicus, I am much of the same mind with honest Rusticus, though perhaps I might not have spoken it so bluntly as he has done. You seem to be in the same error, that most of my learned friends are in, with regard to Jacob Behmen, who, though they greatly admire him, yet, of all people, receive the least true benefit from him. They have been trained up in dispute and controversy, accustomed to determine everything by the light of their own reason, and know no other guide to truth. And therefore, till, sooner or later, they come to know the falseness of this guide, they can have no entrance into the region of divine light; but must be forced to take their part, not of truth, but of some such system of opinions, as their birth and education has placed them in. Thus, a learned Papist has one creed, and the learned Protestant has another; not because truth and light has helped him to it; but because birth and education have given to the one popish, to the other Protestant eyes. For reason, which is the eye or light of both, finds as much to its purpose, and as many good tools to work with, in popish, as in Protestant opinions. Learning and criticism are an open field to both, and he only has the greatest harvest, who is best skilled in reaping.\par \par [Way-2-14] Academicus. I perceive then, that I must renounce all my learning and reason, if I am to understand Jacob Behmen. I cannot say, that I am resolved to purchase it at so great a price. I hope the knowledge to be had from the scriptures, will be sufficient for me, without his deep matters. I did not expect to find you so great an enemy to learning.\par \par [Way-2-15] Theophilus. Dear Academicus, be not so uneasy; I am no more an enemy to learning, than I am to that art which builds mills to grind our corn, and houses for ourselves to dwell in. I esteem the liberal arts and sciences as the noblest of human things; I desire no man to dislike or renounce his skill in ancient or modern languages; his knowledge of medals, pictures, paintings, history, geography, or chronology; I have no more dislike of these things in themselves, than of the art of throwing silk, or making lace. But then all these things are to stand in their proper places, and everyone kept within its own sphere.\par \par [Way-2-16] Now all this circle of science and arts, whether liberal or mechanic, belongs solely to the natural man; they are the work of his natural powers and faculties; and the most wicked, sensual, unjust person, who regards neither God, nor man, may yet be one of the ablest proficients in any or all of them. But now Christian redemption is quite of another nature; it has no affinity to any of these arts or sciences; it belongs not to the outward natural man, but is purely for the sake of an inward, heavenly nature, that was lost, or put to death, in paradise, and buried under the flesh and blood of the earthly, natural man. It breathes a spark of life into this inward, hidden, or lost man; by which it feels and finds itself, and rises up in new awakened desires after its lost Father, and native country.\par \par [Way-2-17] This is Christian redemption; on the one side, it is the heavenly divine life offering itself again to the inward man, that had lost it. On the other side, it is the hope, the faith, and desire of this inward man, hungering, and thirsting, stretching after, and calling upon this divine and heavenly life.\par \par [Way-2-18] Now, whether this awakened, new man breathes forth his faith and hope towards this divine life, in Hebrew, Greek, or English sounds, or in no one of them, can be of no significancy: a man that can do it only in one, or in all these languages, is neither farther from, nor nearer to, this redeeming life of God. Or can you think, that the heavenly life must more willingly enter into, and open itself in, a man that has many languages, than in him, who knows only one? Or, that a man, who can make high Dutch, Welsh, or Greek grammars, must have a stronger faith, a more lively hope, and a more continual thirst after God, than he who can but poorly spell in his mother tongue? But now, if this is too absurd to be supposed; then, my friend, without the least injury done, or the least enmity shown, to learning, science, reason, and criticism, you must place them just where I have done, amongst the things and ornaments of this earthly life, and such things as, in their own nature, are as easy to be had, and as highly enjoyed, by men that despise all goodness, as by those who fear God, and eschew evil.\par \par [Way-2-19] And therefore, sir, no truths concerning the divine and heavenly life are to be brought for trial before this learned bar, where both jury and judges are born and bred, live and move and have their being, in another world, which have no more power of feeling the divine life, than an eagle's eyes can look into the kingdom of God. If you, my friend, having read many old Greek and Latin books, should intend to publish Homer, or Caesar's Commentaries, with critical notes, I should have nothing to object to your ability; you might be as well qualified by such means for such a work, as one man is to make baskets, or another traps to catch flies. But if, because of this skill in old Greek and Latin, you should seem to yourself, or others, to be well qualified to write notes upon the spirit and meaning of the words of Christ, I should tell you, that your undertaking was quite unnatural, and as impossible to be free from error, as when a blind man undertakes to set forth the beauty of different colors.\par \par [Way-2-20] For the doctrines of redemption belong no more to the natural man, than the beauty of colors to him, that never saw the light. And from this unnatural procedure it is, that the scriptures are as useful to the Socinian or Arian, the papist or the Protestant; and they can as easily, by the light of reason, charge one another with absurdities, and confute each other's opinion, as two blind men can quarrel and reject each other's notions of red and green.\par \par [Way-2-21] Jesus Christ is the light of that heavenly man that died in paradise; and therefore nothing in man, but that awakened seed of life, that died in paradise, can have the least sensibility or capacity for receiving the redeeming power of Jesus Christ. But light and life have no dependence upon words or phrases; they both can only proceed from a birth, whether it be the light and life of God, or the light and life of this world. How absurd would it be, to suppose, that a man, naturally blind, must be taught grammar or logic, to fit him for the reception of the light of the sun, and the knowledge of colors? Yet not less absurd, than to think, that skill in Hebrew and Greek words can open the light of God and heaven in the soul. If you now, Academicus, can set this matter in a juster light, I am ready to hear you.\par \par [Way-2-22] Academicus. Standing upon the ground, that you, Theophilus, stand upon, all that you have said of reason, science, historical knowledge, or critical skill in words, is unanswerable. For what can all these things avail, if redemption is purely a birth of the divine nature, light, and Spirit of God, offered to fallen man; which birth can only be received by the faith, hope, and desire of that inward man, which is divine in us? For nothing else can have any hunger or thirst after the divine nature, but that which is itself born of it.\par \par [Way-2-23] Now this true ground of the Christian redemption gives the greatest glory to God and comfort to man. It explains the fact, why plain and simple souls, having their inward man kindled into love, hope, and faith in God, are capable of the highest divine illumination; whilst learned students, full of art and science, can live and die without the least true knowledge of God and Christ, and slaves to all the lusts of the flesh. For thus, this redemption belongs only to one sort of people, and yet is common to all. It is equally near, and equally open, to every son of man. There is no difference between learned and unlearned, between Jew or Greek, male or female, Scythian or barbarian, bond or free; but the same Lord is God over all, and equally nigh to all that call upon him. It is told us, as the glory of the divine goodness, that "it giveth fodder to the cattle; and feedeth the young ravens that cry unto it." What cattle? Surely not only to the cattle of Jacob; or only to the young ravens that cry in the land of Judah. Yet this would be much more consistent with the goodness of the one universal God, than to hold, that only the sons of Jacob, or the children of the circumcision, were in the covenant of God's redemption.\par \par [Way-2-24] But now, though this one ground of Christian redemption stands in the highest degree of plainness from scripture, and is absolutely certain from the very nature of the thing; yet, till I met with honest Rusticus, I never conversed with any man, or read any book, that gave me the least hint of it. When I had taken my degrees, I consulted several great divines, to put me in a method of studying divinity. Had I said to them, "Sirs what must I do to be saved?" they would have prescribed hellebore to me, or directed me to the physician as a vapored enthusiast. And yet I am now fully satisfied, that this one question ought to be the sole enquiry of him, who desires to be a true divine. And was our savior himself on earth, who surely could do more for me, than all the libraries in the world; yet I need have asked no more divinity-knowledge of him, than is contained in the one question.\par \par [Way-2-25] It would take up near half a day, to tell you the work which my learned friends have cut out for me. One told me, that Hebrew words are all; that they must be read without points; and then the Old Testament is an opened book. He recommended to me a cart load of lexicons, critics, and commentators, upon the Hebrew Bible. Another tells me, the Greek Bible is the best; that it corrects the Hebrew in many places; and refers me to a large number of books learnedly writ in defense of it. Another tells me, that church history is the main matter; that I must begin with the first fathers, and follow them through every age of the church, not forgetting to take the lives of the Roman emperors along with me, as striking great light into the state of the church in their times. Then I must have recourse to all the councils held, and the canons made, in every age which would enable me to see with my own eyes the great corruptions of the Council of Trent. Another, who is not very fond of ancient matters, but wholly bent upon rational Christianity, tells me, I need go no higher than the reformation; that Calvin and Cranmer were very great men; that Chillingworth and Locke ought always to lie upon my table; that I must get an entire set of those learned volumes wrote against popery in King James's reign; and also be well versed in all the discourses which Mr. Boyle's and Lady Moyer's lectures have produced: and then, says he, you will be a match for our greatest enemies, which are the popish priests, and modern Deists. My tutor is very liturgical; he desires me, of all things to get all the collections that I can of the ancient liturgies, and all the authors that treat of such matters; who, he says, are very learned, and very numerous. He has been many years making observations upon them, and is now clear, as to the time, when certain little particles got entrance into the liturgies, and others were by degrees dropped. He has a friend abroad, in search of ancient manuscript liturgies; for, by the bye, said he, at parting, I have some suspicion that our sacrament of the Lord's Supper is essentially defective, for want of having a little water in the wine, &c. Another learned friend tells me, the Clementine Constitutions is the book of books; and that all that lies loose and scattered in the New Testament, stands there in its true order and form; and though he won't say, that Dr. Clarke and Mr. Whiston are in the right; yet it might be useful to me to read all the Arian and Socinian writers, provided I stood upon my guard, and did it with caution. The last person I consulted, advised me to get all the histories of the rise and progress of heresies, and of the lives and characters of heretics. These histories, he said, contract the matter; bring truth and error close in view; and I should find all that collected in a few pages, which would have cost me some years to have got together. He also desired me to be well versed in all the casuistical writers, and chief schoolmen; for they debate matters to the bottom; dissect every virtue, and every vice, into its many degrees and parts; and show, how near they can come to one another without touching. And this knowledge, he said, might be useful to me, when I came to be a parish priest.\par \par [Way-2-26] Following the advice of all these counselors, as well as I could, I lighted my candle early in the morning, and put it out late at night. In this labor I had been sweating for some years, till Rusticus, at my first acquaintance with him, seeing my way of life, said to me, "Had you lived about seventeen hundred years ago, you had stood just in the same place as I stand now. I cannot read; and therefore," says he, "all these hundreds of thousands of disputing books, and doctrine books, which these seventeen hundred years have produced, stand not in my way; they are the same thing to me, as if they had never been. And had you lived at the time mentioned, you had just escaped them all, as I do now; because, though you are a very good reader, there was then none of them to be read.\par \par [Way-2-27] "Could you therefore, be content to be one of the primitive Christians, who were as good as any that have been since; you may spare all this labor. Take only the gospel into your hands; deny yourself; renounce the lusts of the flesh; set your affections on things above; call upon God for his Holy Spirit; walk by faith, and not by sight; adore the holy Deity of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, in whose image and likeness you was at first created; and in whose name and power you have been baptized, to be again the living likeness, and holy habitation, of his life, and light, and Holy Spirit.\par \par [Way-2-28] "Look up to Christ, as your redeemer, your regenerator, your second Adam; look at him, as truly he is, the wisdom and power of God, sitting at his right hand in heaven, giving forth gifts unto men; governing, sanctifying, teaching, and enlightening with his Holy Spirit, all those that are spiritually-minded; who live in faith, and hope, and prayer, to be redeemed from the nature and power of this evil world. Follow but this simple, plain spirit of the gospel, loving God with all your heart, and your neighbor as yourself; and then you are Christ's disciple, and have his authority to let the dead bury their dead.\par \par [Way-2-29] "God is a spirit, in whom you live and move and have your being; and he stays not till you are a great scholar, but till you turn from evil, and love goodness, to manifest his holy presence, power, and life, within you. It is the love of goodness, that must do all for you; this is the art of arts; and when this is the ruling spirit of your heart, then Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, will come unto you, and make their abode with you, and lead you into all truth, though you knew no more books than I do."\par \par [Way-2-30] So ended Rusticus. It is not easy for me, Theophilus, to tell you, how much good I received from this simple instruction of honest Master Rusticus; for master I may well call him, since he, in so few words, taught me a better lesson of wisdom, than ever I had heard before.\par \par [Way-2-31] What a project was it, to be grasping after the knowledge of all the opinions, doctrines, disputes, heresies, schisms, councils, canons, alterations, additions, inventions, corruptions, reformations, sects, and churches, which 1700 years had brought forth through all the extent of the Christian world! What a project this, in order to be a divine, that is, in order to bear true witness to the power of Christ, as a deliverer from the evil of flesh, and blood, and hell, and death, and a raiser of a new birth and life from above! For as this is the divine work of Christ, so he only is a true and able divine, that can bear a faithful testimony to this divine work of Christ.\par \par [Way-2-32] How easy was it for me to have seen with Rusticus, that all this labyrinth of learned enquiry into such a dark, thorny wilderness of notions, facts, and opinions, could signify no more to me now, to my own salvation, to my interest in Christ, and obtaining the Holy Spirit of God, than if I had lived before it had any beginning! But the blind appetite of learning gave me no leisure to apprehend so plain a truth. Books of divinity indeed I have not done with; but I will esteem none to be such, but those that make known to my heart the inward power and redemption of Jesus Christ. Nor will I seek for anything even from such books, but that which I ask of God in prayer; viz., how better to know, more to abhor and resist the evil that is in my own nature; and how to attain a supernatural birth of the divine life brought forth in me: all besides this is pushpin. The shipwrecked man wants only to get to shore. Did we see the truth of our state as he does, we should have but one want, and that would be, to get possession of our first created state. There is no misery but in the evil that is in our own fallen state; this is our shipwreck, and great distress; nor is there any happiness, but in having the first life of God, and all goodness, opened again in the soul. He that is not intent upon this one thing needful, is not a wise Christian, much less a divine, or one qualified to make known to others the mystery of the power of Christ in the work of redemption.\par \par [Way-2-33] But now I go back to that which I first spoke of; and though I give up all that I said of putting out Jacob Behmen in new language, with comments, &c. yet I must still desire, that, some way or other, he may be made more plain and intelligible; call it by what name you please.\par \par [Way-2-34] Theophilus. Jacob Behmen may be considered, (1.) as a teacher of the true ground of the Christian religion. (2.) As a discoverer of the false anti-Christian church, from its first rise in Cain, through every age of the world, to its present state in all and every sect of the present divided Christendom. (3.) As a guide to the truth of all the mysteries of the kingdom of God. In these three respects, which contain all that anyone can possibly want to know or learn from any teacher; he is the strongest, the plainest, the most open, intelligible, awakening, convincing writer, that ever was. As to all these three matters, he speaks to everyone, as himself saith, in the sound of a trumpet. And here to pretend to be an explainer of him, or make him fitter for our apprehension, in these great matters, is as vain, as if a man should pipe through a straw, to make the sound of a trumpet better heard by us.\par \par [Way-2-35] Further, he may be considered, (4.) as a relater of depths opened in himself, of wonders which his spirit had seen and felt in his ternario sancto. Now in this respect he is no teacher, nor his reader a learner; but all that he saith is only for the same end as St. Paul spoke of his having been in the third heaven, and hearing things not possible to be spoken in human words. And yet in these matters it is, that most of his readers, especially if they are scholars, are chiefly employed; everyone in his way trying to become masters of them. Thus, when he first appeared in English, many persons of this nation, of the greatest wit and abilities, became his readers; who, instead of entering into his one only design, which was their own regeneration from an earthly to an heavenly life, turned chemists, and set up furnaces to regenerate metals, in search of the philosopher's stone. And yet, of all men in the world, no one has so deeply, and from so true a ground, laid open the exceeding vanity of such labor, and utter impossibility of success in it from any art or skill in the use of fire. And this must with truth be affirmed of him, that there is not any possible error, that you can fall into in the use of his books, but what he gives you notice of beforehand, and warns you against it in the most solemn manner; and tells you, that the blame must be yours, if you fall into it. Neither is there any question that you can put, nor advice or direction that you can ask, but what he has over and over spoke to; telling you, in the plainest manner, what the mystery is which his books contain; how, and by whom, and for what end, they are to be read.\par \par [Way-2-36] There are two sorts of people to whom he forbids the use of his books, as uncapable of any benefit from them, and who will rather receive hurt, than any good from them. The first sort he shows in these words: "Loving reader, if thou lovest the vanity of the flesh still, and art not in an earnest purpose of the way to the new birth, intending to be a new man, then leave the above-written words in these prayers unnamed, or else they will turn to a judgment of God in thee."* \{*Repent. p. 42\} Again, "Reader, I admonish you sincerely, if you be not in the way of the prodigal, or lost son, returning to his father again, that you leave my book, and read it not; it will do you harm. But if you will not take warning, I will be guiltless; blame nobody but yourself."\par \par \{**Three Prin.\}\par \par [Way-2-37] In this advice, so different from that of other writers, he shows the truth and reality of his own regenerated state; and that the very same spirit speaks in him, as formerly said, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Unless a man deny himself, and forsake all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple. No man can come unto me, except the Father draweth him. Except a man be born again from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God. He that is of God, heareth God's word. Come unto me, all ye that labor, are weary and heavy-laden." For all these texts of scripture say that very self-same thing that Jacob Behmen doth, when he absolutely requires his reader to be in the way of the returning prodigal. It is not rules of morality observed, or an outward blameless form of life, that will do: for pride, vanity, envy, self-love, and love of the world, can be, and often are, the heart of such a morality of life. But the state of the lost son is quite another thing; and must be the state of every man: as soon as he comes to himself, and has seeing eyes, he will then, like him, see himself far from home; that he has lost his first paradise, his heavenly Father, and the dignity of his first birth; that he is a poor, beggarly slave in a foreign land, hungry, ragged, and starving, amongst the lowest kind of beasts, not so well fed and clothed as they are: when thus finding himself, he saith, "I will arise, and go to my Father," &c. then has he his first fitness for the mysteries opened in Jacob Behmen's writings; for they are addressed to man only in this supposed state; they have no fitness to him but in this state; and therefore no one, whether Jew, Christian, or Deist, who does not find and feel himself to be the very lost son described in the parable, has any capacity to receive benefit from them, but they will be a continual stumbling block to him. And it is just thus with the gospel itself; wherever it is received and professed, without something of this preparation of heart, without this sensibility of the lost son, there it can only be a stone of stumbling, and help the earthly man to form a religion of notions and opinions from the unfelt meaning of the letter of the gospel.\par \par [Way-2-38] Secondly, the other sort of people, whom he excludes from his books, and for whom he has writ nothing, are the men of reason, who give themselves up to the light of reason, as the true touchstone of divine truths. To these he declares over and over, that he has not his light from reason; and that he writes nothing to reason. "The rational man," saith he, "understands nothing in reference to God; for it is without and not in God." Again, "The true understanding must flow from the inward ground, out of the living Word of God. In which inward ground, all my knowledge concerning the divine and natural ground, hath taken its rise, beginning, and understanding. I am not born of the school of this world, and am a plain simple man; but by God's Spirit and will am brought, without my own purpose and desire, into divine knowledge in high natural searchings."* \{*Epist. p. 121.\} Again, "He that will learn to understand the true way, let him depart from and forsake his own reason."\par \par \{**p. 138\} "If my writings," says he, "come into your hands, I would that you should look upon them as of a child's, in whom the highest has driven his work; for there is that couched therein, which no reason may understand or comprehend." \{Ibid. p. 141.\} Again, "Reason must be blinded, kept under, and not allowed to stir."* \{*p. 68.\} Again, "Reason must yield up its own hearing and life, and give itself up to God, that God may live in the understanding of man, else there is no finding in the divine wisdom. All that is taught and spoken concerning God, without the Spirit of God, is but Babel."\par \par \{**Epist. p. 9\} Again, "We must wholly reject our own reason; it is not available to help us to the light, but is a mere leading astray, and keeping us back. This we intimate to the reader, that he may know what he readeth. Let none account it for a work of outward reason." Again, "Speaking of the mystery, \{Three-fold L. p. 68,88.\} he saith, "pray to God the most high, that he would be pleased to open the door of knowledge, without which no man will understand my writings; for they surpass the astral reason; they apprehend and comprehend the divine birth; and therefore only the like spirit can understand them aright. No reasoning or speculating reacheth them, unless the mind be illuminated from God, to the finding of which the way is faithfully shown to the seeking reader."* \{*Epist. p. 138\}\par \par [Way-2-39] And now, Academicus, you may see how needless it is to ask me, or anyone else, to help you to understand his works: he himself has given you all the assistance that can be given: he has laid open before you, in the utmost plainness, both the nature of the mystery, and the one only possible way that you can partake of it.\par \par [Way-2-40] Academicus. You speak often of the mystery: pray, what am I to understand by it?\par \par [Way-2-41] Theophilus. You are to understand by it, the deep and true ground of all things. A mystery, in which the birth and beginning of eternal nature, or the first workings of the inconceivable God, opening and manifesting his hidden triune Deity in an outward state of glory in the splendor of united fire, light, and spirit, all kindled and distinguished, all united and beatified by the hidden three. In this eternal nature, all inward powers, all the hidden riches of the incomprehensible Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, are from eternity to eternity brought forth into outward majesty, and visible glory. In which triune opening of heavenly glory, power, and majesty, the triune God beholdeth himself as in his own manifestation, is clothed as with his own garment, dwelleth as in his own habitation, and worketh all his wonders of wisdom and omnipotence in and by, and according to, the possible powers of this eternal nature. For this eternal nature is the first possibility of all after-beings and things; for before, or without, this eternal nature, all is an eternal, silent, still, unmovable, unperceivable nothingness; and this eternal nature is the first manifestation, the first opening of the divine omnipotence; and in it are included, in its own infinite bounds, all the height and depth, and extent, of the divine wisdom and powers. All that God is, and can do, or bring forth from himself, is done in and by the working of his triune spirit in this eternal nature.\par \par [Way-2-42] This is the great scene of his eternal wisdom and omnipotence, in which new wonders are eternally rising up, and declaring the fathomless depths of the riches of the invisible triune Deity. And to say, that God can do no more, than what he can do through and by the possible powers of this eternal nature, is only saying, that he can do more than what he can do by himself, because this eternal nature is the eternal manifestation of the total God, or an out-birth of that which the Deity is, in its invisible power and Deity.\par \par [Way-2-43] Out of this transcendent eternal nature, which is as universal and immense as the Deity itself, do all the highest beings, cherubims and seraphims, all the hosts of angels, and all intelligent spirits, receive their birth, existence, substance, and form. They are all so many different, finite, bounded forms of the heavenly fire, and light of eternal nature, into which creaturely beings the invisible triune God breatheth his invisible Spirit, by which they become both the true children and likeness of the invisible Deity, and also the true offspring of his eternal nature; and are fitted to rejoice with God, to live in the life of God, and live and work, and have their being, in that eternal nature, or kingdom of heaven, in which the Deity itself liveth and worketh. And they are one, united in one, God in them, and they in God, according to the prayer of Christ for his disciples; that they, and he, and his holy Father, might be united in one.* \{*John xvi.\}\par \par [Way-2-44] This is in part what you are first to understand concerning the mystery.\par \par [Way-2-45] But, secondly, it is a mystery, in which the creation and fall of angels, with all its consequences in them, and their kingdom; in which the system of this visible universe, why, and from what, and how it came to be as it is; the birth of the sun and the planets, why and how they come to have such difference in nature, place, and office, as also of all the stars; the nature of every creaturely life, and ground of its vast variety; the cause of every inanimate dead thing; a mystery in which the creation, dignity, and perfection, of the first angelic man in paradise; the whole kingdom of nature, and kingdom of grace; their connection, difference, and mutually affecting and working upon one another under the providence of the invisible Spirit of God, from the beginning to the end of time, are all unfolded from their first root and cause.\par \par [Way-2-46] Thirdly, it is a mystery, in which the ground of Christian redemption, its whole nature, absolute necessity, and the working of all its parts both in the redeemer and in the redeemed, are set forth in the utmost degree of clearness; where the whole process of Christ, as incarnate, living, suffering, dying, rising from the dead, ascending into heaven, and sitting at the right hand of God, and governing his church on earth by his Holy Spirit; and all the practical duties of the gospel, whether of faith and hope, or of self-denial; dying to this world, and strict conformity to the life and Spirit of Christ; are all demonstrated from the deepest ground of the nature of things, to be absolutely necessary to the recovery and redemption of the fallen human nature.\par \par [Way-2-47] This, sir, is, in some degree, the mystery which it has pleased the Spirit of God to open in this plain and unlearned man.\par \par [Way-2-48] Academicus. Well, Theophilus, I entirely consent to this account you have given of it, and think it is sufficiently supported by what is to be found in his books; they seem to mean all these great matters which you mentioned. But then, sir, give me leave to tell you, that I think it is impossible for you to defend what you have said above concerning reason; or to show the unreasonableness of my demanding rational illustrations and comments. For if this is the truth, that his works contain the ground and philosophy of nature, and all creatures; surely they must not only allow the use of our reason, but call for the highest and most acute exercise of it. For what can enter into the reasons and philosophy of things, but reason? Or what do all these great matters appeal to, but to our reason? I see no possibility of denying this; and if this be granted, all that has been said about silencing our reason, must be given up.\par \par [Way-2-49] Theophilus. The conclusion, my friend, that you here think to be so just and strong, as not possible to be denied, is so far from being so, that it is a glaring absurdity; and the quite contrary to that one only true conclusion, which you should have made, and which so easily and naturally flowed from what was said. For if the mystery is the deep ground of all things, of all nature, and all creatures, &c. then the one conclusion that infallibly flows from it, is this, that no acuteness or ability of natural reason can so much as look into it. For natural reason is no older than flesh and blood; it has no higher a nature or birth than natural doubting; it had no existence when nature began its first workings, and therefore can bear no witness to them. It was not present, had no eyes, when things first came forth; it never stood in the center, from whence the birth of everything must arise; it never saw the forming of the first seeds of every life: and yet the mystery, you see, contains all this: and therefore the one plain and necessary conclusion is this; that natural reason is, and must be, as incapable of entering into this mystery, as flesh and blood is incapable of entering into the kingdom of heaven.\par \par [Way-2-50] Behold, now, what a flagrant proof you have given of the vanity, weakness, and blindness of natural reason in divine matters. Your reason saw, with the utmost certainty, that the mystery must be an appeal to reason, merely because it contained such an height and depth of a divine philosophy; and yet the height and depth of its matters is the one full proof, that reason can have nothing to do with it. This may show you by what means Babel has built itself all over the Christian world. For, by the light of this Babylonian reason, the defenders and opposers of doctrines confute one another with such a certainty and strength of reason, as you saw, that reason must be the only judge of the mystery, from which it is just as much excluded by its own nature, as the mole under ground is, by its nature, excluded from the flight and sight of the towering eagle.\par \par [Way-2-51] Academicus. Pray then tell me, how a man is to attain the knowledge of the mystery, or have any share in the light of it.\par \par [Way-2-52] Theophilus. There is but one possible way, and that is this: it must be born in you. All true knowledge, either of God or nature, must be born in you. You cannot possibly know anything of God, but so far as God is manifested in you; so far as his light and Holy Spirit is born in you, as it is born in him, and liveth and worketh in you, as it liveth and worketh in him. A distant, absent, separate God, is an unknown God. For God can only manifest God, as light can only manifest light, and darkness make darkness to be known.\par \par [Way-2-53] Again, you can have no real knowledge of nature, and its inward working power, but so far as the workings of nature, and the birth of things, are a working and birth in yourself. Natural reason may trade in the outside of things; it may measure, and make drafts of magnitude, height, and distance of things on the earth, and above the earth; it may make many and fine experiments of the powers of every element: but then this is going no farther into the ground of nature, than when the potter makes curious vessels with his clay and fire.\par \par [Way-2-54] To count the stars, to observe their places or motions, is just the same height of natural knowledge, as when the shepherd counts his sheep, and observes their time of breeding.\par \par [Way-2-55] This world, with all its stars, elements, and creatures, is come out of the invisible world; it has not the smallest thing, or the smallest quality of anything, but what is come forth from thence; and therefore every quality of everything is what it is, and worketh that which worketh, by a secret power and nature in and from the invisible world. Bitter, sweet, sour, hard, soft, hot, cold, &c. have all of them their first seed and birth in the invisible world, called eternal nature. The irrational animals of this world feel all these things: the rational man goes farther; he can reason and dispute about their outward causes and effects: but the mystery of eternal nature must first be opened in man, before he can give the divine philosophy of them. For as they all come from thence, have their nature, birth, and growth, from thence; so no philosophy, but that which comes from thence, can give the true ground of them.\par \par [Way-2-56] If man himself was not all these three things, viz., (1.) a birth of the holy Deity; (2.) a birth of eternal nature; and, (3.) also a microcosm of all this great outward world; that is, of everything in it, its stars and elements; and if the properties of every creaturely life were not in an hidden birth in him; no omnipotence of God could open the knowledge of divine and natural things in him.\par \par [Way-2-57] For God can only manifest that, which there is to be manifested; and therefore only open that, which before lay unopened, and as in a state of hiddenness or death. Nothing can come forth from man, or any creature, but that which first had its seed in him; and to think, that any knowledge can be put into him, but that which is a birth of his own life, is as absurd as to think, that the tree and its branches may first grow, and then be brought to the root.\par \par [Way-2-58] We are led into mistakes about this matter from the common practice of the world, which calls everything knowledge, that the reason, wit, or humor of man prompts him to discourse about; whether it be fiction, conjecture, report, history, criticism, rhetoric, or oratory: all this passes for sterling knowledge; whereas it is only the activity of reason, playing with its own empty notions.\par \par [Way-2-59] From this idea of knowledge it is, that when this rational man turns his thoughts to the study of divinity, he is content with the same knowledge of divine matters, as he had in these exercises of his reason; and he proceeds in the same manner, as when he studied history and rhetoric.\par \par [Way-2-60] He turns his mind to hearsay, to conjecture, to criticism, and great names; and thinks he is then a member of the true church, when he knows it as plainly as he knows the ancient commonwealth of Rome. His knowledge of the being of God stands upon the same bottom, and is made known to him by the same means and methods of proof, as he comes to be assured, that once upon a time there was a first man, and his name was Adam. His knowledge of the kingdom of heaven is looked upon to be sufficient, as soon as he knows it, as he knows that there is such a place as Constantinople. When he turns his inquiries into the mysteries of Christian redemption, he looks as much out of himself as when he is searching into the antiquities of Greece; and appeals to the same helps for his knowledge, as when he wants to know the inward structure of Solomon's temple, and all its services, &c.\par \par [Way-2-61] This is the great delusion which has long overspread the Christian world; and all countries, and all libraries, are the proof of it. It is this power and dominion of reason in religious matters, that Jacob Behmen so justly calls the anti-Christ in Babel; for it leads men from the life and truth of the mysteries of Christ, to put a carnal trust in a confused multitude of contrary notions, inventions, and opinions. And the thing is unavoidable, it cannot be otherwise with reason; it cannot do more good with, or make a better use of, gospel doctrines; it is anti-Christ as soon as ever it is admitted to debate and state the nature of any divine truth. And that for these two great reasons: first, because it has absolutely the same incapacity for it, as the man that is born blind hath for the light. Wherein now lieth the incapacity of the blind man, to speak or think anything truly about light? It is because he is born and bred in another world, where nothing of light ever did or can enter; it is because there is the gulf of a whole birth betwixt him and the light of this world; and therefore, though he lives ever so long, reasons ever so much, or hears ever so many speeches, about the light, all that he gets by it is only more false ideas of the unknown thing.\par \par [Way-2-62] Now this is strictly the incapacity of reason, to speak, or think anything truly of the divine life. It is because it is born and bred in another world, in the darkness of flesh and blood, into which no perception or sensibility of God and heaven can enter; it is because there is the gulf of a whole birth betwixt it, and the light of God and heaven; and therefore, let reason, from age to age, hear, read, and dispute ever so much about the light of God and heaven, all that it can get by it, is only to be enriched with more and more fictions and falsities about the unknown thing.\par \par [Way-2-63] Secondly, natural reason, whenever judging or ruling in divine matters, must be anti-Christ, because it cannot make any other use of the mysteries of religion, or do anything else with them, but in the same spirit, and for the same ends, that it receiveth and useth the things of this world. It matters not, what are the names or natures of the things, whether you call them spiritual or temporal: natural reason can make but one and the same use of them; it can only turn them to an earthly use, to worldly prosperity, to private interest, honor, power, or distinction. And the thing is unavoidable, it is impossible to be otherwise; it is not a fault that reason might amend, if it would; but is as much its own nature, as it is natural to flame to ascend. Now everything must act according to its nature; every kind of life must be for itself, for its own good. Now reason has no higher a birth and nature, than the spirit of this world; it must be as worldly as its birth is, and cannot possibly have anything else but worldly views, and the interests of its own flesh and blood, in everything that it can make any use of. This is as essential to the natural reason of man, as to the natural subtlety of every beast; for they have both the same original from the light and life of this world, have both the same earthly nature, and can act only in an earthly manner, to serve the same ends of an earthly life. The reason of the one has no more of God and the divine nature in it, than the subtlety of the other. And hence it is, that man, following only the cunning of his natural reason, is often more mischievous than the worst of beasts. And thus, you see how reason, ruling in divine things, is and must be anti-Christ: first, as it turns the living mysteries of God into lifeless ideas, and vain opinions; and, secondly, as it sets up a worldly kingdom of strife, hatred, envy, division, and persecution, in defense of them. And therefore it is a fundamental truth, that man has no capacity for divine knowledge, till the particle of divine life, lost in the fall, is awakened; in which alone, the mystery of God and the divine nature can have a birth.\par \par [Way-2-64] Academicus. You have carried your point, Theophilus, with a high hand, and I rejoice in seeing this matter so well proved. But still I would ask you something, that I know not how to express; I would fain understand more clearly, how this mystery of God, and eternal nature, is to be born in me.\par \par [Way-2-65] Theophilus. Everything, Academicus, is, and must be, its own proof; and can only be known from and by itself. There is no knowledge of anything, but where the thing itself is, and is found, and possessed. Life, and every kind and degree of life, is only known by life; and so far as life reaches, so far is there knowledge, and no farther. Whatever knowledge you can get by the searching and working of your own active reason, is only like that knowledge, which you may be said to have got, when you have searched for a needle in a load of straw, till you have found it.\par \par [Way-2-66] For nothing that is brought into the mind from without, or is only an idea beheld by our reasoning faculty, is any more our knowledge, than the seeing our natural face in a glass, is seeing our own selves. And all the ideas or images that your reason can form of any absent, unpossessed thing, is no more a part of your own knowledge, than your drawing a picture of your own hand is making a member of your own body. It is therefore a vain and fruitless inquiry, to be asking beforehand for the knowledge of any unpossessed matters; for knowledge can only be yours, as sickness and health is yours, not conveyed into you by a hearsay notion, but the fruit of your own perception and sensibility of that which you are, and that which you have in yourself. How often have you been warned against this procedure, in words like these? "Therefore let the reader be warned not to dive farther into these very deep writings, nor plunge his will deeper, than so far as he apprehendeth: he should always rest satisfied with his apprehension for in his apprehension, he standeth yet in that which hath its reality; and therefore he erreth not, how deep soever the Spirit leadeth him: for to one more will be given than to another. And this is the only mark to be observed, that every one continue steadfast in humility towards God, and submit himself, that he may make the will and the deed as he pleaseth. When you do that, you are in yourself as dead; for you desire nothing but God's will, and the will of God is your life, which goeth inward even to the opening of the highest mysteries."* \{*Threefold L. p. 158.\}\par \par [Way-2-67] One would have thought, Academicus, that this advice, if only from the uncommon nature of it, should have had more effect upon you. For it is not only new to you, but to every reader; there being nothing like it, either for the sense, the sobriety, or the depth of its matter, ever given by the wisest of philosophers to their readers.\par \par [Way-2-68] Truth, my friend, whatever you may think of it, is no less than the savior and redeemer of the world.\par \par [Way-2-69] Hear therefore its own language: "If any man will be my disciple, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and come after me." He does not say, "Let him get a clear and distinct idea of me, what, and how I am God and man in the unity of my person"; he only tells him what he is to part with, what he must put off, to be made a child of the light. Search and look where you will, this denial of self is the one only possible way to the truth. For nothing has separated us from truth, nothing stands betwixt us and truth, but this self of an earthly life, which is not from God, but from our wandering out of our first created state.\par \par [Way-2-70] God created us in and for the light; and had Adam kept his first state, he had not been an ignorant, blind pilgrim in the darkness of this world, but the illustrious opener of all its wonders in the light of God. But as this light and knowledge was lost in Adam, so it can only be recovered by him who came to restore all that was lost, and who justly called himself the light of the world. Would you therefore be a disciple of truth, you must not, with Pilate, ask, "What is truth?" or consult the schools, how you shall form an idea of it: but you must alter your life, put a stop to all earthly lusts, renounce all that you are, and have from self; give up all the workings of your own reason, and your own will; and then, and then only, are you fitted for that unction from above which can teach you all things. But till Christ, who is the one fountain of life and light, be opened in you; it is in vain, that you rise up early, and late take rest, in quest of truth; for he himself hath said, "Without me, ye can do nothing." And every son of earthly Adam, however naturally enriched with the spirit, and light, and arts of this world, is born, and must remain, a spirit in prison, till Christ is found to be an inward preacher, and light within him. As he is the one resurrection from the dead, so is he the one deliverer from everything that has the nature of death, darkness, and ignorance. And to expect seeing eyes, hearing ears, and sensibility of heart, from anything but that eternal Word, by which we were at first made, is robbing God and Christ of more honor, is a more idolatrous departure from the true worship and dependence upon him, than if we sometimes hoped to have good from this or that saint's praying for us. For this is a truth, that admits of no restriction, but reaches from one end of the earth to the other, that as no man can come unto the Father, but through the Son; so no one can come at any divine knowledge either in grace or nature, but through him alone.\par \par [Way-2-71] The schools of this world are of no higher a nature, than the markets of this world; and, when rightly used, serve only to the end of this earthly life. But as markets and traffic seldom keep within their just bounds, but become serviceable to vanity, earthly lusts, and all the luxury of life; so it mostly happens in our learned labors; we grow old, and blear-eyed, in studies that nourish pride and envy, division and contention; and only help our old man to be content with the riches of his fallen nature, and feel no necessity of being born again.\par \par [Way-2-72] Would you therefore be a divine philosopher, you must be a true Christian; for darkness is everywhere, but in the kingdom of God, and truth nowhere to be found by man, but in a new birth from above. Man was created in and for the truth; that is, he was created in the truth of the divine light, to see and hear, to taste and feel, to find and enjoy all things in the truth of the divine life brought forth in him. And therefore it is, that for fallen man there is but one remedy; it is only the truth that can make him free. Truth is the one only resting-place of the soul; it is its atonement and peace with God; all is, and must be, disquiet, a succession of lying vanities, till the soul is again in the truth, in which God at first created it. And therefore said the Truth, "Learn of me; for I am meek, and lowly of heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls."\par \par [Way-2-73] Academicus. Pray, Theophilus, stop a while: surely your zeal carries you too far. All ages of the world have seemed to agree in this, that the gospel teaches purely the simplicity of a godly life; calls no man to be a philosopher, nor gives the smallest instruction in matters that relate to philosophy.\par \par [Way-2-74] Theophilus. All this, Academicus, is very true; but then, this very simplicity and plainness of the gospel, turning man only from this world, to a faith, and hope, and desire of God, is the one reason, and full proof, that it alone is a true guide into the highest school of divine wisdom and philosophy; not only because goodness is our greatest wisdom, but because the mysteries of God, of grace, of nature, of time and eternity, can no other possible way be opened in man, but by this simplicity of a godly life taught in the gospel; because only the godly life hath knowledge of God; just as the creaturely life hath only knowledge of the creature, and the painful life hath knowledge of pain. The scripture saith, "that only the Spirit of God knoweth the things of God." And indeed, how can it possibly be otherwise? For since the Spirit of God is the spirit and life that goeth through all nature and creature, and only openeth its own hidden powers therein; since it is that which is the former of everything; that which makes everything to have the life that it hath, and to work as it worketh; nothing but the Spirit of God can possibly know the things of God: and therefore, of necessity, this Spirit of God must be in man, and work in man, as it is in nature, and worketh in nature, before man can enter into the knowledge and working of God in nature. And therefore here you have two immutable, and fundamental truths: (1.) that all our ignorance of God and nature is, and must be, purely and solely, the want of the Spirit and life of God in us: and, (2.) that therefore the one only way to divine knowledge is the way of the gospel, which calls and leads us to a new birth of the divine nature brought forth in us.\par \par [Way-2-75] Academicus. I have nothing that I can, or would, object to what you have said. But still I must say, that I do not enough apprehend how the Spirit and life of God must thus, of all necessity, be born in us; nor, indeed, do I entirely comprehend how it is done. Human reason, or human instruction, I see plain enough, cannot help me to any divine light. But suppose God should send an angel to instruct me, and that frequently, would not divine knowledge be then imparted to me? And yet this would not be a birth of God in me. Or, will you say, that God cannot sufficiently instruct me, even by the highest of his angels?\par \par  [Way-2-76] Theophilus. An angel, sir, may instruct you, as the scriptures instruct you; but it is only such an instruction, as may direct you where and how to obtain that light, which neither the letter of scripture, nor the voice of an angel, can bring forth in you. The highest angel neither hath, nor ever can have, any more of a redeeming power in it, than the dead paper on which the scriptures are written. But you are to observe, and mark it well, that you cannot have divine light from any other thing