An Extract - A Letter to the Reverend Mr. Law.

AN EXTRACT OF A LETTER TO THE REVEREND MR. LAW. OCCASIONED BY SOME OF HIS LATE WRITINGS.

Reverend Sir,

IN matters of religion I regard no writings but the inspired. Tauler, Behmen, and a whole army of Mystic authors, are with me nothing to St. Paul. In every point I appeal “to the law and the testimony,” and value no authority but this.

At a time when I was in great danger of not valuing this authority enough, you made that important observation: “I see where your mistake lies. You would have a philosophical religion; but there can be no such thing. Religion is the most plain, simple thing in the world. It is only, ‘We love him, because he first loved us.’ So far as you add philosophy to religion, just so far you spoil it.” This remark I have never forgotten since; and I trust in God I never shall.

But have not you? Permit me, Sir, to speak plainly. Have you ever thought of it since? Is there a writer in England who so continually blends philosophy with religion? even in tracts on “The Spirit of Prayer,” and “The Spirit of Love,” wherein, from the titles of them, one would expect to find no more of philosophy than in the Epistles of St. John. Concerning which, give me leave to observe in general,

1. That the whole of it is utterly superfluous: A man may be full both of prayer and love, and not know a word of this hypothesis.

2. The whole of this hypothesis is unproved; — it is all precarious, all uncertain.

3. The whole hypothesis has a dangerous tendency. It naturally leads men off from plain, practical religion, and fills them with the “knowledge” that “puffeth up,” instead of the “love” that “edifieth.” And,

4. It is often flatly contrary to Scripture, to reason, and to itself. But over and above this superfluous, uncertain, dangerous, irrational, and unscriptural philosophy, have not you lately grieved many who are not strangers to the spirit of prayer or love, by advancing tenets in religion, some of which they think are unsupported by Scripture, some even repugnant to it? Allow me, Sir, first to touch upon your philosophy, and then to speak freely concerning these.

I.

As to your philosophy, the main of your theory respects,

1. Things antecedent to the creation:

2. The creation itself:

3. Adam in paradise:

4. The fall of man.

I do not undertake formally to refute what you have asserted on any of these heads. I dare not; I cannot answer either to God or man such an employment of my time. I shall only give a sketch of this strange system, and ask a few obvious questions.

And 1. Of things antecedent to the creation.

“All that can be conceived is God, or nature, or creature.” (Spirit of Prayer, Part II., p. 33) f45

Is nature created, or not created? It must be one or the other; for there is no medium. If not created, is it not God? If created, is it not a creature? How then can there be three, God, nature, and creature; since nature must coincide either with God or creature?

“Nature is in itself a hungry, wrathful fire of life.” (Page 34.) “Nature is and can be only a desire. Desire is the very being of nature.” (Spirit of Love, Part I., p. 20.)

“Nature is only a desire, because it is for the sake of something else. Nature is only a torment; because it cannot help itself to that which it wants.” (Page 34.)

“Nature is the outward manifestation of the invisible glories of God.” (Part II., p. 62.)

Is not the last of these definitions contradictory to all that precede? If desire is the very being of nature; if it is a torment, an hungry, wrathful fire; how is it “the outward manifestation of the invisible glories of God?” “Nature as well as God is antecedent to all creatures.” (Page 59.) “There is an eternal nature, as universal and as unlimited as God.” (Page 64.)

Is then nature God? Or are there two eternal, universe as, infinite beings? “Nothing is before eternal nature but God.” (Ibid.)

“Nothing but!” Is anything before that which is eternal? But how is this grand account of nature consistent with what you say elsewhere? “Nature, and darkness, and self, are but three different espressos for one and the same thing.” (Page 181.)

“Nature has all evil and no evil in it.” (Page 192.) Yea, “Nature, self, or darkness, has not only no evil in it, but is the only ground of all good.” (Ibid.)

O rare darkness!

“Nature has seven chief properties, and can have neither more nor less, because it is a birth from the Deity in nature.” Is nature a birth from the Deity in nature? Is this sense? If it be, what kind of proof is it? Is it not ignotum per aeque ignotum? f46 “For God is triune, and nature is triune.” “Nature is triune!” Is not this flat begging the question? “And hence arise properties, three and three.” Nay, why not nine and nine? “And that which brings these three and three into union is another property.” (Spirit of Love, Part II, p. 64.) Why so? Why may it not be two, or five, or nine? Is it not rather the will and power of God?

“The three first properties of nature are the whole essence of that desire which is, and is called, nature.” (Page 69.) How? Are the properties of a thing the same as the essence of it? What confusion is this? But if they were, can a part of its properties be the whole essence of it?

“The three first properties of nature are attraction, resistance, and whirling. In these three properties of the desire, you see the reason of the three great laws of matter and motion, and need not be told that Sir Isaac ploughed with Jacob Behmen’s heifer.” (Page 37.) Just as much as Milton ploughed with Francis Quarles’s heifer. How does it appear, that these are any of the properties of nature, if you mean by nature anything distinct from matter? And how are they the properties of desire? What a jumbling of dissonant notions is here! “The fourth property” (you affirm, not prove) “is called fire: The fifth, the form of light and love.” What do you mean by the form of love? Are light and love one and the same thing? “The sixth, sound or understanding.” Are then sound and understanding the same thing? “The seventh, a life of triumphing joy.” (Page 58.) Is then a life of triumphing joy, “that which brings the three and three properties into union?” If so, how can it be “the result of that union?” Do these things hang together?” To conclude this head: You say, “Attraction is an incessant working of three contrary properties, drawing, resisting, and whirling.” (Page 200.) That is, in plain terms, (a discovery worthy of Jacob Behmen, and yet not borrowed by Sir Isaac,) “Drawing is incessant drawing, resistance, and whirling.”

2. Of the creation: —

You put these words, with many more equally important, into the mouth of God himself!

“Angels first inhabited the region which is now taken up by the sun and the planets that move round him. It was then all a glassy sea, in which perpetual scenes of light and glory were ever rising and changing in obedience to their call. Hence they fancied they had infinite power, and resolved to abjure all submission to God. In that moment they were whirled down into their own dark, fiery, working powers And in that moment the glassy sea, by the wrathful workings of these spirits, was broke in pieces, and became a chaos of fire and wrath, thickness and darkness.” (Spirit of Prayer, Part I., p. 14, etc.)

I would inquire upon this,

(1.) Is it well for a man to take such liberty with the most high God?

(2.) Is not this being immeasurably “wise above that which is written?” wiser than all the Prophets and all the Apostles put together?

(3.) How can anything of this be proved? — Why thus:

First. “‘Darkness was upon the face of the deep.’ What can this mean, but that the fall of angels brought desolation into the very place of this world?” (Part II., p. 49.) What a proof!

Secondly. “The Scripture shows, that the Spirit of God entering into this darkness,” that is, into the very place where Satan reigned before, “brought forth a new world.” (Page 50.)

“Where does it show, that this darkness was the place where Satan reigned?” I cannot find it in my Bible.

Thirdly. “How could the devil be called the prince of this world if it was not once his own kingdom?” (Ibid.)

May he not be so called, because he now reigns therein? Is he not now “the ruler of the darkness,” or wickedness, “of this world?” Fourthly. “Had it not been their own kingdom, the devils could have no power here. This may pass for a demonstration, that this is the very place in which the angels fell.” (Page 51.)

I doubt it will not pass. Cannot God permit Satan to exert his power wherever it pleaseth him?

Hitherto then we have not a grain of sound proof. Yet you pronounce with all peremptoriness,

“The grounds of true religion cannot be truly known but by going so far back as this fall of angels.” (Pages 37, 38.)

Cannot! Positively cannot! How few men in England, in Europe, can or do go back so far! And are there none but these, no not one, who knows the grounds of true religion?

“It was their revolt which brought wrath and fire and thickness and darkness into nature.” (Ibid.)

If it was sin that brought fire in the world, (which is hard to prove,) did it bring darkness, and thickness too? But if it did, what harm is there in either? Is not thickness as good in its place as thinness? And as to darkness, you say yourself, “It has not only no evil in it, but is the only ground of all possible good.”

Touching creation in general you aver, —

“A creation out of nothing is no better sense than a creation into nothing.” (Page 60.)

“A creation into nothing” is a contradiction in terms. Can you say a creation out of nothing is so? It is indeed tautology; since the single term creation is equivalent with production out of nothing. “That all things were created out of nothing has not the least tittle of Scripture to support it.” (Page 55.)

Is it not supported (as all the Christian Church has thought hitherto) by the very first verse of Genesis?

“Nay, it is a fiction big with the grossest absurdities. It is full of horrid consequences. It separates everything from God. It leaves no relation between God and the creature. For” (mark the proof!) “if it is created out of nothing, it cannot have something of God in it.” (Page 58.)

The consequence is not clear. Till this is made good, can any of those propositions be allowed?

“Nature is the first birth of God.” Did God create it or not? If not, how came it out of him? If he did, did he create it out of something, or nothing? “St. Paul says, all things are of, or out of, God.” And what does this prove, but that God is the cause of all things?

“The materiality of the angelic kingdom was spiritual.” (Spirit of Prayer, Part II., p. 27.) What is spiritual materiality? Is it not much the same with immaterial materiality?

“This spiritual materiality brought forth the heavenly flesh and blood of angels.” (Ibid. p. 57.) That angels have bodies, you affirm elsewhere. But are you sure they have flesh and blood? Are not the angels spirits? And surely a spirit hath not flesh and blood.

“The whole glassy sea was a mirror of beauteous forms, colors, and sounds perpetually springing up, having also fruits and vegetables, but not gross, as the fruits of the world. This was continually bringing forth new figures of life; not animals, but ideal forms of the endless divisibility of life.” (Part I., pp. 18, 19.) This likewise is put into the mouth of God. But is nonsense from the Most High?

What less is “a mirror of beauteous sounds?” And what are “figures of life?” Are they alive or dead, or between both, as a man may be between sleeping and waking? What are “ideal forms of the endless divisibility of life?” Are they the same with those forms of stones, one of which Maraton took up (while he was seeking Yaratilda) to throw at the form of a lion? f47

“The glassy sea being become thick and dark, the spirit converted its fire and wrath into sun and stars, its dross and darkness into earth its mobility into air, its moisture into water.” (Part II., p 29.) Was wrath converted into sun or stars, or a little of it bestowed on both? How was darkness turned into earth, or mobility into air? Has not fire more mobility than this? Did there need omnipotence, to convert fire into fire, into the sun, or moisture into water?

“Darkness was absolutely unknown to the angels till they fell. Hence it appears, that darkness is the ground of the materiality of nature.” (Page 33.) Appears — to whom? Nothing appears to me, but the proving ignotum per ignotius. f48

“All life is a desire.” (Spirit of Love, Part II., P. 198.) “Every desire, as such, is and must be made up of contrariety. God’s bringing a sensible creature into existence is the bringing the power of desire into a creaturely state.” (Ibid.) Does not all this require a little more proof, and not a little illustration?

“Hard and soft, thick and thin, could have no existence, till nature lost its first purity. And this is the one true origin of all the materiality of this world. Else, nothing thick or hard could ever have been.” (Part I., p. 21.) Does not this call for much proof? since most people believe God created matter, merely because so it seemed good in his sight.

But you add a kind of proof. “How comes a flint to be so hard and dark? It is because the meekness and fluidity of the light, air, and water are not in it.” (Ibid.) The meekness of light, and air, and water! What is that? Is air or water capable of virtue?

“The first property of nature is a constraining, attracting, and coagulating power.” (Page 24) I wait the proof of this.

“God brought gross matter out of the sinful properties of nature, that there by the fallen angels might lose all their power over them.” (Page 27.) And have they lost all power over them? Is Satan no longer prince of the power of the air?

“As all matter is owing to the first property of nature, which is an astringing, compressing desire.” (Page 28.) Stop here, Sir. I totally deny, that any unintelligent being is capable of any desire at all. And yet this gross, capital mistake, runs through your whole theory. “The fourth property is fire.” (Page 49.) Where is the proof? “Which changes the properties of nature into an heavenly state.” (Page 48.) Proof again? “The conjunction of God and nature brings forth fire.” This needs the most proof of all.

“Every right-kindled fire must give forth light.” Why? “Because the eternal fire is the effect of supernatural light.” Nay, then light should rather give forth fire.

“The fire of the soul and that of the body has but one nature.” (Page 52.) Can either Behmen or Spinose prove this?

3. Of Adam in paradise.

“Paradise is an heavenly birth of life.” (Spirit of Prayer Part I., p. 6.) How does this definition explain the thing defined? “Adam had at first both an heavenly and an earthly body. Into the latter, was the spirit of this world breathed; and in this spirit and body did the heavenly spirit and body of Adam dwell.” (Page 7.) So he had originally two bodies and two souls! This will need abundance of proof. “The spirit and body of this world was the medium through which he was to have commerce with this world.” The proof? “But it was no more alive in him, than Satan and the serpent were alive in him at his first creation. Good and evil were then only in his outward body and in the outward world.” What! was there evil in the world, and even in Adam, together with Satan and the serpent, at his first creation? “But they were kept inactive by the power of the heavenly man within him.” Did this case cover the earthly man, or the earthly case the heavenly?

But “he had power to choose, whether he would use his outward body only as a means of opening the outward world to him;” (so it was not quite unactive neither;) “or of opening the bestial life in himself. Till this was opened in him, nothing in this outward world, no more than his own outward body,” (so now it is unactive again,) “could act upon him, make any impressions upon him, or raise any sensations in him; neither had he any feeling of good or evil from it.” (Page 9.) All this being entirely new, we must beg clear and full proof of it.

“God said to man at his creation, Rule thou over this imperfect, perishing world, without partaking of its impure nature.” (Page 21.) Was not the world then at first perfect in its kind? Was it impure then? Or would it have perished if man had not sinned? And are we sure that God spake thus?

“The end God proposed in the creation was the restoring all things to their glorious state.” (Spirit of Prayer, Part II., p. 61.) “In the creation!” Was not this rather the end which he proposed in the redemption? “Adam was created to keep what is called the curse, covered and overcome by Paradise. And as Paradise concealed and overcame all the evil in the elements, so Adam’s heavenly man concealed from him all the evil of the earthly nature that was under it.” (Page 62.) Can we believe that there was any evil in man from the creation, if we believe the Bible? “Our own good spirit is the very Spirit of God; and yet not God, but the Spirit of God kindled into a creaturely form.” Is there any meaning in these words? And how are they consistent with those that follow? “This spirit is so related to God, as my breath is to the air.” (Page 195.) Nay, if so, your spirit is God. For your breath is air.

“That Adam had at first the nature of an angel, is plain from hence, that he was both male and female in one person. Now, this (the being both male and female) is the very perfection of the angelic nature.” (Page 65.) Naturalists say that snails have this perfection. But who can prove that angels have?

You attempt to prove it thus: “‘In the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels.’ Here we are told,

(1.) That the being male and female in one person is the very nature of angels.

(2.) That man shall be so too at the resurrection: Therefore he was so at first.” (Page 66.)

Indeed, we are not told here, that angels are hermaphrodites. No, nor anything like it. The whole passage is: “They who are accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage; neither can they die any more; for they are equal unto the angels;” (Luke 20:35, 36) namely, (not in being male and female, but) in this, that they “cannot die any more.” This is the indisputable meaning of the words. So this whole proof vanishes into air. You have one more thought, full as new as this: “All earthly beasts are but creaturely eruptions of the disorder that is broken out from the fallen spiritual world. So earthly serpents are but transitory out births of covetousness, envy, pride, and wrath.” (Spirit of Love, Part II., p. 207.) How shall we reconcile this with the Mosaic account? “And God said, Let the earth bring forth cattle, and creeping thing, and beast. And God made the beast of the earth; and God saw that it was good.” (Genesis 1:24, 25.) Does anything here intimate that beasts or serpents literally crept out of the womb of sin? And what have serpents, in particular, to do with covetousness, or, indeed, with envy, unless in poetic fables?

4. Of the fall of man.

“Adam had lost much of his perfection before Eve was saken out of him. ‘It is not good,’ said God, ‘that man should be alone.’ This shows that Adam had now made that not to be good, which God saw to be good when he created him.” (Spirit of Prayer, p. 74.) Nay, does it show either more or less them this, that it was not conducive to the wise ends God had in view, for man to remain single?

“God then divided the human nature into a male and female creature: Otherwise man would have brought forth his own likeness out of himself, in the same manner as he had a birth from God. But Adam let in an adulterous love of the world: By this his virginity was lost, and he had no longer a power of bringing forth a birth from himself.” (Page 75.) We have no shadow of proof for all this.

“This state of inability is called his falling into a deep sleep.” (Page 76.) How does this agree with, “The Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam?” (Genesis 2:21)

“God took his Eve out of him, as a lesser evil, to avoid a greater. For it was a less folly to love the female part of himself; than to love things lower than himself.” (Page 77.)

Who can extract this out of the words of Moses? Who can reconcile it with the words of our Lord? “He who made them at the beginning” (not a word of any previous fall) “made them male and female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and cleave unto his wife.” (Matthew 19:4, 5.) Is here any intimation, that for a man to love his wife is only less folly than to love the world? “A man ought so to love his wife, even as Christ the Church.” Is there any folly in the love of Christ to the Church?

“Marriage came in by Adam’s falling from his first perfection.” (Page 88.) Does this account do honor to that institution, any more than that memorable saying of an eminent Mystic, “Marriage is but licensed whoredom?”

“Had Adam stood, no Eve would have been taken out of him. But from Eve God raised that angelic man, whom Adam should have brought forth without Eve, who is called the Second Adam, as being both male and female.” (Page 79.) Many things here want proof. How does it appear,

(1.) That Eve would not have been, had Adam stood?

(2.) That had he stood, he would have brought forth the Second Adam without Eve?

(3.) That Christ was both male and female? and,

(4.) That he was on this account called the Second Adam? “The Second Adam is now to do that which the first should have done.” (Page 84.) Is he to do no more than that? no more than a mere creature should have done? Then what need is there of his being any more than a creature? What need of his being God?

“Our having from him a new heavenly flesh and blood, raised in us by his spiritual power, is the strongest proof that we should have been born of Adam by the same spiritual power.” (Page 85.) Had Adam then the very same spiritual power which Christ had? And would he, if he had stood, have transmitted to us the very same benefit? Surely none that believes the Christian Revelation will aver this in cool blood!

“From Adam’s desire turned toward the world, the earth got a power of giving forth an evil tree. It was his will which opened a passage for the evil hid in the earth,” (I know not how it came there before Adam fell,) “to bring forth a tree in its own likeness. No sooner was it brought forth, than God assured him that death was hid in it: A plain proof that this tree was not from God, but from a power in the earth, which could not show itself, till Adam desired to taste something which was not paradisiacal.” (Page 96.) This is the marvelous in the highest degree, and affords many questions not very easy to be answered. But, waving all these, can anything be more flatly contradictory to the Mosaic account? We read there, “The Lord God formed man. And the Lord planted a garden. And out of the ground made the Lord God every tree to grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food; the tree of life also, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.” (Genesis 2:7-9) Is it not here plainly taught that this tree was from God? that, not the desire of Adam, but the Lord God, made this tree to grow, as well as the tree of life? And when was it that God gave him that solemn warning, “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die? “ (Verse 17) Not so soon as that tree was brought forth; but when Adam was put into the garden.

“At first, all the natural properties of man’s creaturely life were hid in God, just as the natural qualities of darkness are hid till glorified by the light.” (Spirit of Love, Part II. p. 181.) Nay, were they not sufficiently hid by the heavenly man? Need they be hid over and over?

“But when man fell, all these properties broke forth, just as the darkness, when it has lost the light, must show forth its own coldness, horror, and other uncomfortable qualities.” Exemplum placet! f49 But, are either coldness or horror natural qualities of darkness? If so, they must be inseparable from it. But who will affirm this?

“Darkness, though contrary to light, is yet absolutely necessary to it. Without this, no manifestation or visibility of light could possibly be.” This is absolutely new and surprising. But how is it to be proved? Thus: “God dwelleth in the light which no man can approach. Therefore, light cannot be manifested to man but by darkness.” (Page 189.) Ah, poor consequence! Would not the same text just as well prove transubstantiation?