autiful in nature or in the heart of
man flows from that fountain. Desire _is_ everything in Nature; _does_
everything. Heaven is Nature filled with divine Life attracted by
Desire.

FOOTNOTES:

[A] From the Danish Bishop Martensen's book "Jacob Boehme"; an excellent
study well translated from Danish into English by Mr T. Rhys Evans,
(Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1885). An account of Behmen's life is
given in the preface to the first volume of the last century English
edition of the Works.

[B] It should be noted that Jacob Behmen held strongly to the Sacrament
of the Lord's Supper, the actual bread and wine as a "permissive medium"
of the real feeding, in order that there may be "a visible sign of what
is done in the inward ground." But he says "We should not _depend_ on
this means or medium _alone_, and think that Christ's Flesh and Blood is
_only_ and alone participated in this use of bread and wine, as Reason
in this present time miserably erreth therein. No, that is not so.
Faith, when it hungereth after God's love and grace, always eateth and
drinketh of Christ's Flesh and Blood. Christ hath not bound himself to
bread and wine _alone_, but hath bound himself to the _faith_, that he
will be in men." Works, vol. iv. p. 208. Charles Gordon took the same
view of the visible "eating," as being a great assistance to the
spiritual feeding, but not indispensable to it. (Gordon's "Letters to
his Sister.")

[C] Dante's "ricchezza senza brama."

[D] Law's Works, vol. viii., p. 177.

[E] Works, vol. vii., p. 65, ed. 1765.

[F] Law's Works, vol. viii., p. 189.

[G] Law's Works, vol. vii., p. 162.

PRELIMINARY NOTE

Before entering upon the Dialogues I have thought it well to insert some
sentences taken from a treatise of Behmen's called "Regeneration,"
together with some taken from another treatise of his on "Christ's
Testament" because they show well the spirit in which he thought and
wrote. The freedom of thought and expression which he claims is,
happily, far more readily accorded now than it was in his own day.

I have only one thing to add. In the eighteenth century English
translation of Behmen's Works, all the substantives, as was then the
frequent custom, are printed with capital letters. There is a
philosophic basis for this practice, because a substantive is an attempt
to denote a "thing in itself" and is therefore of greater weight than an
adjective, which only expresses qualities which we at