further developed by Boehme.]

[Footnote 348: "I saw," he says, "the Being of all Beings, the Ground
and the Abyss; also, the birth of the Holy Trinity; the origin and
first state of the world and of all creatures. I saw in myself the
three worlds--the Divine or angelic world; the dark world, the
original of Nature; and the external world, as a substance spoken
forth out of the two spiritual worlds.... In my inward man I saw it
well, as in a great deep; for I saw right through as into a chaos
where everything lay wrapped, but I could not unfold it. Yet from time
to time it opened itself within me, like a growing plant. For twelve
years I carried it about within me, before I could bring it forth in
any external form; till afterwards it fell upon me, like a bursting
shower that killeth wheresoever it lighteth, as it will. Whatever I
could bring into outwardness, that I wrote down. The work is none of
mine; I am but the Lord's instrument, wherewith He doeth what He
will."]

[Footnote 349: This is from Bp. Warburton. "Sublime nonsense,
inimitable bombast, fustian not to be paralleled," is John Wesley's
verdict.]

[Footnote 350: See Overton, _Life of William Law_, p. 188.]

[Footnote 351: I have omitted Boehme's gnostical theories as to the
seven _Quellgeister_ as belonging rather to theosophy than to
Mysticism. The resemblance to Basilides is here rather striking, but
it must be a pure coincidence.]

[Footnote 352: And of English Mysticism before the Reformation; cf. p.
208.]

[Footnote 353: From the _Spirit of Prayer_. The sect of Behmenists in
Germany, unlike Law, attended no church, and took no part in the
Lord's Supper.--Overton, _Life of William Law_, p. 214.]

[Footnote 354: This stimulating doctrine, that the soul, when freed
from impediments, ascends naturally and inevitably to its "own place,"
is put into the mouth of Beatrice by Dante (_Paradiso_, i. 136)--

"Non dei piu ammirar, se bene stimo,
Lo tuo salir, se non come d'un rivo
Se d'alto monte scende giuso ad imo.
Maraviglia sarebbe in te, se privo
D'impedimento giu ti fossi assiso,
Com' a terra quieto fuoco vivo.
Quinci rivolce inver lo cielo il viso." ]

[Footnote 355: It may be interesting to compare the following passage
from George Fox, which dramatises the irruption of natural science,
with its faith in fixed laws, into the sphere of the religious
consciousness:--"One morning, while I was sitting by the fire, a great
clo