gues taught on sin and salvation, on the corruption and guilt
of sinners, and on the redeeming work of our LORD, he rises far above the
greatest and best of his teachers in his doctrine of the GODHEAD. Not
only does he rise far higher in that doctrine than either Rome or Geneva,
he rises far higher and sounds far deeper than either Antioch, or
Alexandria, or Nicomedia, or Nice. On this profound point Bishop
Martensen has an excellent appreciation of Behmen. After what I have
taken upon me to say about Behmen, the learned Bishop's authoritative
passage must be quoted:--'If we compare Behmen's doctrine of the
Trinity,' says the learned and evangelical Bishop, 'with that which is
contained in the otherwise so admirable Athanasian Creed, the latter but
displays to us a most abstruse metaphysic; a GOD for mere thought, and in
whom there is nothing sympathetic for the heart of man. Behmen, on the
contrary, reveals to us the LIVING GOD, the GOD of Goodness, the Eternal
Love, of which there is absolutely no hint whatever in the hard
Athanasian symbol. By this attitude of his to the affections of the
human heart, Behmen's doctrine of the Trinity is in close coherence with
the Reformation, and with its evangelical churches. . . . Behmen is
anxious to state a conception of GOD that will fill the hiatus between
the theological and anthropological sides of the dogmatical development
which was bequeathed by the Reformation; he seeks to unite the
theological and the anthropological. . . . From careful study of Behmen's
theology,' continues Bishop Martensen, 'one gains a prevailing impression
that Behmen's GOD is, in His inmost Being, most kindred to man, even as
man in his inmost being is still kindred to GOD. And, besides, we
recognise in Behmen throughout the pulse-beat of a believing man, who is
in all his books supremely anxious about his own salvation and that of
his fellow-men.' Now, it is just this super-confessional element in
Behmen, both on his speculative and on his practical side, taken along
with the immediate and intensely practical bearing of all his
speculations, it is just this that is Behmen's true and genuine
distinction, his shining and unshared glory. And it is out of that
supreme, solitary, and wholly untrodden field of Behmen's
super-confessional theology that all that is essential, characteristic,
distinctive, and fruitful in Behmen really and originally springs. The
distinctions he takes within, and aro