ably surpasses him
in power of expression, but not in prophetic power of vision, he saw
the eternal realities of heaven and hell and the world between, and he
told as well as he could what he _saw_, but his practical message which
runs like a thread through all his writings is always simple--almost
childlike in its simplicity--"Thou must thyself be the way. The
spiritual understanding must be born in thee."[59] "A Christian is a
new creature in the ground of the heart."[60] "The Kingdom of God is
not from without, but it is a new man, who lives in love, in patience,
in hope, in faith and in the Cross of Jesus Christ."[61]

And this simple shoemaker of Goerlitz, with his amazing range of thought
and depth of experience, practised and embodied the way of life which
he recommended. He was a good man, and his life touches us even now
with a kind of awe. "Life," he once said, "is a strange bath of thorns
and thistles,"[62] and he himself experienced that "bath," but he went
through the world hearing everywhere a divine music and "having a joy
in his heart which made his whole being tremble and his soul triumph as
if it were in God."[63]

[1] I have used as primary source the German edition of Boehme's
Works--_Theosophia revelata_--published in 1730 in 8 vols. All my
references are to the English translations made by Sparrow, Ellistone,
and Blunden, 1647-61. These translations were republished, 1764, in 4
vols. in an edition which has incorrectly been called William Law's
edition. Four volumes have been republished by John M. Watkins of
London, as follows: _The Threefold Life of Man_, 1909; _The Three
Principles_, 1910; _The Forty Questions_ and _The Clavis_, 1911; and
_The Way to Christ_, 1911. The _Signatura rerum_, in English, has been
published in "Everyman's Library." A valuable volume of selections
from "Jacob Behmen's Theosophic Philosophy" was made by Edward Taylor,
London, 1691. Many volumes of selections have been published in recent
years. The books on Boehme which I have found most suggestive and
helpful are the following: Franz von Baader's "Vorlesungen und
Erlaeuterungen ueber J. Boehme's Lehre," _Werke_ (Leipzig, 1852), vol.
iii. [edition of 1855, vol. xiii.]; Emile Boutroux, _Le Philosophe
allemand_ (Paris, 1888): translated into English by Rothwell in
Boutroux's _Historical Studies in Philosophy_ (London, 1912), pp.
169-233; Hans Lassen Martensen's _Jacob Boehme_ (translated from the
Danish