tion, reflects throughout its pages the profound
influence of Boehme on these two brothers. The Preface to the
Englished edition written by Justice Hotham not only shows specific
marks of Boehme's influence upon a high-minded and scholarly man, but
it also reveals in an impressive way a type of thought that was very
prevalent in England at this period of commotion. "There are," Justice
Hotham says, "two islands of exceeding danger, yet built upon and
inhabited and defended as part of the main continent of Truth. The
first is called: 'I believe as the Church believeth.' Happy man whom
so easie labour hath set on the shore of wisdom! The other island is
called: 'whatsoever the Church believes that will I not believe.'"
Both these "islands" seem to him "exceeding dangerous." To adopt as
truth what the Church has believed, solely because the Church has
believed it, to forego the personal quest and to arrive at "the shores
of wisdom" without the venturous voyage, is "too easie labour" for the
soul. But, nevertheless, he feels that the opposite danger--the danger
of negating a truth merely because the Church affirms it--is even more
serious. It is wise to maintain an attitude of "much reverence" toward
the "unanimous consent of good and pious men in sacred matters." He
suggests that the way of wisdom consists in making the "I believe" of
the Church "neither a fetter nor a scandel." "May I be," he says, "in
the bed-route of those Seekers that, distrusting the known and
experienced deceits of their own Reason, walk unfettered in the quest
of truth, . . . not hunting those poor soules with Dogge and speare
whose dimme sight hath led them into desert and unbeated {210} paths."
This was in all probability the Justice Hotham of whom George Fox
wrote: "He was a pretty tender man yt had had some experiences of God's
workeinge in his hearte: & after yt I had some discourse with him off
ye things of God hee tooke mee Into his Closett & saide _hee had knowne
yt principle_ [of the Light] _this 10 yeere_: & hee was glad yt ye
Lorde did now publish it abroade to ye people."[2]

Like his Teutonic master, Justice Hotham distrusts Reason and Sense as
spiritual guides. They are at best, he says, "but guides of the night,
dim lights set up, far distant from Truth's stately mansion, to lead
poor groping souls in this world's affairs." The surer Guide is within
the soul itself, for the soul of man, he insists, has "a noble descent
fro