rld, physic, divinity and law." "He showed me,"
Fox says, "that the physicians were out of the Wisdom of God by which
the creatures were made, and so knew not their virtue because they were
_out of the Word of Wisdom_." He saw that the priests were actuated by
_the dark power_--a very suspicious phrase to one who knows what a
place the "Dark Principle" holds in Boehme's writings--and he saw that
the lawyers were out of the Wisdom of God. But it was opened to him
that all these three professions might be "reformed" and "brought into
the Wisdom of God by which all things were created," and "have a right
understanding of the virtues of things through the Word of Wisdom"; for
"in the Light all things may be seen both visible and invisible."[43]
The extraordinary use of Old Testament figures, by which Fox
illustrates the condition of the Church, in the section of the
_Journal_ following the passages above quoted, is no less significant.
The figures of Cain and Esau, of Korah and Balaam, and the types of
Adam and Moses are given {225} quite in the style of _The Three
Principles_, or of the _Mysterium magnum_.[44] One parallel is
especially interesting. Fox says: "I saw plainly that none could read
Moses aright without Moses' spirit, by which Moses saw how man was in
the Image of God in Paradise, and how he fell and how death came over
him, and how all men have been under this death."[45] The Preface to
_Mysterium magnum_ says: "I cannot but think that the same God that
taught Moses so eminently by His Spirit had so fitted the people for
whom he wrote that they were capable to receive instruction by his
words."[46] This idea, so frequently expressed in the writings of Fox,
that no one can understand the Scriptures except by the Spirit that
gave forth the Scriptures,[47] is equally a fundamental idea of Boehme
and his English interpreters. In many passages of the _Mysterium
magnum_ Boehme declares that the written word is only a witness to the
living Word, which latter Word can be understood only by those who are
in the Spirit that spoke in the Prophets and Apostles.[48] Sparrow, in
his Introduction to the _Aurora_, declares that no person can
understand the spiritual mystery of redemption, "though he reade of it
in the Scriptures," unless the Holy Spirit in himself, the true Divine
Light, enlighten him, and give him the word of faith in his heart;
"neither," he adds, "can any understand the Holy Scriptures but by the
s