In his practical writings, and especially in his letters, Behmen handles well the great theme of the life of Christ in us. The prayer of salutation in most of his letters is—‘The open fountain in the heart of Christ Jesus refresh and illumine us ever.’
Hear him, on this matter, in a letter to N. N., dated 1623:—
‘That man is no Christian who doth merely comfort himself with the suffering, death, and satisfaction of Christ, and doth impute it to himself as a gift of favour, remaining still himself a wild beast, and unregenerate.... I say, therefore, that no show of grace imputed from without can make a true Christian. Sin is not forgiven him by the speaking of a word once for all from without, as a lord of this world may give a murderer his life by an outward act of favour. No, this availeth nothing with God.
‘There is no grace whereby we can come to adoption, save simply in the blood and death of Christ. For Him alone hath God appointed to be a throne of grace in His own love, which He hath set in Him, in the sweet name Jesus (from Jehovah). He is the only sacrifice God accepteth to reconcile His anger.
‘But if this said sacrifice is to avail for me, it must be wrought in me. The Father must communicate or beget His Son in my desire-of-faith (Glaubensbegierde), so that my faith’s hunger may apprehend Him in His word of promise. Then I put Him on, in His entire process of justification, in my inward ground; and straightway there begins in me the killing of the wrath of the devil, death, and hell, from the inward power of Christ’s death.
‘For I can do nothing; I am dead to myself; but Christ worketh in me when He ariseth within. So am I inwardly dead, as to my true man; and He is my life; the life I live, I live in Him, and not in mine-hood (Meinheit), for grace slays my will and establisheth itself lord in place of my self-hood (Ichheit), so that I am an instrument of God wherewith He doth what He will.
‘Henceforth I live in two kingdoms;—with my outward mortal man, in the vanity of time, wherein the yoke of sin yet liveth, which Christ taketh on Himself in the inward kingdom of the divine world, and helpeth my soul to bear it.... The Holy Scripture everywhere testifieth that we are justified from sin, not by meritorious works of ours, but through the blood and death of Christ. Many teach this, but few of them rightly understand it.’
The other kingdom which, in his haste, Behmen forgot to specify, is the inward world of spiritual and eternal life, which he calls Paradise.—Theosophische Sendbriefe, xlvi. §§ 7, &c. He inveighs frequently against an antinomian Calvinism. But if any one will compare this letter with Calvin’s Institutes III. i. and III. ii. 24, he will find that, on the doctrine of union with Christ, Calvin and Behmen, in spite of all their differences, hold language precisely similar.
Note to page 117.
Behmen was well entitled to teach that lesson of tolerance which his age had so forgotten. In one of his letters he says, ‘I judge no man; that anathematizing one of another is an empty prating. The Spirit of God Himself judgeth all things. If He be in us, why need we trouble ourselves about such idle chatter? On the contrary, I rejoice much rather in the gifts of my brethren, and if any of them have received another gift to utter than have I, why should I therefore condemn them? Doth one herb, or flower, or tree, say to another, Thou art sour and dark; I cannot stand in thy neighbourhood? Have they not all one common Mother, whence they grow? Even so do all souls, all men, proceed from One. Why boast we of ourselves as the children of God, if we are no wiser than the flowers and herbs of the field,’ &c.—Theos. Sendbr. 12, §§ 35, 36. Again, in the same letter (§ 61), ‘Doth not a bee gather honey out of many flowers; and though some flowers be far better than others, what cares the bee for that? She takes what serves her purpose. Should she leave her sting in the flower, if its juices are not to her taste, as man doth in his disdainfulness? Men strive about the husk, but the noble life-juice they forsake.’