is God Himself, can never make a man virtuous, good, or happy, so
long as it is outside the soul." In the same spirit Jacob Bšhme, 250
years later, says: "If the sacrifice of Christ is to avail for me,
it must be wrought in me." Or, as his English admirer, William Law,
puts it: "Christ given for us is neither more nor less than Christ
given into us. He is in no other sense our full, perfect, and
sufficient Atonement than as His nature and spirit are born and
formed in us." The whole process of redemption must in a sense be
reenacted in the inner life of every Christian. And as Christ
emptied Himself for our sakes, so must we empty ourselves of all
self-seeking. "When the creature claimeth for its own anything good,
such as life, knowledge, or power, and in short whatever we commonly
call good, as if it were that, or possessed that--it goeth astray."
Sin is nothing else but self-assertion, self-will. "Be assured,"
says the "Theologia Germanica," "that he who helpeth a man to his
own will, helpeth him to the worst that he can." He, therefore, who
is "simply and wholly bereft of self" is delivered from sin, and God
alone reigns in his inmost soul. Concerning the highest part or
faculty of the soul, the author of this little treatise follows
Eckhart, but cautiously. "The True Light," he says, "is that eternal
Light which is God; or else it is a created light, but yet Divine,
which is called grace." In either case, "where God dwells in a godly
man, in such a man somewhat appertaineth to God which is His own,
and belongs to Him only and not to the creature." This doctrine of
divine immanence, for which there is ample warrant in the New
Testament, is the real kernel of German mysticism. It is a doctrine
which, when rightly used, may make this world a foretaste of heaven,
but alas! the "False Light" is always trying to counterfeit the
true. In the imitation of the suffering life of Christ lies the only
means of escaping the deceptions of the Evil One. "The False Light