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Among the concourse of
inquirers, and the clamour of supposed and pretended
discoverers, there rose gradually into deserved prominence
an advanced school of illuminati, who, employing the
terminology of the turba philosophorum, under the pretence
of alchemical pursuits appear to have concealed a more
exalted aim. The chief representative of this sect at the
end of the sixteenth century was Henry Khunrath, and the
work in which its principles are most adequately expressed
is the "Amphitheatrum Sapientiæ Æternæ." The student is
directed by these writers from the pursuit of material gold
to the discovery of incorruptible and purely spiritual
treasures, and they pretend to provide a mystical key or
Introitus apertus to the "closed Palace of the King," in
which these treasures are contained. Physical transmutation,
the one and supreme end of the practical alchemist, sinks
into complete insignificance; nevertheless, it is performed
by the adept and is a landmark in his sublime progress.
Rejecting the material theory even for this inferior
process, they declare its attainment impossible for the
unspiritual man, and just as the alchemical nomenclature is
made use of in a transfigured sense, so the terminology of
metaphysics appears to be pressed into the service of a
conception far transcending the notions commonly conveyed by
the words wisdom, spirituality, &c.
***
At this time Germany was a stronghold of mysticism, which,
according to Ueberweg, was at first chiefly developed in
sermons by monks of the Dominican Order; its aim was to
advance Christianity by edifying speculation, and to render
it comprehensible by the transcendent use of the reason.
"The author and perfecter of this entire development was
Master Eckhart," who taught that the creature apart from the
Absolute, that is, from God, was nothing, that "time, space,
and the plurality which depends on them," are also nothing
in themselves, and that "the duty of man as a moral being is
to rise beyond this nothingness of the creature, and by
direct intuition to place himself in immediate union with
the Absolute."
***
At the beginning of the seventeenth century "a great and
general reformation," says Buhle, -- a reformation far more
radical and more directed to the moral improvement of
mankind than that accomplished by Luther, -- "was believed
to be impending over the human race, as a necessary
forerunner to the day of judgment."
***
Apollo gave the charge of the Universal Reformation to the
Seven Wise Men of Greece, who are of great repute in
Parnassus, and are conceived by all men to have found the
receipt of washing blackmoors white, which antiquity
laboured after in vain.
***
Then Cato
began thus: -- "Your opinions, most wise Grecians, are much to be admired,
and have abundantly justified the profound esteem which all the Litterati have of you; the vices, corruptions, and ulcerated wounds
under which the age languishes could not be better discovered and
pointed out. Nor are your opinions, which are full of humane knowledge,
gain-said here for that they are not excellent, but for that the malady
is so habituated in the veins, and is even so grounded in the bones,
that the constitution of mankind is worn out, and their vital vertue
yields to the strength of the distemper; in short, the patient spits
nothing but blood and putrefaction, and the hair falls from his head.
The physitian, gentlemen, hath a hard part to play when the sick man's
maladies are many, and one so far differing from another that cooling
medicines, and such as are good for a hot liver, are nought for the
stomach, and weaken it too much. Truly this is just our case, for the
maladies which molest our age equal the stars of heaven, and are more
various than the flowers of the field. I, therefore, think this cure
desperate, and that the patient is totally incapable of humane help. We
must have recourse to prayers and to other divine helps, which in like
case are usually implored from God; this is the true north-star, which,
in the greatest difficulties, leads men into the harbour of perfection,
for Pauci prudentia, honesta ab deterioribus, utilia ab noxiis
discernunt; plures aliorum eventis docentur. If we approve this
consideration, we shall
find that when the world was formerly sunk into the same disorders, it
was God's care that did help it by sending a universal deluge to raze
mankind, full of abominable and incorrigible vice, from off the world.
And, gentlemen, when a man sees the walls of his house all gaping and
ruinous, and its foundations so weakened that, in all appearance, it is
ready to fall, certainly it is more wisely done to pull down the house
and build it anew, then to lose money and time in piecing and patching
it. Therefore, since man's life is so foully depraved with vice that it
is past all human power to restore it to its former health, I do with
all my heart beseech the Divine Majestie, and counsel you to do the
like, that He will again open the cataracts of Heaven, and pour down
upon the earth another deluge, with this restriction, that a new Ark may
be made, wherein all boys not above twelve years of age may be saved,
and that all the female sex, of whatsoever age, be so wholly consumed,
that nothing but their unhappy memory may remain. And I beseech the same
Divine Majestie that as He hath granted the singular benefit to bees,
fishes, beetles, and other animals, to procreate without the female
sex, so He will think men worthy of the like favour. I have learnt for
certain that as long as there shall be any women in the world men will
be wicked."
***
Whatsoever you have heard, O mortals, concerning our
Fraternity by the trumpet sound of the Fama R. C., do not
either believe it hastily, or wilfully suspect it. It is
Jehovah who, seeing how the world is falling to decay, and
near to its end, doth hasten it again to its beginning,
inverting the course of Nature....
We hold that the meditations of our Christian father on all
subjects which from the creation of the world have been
invented, brought forth, and propagated by human ingenuity,
through God's revelation, or through the service of Angels
or spirits, or through the sagacity of understanding, or
through the experience of long observation, are so great,
that if all books should perish, and by God's almighty
sufferance all writings and all learning should be lost, yet
posterity will be able thereby to lay a new foundation of
sciences, and to erect a new citadel of truth; the which
perhaps would not be so hard to do as if one should begin to
pull down and destroy the old, ruinous building, then
enlarge the fore-court, afterwards bring light into the
private chambers, and then change the doors, staples, and
other things according to our intention....
A
thousand times the unworthy may clamour, a thousand times
may present themselves, yet God hath commanded our ears that
they should hear none of them, and hath so compassed us
about with His clouds that unto us, His servants, no
violence can be done; wherefore now no longer are we beheld
by human eyes, unless they have received strength borrowed
from the eagle....
This
Fraternity, which is divided into degrees, as those which
dwell in Damcar, who have a far different politick order
from the other Arabians; for there do govern onely
understanding men, who, by the king's permission, make
particular laws, according unto which example the government
shall also be instituted in Europe (according to the
description set down by our Christianly Father), when that
shal come to pass which must precede, when our Trumpet shall
resound with full voice and with no prevarications of
meaning, when, namely, those things of which a few now
whisper and darken with enigmas, shall openly fill the
earth, even as after many secret chafings of pious people
against the pope's tyranny, and after timid reproof, he with
great violence and by a great onset was cast down from his
seat and abundantly trodden under foot, whose final fall is
reserved for an age when he shall be torn in pieces with
nails, and a final groan shall end his ass's braying, the
which, as we know, is already manifest to many learned men
in Germany, as their tokens and secret congratulations bear
witness....
We
abjure all deceit, for we promise that no man's uprightness
and hopes shall deceive him who shall make himself known to
us under the seal of secresy. But to the false and to
impostors, and to those who seek other things then wisdom,
we witness by these presents publikely, we cannot be
betrayed unto them to our hurt, nor be known to them without
the will of God, but they shall certainly be partakers of
that terrible commination spoken of in our Fama, and their
impious designs shall fall back upon their own heads, while
our treasures shall remain untouched, till the Lion shall
arise and exact them as his right, receive and imploy them
for the establishment of his kingdom....
One thing should here, O mortals, be established by us, that
God hath decreed to the world before her end, which
presently thereupon shall ensue, an influx of truth, light,
and grandeur, such as he commanded should accompany Adam
from Paradise and sweeten the misery of man: Wherefore there
shall cease all falshood, darkness, and bondage....
After the world shall have slept away the intoxication of
her poisoned and stupefying chalice, and with an open heart,
bare head, and naked feet shall merrily and joyfully go
forth to meet the sun rising in the morning....
While there are yet some eagle's feathers in our way, the
which do hinder our purpose, we do exhort to the sole, onely,
assiduous, and continual study of the Sacred Scriptures, for
he that taketh all his pleasures therein shall know that he
hath prepared for himself an excellent way to come into our
Fraternity, for this is the whole sum of our Laws, that as
there is not a character in that great miracle of the world
which has not a claim on the memory, so those are nearest
and likest unto us who do make the Bible the rule of their
life, the end of all their studies, and the compendium of
the universal world. From the beginning of the world there
hath not been given to man a more excellent, admirable, and
wholesome book then the Holy Bible; Blessed is he who
possesses it, more blessed is he who reads it, most blessed
of all is he who truly understandeth it, while he is most
like to God who both understands and obeys it. |
