CHAPTER XI JACOB BOEHME'S "WAY OF SALVATION" . . . . . . . . . . . . 190 CHAPTER XII JACOB BOEHME'S INFLUENCE IN ENGLAND . . . . . . . . . . . 208 CHAPTER XIII EARLY ENGLISH INTERPRETERS OF SPIRITUAL RELIGION: JOHN EVERARD, GILES RANDALL, AND OTHERS . . . . . . . . 235 CHAPTER XIV SPIRITUAL RELIGION IN HIGH PLACES--ROUS, VANE, AND STERRY 266 {ix} CHAPTER XV BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE, THE FIRST OF THE "LATITUDE-MEN" . . . 288 CHAPTER XVI JOHN SMITH, PLATONIST--"AN INTERPRETER OF THE SPIRIT" . . 305 CHAPTER XVII THOMAS TRAHERNE AND THE SPIRITUAL POETS OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320 CHAPTER XVIII CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336 INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 351 {x} Within thy sheltering darkness spin the spheres; Within the shaded hollow of thy wings. The life of things, The changeless pivot of the passing years-- These in thy bosom lie. Restless we seek thy being; to and fro Upon our little twisting earth we go: We cry, "Lo, there!" When some new avatar thy glory does declare, When some new prophet of thy friendship sings, And in his tracks we run Like an enchanted child, that hastes to catch the sun. And shall the soul thereby Unto the All draw nigh? Shall it avail to plumb the mystic deeps Of flowery beauty, scale the icy steeps Of perilous thought, thy hidden Face to find, Or tread the starry paths to the utmost verge of the sky? Nay, groping dull and blind Within the sheltering dimness of thy wings-- Shade that their splendour flings Athwart Eternity-- We, out of age-long wandering, but come Back to our Father's heart, where now we are at home. EVELYN UNDERHILL in _Immanence_, p. 82. {xi} INTRODUCTION WHAT IS "SPIRITUAL RELIGION" I There is no magic in words, though, it must be confessed, they often exercise a psychological influence so profound and far-reaching that they seem to possess a miracle-working efficacy. Some persons live all their lives under the suggestive spell of certain words, and it sometimes happens that an entire epoch is more or less dominated by the mysterious fascination of a sacred word, which needs only to be spoken on the house-top to set hearts beating and legs marching.