intensely instructive kind. And if the height and the depth, the
massiveness, the stupendousness, and the grandeur, as well as the
sweetness, and the beauty, and the warmth, and the fruitfulness of a
doctrine of GOD is any argument or evidence of its truth, then Behmen's
magnificent doctrine of the GODHEAD is surely proved to demonstration and
delight. GOD is the Essence of all Essences to Behmen. GOD is the
deepest Ground, the living and the life-giving Root of all existence. At
the same time, the Divine Nature is so Divine; It is so high and so deep;
It is so unlike all that is not Itself; It is so beyond and above all
language, and all thought, and all imagination of man or angel, that
universe after universe have had to come into existence, and have had to
be filled, each successive universe after its own kind, with all the
fulness of GOD, before that universe of which we form a part, and to
which our utmost imagination is confined, could have come into existence,
and into recognition of itself. Behmen's Eternal Nature must never be
taken for the Eternal GOD. The Divine Nature, the Eternal Godhead,
exists in the Father, in the Son, and in the Holy Ghost; and then, after
the Eternal Generation of the Son, and the Eternal Procession of the Holy
Ghost, there comes up in order of existence Eternal Nature. Eternal
Nature is not the Divine Nature, but it is as near to the Divine Nature
in its qualities and in its powers as any created thing can ever by any
possibility be. Now, if we are still to follow Behmen, we must not let
ourselves indolently think of the production of Eternal Nature as a
divine act done and completed in any past either of time or of eternity.
There is neither past nor future where we are now walking with Behmen.
There is only an everlasting present where he is now leading us. For, as
GOD the Father generates the Son eternally and continually; and as the
Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son eternally and
continually, so GOD the Word eternally and continually says, 'Let this
Beginning of all things be, and let it continue to be.' And, as He