Godwin, IV. 313-317; Mercurius Politicus, No. 167 (Aug.
18-25, 1653); Commons Journals, Dec. 30, 1654; Barclay's _Religious
Societies_, pp. 421-422.]

BOEHMENISTS AND OTHER MYSTICS:--Of the German Mystic Jacob Boehme
(1575-1624) there had been a _Life_ in English since 1644, with
a catalogue of his writings, and since then translations of some of
the writings themselves had appeared at intervals, mostly from the
shop of one publisher, Humphrey Blunden. The interest in "the
Teutonical Philosopher" thus excited had at length taken form in a
small sect of professed BOEHMENISTS, propounding the doctrine of the
Light of Nature, i.e. of a mystic intuitional revelation in the soul
itself of all true knowledge of divine and human things. Of this sect
Baxter says that they were "fewer in number," and seemed "to have
attained to greater meekness and conquest of passions," than the
other sects. The chief of them was Dr. Pordage, Rector of Bradfield,
in Berks, with his family. They held "visible and sensible communion
with angels" in the Rectory, on the very walls and windows of which
there appeared miraculous pictures and symbols; and the Doctor
himself, besides alarming people with such strange phrases as "the
fiery deity of Christ dwelling in the soul and mixing itself with our
flesh," was clearly unorthodox on many particular
points.[1]--Boehme's system included a mystical physics or cosmology
as well as a metaphysics or theosophy, and some of his English
followers seem to have allied themselves with the famous Astrologer
William Lilly, whose prophetic Almanacks, under the title of
_Merlinus Anglicus_, had been appearing annually since 1644. But
indeed all sorts of men were in contact with this quack or
quack-mystic. He had been consulted by Charles I as to the probable
issue of events; he had been consulted and feed by partisans of the
other side: his Almanacks, with their hieroglyphics and political
predictions, had a boundless popularity, and were bringing him a good
income; he was the chief in his day of those fortune-telling and
spirit-auguring celebrities who hover all their lives between high
society and Bridewell. As he had adhered to the Parliamentarians and
made the stars speak for their cause, he had hitherto been pretty
safe; but the leading Presbyterian and Independent ministers, as we
have seen (ante IV, p. 392), had recently called upon Parliament to
put down his bastard science. Gataker had attacked "that grand