Note 1 — Chapter XV · THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY.—KEELY THE FOUNDER OF A SYSTEM.

Theosophy, says Bishop Martensen, signifies wisdom in God: “Church Theology is not wise in assuming a hostile attitude towards Theosophy, because it hereby deprives itself of a most valuable leavening influence, a source of renewal and rejuvenescence, which Theology so greatly needs, exposed as it is to the danger of stagnating in barren and dreary scholasticism and cold and trivial criticism. In such a course no real progress can be made in the Christian apprehension of truth.” Jacob Böhme, who was the greatest and most famous of all Theosophists in the world,1 said of philosophers and other disputants who attack not only Theosophy but also theology, and even Christianity itself, in the name of modern science:—“Every spirit sees no further than its mother, out of which it has its original, and wherein it stands; for it is impossible for any spirit, in its own natural power to look into another principle, and behold it, except it be regenerated therein.” This is what Christ taught: “Ye must be born again.” Only those who are regenerated, by the principle of which Christ spoke to Nicodemus, can understand the quickening of the Spirit which comes alone from Him who gives this new birth to all who seek it, and in whom all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden:—“hidden, not in order that they may remain secret, but in order that they may ever increasingly be made manifest and appropriated by us.”