to GOD alone. But, that no man may boast, He sometimes makes use of very
mean men to make known His truth, that it may be seen and acknowledged to
come from His own hand alone.' It is told that when Charles the First
read the English translation of Behmen's answers to the _Forty
Questions_, he wrote to the publisher that if Jacob Behmen was no
scholar, then the Holy Ghost was still with men; and, if he was a learned
man, then his book was one of the best inventions that had ever been
written. The _Forty Questions_ ran through many editions both on the
Continent and in England, and it was this book that gained for Jacob
Behmen the denomination of the Teutonic Philosopher, a name by which he
is distinguished among authors to this day. The following are some of
the university questions that Balthazar Walter took down and sent to
Jacob Behmen for his answer: 'What is the soul of man in its innermost
essence, and how is it created, soul by soul, in the image of GOD? Is
the soul propagated from father to son like the body? or is it every time
new created and breathed in from GOD? How comes original sin into each
several soul? How does the soul of the saint feed and grow upon the word
of GOD? Whence comes the deadly contrariety between the flesh and the
spirit? Whither goes the soul when it at death departs from the body? In
what does its rest, its awakening, and its glorification consist? What
kind of body shall the glorified body be? The soul and spirit of CHRIST,
what are they? and are they the same as ours? What and where is
Paradise?' Through a hundred and fourteen large quarto pages Behmen's
astonishing answers to the forty questions run; after which he adds this:
'Thus, my beloved friend, we have set down, according to our gifts, a
round answer to your questions, and we exhort you as a brother not to
despise us. For we are not born of art, but of simplicity. We
acknowledge all who love such knowledge as our brethren in CHRIST, with
whom we hope to rejoice eternally in the heavenly school. For our best
knowledge here is but in part, but when we shall attain to perfection,