only the most outward apprehension of the dogmatics of his day, and he
was totally incapable of understanding Jacob Behmen.' But it is not for
the limitations of his understanding that Pastor Richter stands before us
so laden with blame. The school is a small one still that, after two
centuries of study and prayer and a holy life, can pretend to understand
the whole of the _Aurora_. WILLIAM LAW, a man of the best understanding,
and of the humblest heart, tells us that his first reading of Behmen put
him into a 'perfect sweat' of astonishment and awe. No wonder, then,
that a man of Gregory Richter's narrow mind and hard heart was thrown
into such a sweat of prejudice and anger and ill-will.

I do not propose to take you down into the deep places where Jacob Behmen
dwells and works. And that for a very good reason. For I have found no
firm footing in those deep places for my own feet. I wade in and in to
the utmost of my ability, and still there rise up above me, and stretch
out around me, and sink down beneath me, vast reaches of revelation and
speculation, attainment and experience, before which I can only wonder
and worship. See Jacob Behmen working with his hands in his solitary
stall, when he is suddenly caught up into heaven till he beholds in
enraptured vision The Most High Himself. And then, after that, see him
swept down to hell, down to sin, and down into the bottomless pit of the
human heart. Jacob Behmen, almost more than any other man whatsoever, is
carried up till he moves like a holy angel or a glorified saint among
things unseen and eternal. Jacob Behmen is of the race of the seers, and
he stands out a very prince among them. He is full of eyes, and all his
eyes are full of light. It does not stagger me to hear his disciples
calling him, as HEGEL does, 'a man of a mighty mind,' or, as LAW does,
'the illuminated Behmen,' and 'the blessed Behmen.' 'In speculative
power,' says dry DR. KURTZ, 'and in poetic wealth, exhibited with epic
and dramatic effect, Behmen's system surpasses everything of the kind