e
that GOD will manifest Himself in the soul of man after what manner and
what measure it pleases Him and as it seems good in His sight.'

No human being knew all this time what Jacob Behmen was passing through,
and he never intended that any human being should know. But, with all
his humility, and all his love of obscurity, he could not remain hidden.
Just how it came about we are not fully told; but, long before his book
was finished, a nobleman in the neighbourhood, who was deeply interested
in the philosophy and the theology of that day, somehow got hold of
Behmen's papers and had them copied out and spread abroad, to Behmen's
great surprise and great distress. Copy after copy was stealthily made
of Behmen's manuscript, till, most unfortunately for both of them, a copy
came into the hands of Behmen's parish minister. But for that accident,
so to call it, we would never have heard the name of GREGORY RICHTER,
First Minister of Goerlitz, nor could we have believed that any minister
of JESUS CHRIST could have gone so absolutely mad with ignorance and envy
and anger and ill-will. The libel is still preserved that Behmen's
minister drew out against the author of _Aurora_, and the only thing it
proves to us is this, that its author must have been a dull-headed,
coarse-hearted, foul-mouthed man. Richter's persecution of poor Behmen
caused Behmen lifelong trouble; but, at the same time, it served to
advertise his genius to his generation, and to manifest to all men the
meekness, the humility, the docility, and the love of peace of the
persecuted man. 'Pastor-Primarius Richter,' says a bishop of his own
communion, 'was a man full of hierarchical arrogance and pride. He had
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