divine and
eternal truth that I can easily believe that they who have dug deeper
have come upon uncounted riches. 'Next to the Scriptures,' writes
William Law, 'my only book is the illuminated Behmen. For the whole
kingdom of grace and nature was opened in him. In reading Behmen I am
always at home, and kept close to the kingdom of GOD that is within me.'
'I am not young,' said CLAUDE DE ST. MARTIN, 'being now near my fiftieth
year, nevertheless I have begun to learn German, in order that I may read
this incomparable author in his own tongue. I have written some not
unacceptable books myself, but I am not worthy to unloose the shoestrings
of this wonderful man. I advise you to throw yourself into the depths of
Jacob Behmen. There is such a profundity and exaltation of truth in
them, and such a simple and delicious nutriment.'

The Town Council of Goerlitz, hounded on by their Minister, sentenced
Behmen to be banished, and interdicted him from ever writing any more.
But in sheer shame at what they had done they immediately recalled Behmen
from banishment; only, they insisted that he should confine himself to
his shop, and leave all writing of books alone. Behmen had no ambition
to write any more, and, as a matter of fact, he kept silence even to
himself for seven whole years. But as those years went on it came to be
with him, to use his own words, as with so much grain that has been
buried in the earth, and which, in spite of storms and tempests, will,
out of its own life, spring up, and that even when reason says it is now
winter, and that all hope and all power is gone. And thus it was that,
under the same instigation which had produced the _Aurora_, Behmen at a
rush wrote his very fine if very difficult book, _The Three Principles of
the Divine Essence_. He calls _The Three Principles_ his A B C, and the
easiest of all his books. And William Law recommends all beginners in
Behmen to read alone for some sufficient time the tenth and twelfth
chapters of _The Three Principles_. I shall let Behmen describe the
contents of his easiest book in his own words. 'In this second book,' he
says, 'there is declared what GOD is, what Nature is, what the creatures
are, what the love and meekness of GOD are, what GOD'S will is, what the
wrath of GOD is, and what joy and sorrow are. As also, how all things
took their beginning: with the true difference between eternal and
transitory creatures. Specially of man and his so