ured profusely forth as the most
indubitable verities. But it is like diving for pearls in a deep and
turbid sea. The pearls are there, if patiently sought for, and sometimes
of rare beauty. To Behmen's mind the whole universe of man and nature is
transfigured by the pervading presence of a spiritual life. Everywhere
there is a contest against evil, sin, and death; everywhere there is a
longing after better things, a yearning for the recovery of the heavenly
type. Everywhere there is a groaning and travailing in pain until now,
awaiting the adoption--to wit, the redemption of the body. None felt
more keenly than Behmen that heaven is truly at our doors, and God not
far away from every one of us. The Holy Spirit is to him in very deed
Lord and Giver of all life, and teaches all things, and leads into all
truth. He is well assured that to him who thirsts after righteousness,
and hath his conversation in heaven, and knoweth God within him, and
whose heart is prepared by purity and truth, such light of the eternal
life will be granted that, though he be simple and unlearned, heavenly
wisdom will be granted to him, and all things will become full of
meaning. He puts no limit to the grand possibilities and capabilities of
human nature. To him the soul of man is indeed 'larger than the sky,
deeper than ocean,'[520] but only through union and conformity with that
Divine Spirit which 'searcheth all things--yea, the deep things of God.'
He would have welcomed as a wholly congenial idea that grand mediaeval
notion of an encyclopaedic wisdom in which all forms of philosophy, art,
and science build up, as it were, one noble edifice, rising heavenwards,
domed in by Divine philosophy, the spiritual and intellectual knowledge
of God; he would have agreed with Bonaventura that all human science
'emanates, as from its source, from the Divine Light.'[521] He felt also
that in the unity of 'the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man
severally as He will,' would be found something deeper than all
diversities in religion, which would reconcile them, and would solve
Scripture difficulties and the mysteries which have tormented men.

These and suchlike thoughts, intensely realised, and sometimes expressed
with singular vividness and power, possessed great attraction to minds
wearied with the religious controversies or spiritual dulness of the
time, and which were not repelled by the wilderness of verbiage, the
hazy cloudland, in which Behmen's