A compendious view of the grounds of the Teutonick philosophy : with considerations by way of enquiry into the subject matter and scope of the writings of Jacob Behmen, commonly called, the Teutonick philosopher : also several extracts from his writings and some words used by him explained

148 | Conjfiderations on the Scope

myfteries obvious to artifts; collected the {cattered parcels of felicity difperfed in the earth ; pierced the bowels of nature, as well aftral as elementary; anatomifed the creatures, and f{ummed up their totals: yet could not overtake their lovers, but their way was walled up, and fome of them found theirs hedged up, perhaps with thorns. Many have fought the living among the dead: and every creature has told them, it is not in me: fo that their queltion refulted in diffatisfaction.

Wife men’s increafe of wifdom has been the increafe of forrow, in which they lay down in the grave, forgetting and being forgotten, their thoughts perifhing, and leaving this fad memento of the vanity of every thing, that ‘all was vanity and «¢ vexation of fpirit, and that there was,no ‘* profit under the fun,” Ecclef. ii. 11.

Thofe of them only have been truly wife; whom God has led beyond their own wifdom, into the fchool of the love of purity and holinefs, as Job’s three friends, Hermes, and others fuch feem to have

been. For fince the world by wifdom knew

not God, thofe only were truly wife, and tii

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