Memoirs of the life, death, burial, and wonderful writings, of Jacob Behmen

...reluctant to follow, and too eager to run ahead of his heavenly Guide, the Holy Spirit of Truth. This is undoubtedly the best and only way to avoid St. Paul’s sharp rebuke original: "smart Censure" in 2 Timothy 3:7: "Always learning, but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth."

This submission of the human original: "natural" understanding while reading the Holy Scriptures (and other spiritual works) is not the same as the "blind, implicit faith" or gullibility original: "credulity" that we Protestants usually criticize. We often see that kind of gullibility as the mindset that leads people to accept and stay trapped in superstitious and fanatical errors or deceptions. Not at all; instead, it is a state of mind formed by the rewarding experience that comes from "childlike simplicity," which was so highly recommended by our dear Savior and his holy apostles (Luke 18:17; 1 Corinthians 3:18). Human gullibility and simple divine faith are as different from each other as the things they focus on—namely, the superstitions and deceptions of deceitful men versus the all-saving and all-sanctifying truth of a God who cannot lie. Furthermore, such a simple divine faith is our only protection original: "preservative" against the two opposite extremes or errors of our day: infidelity original: "unbelief/atheism" on one hand, and Christian Pharisaism original: "a legalistic or hypocritical focus on outward rules" on the other. It is, however, frankly original: "ingenuously" admitted that without the light of divine and practical experience, no purely rational person can clearly distinguish the difference between gullibility and divine faith; or, to use the words of Scripture, one cannot, without "trained senses, distinguish both good and evil" (Hebrews 5:14).

Now, from the faithful and honest original: "ingenuous" account and details given above, the kind reader will easily see that the Translator original: "Tr." has, from his earliest years, always sought the essential living TRUTH of God, which alone makes us free; and he has sought it purely for its own sake. Consequently, in whatever person, book, or group of Christians he has ever been able to discover original: "descry" and find it in any degree, he has been equally willing to acknowledge and adopt it. And this is the only true reason why—despite all the contempt and opposition resulting original: "accruing" from it—he cannot help but confess himself a lover of both spiritual, or mystical original: "Mystic" authors in general, and