e purest kind of carnal delights, which flow from the mind's
satisfaction in feeding on the poor apprehensions, and groundlessly
expected comprehensions of objects, suited to its natural genius and
capacity? O what a more hyperbolical exceeding and glorious satisfaction
hath a soul in its very pursuings after (when it misseth and cannot
reach) that which is truly desirable! How doth the least glimpse through
the smallest cranie, of this glorious and glorifying knowledge of God in
Christ, apprehended by faith, raise up the soul to that pitch of joy and
satisfaction which the knowledge of natural things, in its purest
perfection, shall never be able to cause; and to what a surmounting
measure of this joy and contentation will the experiencing and feeling,
by spiritual sense, the sweet and relish of this captivating, and
transcendently excellent knowledge raise the soul unto? O must not this
be the very suburbs of heaven to the soul! When the soul thus seeth and
apprehendeth God in Christ, and that as its own God through Christ, (for
as all saving knowledge draweth out the soul unto an embracing and
closing with the object, so it bringeth in the object to the making up
of the reciprocal union and in-being) it cannot but admire with
exultation, and exult with admiration, at that condescendence of free
grace that hath made it, in any measure, capable of this begun glory,
and will further make it meet, by this begun glory, to be a partaker of
the inheritance of the saints in light. And what will a soul that hath
tasted of the pure delights of this river of gospel manifestations, and
hath seen, with soul-ravishing delights, in some measure, the manifold
wisdom of God wrapped up therein; and the complete and perfect symmetry
of all the parts of that noble contexture, and also the pure design of
that contrivance to abase man, and to extol the riches of the free grace
of God, that the sinner, when possessed of all designed for him and
effectuated in him thereby, may know who alone should wear the crown and
have all the glory; what, I say, will such a soul see in another gospel
(calculated to the meridian of the natural, crooked, and corrupt temper
of proud men, who is soon made vain of nothing, which, instead of
bringing a sinner, fallen from God through pride, back again to the
enjoyment of him, through a Mediator, doth but foster that innate plague
and rebellion, which and procured his first excommunication from the
favour, and b