personaters of religion, who have
confidence in the flesh, and worship God with their own spirit, which
in the matters of God is flesh and not spirit, and have somewhat else to
rejoice in than in Christ Jesus, and a being found in him, not having
their own righteousness.

True gospel holiness, then, consists in some similitude and likeness to
God, and fellowship with him founded upon that likeness. There is such
an impression of God, his glorious attributes, his infinite power,
majesty, mercy, justice, wisdom, holiness, and grace, &c., as sets him
up all alone in the soul without any competition, and produceth those
real apprehensions of him, that he is alone excellent and matchless. O
how preferable doth be appear, when indeed seen, to all things! And how
doth this light of his infinite gloriousness, shining into the soul,
darken and obscure to an invisibleness all other excellencies, even as
the rising of the sun makes all the lesser lights to disappear. Alas!
how is God unknown in his glorious being and attributes! When once the
Lord enters the soul, and shines into the heart, it is like the rising
of the sun at midnight: all these things which formerly pretended to
some loveliness, and did dazzle with their lustre, are eternally
darkened. Now, all natural perfections, and moral virtues, in their
flower and perfections, are at best looked upon as _aliquid nihil_. What
things were formerly accounted gain and godliness, are now counted loss
for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus the Lord, and the
soul cannot only suffer the loss of them all without a sob, but be
satisfied to throw them away as dung, that it may win him, and be found
in him. Now, the wonder of a Deity, in his greatness, power, and grace,
swallows up the soul in sweet admiration. O how doth it love to lose
itself in finding here what it cannot fathom? And then it begins truly
to see the greatness and evil of sin; then it is looked upon without the
covering of pleasure or profit, and loathed as the leprosy of hell. Now
the man is truly like God in the knowledge of good and evil, in the
knowledge of that one infinite good, God; and in the knowledge of that
one almost infinite evil, sin. This is the first point of likeness to
him, to be conformed to him in our understanding, that as he knows
himself to be the only self-being and fountain-good, and all created
things in their flower and perfection, with all their real or fancied
conveniences bei