, because they see not by tasting how good
he is; to be prying into and poring upon invisible things, is to them
visible madness, but to the enlightened mind, the things that are not
seen are only worth seeing, and while they appear not to be, they only
are; whereas the things that are seen appear but to be, and are not.
Though the surpassing sweetness of spiritual things should be spoke of
to them, who cannot favour the things of God, in such a manner as the
glorious light of them did surround men; yet they can perceive no such
thing; all is to them cunningly devised fables; let be spoke what will,
they see no form, no comeliness, no beauty in this glorious object--God
in Christ reconciling sinners to himself. Alas! the mind is blinded; the
dungeon is within; and till Christ open the eyes, as well as reveal his
light, the soul abides in its blindness, and is buried in midnight
darkness; but when the Spirit of God opens the man's eyes, and he is
translated by an act of omnipotency out of the kingdom of darkness into
the kingdom of his dear Son, which is a kingdom of marvellous light, O
what matchless beauty doth he now see in these things, which appeared
despicable and dark nothings to him, till he got the unction, the
eye-salve, which teacheth all things. Now he sees (what none without the
Spirit can see) the things which God hath prepared for them that love
him, and are freely given them of God; and these, though seen at a
distance, reflect such rays of beauty into his soul, that he beholds and
is ravished, he sees and is swallowed up in wonder.

But then, in the next place, this is not a spiritless inefficacious
speculation about these things, to know no evil but sin and separation
from God, and no blessedness but in the fruition of him; it is not such
a knowledge of them as doth not principle motion to pursue after them.
This I grant is part of the image of God, when the Sun of Righteousness,
by arising upon the man, hath made day-light in his soul, and by these
divine discoveries hath taught him to make the true parallel betwixt
things that differ, and to put a just value upon them according to their
intrinsic worth. But this divine illumination doth not consist in a mere
notion of such things in the head, nor doth it subsist in enlightening
the mind; but in such an impression of God upon the soul, as transforms
and changes the heart into his likeness by love.' Knowledge is but one
line, one draught or lineament of