[1.] The objects known are the highest and most important matters in the world. The knowledge of the profoundest science is question- less more than skill in some low and petty employments. As Themis- tocles said. To know how to govern a city is more than how to play upon a lute. But to have the saving knowledge of God and the life to come is more than all the admired wisdom of the flesh, or all the common learning of the world. Therefore how much are we bound to praise God if we may be light in the Lord ! It is more than to know how to govern kingdoms and commonwealths, and to do the <ijreatest business upon earth. To know God, the first cause of all things, Jesus Christ, who is the restorer of all things, and the Holy Spirit, who cherisheth and preserveth all things, to know his heavenly •operations, the nature and action of his several graces, this is the happi- ness and glory of a man ; all other knowledge is a poor low thing to this. Alas ! what are all the mysteries of nature to the mysteries of godliness. To know our disease and remedy, danger and cure, our work and end, what is to be believed and practised, what we shall en- joy, and what we must do to obtain it, these are the things do most concern us ; all other knowledge is but curious, and hath more of pleasure than profit. To know our own affairs, and our greatest and most necessary affairs, these are the things we should busy ourselves about ; other knowledge may be well spared. To know our misery, that we may prevent it ; our remedy, that we may look after it in time ; our work, that we may perform it ; our end, that we may intend it, and be encouraged by it, and what course we must take that we may be everlastingly happy ; this is the greatest favour can be bestowed upon us : we should beg it of God.
[2.] The manner of knowing. To see these things with clearness, certainty, efficacy, and power. Now this is diversely expressed in scrip- ture ; sometimes to know them ' as we ought to know them,' 1 Cor. viii. 2 ; * To know the grace of God in truth,' Col. i. 6 ; to get a ' spiritual discerning,' 1 Cor. ii. 14 ; to get not a sight only, but a taste, 1 Peter
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ii. 3. It is a sweeter knowledge than all learned men have who are ungodly. Others may have more of the words and notions, but less of the thing itself ; they have the sign, but true christians the thing signified ; they break the shell, but others eat the kernel ; they dress the meat, but others feed upon it and digest it ; they dig in the mines of knowledge as negroes, but others have the gold. True christians take up religion out of inspiration, but others out of opinion and tradition ; they have a divine faith, whilst others have but human credulity ; they may talk of what they hear and read from others, but these receive it ' not in word only, but in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance,' 1 Thes. i. 5. They are not only affected with the truths they know, but transformed by them, and changed into the divine nature. Now what a mercy is this, that when they might have gone to hell as witless fools, as others do, God hath given them counsel in their reins !
II. That there is a mighty change wrought in tliem who are called out of one estate into the other. A great difference there is certainly between the carnal and regenerate estate ; they differ as much as dark- ness and light, as death and life, as the new man and the old : ' Ye were sometimes darkness, but are now light in the Lord.' There is a difference between them and themselves, and between them and others ; both are of respect in this place. Not, They are darkness and ye are light, but, ' Ye were sometimes darkness, but ye are now light in the Lord ; ' because the apostle speaketh of the same men ; and to this €nd it is spoken, that they may have no fellowship with evil ones, or be partakers with them in works of darkness. Now both these are proved by the same reasons.
1. Because they have a different principle ; the internal principle is not alike in both. Umimquodque operatur secundum suam formam — All things work according to their nature ; as fire ascendeth and water descendeth ; fishes go to the water, and beasts keep on dry land ; it is according to their nature, and that principle of life which they have. The saints have a divine nature : 2 Peter i. 4, ' Whereby ye are made partakers of the divine nature.' And the carnal are scarce men, because they are governed by their sensitive appetite, and so come nearer to the nature of beasts ; and so the one are led by the flesh, the other by the Spirit, as is often observed in scripture. But you will say. There is an old nature in God's children, flesh as well as spirit. I answer —