And therefore when you read and hear these things, content not your- selves with the first degree of revelation. No ; that is not enough. When you have done that, desire of God to join his Spirit, to give you spiritual eyes and hearts, that you may close with divine truths, and be divine as the truths are ; that there may be a consent of the heart with the truth. Then the word of God will be sweet indeed.
Use 5. Again, here we see this divine truth, that a man xchen he hath the Spirit of God knows thimfs otherwise than he did know them before, though he did not know them by outward revelation of hearing and reading, dtc. And he believes them otherwise than he did before; he sees them by a new light. It is not the same knowledge that an unregenerate man hath with that he hath after, when God works upon his heart, 1 Cor. ii. 14, 15; for then it is a divine supernatural knowledge. And it is not the same faith and belief. The Spirit of God raiseth a man up in a degree of creatures above other men, as other men are above beasts ; he gives new eyes, new ears, and a new heart ; he moulds him anew every * That is, ' stumbling-blocks.' — G.
vol/. IV. L
162 A GLANCE OP HEAVEN.
•way. Therefore you have good men Bometimes wonder at themselves, when God hath touclied their hearts, that they have had such shallow conceits of this and that truth before. Now they see that they were in the dark, that they were in a damp before, that they conceived things to be so and so, and thought themselves somebody. But when God opens their eyes, and takes away the scales, and lets them see things in their proper light, heavenly things by a heavenly light, and with a heavenly eye, they wonder at their former foolishness in divinity, especially so far as concerns the gospel. For there is more in the Scripture than pure supernatural divi- nity ; there are many other arts in the Scripture.
The gospel, I say, is a knowledge, not of natural men, or great wits, but of holy sanctified men. Therefore we must not think that these things may be known by nature, &c. It is a sacred knowledge, so much as will bring us to heaven ; it is a knowledge of holy men, that have their hearts brought to love and taste, and relish that they know. Therefore it is no wonder, though a company of men of great parts live naughtily. They are no true divines, because they have no true knowledge. The devil is no divine, nor a wicked man properly. Though he can discourse of such things, 3^et he is not properly a divine ; because he knows not things by a divine hght, or heavenly things by a heavenly light. The knowledge of the gospel, it is a knowledge of sanctified, holy men. But to come nearer to our practice.
Use. 6. If eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath entered into the heart of man to conceive those things that God hath prepared for his, then let ns make this the ride of our esteem of anythiufi that is r/ood, or aiujtJiin;/ that is ill ; make it a ride of ral nation. The apostle here, you see, hath a rank of things above the sight of the eye, or the hearing of the ear, or the conceiving of the heart of man. If there be such a rank of things above this, then the greatest ills are those that eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath entered into the heart of man ; and indeed they are so. We grieve at the ague, and at the stone, and at the gout ; they ai'e grievous things indeed. Oh, but what be these things that we feel and see, to those in another world, that we cannot apprehend for the greatness of them ! The torments of hell, we cannot conceive and understand them here ; for it is indeed to be in hell itself to conceive what hell is. And therefore when God enlargeth men's spirits to see them, they make away themselves. And so for the greatest good. These goods here, this outward glory, we can see through it. Christ could see through all the glory in the world that the devil shewed him. Mat. iv. 8. And these are things that we can hear of, and hear the utmost that can be spoken of them. Therefore surely they are not the greatest good. There are more excellent things than they. Because the eye sees them, the ear hears of them, and the understanding can conceive of them. But there be things that the eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor the soul conceived ; and these be the joys of heaven. And thereupon, to descend to practice, if this be a rule to value things that the best things are transcendent, beyond sense and comprehension, then shall I for those things that I can see, and can hear, and feel, and understand, shall I lose Lhose excellent good things, that ' neither eye hath seen nor ear heard,' &c. ? Is not this desperate folly, to venture the loss of the best things, of the most transcendent things, that are above the capacity of the greatest reaches of the world ? Shall I lose all for petty poor things that are within my own reach and compass ? • How foolish, therefore, are those that are given to pleasures ! They feel the