relations, and occasions it to take more notice of them. The ideas
themselves that otherwise are dim and obscure, are by this means
imprest with the greater strength, and have a light cast upon them, so
that the mind can better judge of them; as he that beholds the objects
on the face of the earth, when the light of the sun is cast upon them,
is under greater advantage to discern them in their true forms and
mutual relations, than he that sees them in a dim starlight or
twilight.

The mind having a sensibleness of the excellency of divine objects,
dwells upon them with delight; and the powers of the soul are more
awakened and enlivened to employ themselves in the contemplation of
them, and exert themselves more fully and much more to the purpose.
The beauty and sweetness of the objects draw on the faculties, and
draw forth their exercises; so that reason itself is under far greater
advantages for its proper and free exercises, and to attain its proper
end, free of darkness and delusion.

Secondly. A true sense of the divine excellency of these things is so
superlative as more directly and immediately to convince of the
truth of them; and that because the excellency of these things is so
superlative. There is a beauty in them that is so divine and godlike,
that it greatly and evidently distinguishes them from things merely
human, or that men are the inventors and authors of; a glory that is
so high and great, that when clearly seen, it commands assent to their
divinity and reality. When there is an actual and lively discovery of
this beauty and excellency, it will not allow of any such thought
as that it is a human work, or the fruit of men's invention. This
evidence that they who are spiritually enlightened have of the truth
of the things of religion, is a kind of intuitive and immediate