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 being compared with him, but as the drop of a bucket, or
nothing; yea, less than nothing, vanity (which is nothing blown up, by
the force or forgery of a vainly working imagination, to the consistence
of an appearance), so for a soul to know indeed and believe in the
heart, that there is nothing deserves the name of good besides God, to
have the same superlative and transcendent thoughts of that great and
glorious self-being God, and the same diminishing and debasing thoughts
of all things and beings besides him. And that as the Lord seeth no evil
in the creation but sin, and hates that with a perfect hatred, as
contrary to his holy will; so for a soul to aggravate sin in its own
sight to an infiniteness of evil, at least till it see it only short of
infiniteness in this respect, that it can be swallowed up of infinite
mercy. But whence hath the soul all this light? It owes all this, and
owns itself as debtor for it to him, who opens the eyes of the blind. It
is he who commands the light to shine out of darkness, who hath made
these blessed discoveries, and hath given the poor benighted soul, the
light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ.
These irradiations are from the Spirit's illumination; 'tis the Spirit
of wisdom and revelation that hath made day-light in the darkened soul.