manifesting its liveliness, in its constraining power to live to him and
for him. Light without, heat is but wild fire; but light in the mind,
begetting heat in the heart, making it burn Godward, Christward, and
heavenward; light in the understanding, setting on fire and inflaming
the affections, and these shining out in a heavenly conversation, makes
up the lively image of God, both in feature and stature, both in
proportion and colour. Faith begins this image, and draws the
lineaments; and love bringing forth obedience finishes, and gives it the
lively lustre. The burnings of love in obedience to God is that which
illuminates the whole, and makes a man look indeed like him, to whose
image he is predestinate to be conform, and then makes him, who is
ravished with the charms of that beauty, say, as in a manner overcome
thereby, "how fair is thy love, my sister, my spouse? How much better is
thy love than wine, and the smell of thine ointments than all spices?"
But consider, that as these beams, which irradiate the soul, are from
the Spirit of Christ, so that spiritual heat and warmth come out of the
same airth, and proceed from the same author, for our fire burns as he
blows, our lamp shines as he snuffs and furnisheth oil. Men therefore
should not indulge themselves in this delusion, to think, that that
which will pass for pure religion and undefiled before God, consists
either in an outward blameless conversation, or in putting on and
wearing an external garb of profession. No, as the top of it reacheth
higher, so the root of it lies deeper; it is rooted in the heart, this
seed being sown in an honest heart (or making the heart honest in which
it is sown) takes root downward, and brings forth fruit upward, as trees
that grow as far under ground as above, so these trees of righteousness,
the planting of the Lord that he may be glorified, grow as far and as
fast under ground as above; godliness grows as far downwards in
self-emptying, self-denial, and self-abasing, in hungering and thirsting
after more of righteousness, in the secret engagements of the heart to