By the Croft of Chr q. 17 .as fuch a thing as is not in being. For out of the God of Nature the creature is NN thing, norcan do any thing ; for there is no filch thing; even as out of Chrift the Lord of fpiritual Life and Grace, thenew creature is nothing, and Wecan do nothing ; for there is no fuchnew creature. You have here the very difference between a Carnal and a Spiritual life. The Carnal mandoch fee only the carkaife ofthe world , and is blind to God , and Teeth not him, when he teeth that which is animated by him. But the Spiritual man leechGod in and by the creature, and the creature is nothing to him but in Ood. iAs an illiterate man (loth look upon a Book, and Teeth on- ly the letters,and raker) pleafure in their fhape and order and falls a playing with it as children do ; but he Teeth not, nor under- flands the fenfe ; and therefore if it contained the nobleft my- fleries or the greateft promifes, even Inch as his lifedid depend upon, he loveth it not in any fuck refpea , nor doch he for that delight in it : but let a learned man have the perufingofthe fame Book, and though he may commend the clearnefs of the cha- rafler , yet it is the fenfe that he principally obferveth, and the fenfe that he loveth and the fence that hedelighteth in : and therefore as the fenfe' is incomparably more excellent then the charatter fimply confidered, fo is it an higher and more excel- lent kind of knowledgeanddelight which he path in the Book, then that which the illiterate hash t And indeed it is an imaginary annihilation of the Book, and of every charadler of it formally confidered, toconceive of it es feparated from the teak : for the very effence of it, is to ba a figa, of that fenfe : and therefore as the illiterate cannot fee the knfe for words and letters, the wood for trees , to the literatecan fee no fuel-riling as words without fenfe , nor would regard the materials but for this fignifying ufe. I have expreffei the fimilitude in .mere words then I ufe in Inch cafes , becaufe it much iliuftrateth cur prefent matter.` It was neverthe mind of God to make the great body of this world to ftar,d as a feparated thing, or to be an idol. He made all this for himfelf: The whole Creation is one entire volume, and the fenfe of every line is God. His name is legible'rinevery creature; and he that teeth not God in all, underftandeth not the fenfe of the Creation., As it is Eternal Life to knowGod, fo this Cod is D the
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=