238 SIXTH SERMON judgment upon it ; for spiritual things are spiritually discerned, 1 Cor. ii. 14. It is true, that hypocrites and other wicked men may have very much notional and intellectual knowledge of the scriptures, and those holy things therein revealed, Heb. vi. 4. 2 Pet. ii. 21. But none of that knowledge amounteth unto that which is called the teaching of God, and a spiritual demonstration : for the mysteries of the gospel were unto this end revealed, that by them we might be brought unto the obedience of Christ ; and therefore the knowledge of them is never proportioned or com- mensurate to the object, till the mind be thereby made conformed unto Christ, till the conceptions which are framed in us touching God, and sin, and grace, and heaven, and eternal things, be suitable to those which were in the mind of Christ, 1 Cor. ii. 16. Evange- lical truths are not fitted unto mere intellectual, but unto practical judgment. It is such a knowledge of Christ as may fill us with the fulness of God, Eph. iii. 18, 19. A knowledge that must work communion with Christ, and conformity unto him, Phil. iii. O. A knowledge that must produce a good conversation, James iii. 13. " He that. saith he knoweth him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him," 1 John ii. 3, 4. We do not know Christ till we know him as our chief good, as our choicest treasure, as our unsearchable riches, as elect, and precious, and desirable, and altogether lovely ; and the fairest of ten thousand, and worthy all acceptation, in comparison of whom all the world besides is as dung. The knowledge of Christ is not seeing only, but seeing and tasting, Psa. xxxiv. S. cxix. 103. And therefore they who in one sense are said to have known God, Rom. i. 21. are yet in the same place, ver. 28. said not to have God in their
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