This is the most excellent and divine wisdom that any creature is capable of.  It is more excellent than any human learning; it is far more excellent than all the knowledge of the greatest philosophers or statesmen.  Yea, the least glimpse of the glory of God in the face of Christ doth more exalt and ennoble the soul than all the knowledge of those that have the greatest speculative understanding in divinity without grace.  This knowledge has the most noble object that is or can be, viz., the divine glory or excellency of God and Christ.  The knowledge of these objects is that wherein consists the most excellent knowledge of the angels, yea, of God himself.

This knowledge is that which is above all others sweet and joyful.  Men have a great deal of pleasure in human knowledge, in studies of natural things; but this is nothing to that joy which arises from this divine light shining into the soul.  This light gives a view of those that are immensely the most exquisitely beautiful, and capable of delighting the eye of the understanding.  This spiritual light is the dawning of the light of glory in the heart.  There is nothing so powerful as this to support persons in affliction, and to give the mind peace and brightness in this stormy and dark world.

This light is such as effectually influences the inclination, and changes the nature of the soul.  It assimilates the human nature to the divine nature, and changes the soul into an image of the same glory that is beheld (ii Cor. iii., 18), “But we all with open face, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.”  This knowledge will wean from the world, and raise the inclination to heavenly things.  It will turn the heart to God as the fountain of good, and to choose him for the only portion.  This light, and this only, will bring the soul to a saving close with Christ.  It conforms the heart to the gospel, mortifies its enmity and opposition against the schemes of salvation therein revealed:  it causes the heart to embrace the joyful tidings, and entirely to adhere to, and acquiesce in the revelation of Christ as our Savior:  it causes the whole soul to accord and symphonize with it, admitting it with entire credit and respect; cleaving to it with full inclination and affection; and it effectually disposes the soul to give up itself entirely to Christ.

This light, and this only, has its fruit in a universal holiness of life.  No merely notional or speculative understanding of the doctrines of religion will ever bring us to this.  But this light, as it reaches the bottom of the heart, and changes the nature, so it will effectually dispose to a universal obedience.  It shows God’s worthiness to be obeyed and served.  It draws forth the heart in a sincere love to God, which is the only principle of a true, gracious, and universal obedience; and it convinces of the reality of those glorious rewards that God has promised to them that obey him.