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.  The man who had the heart of a beast, as to any saving or solid knowledge of God or himself, hath now got an understanding to know him that is true.  Now is Christ become the poor man’s wisdom, he is now renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him; he might well babble of spiritual things, but till now he understood nothing of the beauty and excellency of God and his ways; nay, he knew not what he knew, he was ignorant as a beast of the life and lustre of those things which he knew in the letter; nothing seemed more despicable to him in the world, than true godliness; but now he judgeth otherwise, because he hath the mind of Christ.  The things which in his darkness he did undervalue as trifles to be mocked at, he now can only mind and admire, since he became a child of light; now being delivered from that blindness and brutishness of spirit, which possesseth the world, (and possessed himself till he was transformed by the renewing of his mind) who esteem basely of spiritual things, and set them at nought, he prizeth as alone precious.  The world wonders what pleasure or content can be in the service of God, because they see not by tasting how good he is; to be prying into and poring upon invisible things, is to them visible madness, but to the enlightened mind, the things that are not seen are only worth seeing, and while they appear not to be, they only are; whereas the things that are seen appear but to be, and are not.  Though the surpassing sweetness of spiritual things should be spoke of to them, who cannot favour the things of God, in such a manner as the glorious light of them did surround men; yet they can perceive no such thing; all is to them cunningly devised fables; let be spoke what will, they see no form, no comeliness, no beauty in this glorious object—­God in Christ reconciling sinners to himself.  Alas! the mind is blinded; the dungeon is within; and till Christ open the eyes, as well as reveal his light, the soul abides in its blindness, and is buried in midnight darkness; but when the Spirit of God opens the man’s eyes, and he is translated by an act of omnipotency out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of his dear Son, which is a kingdom of marvellous light, O what matchless beauty doth he now see in these things, which appeared despicable and dark nothings to him, till he got the unction, the eye-salve, which teacheth all things.  Now he sees (what none without the Spirit can see) the things which God hath prepared for them that love him, and are freely given them of God; and these, though seen at a distance, reflect such rays of beauty into his soul, that he beholds and is ravished, he sees and is swallowed up in wonder.