able practising of what
you know. And this, as it is a great point of conformity to the light, so
it will make you capable of more light from God, for he delights to show
his liberality, where he hath any acceptance. Be not satisfied, O be not
satisfied, with knowing these truths, and discoursing upon them, but make
them further your own, by impressing them deeply in your hearts, and
expressing them plainly in your ways! This is "pure religion and
undefiled," James i. 27. And "is not this to know me, saith the Lord?"
Jer. xxii. 16. Practice is real knowledge, because it is living
knowledge. It is the very life and soul of Christianity, when there needs
no more but the intimation of his will to carry the whole man. This is
what we should all aspire unto, and not satisfy ourselves in our poor
attainments below this.

Sermon XIV.

1 John i. 7.--"But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light,
we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ
his Son cleanseth us from all sin."

Art is the imitation of nature, and true religion is a divine art, that
consists in the imitation of God himself, the author of nature. Therefore
it is a more high and transcendent thing, of a sublimer nature than all
the arts and sciences among men. Those reach but to some resemblance of
the wisdom of God, expressed in his works, but this aspires to an
imitation of himself in holiness, which is the glory of his name, and so
to a fellowship with himself. Therefore there is nothing hath so high a
pattern, or sublime an end. God himself, who is infinitely above all, is
the pattern, and society with God is the end of it and so it cannot
choose, but where religion makes a solid impression on a soul. It must
exceedingly raise and advance it to the most heroic and noble resolutions
that it is capable of, in respect of which elevation of the soul after
God, the highest projects, the greatest aspirings, and the most elevating
designs of men, are nothing but low, base, and wretched, having nothing of
true greatness of mind in them, but running in an earthly and sordid
channel, infinitely below the poorest soul that is lifted up to God.

Since we have then so high a pattern as God, because he is infinitely
removed from us in his own nature, we have him expressed to us under the
name and notion of light, which makes all things manifest, not only as
dwelling in inaccessible light, that is in his own incompr