of his power," that makes such a
sensible impression on our ears, and makes all the world to stand and
hearken to it, then how much less shall we conceive the invisible Majesty
of God? In natural things, we have one vail of darkness in our minds to
hinder us, but in the apprehension of God, we have a twofold darkness to
break through, the darkness of ignorance in us, and "the darkness of too
much light" in him--_caliginem nimiae lucis,_ which makes him as
inaccessible to us as the other, the over-proportion of that glorious
majesty of God to our low spirits, being as the sun in its brightness to a
night owl, which is dark midnight to it. Hence it is, that those holy men
who know most of God, think they know least, because they see more to be
known but infinitely surpassing knowledge. Pride is the daughter of
ignorance only, "and he that thinketh he knoweth anything knoweth nothing
as he ought to know," saith the apostle, 1 Cor. viii. 2. For he that
knoweth not his own ignorance, if he know never so much, is the greatest
ignorant, and it is a manifest evidence that a man hath but a superficial
touch of things and hath never broken the shell, or drawn by the vail of
his own weakness and ignorance, that doth not apprehend deeply the
unsearchableness of God, and his mysteries, but thinketh he hath in some
measure compassed them, because he maketh a system of divinity, or setteth
down so many conclusions of faith, and can debate them against
adversaries, or because he hath a form and model of divinity, as of other
sciences, in his mind. Nay, my beloved, holy Job attained to the deepest
and fullest speculation of God, when he concluded thus, "Because I see
thee, I abhor myself," and as Paul speaks, "If any man love God he is
known of God, and so knows God," 1 Cor. viii. 3. From which two
testimonies I conclude, that the true knowledge of God consists not so
much in a comprehension of all points of divinity, as in such a serious
apprehension and conception of the divine Majesty as enkindles and
inflames these two affections, love and hatred, towards their proper
objects, such a knowledge as carries the torch before the affection, such
a light as shines into the heart, as Paul's phrase is, 2 Cor. iv. 6, and
so transmits heat and warmness into it, till it make the heart burn in the
love of God, and loathing of himself. As long as a man doth but hear of
God in sermons, or read of him in books, though he could determine all the
ques