Life eternalLife eternall

Regenerate men have a lively and experimental knowledge, that there is a GOD,¹ and that the Scriptures are his Word, from the communion that they have had with this God, and from the experience they have had of the truths delivered in the Scripture. They know very well, and that experimentally, what difference there was between; what they were once, and what they are ⟨p. 64⟩now; what it is to envy the Saints, and what it is to have an affection of love to them; they know the time, when they slighted sin, when they made no reckoning of it; they know again the bitterness and sorrow of sin, when the commandment came, and showed it unto them in its colours: they know a time when they judged perversely of the ways of God, when they had a bad opinion of them, and how now they are changed: besides, they know, how that once they did admire, and magnify worldly excellency and preferment; but since they were enlightened, their opinion is otherwise; I say, they know all this experimentally. Take the whole work of regeneration, they know it in themselves; and so for God himself, as he is described in the Scriptures, such have they found him to themselves: Now where a man doth know things thus experimentally, it is another kind of knowledge, than that which is by hear-say: so that though there is a belief in them both, yet there is a great difference between them.

Regenerate men have a lively and experimentall knowledge, that there is a GOD,¹ and that the Scriptures are his Word, from the communion that they have had with this God, and from the experience they have had of the truths delivered in the Scripture. They know very well, and that experimentally, what difference there was betweene; what they were once, and what they are ⟨p. 64⟩now; what it is to envie the Saints, and what it is to have an affection of love to them; they know the time, when they slighted sinne, when they made no reckoning of it; they know againe the bitternesse and sorrow of sin, when the commandement came, and shewed it unto them in its colours: they know a time when they judged perversely of the wayes of God, when they had a bad opinion of them, and how now they are changed: besides, they know, how that once they did admire, and magnifie worldly excellencie and preferment; but since they were inlightned, their opinion is otherwise; I say, they know all this experimentally. Take the whole worke of regeneration, they know it in themselves; and so for God himselfe, as hee is described in the Scriptures, such have they found him to themselves: Now where a man doth know things thus experimentally, it is another kinde of knowledge, than that which is by heare-say: so that though there is a beleefe in them both, yet there is a great difference betweene them.