The crucifying of the world

You have here the very difference between a Carnal and a Spiritual life. The Carnal man doth see only the carcass of the world, and is blind to God, and seeth not him, when he seeth that which is animated by him. But the Spiritual man seeth God in and by the creature, and the creature is nothing to him but in God. As an illiterate man doth look upon a Book, and seeth only the letters, and taketh pleasure in their shape and order, and falls a playing with it as children do; but he seeth not, nor understands the sense; and therefore if it contained the noblest mysteries or the greatest promises, even such as his life did depend upon, he loveth it not in any such respect, nor doth he for that delight in it: but let a learned man have the perusing of the same Book, and though he may commend the clearness of the character, yet it is the sense that he principally observeth, and the sense that he loveth, and the sense that he delighteth in: and therefore as the sense is incomparably more excellent then the character simply considered, so is it an higher and more excellent kind of knowledge and delight which he hath in the Book, then that which the illiterate hath▪ And indeed it is an imaginary annihilation of the Book, and of every character of it formally considered, to conceive of it as separated from the sense: for the very essence of it, is to be a sign of that sense: and therefore as the illiterate cannot see the sense for words and letters, the wood for trees, so the literate can see no such thing as words without sense, nor would regard the materials but for this signifying use.

You have here the very difference between a Carnal and a Spiritual life. The Carnal man doth see only the carkaise of the world, and is blind to God, and seeth not him, when he seeth that which is animated by him. But the Spiritual man seeth God in and by the creature, and the creature is nothing to him but in God. As an illiterate man doth look upon a Book, and seeth only the le•ters, and taketh pleasure in their shape and order, and falls a playing with it as children do; but he seeth not, nor understands the sense; and therefore if it contained the noblest mysteries or the greatest promises, even such as his life did depend upon, he loveth it not in any such respect, nor doth he for that delight in it: but let a learned man have the perusing of the same Book, and though he may commend the clearness of the character, yet it is the sense that he principally observeth, and the sense that he loveth, and the sense that he delighteth in: and therefore as the sense is incomparably more excellent then the character simply considered, so is it an higher and more excellent kind of knowledge and delight which he hath in the Book, then that which the illiterate hath And indeed it is an imaginary annihilation of the Book, and of every character of it formally considered, to conceive of it as separated from the sense: for the very essence of it, is to be a sign of that sense: and therefore as the illiterate cannot see the sense for words and letters, the wood for trees, so the literate can see no such thing as words without sense, nor would regard the materials but for this signifying use.