The divine life in three treatises

7. The next Attribute that must work upon us, is the Infinite Wisdom, or Omniscience of God. Psal. 147. 5. His understanding is Infinite] And the Impressions that this should make upon our souls are these.

7. THe next Attribute that must work upon us, is the Infinite Wisdom, or Omniscience of God. Psal. 147. 5. His understandig is Infinite] And the Impressions that this should make upon our souls are these.

1. Delight in Wisdom, that you may in your places be like to God. The New man is renewed in knowledge after the Image of him that Created him, Col. 3. 10. If God be infinitely Wise, those then are the most excellent that are the Wisest. Ignorance is the souls blindness, and the privation of the Image of God on the understanding. [Wisdom excelleth folly, as far as light excelleth darkness, Eccles. 2. 13.] To desire as Adam did any of that Knowledge that God hath reserved to himself, or is unnecessary for us, is not indeed to be Wise in our desires: Unnecessary Knowledge is but a trouble. But to Know the Lord, and his revealed Will; and the way of life, is the light and glory of our minds. He that hath lost his eye sight, hath lost his principal natural delight, and is as out of the world while he is in it. And the ignorant souls that are void of the heavenly Illumination, must needs be void of the delights of Grace: and though they live in the visible Church, where the beauty of Holiness is the excellency of the Saints, yet they do not see this beauty, but are like the Infidels that are out of the Church while they are in it. The Blind are in continual danger; They know not where they set their feet. And they know not when to be confident, nor ⟨p. 58⟩when to fear; sometimes they are afraid where there is no cause, because there may be cause for ought they know; And sometime they are fearless at the very brink of death, and little think of the evil that they are near. Why do our poor deluded people so boldly live in an unconverted state, but because they Know not where they are? Why do they so carelessly lie down and rise in an unsanctified condition, unpardoned, unready for death and judgement, and under the condemnation of the Law, but because they know not the misery or danger in which they stand? Why do they go on so carelessly and wilfully in sin, and despise the counsel of their Teachers and of the Lord, and take a holy life as needless, but because they Know not what they do? Men could not go so quietly or merrily to Hell, with their eyes open, as they do when they are shut by Ignorance. Whence is it that such Multitudes are still ungodly under all the Teachings and warnings of the Lord? but because [they have their understandings darkened, being alienated from the life of God by the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart: