Meditations on the fall and rising of St. Peter

THE form and manner of Peter's second Denial, is (not without special reason as I conceive) diversly related. In one Evangelist the words are, I know not the man; in another, I am not of them. One would think these were two Denials. May not a man know him, unless he follow him? No. Behold a mystery of Faith in the fall of Peter. No ⟨p. 56⟩man knows Christ unless he be one of them that follow him, and to whom he hath united himself. If it had been true, I am not one of them, it had been true also, I know not the man. All knowledge consists in mixture and union, whereby the understanding receiveth into it the image and similitude of the thing which it knows; which made the Philosopher say, That the Soul in understanding a thing is made the very thing which it understands; namely, in that sense as we call the Image of the ⟨p. 57⟩Face in a Glass, the Face it self; or the Impression in Wax, the Seal it self. Now then there is no union between Christ and us, no dwelling of him in us, no ingrafture, or incorporation of us into him, without that Faith whereby we follow him, which makes us to be so nearly one with him, that (in the judgment of the learned) the name of Christ is sometimes in the holy Scriptures taken for the Church of Christ. And therefore to those that believe, to them only he hath given to ⟨p. 58⟩know. Christ is not truly apprehended either by the fancy or the understanding. He is at once known and possessed. It is an Experimental, and not a Speculative knowledge that conceives him: He understands him, that feels him. We see him in his Grace and Truth, in his Word and Promises, not in any carnal or gross presence. Pilate knew him in that manner, and Judas, as well as Peter. A true Believer can see and know him better in Heaven at the right hand of his Father, by a Sacramental,