“God comes into our nature, as the root of each single person. Here He becomes our Jesus, making Himself a new seed; out of this seed He brings forth a new image of Divinity, by which He breaks through the image of the devil and nature, brings forth man out of them, brings them into subjection to this growing beauty. As the fuel is dissolved into smoke, and the smoke again breaks up into flame, so the image of the devil riseth up out of the image of nature, shaking that to dust, as it riseth: the image of God, again, sprouts forth in the midst of the devil’s image, first spoiling, then triumphing over, and in both. “God through nature, as the root, grows up into single persons, as the branches. Then as the shades of night fly away before the ascending day, so,--as this Divine seed our Jesus sends forth itself in an image of beauty through our souls,--the image of darkness and death sinks down into its own place, and principle.”[511] To Sterry’s book on _The Kingdom of God_ an introduction is prefixed, written by Jeremy White, who had been chaplain to Oliver Cromwell, and who lived in private after the Restoration, preaching but occasionally. White sympathized in the mysticism of Sterry, and, in the following beautiful passage, uttered truths well worth the serious consideration of all spiritually-minded people, especially of those who are disposed to undervalue, perhaps to ridicule, thoughts imbued with mystic elements:-- “Who among us is yet able to comprehend all the distinct ages and growths of good minds; to understand the various improvements, measures, and attainments, the several capacities, languages, and operations which are peculiar to those ages and growths? It is impossible for us to set the bounds to spiritual things, to stint that spirit in ourselves or others which is a fountain of Divine light and life in all regenerated souls, continually sending forth new streams, and running along with a fresh succession of waters without any stop or limit. We are too proud to understand the condescensions, too low to take the height, too shallow to fathom the depth, too narrow to measure the breadth, too short to reach the length of the Divine truth and goodness, and the various communications of themselves to us. We cannot assign the highest or the lowest state of saints whilst they are here below. We cannot say, All above this is fancy, whimsey, dream, and delusion; all below that is common, carnal, formal, and superstitious. As we ought not, then, to despise and contemn that which is below, so let us not censure and condemn that which is above us. Blessed be God, all good souls, in the midst of their greatest distances from one another here below, do all meet in the Divine comprehension above. We are all enfolded in the Divine arms, we are all encircled in the Divine love. That has breadth, and length, and depth, and height enough to reach and hold us all. And if we cannot yet receive and embrace each