of God, but to grow more and more in the believing ignorance of such a mystery, in the knowledge of an unknown, unconceivable and unsearchable God; that in all the degrees of knowledge we might still conceive we had found less, and that there is more to be found than before we apprehended. This is the most perfect knowledge of God, that doth not drive away darkness, but increases it in the soul’s apprehension. Any increase in it doth not declare what God is, or satisfy one’s admiration in it, but rather shows him to be more invisible and unsearchable. So that the darkness of a soul’s ignorance is more manifested by this light, and not more covered; and one’s own knowledge is rather darkened, and disappears in the glorious appearance of this light. For in all new discoveries, there is no other thing appears but this, that that which the soul is seeking is supereminently unknown, and still further from knowledge than ever it conceived it to be. Therefore, whatever you conceive or see of God, if you think ye know what ye conceive and see, it is not God ye see, but something of God’s less than God; for it is said, “eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive, what he hath laid up far them that love him.” Now certainly, that is himself he hath laid up for them; therefore, whatever thou conceivest of him, and thinkest now thou knowest of him, that is not he; for it hath not entered into man’s heart to conceive him. Therefore, this must be thy soul’s exercise and progress in it, to remove all things, all conceptions from him, as not beseeming his majesty, and to go still forward in such a dark negative discovery, till thou know not where to seek him, nor find him. _Si quis Deum videat et intelligat quod vidit, Deum non vidit_, if any see God, and understand what they see, God they do not see; for, “God hath no man seen,” 1 John iv. 12; “and no man knows the Father but the Son, and none knows the Son but the Father.” It is his own property to know himself as it is to be himself. Silent and seeing ignorance is our safest and highest knowledge. Lecture VIII. The Eternity And Unchangeableness Of God. Exod. iii. 14.—“I AM THAT I AM.”—Psal. xc. 2.—“Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting thou art God.”—Job xi. 7-9.—“Canst thou by searching find out God? canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection? It is as high as heaven; what canst thou do? deeper than hell; what canst thou know? The measure thereof is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea.”