They neither _can_ nor _will_ do you any good. O suffer them not to do you harm. Be not prejudiced against Christianity by those who know nothing at all of it. Nay, they condemn it, all _real substantial_ Christianity; they speak evil of the thing they know not. They have a kind of _cant_ word for the whole religion of the heart. They call it _enthusiasm_. I will briefly lay before you the ground of the matter, and appeal to you yourselves for the reasonableness of it. * 21. What a miserable drudgery is the service of God, unless I love the God whom I serve? But I cannot love one whom I know not. How then can I love God till I know him? And how is it possible I should know God, unless he make himself known unto me? By _analogy_ or proportion? Very good. But where is that proportion to be found? What proportion does a creature bear to his Creator? What is the proportion between finite and infinite? I grant, the _existence_ of the creatures demonstratively shews the _existence_ of their Creator. The whole creation speaks, that there is a God. But that is not the point in question. I know there is a God. Thus far is clear. But who will shew me what that God ♦is? The more I reflect the more convinced I am, that it is not possible for any of all the creatures, to take off the veil which is on my heart, that I might discern this unknown God; to draw the curtain back which now hangs between, that I may see him which is invisible. ♦ “is.” replaced with “is?” per Errata This veil ♦or flesh now hides him from my sight. And who is able to make it transparent! So that I may perceive _through this glass_, God always before me, till I see him _face to face_. ♦ “of” replaced with “or” per Errata I want to know this great God who filleth heaven and earth: who is above, beneath, and on every side, in all places of his dominion; who just now besets me behind and before, and lays his hand upon me. And yet I am no more acquainted with him, than with one of the inhabitants of _Jupiter_ or _Saturn_. O my friend, how will you get one step farther, unless God reveal himself to your soul? 22. And why should this seem a thing incredible to you? That God, a Spirit, and the Father of the Spirits of all flesh, should discover himself to your spirit, which is itself the breath of God, _Divinæ Particula Auræ_? Any more than that material things should discover themselves to your material eye. Is it any more repugnant to reason, that spirit should influence spirit, than that matter should influence matter? Nay, is not the former the more intelligible of the two? For there is the utmost difficulty in conceiving, how matter should influence matter at all: how that which is totally _passive_ should _act_. Neither can we rationally account either for gravitation, attraction, or any natural motion whatsoever, but by supposing in all the finger of God, who alone conquers that _vis inertiæ_, which is essential to every particle of matter, and worketh all in all.