6. This is the testimony of the hidden Spirit, who witnesses to the divine Word: and in like manner, the Spirit of the Word gives testimony to our spirit (Rom. 8:16), whence both unite, and so become one spirit. 1 Cor. 6:17. This is that new name, which no man knoweth but he that hath it. As no man perceives the sweetness of honey, but he that tastes it; so the name of this divine testimony, written in the hearts of good souls, no man knoweth but he that possesses it. He only understands the nature of heavenly comfort, and of divine visitations, who really tastes them. This name and testimony are called _new_, because they are the blessed effect of the _new birth_, and come _from above_. 7. Blessed is the man to whom God thus gives himself to be tasted! Thus were the prophets of old fed with this heavenly bread, and sustained by the eternal Word proceeding from God, and communicating itself unto them. This made their tongues so free and so ready in the delivery of the divine oracles. And from this inward sense, with which they were so powerfully affected, the Holy Scripture has been derived, and handed down to us for our edification. 8. Even at this day, God does not cease still to speak unto all men, and inwardly to feed them with his Word: but alas! most men have shut their ears against his voice, and will rather hear the world than God, and follow their own lusts, than the motions of the good Spirit of God. They cannot eat of the hidden manna, because they greedily adhere to their carnal propensities, and contemn the tree of life, with the fruit thereof. 9. But surely such men are awfully blinded, since they will not understand that God can afford infinitely greater pleasures than this world is capable of imparting. He that has once tasted the goodness of God, will esteem the whole world, together with its most exquisite pleasures, to be nothing but gall and bitterness. Our first parents were beguiled by the world; and by eating of the forbidden tree, they brought no less an evil upon themselves than death itself: and yet we are so much besotted with the pleasures of this world, as to follow freely their steps, and to obey the forbidden lusts of the flesh, which cause our death. Rom. 8:13.