7. As long, then, as a man continues in that dark and terrible cloud of sin, it is impossible that he should be enlightened by Christ, the true Light of the world, and be thereby brought to a saving knowledge of God. Whoever will attain to a true knowledge of God and Christ, must firmly believe that God is nothing but grace and love. Now, no man can know what love is, but he that has, and practises it, the knowledge of a thing being the result of a man’s experience, of his feelings, and of the works of truth which he performs. Whoever, therefore, does not exercise love (whatever words he may use about it), continues an utter stranger to the nature of love; and what he is pleased to call love, is nothing but show and pretence. And as Christ himself is nothing but love and humility, meekness and patience, and every true virtue, so a man that is not frequent in the performance of these and the like virtues, is altogether ignorant of Christ and of the truth. He is but a superficial pretender to, and a vain usurper of, His holy name, let his boasts be what they may. The Word of God is nothing but spirit. Whoever, therefore, does not live and walk in the Spirit, in no wise understands what the Word of God is, though he may dispute and argue copiously about it. How shall a man tell us what love is, who never performed any act of love? How shall a man give an account of the nature of light, who, having been constantly confined to a dark dungeon, has never seen the light himself? Now, the light in man is faith and charity, according to the saying of Christ: “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” Matt. 5:16. 8. In a word, the holy life of Christ is nothing but love and charity. No sooner do we, by faith, learn from him true love and humility, meekness and patience, as he himself has engaged us to do, than we are transformed into his image, and enlightened with that true and eternal light, which he himself is; according to that exhortation of St. Paul: “Awake thou that sleepest (namely, in sins and the lust of the flesh), and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.” Eph. 5:14. 9. From all this it follows, that in the case of as many as do not awake from their spiritual lethargy, that is, from the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, the pride of life, and other pleasures that attend them, their souls cannot be enlightened by Christ, since they love darkness rather than light, and thereby unfit themselves for a reception of the divine light.