9. It remains, therefore, that without a sincere love to God and our neighbor, and a holy and Christian life attending it, all arts and sciences, gifts and attainments, profit nothing. Wisdom, how great soever it may be, yea, though it be as great, or greater than that of Solomon, is nothing; and the knowledge of the whole Scripture, if it be without love, must necessarily degenerate into a poor, empty speculation. All works whatsoever, and martyrdom itself (if so it be called), are to no purpose without this essential character of love. For to know the will of God and his word, and not to live up to them as a rule, only increases our condemnation, as the Lord plainly affirms: “If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin; but now they have no cloak for their sin.” John 15:22.
He Who Does Not Live In Christ, But Gives His Heart To The World, Has Only The Outward Letter Of The Scriptures, But He Does Not Experience Their Power, Or Eat Of The Hidden Manna.
_To him that overcometh, will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it._—REV. 2:17.
By this Scripture we are taught, that no man can taste the inward sweetness of heavenly joy and comfort hidden in the Word, who does not first vanquish his own flesh and the world, with all the pomps and lusts thereof, and the devil himself. But those that crucify their flesh daily, with all its desires and lusts, by serious contrition and repentance, who die daily to themselves and to the world, and to whom this life is a cross and affliction; these are divinely fed with the heavenly manna, and drink the wine of the joy of paradise. Those, on the other hand, that love the pleasures of this world rather than those of heaven, render themselves altogether unfit to taste the hidden manna, preserved for him alone that overcometh. The reason is, because _like things_ (according to the proverb) rejoice _in their like_; and things of a contrary nature do not unite one with another. Since, therefore, the word of God is spiritual, it is no wonder that worldly minds take no pleasure in it. For as the body receives no strength from the food which the stomach does not digest; so the soul receives no strength from the divine word, unless it be entirely converted into itself, that is, into its own life and nature.