Dear Saviour! make me wise to see

Dear Saviour! make me wise to see
My sin, and guilt, and remedy;
'Tis said, of all thy blood has brought,
'They shall of Israel's God be taught.'

Their plague of heart thy people know,
They know thy name, and trust thee too;
They know the gospel's blissful sound,
The path where endless joys abound.

They know the Father and the Son;—
Theirs is eternal life begun:
Unto salvation they are wise,—
Their grace shall into glory rise.

But—ignorance itself am I;
Born blind—estrang'd from thee I lie;
Lord! to thee I humbly own
I nothing know as should be known.

I scarce know God, or Christ, or sin,
My foes without, or plague within;
Know not my interest, Lord, in thee,
In pardon, peace, or liberty?

But help me to declare to-day,
If many things I cannot say,
'One thing I know,' all praise to thee,
'Though blind I was—yet now I see.'
                           Isaac Watts


     "I will give them a heart to know me." Jer. 24:7.  The knowledge of God is
the first excellency of the new heart.  As in the old, so in the new creation, as was
said before, the first word is, "Let there be light."  There is not so glorious a pre-eminence
of day above night, as of the knowledge above the ignorance of God.  As the firmament
without a sun, as the body without an eye, so is the soul without knowledge.  What this
knowledge of God here promised is, will appear, if we consider its object.....
     The object of this knowledge is God:  not only the nature or being of God, manifested
in his essential perfections, his glorious attributes, his infiniteness, eternity, omnipotence,
in his personal relations, the subsistences in the godhead; but God in Christ; God in covenant;
yea, the whole mind and will of God, all that which God hath revealed to us as our duty or
happiness.  God known in the heart, is the whole Bible opened:  the law opened, the gospel
opened; duties, comforts, privileges made manifest.  Christ opened in his sufferings, in his
satisfaction, in his Spirit, in all the riches of his glory:  the whole mystery of godliness
revealed.  The heart opened, man made known to himself, all the depths of the heart, all
the deceits of the heart, all the faculties and powers of the heart, with their motions,
operations, inclinations, the rectitude or obliquities of them.  Heaven opened, the crown,
the kingdom known; everlasting rest, glory, honor, immortality brought to light.  Hell
opened, sin known, the devil known, wrath, temptation, the curse, eternal fire known. 
All this, even all that God is, and all that he has revealed in his word and works, are the
object of this knowledge of God......
     Christian, know the Lord, but know and fear; know and serve, know and honor
thy God; know God, and know thyself, thy sin and thy misery, thy dangers and thy
temptations; know and mourn; know and be ashamed; know, and fear, and watch,
and fight, and overcome.  Know God, and know his will, thy duty and thy way, thy
privileges and opportunities, thy race and thy crown.  Know, and do, and run, and
suffer, and wait, and hope, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.  Know God,
but God in Christ, God reconciled, pardoning, absolving, accepting through him. 
Know, and believe, accept, adventure upon, resign, commit thyself to him.  Know
thy God, and behold him; look upon thy God in his power, in his wisdom, in his holiness,
in his goodness, in his lovingkindness, in his mercy.  Behold him in his word, in his works,
in his providence, in his saints, in thy soul, in his Son; set him before thine eyes, look
upon thy God, and never leave looking till thou art changed into his image and satisfied
with his likeness.....
                                                                                                     Richard Alleine