these things from the wise and prudent and hast revealed them unto babes."
We must not gather from these words a wrong lesson. We must not infer that any persons on earth are naturaUy more deserving of God's grace and salvation than others. All are alike sinners, and merit nothing but wrath and condemnation. We must simply regard the words as stating a fact. The wisdom of this world often makes people proud, and increases their natural enmity to Christ's Gospel. The man who has no pride of knowledge, or fancied morality, to fall back on, has often fewest difficulties to get over in coming to the knowledge of the truth. The publicans and sinners are often the first to enter the kingdom of God, while the Scribes and Pharisees stand outside.
Let us learn from these words to beware of self- righteousness. Nothing so blinds the eyes of our souls to the beauty of the Gospel as the vain, delusive idea, that we are not so ignorant and wicked as some, and that we have got a character which will bear inspection. Happy is that man who has learned to feel that he is " wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and nak- ed." (Rev. iii. 17.) To see that we are bad, is the first step towards being really good. To feel that we are ignorant is the ^rst beginning of all saving knowledge.
We should observe, in the fourth place, the majesty and dignity of our Lord Jesm Christ, We read that He said, "All things are delivered to me of my Father : and no man knoweth who the Son is but the Father ; and who the Father is but the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him."