is but a day younger than truth. When the gospel began first to be preached by Christ and his apostles, error presently put forth her hand to take it by the heel, and supplant it. The Avhole system of antichrist is a mystery of policy and impiety ; mystery is written upon the whore of Babylon's forehead, Rev. xvii. 2; and Causabon tells us, the same word was written upon the pope's mitre ; if so, it is well he would own his name : ' My soul, enter not thou into their secrets.' Secondly, In a good sense; sometimes for some particular branch of evangelical truth : thus the rejection of the Jews, and calling of the Gentiles, is called a mystery, Rom. xi. 25 : the wondeiful change of those who shall be upon earth at the end of the world, 1 Cor. xv. 51 : the incarnation, resurrection, and ascension of Christ, 1 Tim. iii. 16, &c. : sometimes for the whole of the gospel, as to the doctrine of it, called a ' mystery of faith,' 1 Tim. iii. 9 : as to the purity of its precepts, and rules for a holy life, a mystery of godliness : as to the Author, subject, and end of it, called the ' mystery of Christ,' Eph. iii. 4; it was revealed by him, treats of him, and leads souls to him : and lastly, in regard of the blessed reward it promiseth to all that sincerely embrace it, called the ' mystery of the kingdom of God,' Mark iv. 11. This gospel is the glorious mystery we are now to speak of ; and we are to shew in what respect it is a mystery, or why so called by the Spirit of God.
Section II.— First, Because it is known only by divine revelation. Such a secret it is as the wit of man could never have foimd out. Tliere are many secrets in nature which, with much study, have at last been discovered ; as the medicinal virtue of plants, &c. ; but the gospel is a secret, and contains in it such mysteries as the following : — What man or angel could have thought of such a way for reconciling God and man, as in the gospel is laid out? How impossible was it for them to have conjectured what purposes of love were locked up in the heart of God toward fallen man, till himself opened the cabinet of his own counsel ? Or had God given them some hint of a purpose he had for man's recovery, could they ever have so much as thought of such a way as the gospel brings to light? Surely, as none but God could lay the plot, so none but himself could make it known ; the gospel therefore is called ' a revelation of the mystery which was kept secret since the world began,' Rom. xvi. 25. Secondly, Because the ti-uths of the gospel, when revealed, exceed the grasp of human luiderstanding : they are to the eye of our reason, as the sun is to the eye of our body, which dazzles and overpowers the most piercing apprehension ; they disdain to be discussed and tried by human reason. That there are three sub- sistencies in the Godhead, and but one Divine essence, we believe, because they are revealed ; but he that shall fly too near this light, thinking to comprehend this mysterious truth in his narrow reason, will soon find himself lost in his bold enterprise. God and man luiited in Christ's person, is undeniably de- monstrable from the gospel : but, alas ! the cordage of our understanding is too short to fathom this great deep: ' Without controversy,' saith the apostle, 'great is the mystery of godliness; God was manifest in the flesh,' 1 Tim. iii. 16. It is a truth without controversy, it is confessed of all ; yet such a mystery as cannot be comprehended by our short understanding. That there is no name but the name of Jesus, by which we can be saved, is the grand notion of the gospel ; but how many mysteries are wrapt up in one truth ! Who that should have seen the babe Jesus when he lay in the numger, and afterward meanly bred luider a carpenter, and at last executed for a malefactor, could have imagined that upon such weak hinges should move such a glorious design for man's salvation ? But who dares think it unreasonable to believe that, upon God's report, to be true, which he cannot make out by his own understanding? Some things we apprehend by reason, that cannot be known by sense ; as that the siui is larger than the earth : some things by sense, which cannot be found out by reason ; — that the load-stone attracts iron, and not gold, our eye beholds ; but why it should — there oiu- reason is lost. Now, if in nature we question not the truth of these, though sense be at a loss in one, and reason in the other, shall we in religion doubt of that to be true, which drops from God's own mouth, because it exceeds our weak understanding ? Wouldst thou see a reason, saith Augus- tine, for all that God saith, look into thy own imderstanding, and thou wilt find a reason why thou seest not a reason.
Section III. — Thirdly, It is a mysteiy in regard of the paucity of those to
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