whom it is revealed. Secrets are wliispered into the ears of a few, and not exposed to all : ' Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God,' Mark iv. 11. Who were those, but a few disciples who believed on his name ? The greater part of the world were ever strangers to this mystery. Befoi-e Christ's time it was confined within a little spot of ground of the Jewish nation ; since it came abroad into the Gentile world, and hath been travelling, above sixteen hundred years, hither and thither, how few at this day are acquainted with it ! Indeed, where its glorious light sliincs long, many get a superficial knowledge of it : it were strange that men should walk long in the sun, and not have their faces a little tanned ; but the spiritual and saving knowledge of this mystery is revealed but to few ; for the number of saints is not g>i'eat, compared with the reprobate world.
Fourthly, It is a mystery in regard of the sort of men to whom it is chiefly imparted, such as are in reason most unlikely to dive into any great mysteries; those who are despised by the wise world as poor and base : ' Not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called ; but Ciod hath chosen the foolish things of tlie world to confound the wise ; — the weak things of the world to confound the things which are might)^' 1 Cor. i. 26, 27. If we have a secret to reveal, we do not choose weak and shallow heads to impart it unto; but here is a mystery which babes understand, and wise men are ignorant of: ' I thank thee, O Father, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and pru- dent, and hast revealed them unto babes.' The people who were so scorned by the proud Pharisees, as those that knew not the law, John vii. 49, to them was the gospel revealed, while these doctors were left in ignorance : it is revealed to the poor many times, and hid from kings and princes ; Christ passeth often by palaces to visit the poor cottages. Herod could get nothing from Christ, Luke xxiii. 9, whereas he opens the saving truths of the gospel to the poor woman of Samaria. Pilate missed Christ on the bench, while the poor thief finds him, and heaven with him, on the cross ; devout women are passed by, and left to perish with their blind zeal, while harlots and publicans are converted by him.
Section IV. — Fifthly, a mystery in regard of the kind of knowledge which the saints themselves have of it. First, 'Their knowledge is but in part, and imperfect ; they know little now, in comparison of what they shall know here- after. The gospel* is as a rich piece of arras, rolled up; this God hath been un- folding ever since the first promise was made to Adam, opening it still every age wider than before ; but the world shall sooner be at an end, than this my- stery be fully known. Indeed, as a river grows broader as it approacheth nearer the sea; so the knowledge of this mystery spreadeth every age more and more. The gospel appeared but a little spring in Adam's time, whose whole Bible was bound up in a single promise ; this increased to a rivulet in Abraham's time, and this rivulet enlarged itself into a river in the days of the prophets : but when Christ came in the flesh, then knowledge flowed in amain ; the least in the gospel state is said to be greater than the greatest before Christ appeared : so that, in comparison of the darker times of the law, the knowledge Christians now have, is great ; but compared with the knowledge they shall have in hea- ven, it is little. Secondly, It is mysterious and dark : gospel truths are not known in their native glory and beauty, but in shadows; we are said, indeed, * with open face to behold the glory of God,' but still it is ' as in a glass.' Now you know the glass presents us with the image, not with the face itself; we do not see gospel truths as indeed they are, but as our weak eyes can bear the knowledge of them. Indeed, this glass of the gospel is clearer than that of the law ; we see truths through a thinner veil. Baptism is clearer than circmncision, tlie Lord's supper than the passover ; in a word, the New Testament is clearer than the Old ; yet there is nothing of heaven revealed in the gospel, but it is translated into our earthly language, because we are unable, while here below, to understand its original : who knows, or can conceive, what the joys of heaven are, so as to speak of them in their own idiom ? But we know what a feast is, a kingdom is, with riches and treasures. Now heaven is set out by those things which in this world bear the greatest price in men's thoughts : in heaven is a feast, yet without meat ; riclies, without money ; a kingdom, without robes and crowns, because infinitely above these; hence it is said, ' It doth not appear what we shall be,' 1 John iii. 2. Our apprehensions of these things are manly,
gQQ THE MYSTERY OF THE GOSPEL.