Well might he say so ; for a man may feed all his lifetime on human learning, and be lost at last. It was the saying of Bonaventure, that he had rather lose all his philosophy, than one article of his faith. We read that those. Acts xix., were no sooner converted, hut they burned their hooks of cvnious arts ; neither were they losers by it, for they had got accpiaintanee with one hook that was worth them all. Of all creatures in this visible world, light is the most glorious: of all light, the light of the sun is incomparably the most excellent. Were this eye of the world put out, the earth would he a grave, in which we should be buried alive. What were the Egyptians while imder the plague of dark- ness, but like so many dead men ? They had friends, hut could not see them ; estates abroad, hut could not enjoy them. Now, what the sun is to the sensible w^orld, that is Christ in the gospel to the intellectual world of souls : without this light of the knowledge of God in the face of Christ, what can tlio soul do or enjoy aright? Man's soul is of high, yea, royal extraction; for (lod is the Father of spirits ; hut this child meets his heavenly Father in the dark and knows him not : ' He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not,' John i. 10. As the soul is of high birth, so it is intended for a high end, — to glorify and enjoy God its maker. Now, for want of the knowledge of Christ, it can do neither ; but dehaseth itself to the drudgery of sin, and sensual embraces of the creature, instead of God, for whom it was at first made. O, how shoidd we prize and study this mystery, which brings us to the true knowledge of God, and the way how we may enjoy happiness with him ! Man's primitive happiness consisted in God's love to him, and his likeness to God. The gospel discovers a way how man may be restored to both. The first it doth, as it is a mystery of faith, by revealing Christ and his atonement for our reconciliation with God. The latter, as it is a mystery of godliness, and the instrument which Christ useth in the hand oi" his Spirit to create man anew, and, as it were, the tool to re-engrave the image of God upon him.
Section II. — But how may we be led into the saving knowledge of this mystery ? First, Think not to obtain it by the strength of thy reason or natural parts; it is not learned as secrets in nature or human arts, of which those that have the most piercing wit and the strongest brain soonest get the mastery. None have been more mistaken, or erred more foully in their apprehensions about gospel truths, than great scholars, the cause whereof may be, partly, their pride and self-confidence, which God ever was and will be an enemy to ; and also because the mysteries of the gospel do not agree with the princi])les of carnal reason and wisdom, whence it comes to pass that the wiser part of the world have commonly rejected the grand principles of evangelical faith as absurd and irrational. Tell a wise Arian that Christ is God and man in one person, and he laughs at it, as they did at Paul when he mentioned the resurrection of tlie body, Acts xvii. 32, because the key of his understanding fits not the wards of this lock : when a merit-monger hears of being justified by faith, and not by works, it will not go down with him. It seems as ridicidous to him that a man should be justified by the righteousness which another fulfils, as for a man to live by the meat another eats, and be warmed with the clothes another wears. Tell him, when he hath lived ever so holily, he must renounce his own work, and be beholden to another's merit, you shall as soon persuade him to sell his . estate, and get his living by begging at another's door. These are hard sayings, at which they take oft'ence, andgo away, or labour to pervert the simplicity of gospel revelation to their own sense. Resolve, therefore, to come, when thou readest the gospel, not to dispute with thy Maker, but to beli(-ve what he reveals to l)e his mind. Call not divine mysteries to give an account to thy shallow understanding : what is this but to try a prince at a subject's bar? When thou hast laid aside the pride of thy reason, then thou art fit to be admitted a scholar in Christ's school.
But nuist we cease to be men when we become Christians ? No ; we cease not to be men, but to be proud men, when we lay aside the confidence of our own understanding to acfpiiesce in the wisdom and truth of God. An implicit faith is absurd and irrational when a man requires it of us, who may deceive, or be deceived in what he saith. But when God speaks, it is all the reason in the world we should believe what he saith to be true, though we cannot com-
S(j(3 THE MYSTERY OE THE GOSPEL.
prehend what lie saith ; for we know he who is infinite wisdom cannot himself be deceived, and he who is truth and faithfulness will not deceive.