open and unbosom himself to all his bosom friends. To be reserved and close is against the very law of friendship. Faithful friends are very free in imparting their thoughts, their minds, their secrets, one to another. A real friend accounts nothing worth knowing unless he makes it known to his friends. He rips up his greatest and most in- ward secrets to his friends. Job calls his friends 'inward friends,' or the men of his secrets. Job xix. 19. All Christ's friends are inward friends ; they are the men of his secrets : Pro v. iii. 32, ' His secrets are with the righteous,' that is, his covenant and fatherly affection, which is hid and secret from the world. He that is righteous in secret, where no man sees him, he is the righteous man, to whom God will communi- cate his closest secrets, as to his dearest bosom-friend. It is only a bosom-friend to whom we will unbosom ourselves. So Ps. xxv. 14, * The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him ; and he will shew them his covenant.'
Now, there are three sorts of divine secrets :
(1.) First, There are secrets of providence, and these he reveals to the righteous, and to them that fear him, Ps. cvii. 43, Hosea xiv. 9. The prophet Amos speaks of these secrets of providence : Amos iii. 7, ' Surely the Lord God ^vill do nothing, but he revealeth his secrets unto his servants and prophets.' Micah knew the secret of the Lord touch- ing Ahab, which neither Zedekiah nor any other of the false prophets knew. So Gen. xviil 17, 'And the Lord said, Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do f The destruction of Sodom was a secret that lay in the bosom of God ; but Abraham being a bosom-friend, God communicates this secret to him, ver. 19-21. Abraham was a friend, a faithful friend, a friend by a specialty, James ii. 23; and therefore God makes him both of his court and counsel. Oh how greatly doth God condescend to his people. He speaks to them as a man would speak to his friend ; and there is no secrets of providence, which may be for their advantage, but he will reveal them to his faithful servants. As all faithful friends have the same friends and the same enemies, so they are mutual in the communication of their secrets one to another ; and so it was between God and Abraham.
(2.) Secondly, There are the secrets of his kingdom; and these he reveals to his people: Mat. xiii. 11, ' Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but unto them it is not given.' So Mat. xi. 25, ' At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.' ' Let us not think,' saith Jerome,' 'that the gospel is in the words of Scrip- ture, but in the sense ; not in the outside, but in the marrow ; not in the leaves of words, but in the root of reason.' Augustine humbly begged of God, that if it were his pleasure, he would send Moses to him to interpret some more abstruse and intricate passages in his book of Genesis.* There are many choice, secret, hidden, and mysterious truths and doctrines in the gospel, which Christ reveals to his people, that this poor, blind, ignorant world are strangers to.^ There are many secrets wrapped up in the plainest truths and doctrines of the gospel,
* Jerome ad Eph. lib. i. ' Augustine on Genesis. — G.
^ Joel ii.28: 1 Tim. iii. 9, 16 ; Col. i. 26, 27; 1 Cor. ii. 9-12 : Eph. iv. 21.
Mat. VI. 6.] the privy key of heaven. 187
which none can effectually open and reveal but the Spirit of the Lord, that searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. There are many secrets and mysteries in the gospel, that all the learning and labour in the world can never give a man insight into. There are many that know the doctrine of the gospel, the history of the gospel, that are mere strangers to the secrets of the gospel. There is a secret power, a secret authority, a secret efficacy, a secret prevalency, a secret goodness, a secret sweetness in the gospel, that none experience but those to whom the Lord is pleased to impart gospel secrets to : Isa. xxix. 11, 12, ' Seal my law among my disciples.' The law of God to wicked men is a sealed book that they cannot understand, Dan. xii. 9, 10. It is as blotted paper that they cannot read. Look, as a private letter to a friend contains secret matter that no man else may read because it is sealed ; so the law of grace is sealed up under the privy-seal of heaven, so that no man can open it or read it, but Christ's faithful friends to whom it is sent. The whole Scripture, saith Gregory, is but one entire letter despatched from the Lord Christ to his beloved spouse on earth. The Rabbins say that there are four keys that God hath under his girdle : 1, the key of the clouds ; 2, the key of the womb ; 3, the key of the grave ; 4, the key of food ; and I may add a fifth key that is under his girdle, and that is the key of the word, the key of the Scripture ; which key none can turn but he that 'hath the key of David, that opens, and no man shuts; and that shuts, and no man opens,' Rev. iii. 7. 0 sirs! God reveals himself, and his mind, and will, and truth, to his people, in a more friendly and familiar way than he doth to others : Mark iv. 11, 'And he said unto them. Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God : but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables :' Luke viii. 10, 'And he said. Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God : but to others in parables ; that seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not understand.' Though great doctors, and profound clerks, and deep-studied but un- sanctified divines may know much of the doctrines of the gospel, and commend much the doctrines of the gospel, and dispute much for the doctrines of the gospel, and glory much in the doctrines of the gospel, and take a great deal of pains to dress and trim up the doctrines of the gospel, with the flowers of rhetoric or eloquence ; though it be much better to present truth in her native plainness, than to hang her ears with counterfeit pearls. . . , The word, without human adornments, is like the stone garamantides, that hath drops of gold in itself, sufficient to enrich the believing soul. . . , Yet the special, spiritual, powerful, and saving knowledge of the doctrines of the gospel, is a secret, a mystery, yea, a hidden mystery to them, Rom. xvi. 25, 1 Cor. ii. 7.