1. There is a taking away the veil before we can have a true dis- cerning of the mysteries that are revealed in the word of God : 2 Cor. iii. 14, 15, the apostle, speaking of the Jews, saith, 'But their minds were blinded ; for until this day remaineth the same veil untaken away, in the reading of the Old Testament ; which veil is done away in Christ : but even unto this day, Avhen Moses is read, the veil is upon their hearts.' Now this veil is diverse.
[1.] The veil of ignorance. Though man hath reason, and is capa- ble of understanding the sense and importance of the words that are used about the mysteries of godliness, yea, and the matter too, yet he gets not the saving knowledge of them by his natural abilities. There is a grammatical knowledge and a spiritual knowledge; a manmayknow things grammatically and literally that is ignorant of them spiritually; as a child may read the letters and words that doth not conceive of the sense. So a man may know what is said concerning God and Christ, and sin and grace, the vanity of the creature, the excellency of heaven, and have yet no saving knowledge of these things ; and therefore the scripture useth the expression that they oversee in seeing ; as Acts xxviii. 26, ' Hearing, ye shall hear, and not understand; seeing, ye shall see, and not perceive.' Though truths are never so plainly delivered, never so powerfully pressed, and though they are capable to understand
VeU. 18.] SERMONS UPON PSALM CXIX. 165
the words, yet they do not take the truth into Iheh' hearts, so as to profit by it. So Dent. xxix. 2-4, ' Ye have seen/ yet ' ye have not an heart to see.' Most will declaim against the vanity of the creature and evil of sin ; but they do not see with an affective heart-piercing light ; they have on them the veil of spiritual ignorance.
[2.] The veil of carnal knowledge and wisdom, that puffeth up,
1 Cor. viii. 1, 2, by which, seeing not, we think we see. This is a great hindrance to the entertaining of the word. So Christ telleth the Pharisees, who were conceited of their own knowledge, John ix. 39, 'For judgment am I come into this world, that they which see not might see, and they which see might be made blind.' The Pharisees were the rabbis of the age, the most seeing and learned men of that time. Carnal men are puffed up with a conceit of their own abilities, and so are obstructed by them from profiting by the gospel.
[3.] The veil of jjrejudice and corrupt affections. The passions of the mind, love and fear, desire and anger, hinder us from judging aright in the things of God. Our hearts are overcast with strong affections to the world, and so cannot clearly judge either of practical truths or of the controversies of the age. Not of practical truths: When Christ had taught that they ' could not serve God and mam- mon,' it is said, Luke xvi. 14, ' And the Pharisees,, that were covetous, derided him,' Holy mortifying truths are unpleasing to a carnal ear, though they be represented with never so much evidence. How will men distinguish themselves out of their duty ! They shift, and stretch, and turn and wind hither and thither, and prove truth to be no truth, rather than part with their lusts. So present truths, as the apostle calls them, 2 Peter i. 12, when the dust of interest is raised, are not discerned. The orthodoxy of the world is usually an age too short :
2 Cor. iv. 4, ' The god of this world hath blinded their eyes.'
[4.] The veil of carnal sense : 2 Peter i. 9, ' He that hicketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off.' There are so many mists and clouds in the lower world, that men cannot outsee time, and with- out the prospective of faith have a sight of eternity. Nature is short- sighted, so inured to present things that we receive no light concerning things to come. These are the scales that are upon our eyes.
2. There is an infusion of light, without which men of excellent wit and sharp understanding in other things are stark blind in the things of God. What this light is will appear by the degrees of knowledge and the uses of this light.
[1.] The degrees of knowledge.
(1.) In some there is a simple nescience, both of terms or notions, and things, as in those that have not a revelation, or have not regarded it when the revelation is made. As the Gentiles, that have not a re- velation : Eph. iv. 18, ' Having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart.' Or rude and ignorant Chris- tians, that have not the advantage of education, so as to understand the notions in which the doctrine of God is propounded : Isa. xxviii. 9, 10, 'Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine ? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts : for precept must be upon precept, precept upon pre-