(5.) It is a light that prevaileth over our lusts and interest, such a light as hath fire in it to destroy lusts : 1 John ii. 3, 4, ' He that saith I know him, and doth not keep his commandments, is a liar.' A true knowledge and sight of God is able to bridle lusts and purify the conscience. Therefore it is said, ' He that doth evil hath not seen God,' 3 John 11 ; hath not a true sight, whatever speculations he may have about the nature of God. Other light doth not check and control vicious desires ; reason is not restored to its dominion : Eom. i. 18, the reputed wise men of the world ' held the truth in unright- eousness.' Truth may talk its fill, but can do nothing ; as a man that is bound hand and foot may rave and evaporate his passions, but cannot relieve himself from the oppressor or the force that he is under.
Secondly, Eeasons that show the necessity of this work.
1. Spiritual blindness is natural to us, as that man that was blind from his birth, John ix. 1. We are not all born blind in body, but all in mind. By tasting the tree of knowledge, all Adam's sons have lost their knowledge. Satan hath brought a greater shame upon us than Nahash the Ammonite would have brought upon the men of Jabcsh- Gilead in putting out their right eyes. The eye of the soul is put out, so as we cannot see the liglit that shineth in the word. By the fall we lost the true and perfect light of reason, but retain the piide of reason. It is no small part of our blindness that we cannot endure to hear of it: Kev. iii. 17, ' Thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with ^oods, and have need of nothing : and knowest not that thou art
168 SEKMONS UPOX PSALM CXIX. [SeR. XIX.
wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.' Man de- sireth to be thought sinful rather than weak, and Avill sooner own a wickedness in morals than a weakness in intellectuals. Men are dis- honest out of choice, and therefore think there is more of liberty and bravery in it ; but to be simple argueth imperfection ; Job xi. 12, ' Vain man would be accounted wise, though man be born like a wild- ass's colt;' not only for untamedness and affectation of liberty, but for rudeness and grossness of conceit ; yet man would be accounted wise. The Pharisees took it ill that Christ charged them with blind- ness : John ix. 40, ' Are we blind also ? ' We all affect the reputation of wisdom, more than the reality ; that is the reason why we are so touchy in point of error ; we can easier brook a sin reproved than an error taxed. Till we have spiritual eye-salve, we do not know it, and will not hear of this blindness, Kev. iii. 17. It is a degree of spiritual knowledge to know that we know nothing.
2. Observe how much spiritual blindness is worse than bodily. Those that are under bodily blindness are glad of a remedy, glad of a guide.
[1.] Glad of a remedy. How feelingly doth that man speak, Mark X. 51, ' What wouldst thou have me to do ? Lord, that mine eyes may be opened.' Those that are blind spiritually are not for a remedy ; not only ignorant, but unteachable ; and so their blindness groweth upon them ; to their natural, there is an adventitious blindness. If we cannot keep out the light, we rage against it.
[2.] Glad of a guide ; as Ely mas the sorcerer, when he was stricken blind, looked about for somebody to lead him by the hand, Acts xiii. 11. But the blind world cannot endure to be directed, or 'the blind lead the blind, and both fall into the ditch.' He that prophesieth of strong wine is the teacher of this people, saith the prophet. Men love those that gratify their lusts and humours : let one come soundly, and declare the counsel and will of God to them, he is distasted.
3. We cannot help ourselves out of this misery without God's help. Our incapacity is best understood by opening that noted place, 1 Cor. ii. 14, ' The natural man receiveth not the things that are of God, for they are folly to him ; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.' Let us a little open that place : avOpcoiro^ ylrv'^LKo<i, ' the soully man,' that is, a man considered in his pure naturals. Jude 19 ; '^v-)(^lkoi, irvevixa fi/] 6j(ovTe^, ' sensual, having not the Spirit.' However, he useth the best word by which a natural man can be described ; he doth not say acipKiKoi, not only those that are brutish and depraved by vicious habits, but take nature in its ex- cellency, soul-light in its highest splendour and perfection, though the man be not absolutely given up to vile affections. Well, it is said of him that he neither doth nor can receive the things of God, ov Se^^eraf, and ov EvvaraL jvcovaL. The to, tov irvevjiaTo^, ' the things of the Spirit,' are such truths as depend upon mere revelation, and are above the reach and knowledge of nature. There are ra rov ©eov, ' things of God,' that may be known by a natural light : Eom. i. 19, ' That which may be known of God, is manifest in them, for God hath showed it unto them ; ' but ra rov irvevfiara, things revealed in the word, though a natural man be able to understand the phrases