And so there is a veil of unbelief. There is no man without gi-ace that believeth truly what he knoweth ; but he believeth in the general only, he believeth things so far forth as they cross not his lusts. But when par- ticular traths are enforced on a carnal man, his lusts do overbear all his knowledge, and he hath a secret scorn arising in his heart, whereby he de- rideth those truths and goeth against them, and makes him think certainly these be not true, and therefore he believeth them not. If a man by nature be- lieved the truths he saith he knoweth, he would.not go directly against them. But the ground of this is, there is a mist of sinful lusts that are raised out of the soul, that darkens the soul, that at the present time the soul is atheistical and full of unbelief. For there is no sin but ignorance and unbelief breatheth it into the soul, and maketh way for it ; for if a man knew what he were about, and apprehended that God saw him, and the danger of it, he would never sin. There is no sin without an error in judgment, there is a veil of ignorance and unbelief. What creature will run into a pit when he seeth it open ? "WTiat creature will run into the fire, the most dull creature ? Man
464 THE MAKEIAGE FEAST [SeRMON III.
will not run into that danger that is open to the eye of the soul, if there were not a veil of ignorance, at least unbelief, at that time upon the soul. All sin supposeth error. •,
And this should make us hate sin the more. "Whensoever we sin, spe- cially against om' conscience, there is atheism in the soul at that time, and there is unbelief. We believe not the truth itself. No sinner but calleth truth into question. When he sinneth, he denieth it or questioneth it ; and therefore there is a veil on every man naturally over his heart by ignorance and unbelief. The truths themselves are clear, God is clear, and the gospel is light, viens, lux; j'ou know they know things in the object, but in us there is darkness in our understandings ; and therefore the Scripture saith not we are dark only, but ' darkness itself,' 2 Cor. vi. 14. The clouds that arise are like the mists that do interpose between oui" souls and divine tilings, arising from our own hearts ; and the love of sinful things raise such a cloud, that we know not, or else believe not, what is spoken. To proceed.
Ohs. 2. God only can reveal and fake away the veil of ignorance and un- belief from off the soul. I will speak specially of this veil.
Reason 1. The reason is, there is such a natural unsuitableness between the soul and heavenly light and heavenly truths, that unless God opens the eye of the soul, and puts a new eye into the soul, it can never know or discern of heavenly things. There must be an eye suitable to the hght, else there will never be sight of it. Now, God can create a new spiritual eye to discern of spu'itual things, which a natural eye cannot. Who can see things invisible ? Divine things are invisible to natural eyes. There is no suitableness. He that must reveal these and take away the veU must create new light within as well as a light without. Now, God, and only God, that created light out of darkness, can create light in the soul. ' Let there be light.' He only can create a spu'itual eye, to see the things that to nature are visible.*
There be four things in sight. 1. The object to be beheld. 2. The light that conveyeth it. 3. The organ that receiveth it. 4. And the light of the eye to meet the hght without. So it is in the soul. Together with divine truths, there must be light to discover them ; for light is the first visible thing that discovers itself and all things else. And then there must be a light in the soul to judge of them, and this light must be suitable. A carnal, base spirit judgeth of spiritual things carnally like himself, because he hath not light in his own spirit. The things are spiritual, his eye is carnal. He hath not a light in his eye suitable to the object, and therefore he cannot judge of them, for the Scripture saith plainly 'they are spiritually discerned,' 1 Cor. ii. 14. Therefore, a carnal person hath carnal concep- tions of spiritual things, as a holy man doth spiritualise things by a spiritual conception of them.
There be degrees of discerning things. The highest degi'ee is to see things ' face to face ' as they be in heaven ; the next to that is to see them in a glass, for there I see the motion and true species of a man, though not so clearly, as when I see him face to face ; therefore we soon forget the species of it in a glass. We have more fixedness of the other, because there is rnore reality. We see things put into water, and that is less ; but then there is a sight of man in pictures which is less than the rest, because we see not the motion. It is even so ; a carnal man scarce sees the dead re- semblance of things. In Moses's time they saw things in water, as it were blindly, though true ; but we see things in a glass of truth as clearly as * Qu. ' invisible ? ' — En,