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pleasure indeed, but the sting comes after. They delight in those ill things that they can hear, and hear all that can be spoken of them, and never think of the excellent things that the eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, &c.
Let this make us in love with divine truths in the Scripture, with the gospel, that part of the Scripture that promiseth salvation by Christ, and all the graces and privileges of Christianity. They are above our reach. We study other things. We can reach them. We can reach the mysteries of the law by long study, and the mysteries of physic, and to the mysteries of trades by understanding, and when men have done all they may bo fools in the main — Solomon's fools. They may do all these things, and be wise for particular things, by particular reaches of that which eye hath seen, and ear heard, &c. ; and then for the best things that are above the capacity of men, they may die empty of all, and go to the place of the damned. To be wise to salvation is the best wisdom.
What a pitiful ease is this, that God should give us our understandings for better things than we can see or hear in this world, yet we employ them in things of the world wholly. Let us not do as some shallow, proud heads, that regard not divine things. The holy Scriptures they will not vouchsafe to read once a-day, perhaps not once a-week ; nay, some scarce have a Bible in their studies. For shame ; shall we be so atheistical, when God hath provided such excellent things contained in this book of God, the Testament ? Shall we slight these excellent things for knowledge that shall perish with us ? as St Paul saith before the text. The knowledge of all other things is perishing, knowledge of perishing men. Learn on earth that that will abide in heaven, saith St Austin. If we be wise, let us know those things on earth, that the comfort of them may abide with us in heaven. Therefore let us be stirred up to value the Scriptures, the mysteries of salvation in the gospel ; they are things that ' eye hath not seen, nor ear heard,' &c. Nay, I say more, that little that we have here, by hearing truths unfolded, whereby the Spirit of God slides into our hearts, and works with them. There is that peace that a man hath in his heart, in the unfolding of the point of justification or adoption, or any divine comfort, that it breeds such inward peace and joy as is unspeakable and glorious. All that we have in the world is not worth those little beginnings that are wrought by the hearing of the word of God here. If the first fruits here be jo}^ ofttimes ' unspeakable and glorious,' 1 Peter i. 8, if the first fruits be ' peace that passeth understanding,' Phil. iv. 7, what will the consumma- tion and perfection of these things be at that day ?
Again, here you see a ground of the wonderful patience of the martyrs. You wonder that thoy would sutler their bodies to be torn, and have their souls severed so violently from their bodies. Alas !* cease to wonder; when they had a sense wrought in them by the Spirit of God of the things that eye hath not seen nor ear heard. If a man should have asked them why they would sufler their bodies to be misused thus, when they might have redeemed all this with a little quiet ? Oh, they would have answered pre- sently, as some of them have done r AVe sufi'er these things in our bodies and in our senses, for those that are above our senses ; we know there are things laid up for us that eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, &c. What do you tell us of this torment and that torment ? We shall have more glory in heaven than we can have misery here. For we can see this, and there is an end of it ; but we shall have joy that ' eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, &c. As St Paul most divinely, in divers places in Rom. * Another example of SibLes's unusual use of ' alas.' — G.
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viii. 18, the things that we sufler hero arc not ' worthy of the glory that shall be revealed.' Therefore let us not wonder so much at their patience as to lay up this ground of patience against an evil day when we ma}' be drawn to seal the truth with our blood. ])y the way learn what popery is. They think to merit by their doings, but especially by their sufferings, though they be ill doers, and sutler for their demerits ; this is their glory. Shall those stained good works (put case they were good works, they be deiiled, and stained, and as menstruous cloths, as it is, Isa. XXX. 22), shall they merit the glory to be revealed, that is so great that eye hath not seen ? &c. What proportion is there ? In merit there must be a proportion between the deed done and the glory. What propor- tion is there between stained imperfect defiled works, and the glory to be revealed ? Should not our lives be almost angelical ? ' What manner of men should we be in all holy conversation,' 2 Pet. iii. 11, considering what things are laid up in heaven, and we have the first fruits of them here ? Can men be too holy and exact in their lives, that look for things ' that eye hath not seen, nor ear heard ? ' &c.