Now this double revelation challengeth acknowledgment of these blessed times. What should all this do but stir us up to know the time of our visitation, and to thankfulness ; to bless God that hath reserved us for these places and countries that we live in, to cast our times to be in this glorious light of the gospel to be born in. What if we had been born in those dark Egyptian times of popery ? Our lives had not been so comfort- able. Now we live under the gospel, wherein * with open face' we see the glory of the mercy of God in Christ, the ' unsearchable riches ' of Christ opened and discovered to us. And together with the gospel, the ministry of the Spirit, goeth the Spirit ; and those that belong to God, thousands by the blessing of God are changed from glory to glory.
Certainly if we share in the good of the times we will have hearts to thank God, and to walk answerably, that as we have the glorious gospel, so we will walk gloriously, that we do not by a base and fruitless life dishonour
804 EXCELI^KNCY OF THE GOSPEL
BO glorious a gospel. I beseech you let us think of the times, else if we be not the better for the glorious times, if the veil be not taken away, we are under a fearful judgment. ' The god of this world hath blinded our eyes,' 2 Cor. iv. 4. Do we live under the glorious light, and yet are dark, that we see no glory in Christ '? We see nothing in religion, but are as ready to entertain popery as true religion. Is this the fruit of the long preaching of the gospel, and the veil being taken off so long ? Certainly the god of this world hath cast the dust of the world into our eyes, that we can see nothing but earthly things. We are under the seal of God's judgment. He hath sealed us up to a dark state, from darkness of judgment to the darkness of hell without repentance. Therefore let us take heed how we live in a dull and dead condition, under the glorious gospel, or else how cursed shall we be ! The more we are exalted and lifted up above other people in the blessings of God this way, the more we shall he cast down. ' Woe be to Chorazin,' &c,. Mat. xi, 21 ; and Heb. ii. 3, ' How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation ? '
I beseech you let us take heed how we trifle away our time, these precious times and blessed opportunities ; for if we labour not to get out of the state of nature into the state of grace, and so to be changed from glory to glory, God in justice will curse the means we have, that in hearing we shall not hear, and seeing we shall not see, and he will secretly and insensibly harden our hearts. It is the curse of all curses, when we are under plenty of means, to grow worse and duller. Oh take heed of spiritual judgments above all others, tremble at them. They belong to reprobates and cast- aways. Let us labour for hearts sensible of the mercies of God in Christ, and labour to be transformed and moulded into this gospel every day more and more. That that hath been spoken shall be sufficient for this time, and for this whole text.
NOTES.
(a) P. 222, — ' As the Father saith, free me from my necessities.' The well-known apophthegm of Augustine, ' A necessitatibus mcis libera me Domine.'
(b) P. 224. — ' The defence of Luther's and others that wrote of this freedom is Bound and good, that the will of man is slavish altogether without the Spirit of God.' The great Keformer's masculine treatise on ' The Bondage of the Will ' {De Servo Arhitrio), has been repeatedly translated, though not ovfer-exactly, into English ; e. g., by Cole (1828).
(c) P. 236. — ' As Cyprian saith, Consecra habitaculum,' &c. We have not found this expression. The following is in substance equivalent : — ' Denique magisterio suo Dominus secreto nos orare praecepit, in abditis et semotis locis, in cubiculis ipsis.' — De Orat. Dom. § iv.
(d) P. 240. — ' And therefore we call things that are glorious by the name of light, illustrissimiis and darissimiis, terms taken from light.' Illustris and illustrissimus from lux : clarus = clear, bright.
(e) P. 244. — ' Hail, Mary, full of grace.' . . . . ' Oh ! beseech thy Son,' &c., &c. For startling examples and confirmations of the text, consult Tyler's conclusive treatise on ' The Worship of tho Virgin Mary.'
(/) P. 247. — ' And how should finite comprehend infinite ? We shall appre- hend him, not comprehend him.' Have we not in this brief sentence the whole ' philosophy of the infinite,' that has been so darkened in the controversies of Sir William Hamilton, Calderwood, Mansel, Maurice?
(g) P. 2.50 — ' The heavens declare the glory of God, They are a book in folio.' Thus quaintly does John Cragge of Lantilio Perlholy expand the thought of Sibbes, in his 'Cabinet of Spiritual Jewels' (1657, 12mo.) : 'A time there was before all