The essence of faith consists in a due ascription of glory to God, Rom. iv. 20. This we cannot attain unto without the manifestation of those divine excellencies unto us wherein he is glorious. This is done in Christ alone, so as that we may glorify God in a saving and acceptal:)le manner. He who discerns not the glory of divine wisdom, power, goodness, love, and grace, in the person and office of Christ, with the way of the salvation of sinners by him, is an unbeliever.
Hence the great design of the devil, in the beginning of the preach- ing of the gospel, was to blind the eyes of men, and fill their minds with prejudices, that they might not behold this glory of his ; so the apostle gives an account of his success in this design, 2 Cor. iv. 3, 4, " If our gospel be hid, it is hid unto them that are lost : in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them." By various ways and methods of deceit, to secure the reputation he had got of being " god of this world," by pretences and appearances of supernatural power and wis- dom, he laboured to blind the eyes of men with prejudices against that glorious light of the Gospel which proposed the Lord Christ as the only image of God. This blindness, this darkness is cured in them that believe, by the mighty power of God ; for God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath irradiated our hearts with the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, verse 6, — wherein true saving faith doth consist. Under this darkness perished the unbelieving world of Jews and Gentiles : and such is the present condition of all by whom the divine person of Christ is denied; for
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no mere creature can ever make a perfect representation of God unto us. But we must a little farther inquire into this mystery.
I. Since men fell from God by sin, it is no small part of their misery and punishment, that they are covered with thick darkness and ignorance of the nature of God. They know him not, they have not seen him at any time. Hence is that promise to the church in Christ, Isa. Ix. 2, " For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people : but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee."
The ancient philosophers made great inquiries into, and obtained many notions of, the Divine Being — its existence and excellencies. And these notions they adorned with great elegancy of speech, to allure others unto the admiration of them. Hereon they boasted themselves to be the only wise men in the world, Rom. i. 22, (pds- xovTsg sTvai go;pol, — they boasted that they were the wise. But we must abide in the judgment of the apostle concerning them in their inqui- ries; he assures us that the world in its wisdom — that is, these wise men in it by their wisdom — knew not God, 1 Cor. i. 21. And he calls the authors of their best notions. Atheists, or men " without God in the world," Eph. ii. 12. For, —
1. They had no certain guide, rule, nor light, which, being attended unto, might lead them infallibly into the knowledge of the divine nature. All they had of this kind was their own Xoyts/Mi, their rea- sonings or imaginations; whereby they commenced cu^'/jrjjT-a/ rov aiSJvog TouTov, " the great disputers of the world ;" but in them they " waxed vain, and their foolish heart was darkened," Rom. i. 21. They did at best but endeavour ■^7iXa(p^v, " to feel after God," as men do in the dark after what they cannot clearly discern. Acts xvii. 27. Among others, Cicero's book, "De Natura Deorum," gives us an exact account of the intention of the apostle in that expression. And it is at this day not want of wit, but hatred of the mysteries of our religion, which makes so many prone to forego all supernatural revelation, and to betake themselves unto a religion declared, as they suppose, by reason and the light of nature ; — like bats and owls, who, being not able to bear the light of the sun, betake themselves unto the twilight, to the dawnincfs of lifjht and darkness.
2. Whatever they did attain, as unto rational notions about things invisible and incomprehensible, yet could they never deliver them- selves from such principles and practices in idolatry and all manner of flagitious sins, as that they could be of any benefit unto them. This is so effectually demonstrated by the apostle in the 1st chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, as that we need not to insist upon it.
Men may talk what they please of a light within them, or of the power of reason to conduct them unto that knowledge of God whereby
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they may live unto liim ; but if they had nothing else, if they did not boast themselves of that light which hath its foundation and original in divine revelation alone, they would not excel them who, in the best management of their own reasonings, " knew not God," but waxed vain in their imaginations.