Because it is thus with men by nature, therefore doth the apostle so earnestly pray that these Ephesians might be enabled to under- stand and know these things: and he doth it with an unusual solem- nity, invocating the " God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory;" which argues both a great intension of spirit in him, and great weight laid upon the matter of his request.
But what reason is there for this earnestness? what is wanting unto these Ephesians? what would he yet have for them? were they not rational men, that had their eyes in their heads as well as others? nay, were not many of them learned men, and skilled in all the "curious arts" of those days? for here it was that so many upon their first conversion burnt their books to the value of " fifty thousand pieces of silver," Acts xix. 19. Probably they were many of them very knowing in the new and old philosophy. Had they not the Scripture also; that is, all the books of the Old Testament, and those of the New which were then written? Did not the apostle and others preach the doctrine of the gospel unto them, and therein the things which he here mentioneth? He declareth and expressly testifieth that he did, Acts xx. 20, 27. Speaking unto these very persons, that is, the leaders of them, he saith, " I have kept back nothing that was profitable unto you, but declared unto you all the counsel of God," — namely, " what is the hope of his calling, and what the greatness of his power." Were not these things sufficiently revealed, and clearly proposed unto them? If they were not, it was because the apostle could not so reveal and propose them, or because he would not. If he could not, then he prays that that might be revealed unto them which was not so to him, or that they might learn what he could not teach them; which is foolish and impious to imagine. If he would not, then he prays that they may know that which he would not teach them, but which he could easily have so clone; which is equally foolish to suppose. What, therefore, do they yet lack? what
CHAP. II.] SPIRITUAL ILLUMINATION PROVED FROM SCRIPTURE. 137
is yet farther needful that they might know and understand these things? for we must know that we understand no more of the mind of God in the revelations that he makes unto us than we understand of the things themselves that are revealed by him.
I am persuaded that these Ephesians were generally as wise, and some of them as learned, as any in our days, let them have what conceit of themselves they please. Yet grant some of ours but thus much, that they have their wits about them and the use of their reason, and let them have the things of the gospel, or the doctrines of it, rationally proposed unto them, as they are in the Scripture, and they defy the world to think that they yet want any thing to enable them to know and rightly to understand them. " To fancy any thing- else to be necessary hereunto is fanatical madness ; for what would men have? what should ail them? Are not the doctrines of the gospel highly rational? are not the things of it eminently suited unto the reason of mankind? are not the books of the Scripture written in a style and language intelligible? Is there any thing more re- quired unto the understanding of the mind of any author but to con- ceive the grammatical sense of the words that he useth, and the nature of his propositions and arguings? And although St Paul, as some say, be one of the obscurest writers they ever met with, yet surely by these means some good shift may be made with his writings also. It is, therefore, canting and nonsense, a reproach to reason and Christian religion itself, to think that this is not enough to en- able men to understand the mind of God in the Scriptures."
Well, be it so, at present, as unto the highly rational abilities of some persons. It cannot be denied but that the apostle judged it necessary that these Ephesians should have the special aid of the Spirit of God unto this end, which he prayeth for; and we may be excused if we dare not think ourselves better than they, nor to have a sufficiency of learning, wisdom, and reason above others, or less to need prayers of this nature than they did. And we find that the apostle reneweth his prayer for them again unto the same pur- pose with great fervency, Eph. iii. 14-19. All the difference ariseth from hence, that the apostle judgeth that over and above the utmost exercise of our natural faculties and abilities, in the use of outward means, that we may know the mind of God in the Scripture,, wherein these Ephesians were not wanting, it is necessary that the "eyes of our understanding" should be spiritually opened and "enlightened;" — but other men, it seems, think not so.
But if men should be allowed to suppose that our minds were no way vitiated, depraved, or darkened by the fall, — which supposition is the sole foundation of these assertions, — yet it is most irrational to imagine that we can comprehend and understand the mysteries of