3. And indeed this we do the more diligently, not only because it is of the deepest importance; inasmuch as all the fruit, every word and work, must be only evil continually, if the tree be evil, if the dispositions and tempers of the heart, be not right before God: but likewise, because as important as these things are, they are little considered or understood. So little, that we may truly say of the law too, when taken in its full spiritual meaning, It is _a mystery which was hid from ages and generations since the world began_. It was utterly hid from the Heathen world. They, with all their boasted wisdom, neither _found out God_, nor the law of God, not in the letter, much less in the spirit of it. _Their foolish hearts were_ more and more _darkened_, while _professing themselves wise, they became fools_. And it was almost equally hid, as to its spiritual meaning, from the bulk of the Jewish nation. Even these who were so ready to declare concerning others, _this people that know not the law, is accursed_, pronounced their own sentence therein, as being under the same curse, the same dreadful ignorance. Witness our Lord’s continual reproof of the wisest among them, for their gross misinterpretations of it. Witness the supposition almost universally received among them, that they needed only to make clean the outside of the cup: that the paying tythe of mint, anise and cummin, outward exactness would atone for inward unholiness; for the total neglect both of justice and mercy, of faith and the love of God. Yea, so absolutely was the spiritual meaning of the law hidden from the wisest of them, that one of their most eminent Rabbi’s comments thus, on those words of the Psalmist, _If I incline unto iniquity with my heart, the Lord will not hear me_: that is, saith he, if it be only in my heart, if I do not commit outward wickedness, the Lord will not regard it; he will not punish me, unless I proceed to the outward act!
4. But alas! The law of God, as to its inward spiritual meaning, is not hid from the Jews or Heathens only, but even from what is called the Christian world; at least, from a vast majority of them. The spiritual sense of the commandments of God, is still a mystery to these also. Nor is this observable also in those lands, which are overspread with _Romish_ darkness and ignorance. But this is too sure, that the far greater part, even of those, who are called _reformed Christians_, are utter strangers at this day to the law of Christ, in the purity and spirituality of it.
5. Hence it is that to this day _the Scribes and Pharisees_, the men who have the form but not the power of religion, and who are generally wise in their own eyes, and righteous in their own conceits; _hearing these things are offended_: are deeply offended, when we speak of the religion of the heart, and particularly when we shew, that without this, were we to _give all our goods to feed the poor_, it would profit us nothing. But offended they must be: for we cannot but speak the truth as it is in Jesus. It is our part, whether they will hear or whether they will forbear, to deliver our own soul. All that is written in the book of God we are to declare, not as pleasing men, but the Lord. We are to declare not only all the promises, but all the threatnings too which we find therein. At the same time that we proclaim all the blessings and privileges, which God hath prepared for his children, we are likewise to _teach all the things, whatsoever he hath commanded_. And we know, that all these have their use; either for the awakening those that sleep, the instructing the ignorant, the comforting the feeble-minded, or the building up and perfecting of the saints. We know that _all scripture, given by inspiration of God, is profitable_ either _for doctrine_, or _for reproof_, either _for correction_ or _for instruction in righteousness_: and _that the man of God_, in the process of the work of God in his soul, has need of every part thereof, that he _may at length be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works_.