The Fountain of Life Opened

If this be the work and office of Jesus Christ to open the understandings of men,¹ Hence we infer, the misery that lies upon those men, whose understandings, to this day, Jesus Christ hath not opened. Of whom we may say as it is, Deut. 29.4. To this day Christ hath not given them eyes to see. Natural blindness whereby we are deprived of the light of this world, is sad; but spiritual blindness is much more sad. See how dolefully their case is represented, 2 Cor. 4.3, 4. But if our Gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost; whose eyes the God of this world hath blinded; lest the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. He means a total and final concealment of the saving power of the word from them. Why, what if Jesus Christ withhold it, and will not be a Prophet to them; what is their condition? truly no better than lost men. It is hid [Greek or Hebrew] to them that are to perish, or be destroyed. This blindness like the covering of the face, or tying the handkerchief over the eyes; is in order to their turning off into Hell. More particularly, because the point is of deep concernment let us consider, First, the Judgement inflicted, and that's spiritual blindness. A sore misery indeed. Not an universal ignorance of all truths; O, no, in natural, and moral truths they are often times acute, and sharp sighted men; but in that part of knowledge which wrap up eternal life, John 17.2. there they are utterly blinded. As it's said of the Jews upon whom this misery lies, that blindness in part is happened to Israel. They are learned and knowing persons in other matters, but they know not Jesus Christ, there is the grand and sad defect. Secondly, the subject of this Judgement, the mind; which is the eye of the soul. If it were but upon the body, it would not be so considerable, this falls immediately upon the soul the noblest part of man, and upon the mind, the highest and noblest faculty of the soul; whereby we understand, think and reason. This in Scripture is called [Greek or Hebrew] the spirit. The intellectual rational faculty; which Philosophers call [Greek or Hebrew] the leading, directive faculty: which is to the soul, what the natural eye […] to the body. Now the soul being the most active and restless