One Hundred and Ninety Sermons on Psalm 119

Secondly, The necessity of this Teaching, will appear in several things.

1. If we consider the weakness of a natural understanding, 1 Cor. 2. 14. The natural man receiveth not the thing of the spirit of God, because they are spiritually discerned. They must be spiritually understood. There must be a cognation, and proportion between the object and the faculty. Divine things cannot be seen but by a Divine light; and spiritual things by a spiritual light, else they shall have no favour and relish. Can sense (which is the light of Beasts) trace the workings, or the flights of Reason? Can you see a Soul, or an Angel, by the light of a candle? there is no proportion between them. So, can a natural man receive the things of the Spirit? he receives them not, why? because spiritual things must be spiritually discerned.

2. There is not only blindness, but obstinacy and prejudice. When we come to judg by sense and reason, the whole business of Christianity seems to be a foolish thing to a carnal heart. To give up our selves to God, and all our Interest, and to wait upon the reversion of a happiness in another world, which is doubtful whether there will be any such thing or no, is a folly to him. To deny present lusts and interests, to be much in prayer, and be often in communion with God, is esteemed a like folly. When the Apostle came to preach the Gospel to the Wits ⟨p. 75⟩at Athens, they scoffed at him; they entertained his Doctrine as fire is entertained in wet wood, with hissing and scorn. To do all, and suffer all, and that upon the account of a happiness to come, to a carnal heart this is but a fancy and a mere imagination.