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And in it we observe these three particulars. First, the non-proficiency specified and supposed: "If our gospel be hid." Secondly, the censure and judgment that is passed upon it: "It is hid to them that are lost." It is a sign, they are cast away. Thirdly, the true cause of their non-proficiency assigned. First, is the original and natural inbred cause in themselves, that is infidelity, a voluntary unbelief. Secondly, is a cause that increases this non-proficiency of unbelief, that is spiritual blindness inflicted and wrought into them: — "Their minds are blinded." Thirdly, is the author and worker of this blindness, that is the devil: "The god of this world." Fourthly, is his end and purpose why he blinds men's minds: "Lest the gospel should shine into them, and they should be converted." And this assigning of these causes of their unproficiency removes other pretended causes of their unbelief. They must be one of these three.

I. They will say, God He conceals Himself from them. No; it is the god of this world, not the true God.

II. They pretend the gospel is dark and mysterious. No; that is full of light, of glorious light.

III. They say the apostle is obscure in propounding it to them. No; it shines evidently to them in his preaching, and would shine into them, would they but open their eyes and behold it. The first thing considerable is the pretended obscurity of the gospel, and so their unproficiency supposed: "If our gospel be hid." Here are three things considerable. First, is the special truth which St. Paul labours to free from obscurity, and the unproficiency under which he thus heavily sentences, that is the gospel. Secondly, is the special relation and interest that St. Paul claims to this blessed truth, he calls it "our gospel." Thirdly, is the imputation that is charged upon this truth, which he labours to remove, that is obscurity: "If it be hidden."

I. The gospel and the justifying of it was the main scope and the end of his ministry. His employment was the publishing of the glad tidings of the gospel (Acts 20:21; Ephesians 1:13; Romans 11:13; Philippians 1:17). An ambassador, in point of honour, must maintain his commission, avow the truth and authority of it. If Paul preaches the law, he doth it still in reference to the gospel.

1. To convince you of your great necessity to lay hold on the gospel, by showing you the impossibility of performing the law.

2. To enforce you to fly to the sanctuary of the gospel, so to escape the curse of the law.

3. To direct you how to live under the gospel by that rule of holiness prescribed in the law.

II. Paul maintains the dignity of the gospel, threatens our unproficiency under it; because the gospel is the most clear, evident, convincing means of salvation. They might more excuse-ably have charged obscurity upon the law of Moses; there was some darkness in that ministration. But the gospel is revealed in all evidence and manifestation (Romans 1:17). Clearer and clearer in it the way to heaven is laid open. There is a light in the law; but the gospel is far more resplendent.

III. Paul is severe against those who are unproficient under the gospel, because the gospel is the most powerful means to work our conversion. In respect of this the law was impotent, it made nothing perfect (Hebrews 7:19). God accompanies the word of the gospel with the efficacy of His Spirit. The law administered no strength; required all, but helped nothing; but the gospel, it is the ministration of the Spirit. When that is tendered to us and we refuse it, then God saith, "What can I do more than I have done to save you?" Secondly, the second thing considerable is St. Paul's claim and interest in the gospel, he calls it "our gospel." What Christ said of John's baptism, we may say of the gospel, "Is it from heaven, or from men?"No doubt from heaven. And St. Paul elsewhere ascribes it to an higher author and owner; he calls it "the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ" (2 Thessalonians 1:8).

I. It is St. Paul's gospel, it was committed to St. Paul's care and trust; he owns the gospel as his chief charge. And how thankfully he took this trust; he blesses Christ for "counting him faithful, and putting him into the ministry."

II. St Paul counts the gospel his gospel; it is an expression of love and affection. It is the property of love to appropriate what it loves, and to account it its own.

III. "Our gospel," it is a speech of challenge; he claims the gospel to himself against all carping opposers.

IV. "Our gospel." It is a speech of confidence and full assurance. Paul is assured the thing that he preached unto them was the truth of the gospel.

1. His preaching was infallible; he was guided by an unerring Spirit.

2. His preaching was with all evidence, he concealed nothing, but acquainted the Churches "with the whole counsel of God."

3. His preaching was ratified with the great confirmation.

4. Paul's preaching was most successful. Thirdly, the third thing considerable is the imputation which is cast upon the gospel, that it is hid and obscure; and the apostle seems to grant there is some obscurity in it.

I. It is true the gospel in itself, in its own nature, is an hidden, a secret, reserved thing. It is the mystery of God locked up in His secret counsel, naturally unknown to men or angels.

II. Even after God had published it by His Son, yet still it is an hidden, obscure thing to every natural man.

III. The gospel in some measure and degree is hid and obscure, even to the saints of God.

IV. It is true that for all this hiddenness of the gospel, yet even those that are but wicked men may attain to some kind of knowledge in the gospel, nay, to a great ability of understanding. Balaam may prophesy of Christ, Judas may preach Him.

1. A wicked man may understand the words of Scripture, but not the things contained in them.

2. Suppose a wicked man may know those things that are in the Scriptures, yet his knowledge of them hath no spiritual apprehensions of them. All the knowledge he hath it is but natural and carnal, where reason stops he stops too. As he that looks upon a map judges of foreign countries by some imaginations he fancies to himself, not by an immediate clear apprehension of the places themselves.

3. Suppose a wicked man may attain to some supernatural knowledge of Divine truths, but his knowledge of them it is merely notional, not cordial Christian knowledge.

1. It is more certain.

2. It is more comfortable.As a man may guess at the goodness of wine by the colour, but better by. the taste. Secondly, to the censure and judgment that the apostle passes upon those that can see nothing in the gospel to whom it is an hidden thing. And that censure it is sad and heavy. And here are two things considerable. First, is the doom he passes upon them: "They are lost." Secondly, is the manner of denouncing this doom and sentence upon them. First, the doom and censure is that they are lost. What means that? How shall we estimate the heaviness of this burden? The Scripture accounts us lost many ways.

I. We are lost in our original, as we are all the children and offspring of Adam.

II. Every sin we commit is a farther loss to us. The life of a sinner, it is a continual losing of himself.

III. There is yet a farther loss, that is a loss of sentence and judgment; when a sinner is cast in law, when sentence and condemnation is passed upon him, he hath incurred that heavy curse which God's law threatens against offenders.That shuts up all men in condemnation. These three —

I. The loss Of natural corruption.

II. The loss of sinful transgression.

III. The loss of legal malediction. But this loss which St. Paul speaks of, it is the final, irrecoverable loss beyond all redemption. It implies three things.

1. A loss in declaration. They that will not obey the gospel are lost in God's account and estimation.

2. There is a loss in condition. Such as refuse the gospel, they are in an actual state of perdition "The wrath of God abides upon them" (John 3:36). Those whom the gospel cannot recover, they are undone for ever.

3. There is a loss in destruction. No, if the gospel do not convert thee it will confound thee; it will be either bliss or thy bane; it will either help thee to heaven or sink thee to the bottom of hell. We have seen the doom and censure which the apostle passes upon unbelievers; now let us take notice of — Secondly, the manner of denouncing of it: "If our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost." And for the manner of denouncing this sentence, take notice of three qualifications in it.

I. This form of denouncing of it is hypothetical, by way of supposal only, if there be any such. As if he should say, "It is strange and wonderful that after so much preaching there should any remain ignorant, unteachable, unconverted; it is almost incredible men should neglect so great salvation. Had any other mystery been taught them of less advantage than this mystery of the gospel, would they have continued ignorant of it?

II. This form of denunciation, it is illative, brought in by way of proof and inference. It is not in the nature of an immediate absolute prediction, but by the way of menacing, and upon presupposal of their unbelief.

III. This form of sentence, it is suspensive and general. "If it be hid, it is hid to them that are lost." This thunderbolt hovers over their heads in a dismal cloud of generality. The apostle fastens it upon no man's person in particular. And so the observation is thus much. That ignorance of the gospel, and unproficiency under the ministry of it, it is a fearful token of perdition, Such an one had need look to himself lest he prove a reprobate. See the truth of this in three particulars; in respect —

1. Of the want of the gospel.

2. Of the neglect of the gospel.

3. Of the rejection of the gospel.These leave them in a condition of damnation.

1. Single ignorance of Christ's gospel is damnable. As a man that is sick of a deadly disease, not only the refusal of the sovereign medicine to cure him, but the bare want of it makes him irrecoverable. Ignorance, it is the hold of Satan, where he keeps his captives in chains of darkness.

2. A second point is wilful and careless and supine ignorance, when the gospel is offered and tendered to us that is worse.

3. A third point is obstinate, resolved and final ignorance and contempt of the gospel, it is an infallable mark, an evident token of perdition. Thirdly, to the causes of this their unproficiency. First, of the natural, inbred cause of this unproficiency, that is unbelief. It is that which makes all means of grace unprofitable. An unbelieving heart is unteachable, it frustrates all offers of grace (Hebrews 4:2). This sin of infidelity makes a stop of our conversion at the very beginning, destroys the first conceptions of grace. An unbelieving heart, it is like some ill-conditioned, cold, barren ground, that chills and deads the seed as soon as it is sown. It is a sin to be striven against, because —

I. It is a sin exceeding natural. It was that sin that gave us the first slip in our first fall, when we all fell from God in Adam. And it being the first it became the most natural sin. And this native ill-quality of unbelief shows itself specially in" refusing the gospel. Three reasons of it.

1. The gospel propounds very high, sublime mysteries, truths that are exceeding spiritual and Divine. Now the soul of man by infidelity is so bowed down that it measures all truths by sense, or most by reason. It will not believe God further than it sees Him.

2. The means of salvation which the gospel propounds seems to an unbeliever exceeding unlikely and improbable, and so he refuseth them. Here is the perverseness of infidelity; some things are too high in the gospel, he cannot reach to them; again, some things seem so mean and low, he cannot stoop to them. That our Saviour should be crucified, and by such a death save us, it cannot sink into him. So all the means of grace infidelity judges them poor and contemptible. The preaching of the Word, it is but foolishness to them. The sacraments, how unlikely to be conveyances of grace to us?

3. The heart of every man by nature is full of privy guiltiness, conscious to himself, that all is not well betwixt God and him; and that makes his heart draw back by unbelief and not embrace the gospel. This guiltiness of conscience that God is become our enemy, that heaven and we are at variance, makes a man start and be shy at any appearances of God, at any message or tidings from Him. As an indebted man or malefactor is afraid at the sight of an officer, he thinks he comes to apprehend him, as Ahab was troubled at the sight of the prophet: "Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?" He looks upon the Scripture, nay, the gospel, as a writ to arrest him. As traitors and rebels that reject pardon they will fight it out, they look for no mercy. That is the first, infidelity is a sin exceeding natural.

II. It is a sin exceeding difficult and hard to be cured. There is no sin more inexpugnable than the sin of infidelity.

1. The long continuance in our nature makes it hardly curable; like a tree deeply rooted, it is hardly digged up.

2. Infidelity is hardly cured, it is a disease of the understanding and rational soul. And rational diseases are most incurable. It is a difficult work to take off a film from the eye. And unbelief, it is a film upon the understanding. Unbelief, it is hardly removed, because it seems to be reasonable. What, will you put out our eyes? bid us believe we know not what? make us go further than reason teaches us?

III. Infidelity, it is a sin exceeding dangerous and pernicious, of great provocation.

1. It is very dangerous. It is seated in the most vital part, in the mind and understanding. An unbeliever errs in the first principles, and so errs more perniciously, as he that mistakes and goes wrong at first setting. It stops our entrance into the Church.

2. It is of greatest provocation. It offers an high contempt to the glory of God. It calls His truth and goodness into question. We come, secondly, to the cause increasing this unproficiency, that is spiritual blindness: "The god of this world hath blinded their minds."

I. The author of this spiritual blindness is the god of this world. Who is that? It is a high title. So, then, we must make these two inquiries.

1. What is his dominion?

2. What is his deity? It is this world. Here is one word seems to enlarge his dominion, "the world," a word of wide compass; but here is another word that confines it, it is "this world," that is a word of limitation. It spoils his divinity to limit him. Ye mar a god, if ye come to confine him. A wicked man's god is but the god of this world, both for extension and duration. But our God, He is the Lord of heaven and earth, there is the extension; and His dominion is from everlasting to everlasting, there is the duration of His dominion. How, then, is Satan the god of this world?

(1) Take it for the territory, and then I demand, Is Satan indeed the god of this world? Surely, "The world is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof." Yet something there is that he bears the sway, carries the name of the god of this world. He is so —

1. By usurpation, like an audacious traitor, that sets himself up against his lawful sovereign, and will order the kingdom without him.

2. By God's permission.

(2) Take the world for the inhabitants. St. Peter calls it the world of the ungodly (2 Peter 2:5). In that sense especially Satan is the god of this world. Wicked men are called the world.

1. There is a world of them. A few good, very few in respect of the bad, they fill the world.

2. They are called the world, that is their proper element. David calls them "The men of this world, whose portion is in this life."

3. They are the world, they bear all the sway.

2. The second inquiry is, What is Satan's deity? How comes Satan to this greatness, to be the god of this world? I answer, he attains to the godship three ways.

(1) By necessary devolution. If the Lord be not our God then Satan will be.

(2) Satan becomes the god of wicked men by their real and voluntary submission to him.

(3) Satan becomes the god of wicked men by God's just desertion and giving them over. Obstinate sinners God gives over to Satan; He sets Satan to rule and to be effectual in them.It shows us the great calamity that we bring upon ourselves by departing from the living God.

(1) Wicked men make Satan their master, and themselves his drudges, and that is a base subjection.

(2) Wicked men have a nearer relation, Satan gets greater interest in them; they make themselves his children. A fearful thing to be reckoned Satan's offspring.

(3) The devil gets a more supreme dominion over them, he becomes their king (John 14:30).

(4) But of all submissions this is the vilest, to set up the devil to be our god. It shows us the high contempt that God suffers from the men of this world. A wicked man, as much as in him lies, puts God out of His throne and places Satan in it. The author of this spiritual blindness is the devil. "The god of this world."

II. A second thing considerable is the advantage and opportunity that Satan hath in wicked men and unbelievers to blind them, it is by being in them. Iris a speech of very great emphasis, and shows that power Satan hath over the souls of unbelievers — he is in them as in his possession. As those who are sanctified and believe, God's good Spirit dwells in them. So, on the contrary, every wicked man is the habitation of Satan. Here is the difference betwixt a saint and a sinner. Satan may busy himself about a good man as an assailant, but he hath the full possession of a wicked man as an inhabitant.

III. We proceed to the third particular, that is the mischievous effect which Satan works in them; he strikes them with spiritual blindness; he blinds the minds of unbelievers. That increases their infidelity, makes them uncapable of the mysteries of the gospel, they cannot see the light of it (John 12:37). Will you see the nature of this woeful disposition to be given over to blindness? There be many considerations of it that make it woeful, and those that are under it exceeding miserable.

1. A spiritual evil; and of all evils that can befall us spiritual evils are most grievious. The spirit of a man is the chiefest part of a man. Deformity of body to a sober judgment seems nothing so evil as a deformity in the soul. Bodily blindness is a rueful spectacle, but to have the eye of the soul darkened is much more grievous.

2. Blindness in our minds, it is a woeful blindness. Why the mind it is the highest faculty of the soul of man.

3. This spiritual blindness, it is a just judgment that befalls unbelievers thus to be struck with this woeful blindness. It is most just and suitable to their sin. They will not understand, and therefore they shall not understand. This is the proportion of God's rewarding and punishing. He rewards our faith with increase of faith, and our good use of grace with more abundant grace. But He punishes the neglect of grace with the loss of grace. He blows out the candle when men will not work by it.

4. This evil, it is the heaviest judgment that can be inflicted, thus to be given over to this spirit of blindness. Oh, it is a heavy judgment not to be able to see Christ and the means of salvation; such a man bears the brand of God's heavy displeasure. Of all punishments those are the most deadly by which we are given over to sin more wickedly.

5. Spiritual blindness, it is a great evil, it lays us open to all other evils. A man struck with this blindness is prone to fall into the grossest errors, strong delusions, unreasonable apprehensions. Even those truths that they know shall vanish away. Voluntary blindness brings penal blindness. Then the inquiry must be how Satan works this spiritual blindness. First, he doth it not by any violent means. Satan cannot offer any violence to our souls. Secondly, nor can he do it by any immediate action upon our souls, by any intimate real working upon our understandings. The soul of man is out of the reach of Satan. How is it then?

I. He blinds men's minds by the efficacy of some false persuasions, by which he deludes them. He persuades most men there is no such danger as these preachers do talk of. He persuades men there is no such necessity of knowledge of the gospel as they would bear us in hand. That is the first way, false persuasions.

II. Satan works this blindness in men by the efficacy of errors and deluding superstitions. When he cannot keep religion out of the world, then he bewitches men with erroneous, and false; and superstitious religions.

III. Satan works this blindness by the efficacy of divers lusts that he nourishes in the hearts of men, and they steam up into the understanding, and overcloud and darken it.

IV. It is for some special purpose that here Satan, that is said to blind men's minds, is called the god of this world. It points us out the main instrument which he uses to work this mischief, and that is the love of this world. He knows full well that the love of the world and the love of religion can never stand together. The bribes of the world will blind the eyes of the wisest men. Satan hath more confidence to keep us off from religion by this love of the world than any other lust. His persuasions drawn from this sin.

1. They are more cunning. He will tell us that the world and the profits of it are real and substantial; you may see it and enjoy it, full bags and full barns. He will tell us that the world and the wealth of it is a present good; here it is, we are sure of it, and you may now presently enjoy it. This sin is more persuasive, because it pleads with appearance of reason.

2. The god of this world hath most confidence in this lust of the world, thereby to blind us to keep men off from religion, because it is a most commanding lust. It bears the greatest sway in a man's heart more than any other lust. The devil makes the world his viceroy. Now, then, if Satan can get this sin into our hearts, it will bear such sway in our soul that there can be no entrance for Christ or religion. Such a man sees so much in the world that he can see nothing in the gospel. So, then, are unbelievers blinded by Satan, is this their condition? Of it let us make some use.

I. Are unbelievers blind by nature and blinded by Satan? It removes the scandal of the gospel that so few in comparison do embrace it.

II. Are unbelievers blind men? It slights the prejudice that such men have of religion. Are unbelievers worldly men, blinded in matters of religion? Then regard not their judgment, be not troubled at their censures which they pass upon religion. They understand not what they censure, therefore regard them not.

III. Are men that believe not no other than blind men? It should move us to pity them in their errors and mistakes in religion. And, as the effect is mischievous, to strike them with blindness, so his intent is malicious, He blinds their minds, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. The first thing considerable is, what that is which Satan mainly opposes, that is the gospel. Of all the ways and works of God his greatest spite is against the gospel; his greatest endeavour is to hinder the success of that. And the apostle doth not barely name it, but with a magnificent expression. He calls it "the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God."

I. Let us take notice of it as it is a description of gospel. And here observe two things.

1. Paul calls it so. He names it with this addition of excellency, the glorious gospel.

(1) It is the expression of his affection that he bare to the gospel. The honour of the gospel was dear to St. Paul, he could never say enough of it, never sufficiently admire it. There are three things that St. Paul never spake of but with great ravishments of affections.

(2) Jesus Christ.

(3) A second thing which Paul mentions with much affection and delight is free grace (Ephesians 1:7; Ephesians 2:7).

(4) A third thing Paul speaks of with great affection, it is the gospel (2 Corinthians 3:9). And this St. Paul doth both as a Christian and as a minister.

(5) Paul calls it a glorious gospel, in opposition to that contempt which they in Corinth put upon the gospel. They slighted it, they saw no glory nor excellency in it. That is the first, Paul calls it a glorious gospel. And as St. Paul calls it so —

2. The gospel is "a glorious gospel." So then we have here a magnificent description of the gospel.

(1) Here is the quality, the gospel, it is full of light. That is one degree of dignity in the gospel. It is an excellency. Creatures, the more lightsome they are the more noble they are and of greater dignity. Now what is spiritual light but truth? So then the gospel is a shining light, that is, it is the manifestation of saving truth. The better to conceive that the gospel is light, we may understand it, as light stands in a double opposition.

1. Light is opposite to darkness.

2. Light is opposite to dimness. We live in days of actual truth, saving truth is unveiled to us. If thou missest the way to heaven, thou mayest accuse thine own blindness, thou canst not plead the gospel's darkness.

(2) Here is the excellency of this quality, it is "glorious." There is light in a beam of light; but glory, it is the collection of all the beams of light, as when the sun shines forth in

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KJV: But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost:

WEB: Even if our Good News is veiled, it is veiled in those who perish;