in this business, but to lead it captive to the obedience
of faith, and to silence it with the faith of a mystery which we know not.
Paul's answer is one for all, and better than all the syllogisms of such
men, "Who art thou, O man! who disputest? Dispute thou: I will believe."
_Ut intelligatur, tacendum est._ Silence only can get some account of God,
quiet and humble ignorance in the admiration of such a majesty is the
profoundest knowledge. _Non est mirum si ignoretur, majoris esset
admirationis si sciatur._ It is no wonder that God is not known, all the
wonder were to know and comprehend such a wonder, such a mystery. It is a
wonder indeed, that he is not more known, but when I say so, I mean that
he is not more wondered at because he is passing knowledge. If our eyes of
flesh cannot see any thing almost when they look straight and steadfastly
upon the sun, O what can the eye of the soul behold, when it is fixed upon
the consideration of that shining and glorious majesty! Will not that very
light be as darkness to it, that it shall be as it were darkness and
dazzled with a thick mist of light in _superlucente caligine_,--confounded
with that resplendent darkness? It is said that the Lord "covers himself
with light as with a garment," Psal. civ. 2, and yet "clouds and darkness
are round about him," Psal. xcvii. 2, and he makes darkness his [covering]
secret place, Psal. xviii. 11. His inaccessible light is this glorious
darkness, that strikes the eyes of men blind; as in the darkness, the
sun's light is the night owl's night and darkness. When a soul can find no
better way to know him by, than by these names and notions by which we
deny our own knowledge, when it hath conceived all of him it can, then, as
being overcome with that dazzling brightness of his glory, to think him
inconceivable and to express him in such terms as withal expresses our
ignorance. There is no name agrees more to God, than that which saith, we
cannot name him, we cannot know him, such as invisible, incomprehensible,
infinite, &c. This, Socrates, an heathen, professed to be all his
knowledge, that he knew he did know nothing, and therefore he preached an
unknown God to the Athenians, to whom, after, they erected an altar with
that inscription, "To the unknown God." I confess, indeed, the most part
of our discourses, of our performances, have such a writing on them, "to
the unknown God!" because we think we know him, and so we know nothing.
But oh!