Darkness

. Since men fell from God by sin, it is no small part of their misery and punishment, that they are covered with thick darkness and ignorance of the nature of God. They know him not, they have not seen him at any time. Hence is that promise to the church in Christ, Isa. lx. 2, “For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee.”

The ancient philosophers made great inquiries into, and obtained many notions of, the Divine Being — its existence and excellencies. And these notions they adorned with great elegance of speech, to allure others unto the admiration of them. Hereon they boasted themselves to be the only wise men in the world, Rom. i. 22, φάσκοντες εἶναι σοφοὶ, — they boasted that they were the wise. But we must abide in the judgment of the apostle concerning them in their inquiries; he assures us that the world in its wisdom — that is, these wise men in it by their wisdom — knew not God, 1 Cor. i. 21. And he calls the authors of their best notions, Atheists, or men “without God in the world,” Eph. ii. 12. For, —

1. They had no certain guide, rule, nor light, which, being attended unto, might lead them infallibly into the knowledge of the divine nature. All they had of this kind was their own λογισμοὶ, their reasonings or imaginations; whereby they commencedσυζητητὰι τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου, “the great disputes of the world;” but in them they “waxed vain, and their foolish heart was darkened,” Rom. i. 21. They did at best but endeavour ψηλαφᾷν, “to feel after God,” as men do in the dark after what they cannot clearly discern, Acts xvii. 27. Among others, Cicero’s book, “De Natura Deorum,” gives us an exact account of the intention of the apostle in that expression. And it is at this day not want of wit, but hatred of the mysteries of our religion, which makes so many prone to forego all supernatural revelation, and to betake themselves unto a religion declared, as they suppose, by reason and the light of nature; — like bats and owls, who, being not able to bear the light of the sun, betake themselves unto the twilight, to the dawnings of light and darkness.

2. Whatever they did attain, as unto rational notions about things invisible and incomprehensible, yet could they never deliver themselves from such principles and practices in idolatry and all manner of flagitious sins, as that they could be of any benefit unto them. This is so effectually demonstrated by the apostle in the 1st chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, as that we need not to insist upon it.

Men may talk what they please of a light within them, or of the power of reason to conduct them unto that knowledge of God whereby
they may live unto him; but if they had nothing else, if they did not boast themselves of that light which has its foundation and original in divine revelation alone, they would not excel them who, in the best management of their own reasonings, “knew not God,” but waxed vain in their imaginations.

With respect unto this universal darkness, — that is, ignorance of God, with horrid confusion accompany it in the minds of men, — Christ is called, and is, the “light of men,” the “light of the world;” because in and by him alone this darkness is dispelled, as he is the “Sun of Righteousness.”