“Great, therefore, is the mystery of godliness.
A mystery! Then it is of such depths of wisdom, as take all the poor petty plots of accommodating great difficulties, wherein the princes and wise men of the world spend their thoughts away to vanity, and yet magnify and pride themselves in; and this plot, and any one mystery in it, when once discovered, ‘confoundeth and brings to nothing’ all theirs, (1 Cor. 1:19; 2:8).
It all vanisheth as mere folly; nothing.
And there are not only depths of wisdom, but depths of love in it also, Eph. 3:18.
It reveals a breadth, height, depth of love in Christ dying for enemies, and God giving His Son for enemies, as passeth knowledge.
Sin is a great depth, therefore the apostle saith, ‘it doth abound,’ Rom. 5:20, and is ‘above measure sinful,’ Rom. 7:13, and so you will find it when you guage it to the bottom.
And so the devils and damned spirits in hell shall find it, whilst they are a-studying their sinfulness in hell to all eternity (that being their business), and can never fathom it.
But yet this of God’s free grace and Christ’s love is a depth, which swallows up this of sin, more than the heavens do the earth.
That place seems to compare it to a mighty sea, so deep, as it wants a bottom; so as though the thoughts of men and angels shall be diving into it to all eternity, they shall not come to ground.
Of the length and breadth also, that it knows no shore, that though they shall be sailing over it with that small compass of their capacities forever, yet they shall never come to land, ‘it passeth knowledge.’
And indeed, my brethren, these are great incitements, especially to large understandings, to search into them.
For men of large understandings seek after depths, as good swimmers do after deep waters, and refuse to go into the shallows, because they cannot have scope enough to exercise their skill, and presently strike aground.”
–Thomas Goodwin, The Works of Thomas Goodwin, Volume 4 (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage, 1861/2006), 4: 236.
Leave a Reply