shortcomings, to help them forward in the way? And what excuse can they
have who sit the call of the gospel, and say, in effect, they will not
go to Christ because their case is not good. And O that believers were
not sometimes led away with this error of scaring at Christ, because of
infirmities seen and discovered!

V. It is remarkable, that, as the disciples did ofttimes vent much of
their carnal conceptions of the kingdom of Christ, as apprehending it to
be some carnal, outward, pompous, stately, and, upon that account,
desirable condition; so there might be much of this carnal apprehension
lurking under this acknowledgment and question of Thomas; and the Lord,
who knew their thoughts, doth here wisely draw them off those notions,
and sets them about another study, to tell us, that it is best and most
useful and profitable for us, to be much taken up in the study and
search of necessary fundamental truths, and, particularly, of the way to
the Father. For, 1. Here is the substantial food of the soul; other
notions are but vain, and oftentimes they make the case of the soul
worse; but the study of this is always edifying. 2. The right
understanding of this and other fundamental truths will not puff up, but
keep the soul humble, and will make the soul active and diligent in
duty. 3. The fruit of this study is profitable and lasting. 4. And the
right uptaking of these truths will discover the vanity of other
sciences, falsely so called, and the folly of spending our time about
other things. 5. The right understanding of this fundamental will help
us to understand other truths the better. 6. A mistake in this, and such
like fundamentals, or the ignorance of them, is more dangerous than the
ignorance of or mistake in other things.

Oh! if this were teaching us all, in humility, to be much in the study
of such fundamental necessary truths as this is; and to guard against a