will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine" (John 7:17, Isa
28:9). Oh! that we were indeed enlarged as to these breadths, and
lengths, and depths, and heights of God, as the Apostle desired
the Ephesians might.

(6.) Then those great truths; the coming of Christ, the resurrection
of the dead, and eternal judgment, would neither seem so like
fables, nor be so much off our hearts as they do, and are (1 Cor
15:35). For the thorough belief of them depends upon the knowledge
of the abilities that are in God to perform what he has said
thereabout: And hence it is that your inferiour sort of Christians
live so like, as if none of these things were at hand; and hence
it is again, that they so soon are shaken in mind about them,
when tempted of the devil, or briskly assaulted by deceivers. But
this cometh to pass that there may be fulfilled what is written:
"And while the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept"
(Matt 25:1-7). Surely, the meaning is, they were asleep about his
coming, the resurrection and the judgment; and, consequently had
lost much of that knowledge of God, the which if they had retained;
these truths, with power, would have been upon their hearts. The
Corinthians were horribly decayed here, though some more than
others: Hence Paul, when he treats of this doctrine, bids them
"awake to righteousness," and not sin, telling them, that some
among them had not the knowledge of God (1 Cor 15:34). To be sure,
they had not such a knowledge of God as would keep them steady in
the faith of these things (verse 51).

Now, the knowledge of the things above-mentioned, to wit, "this
comprehending knowledge"; will greaten these things, bring them
near, and make them to be credited as are the greatest of God's