The Mysteries of the Gospel (1)

(1) Consider what the world was, an enemy to Christ; being slaves to Satan, being idolaters in love with their own inventions. Here was the wonder of God's love, mercy, and condescension that he should entrust it to such wretches. We may see from Paul's epistles what kind of people they were before they embraced the gospel; like those who 'sat in darkness, and in the shadow of death' (Luke 1:79). That the world, from the highest to the lowest, should at length stoop to the cross of Christ; that many of the emperors should lay their crowns at Christ's feet, as Constantine and others; that many of the philosophers of the world, who were clever and learned, should at length come to embrace the gospel--for many of the church fathers were philosophers before becoming believers in Christ; that men of status, learning, education, and breeding, should cast all at the feet of Christ; for these to be overcome by plain preaching; for weakness to overcome mightiness; for ignorance to overcome knowledge; these are all great mysteries.
(2) Consider the people who carried the gospel, by which the world was subdued--a company of weak and unlearned men, none of the deepest for knowledge, only they had the Holy Spirit to teach and instruct, to strengthen and fortify them--which the world took no notice of--men of low condition, of low esteem, and few in number. These men came now with weapons, but merely with the word, and with sufferings. Their weapons were nothing but patience, and preaching, offering the word of God to them, and suffering indignities; as Augustine said, 'The world was not overcome by fighting, but by suffering.' Christ said, 'I send you as sheep among wolves' (Matt. 10:16); and how? With nothing but carrying a message and suffering constantly and undauntedly for that message. They had cruel bloody laws made against them which were executed to the utmost; yet by these means they overcame by preaching and by sealing the truth by suffering--a strange kind of conquest.

Devotional Readings taken from Puritan Richard Sibbes 'Refreshment for the Soul.'
The Fountain Opened, Works, vol. 5, pp. 517-18
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