Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament

⁸ Hear then the Lord confessing; “I confess to You, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth.” What do I confess? Wherein do I praise you? For this confession, as I have said before, signifies praise. “Because You have hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.” What is this, Brethren? Understand by that which is opposed to them. “You have hid these things,” says he, “from the wise and prudent;” and he did not say, you have revealed them to the foolish and imprudent, but “You have hid these things” indeed “from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.”

To these wise and prudent, who are really objects of derision, to the arrogant who in false pretence are great, yet in truth are only swollen up, he opposed not the foolish, nor the imprudent, but babes. Who are babes? The humble. Therefore “You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent.” Under the name of the wise and prudent, He has Himself explained that the proud are understood, when He said, “You have revealed them unto babes.” Therefore from those who are not babes You have hidden them.

What is from those who are not babes? From those who are not humble. And who are they but the proud? O way of the Lord! Either there was none, or it lay hid, that it might be revealed to us. Why did the Lord exult? “Because it was revealed unto babes.” We must be little babes; for if we would wish to be great, “wise and prudent” as it were, it is not revealed unto us. Who are these great ones? The wise and prudent. “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.” Here then you have a remedy suggested from its opposite.

For if by “professing yourself wise, you have become a fool; profess yourself a fool, and you will be wise.” But profess it in truth, profess it from the heart, for it is really so as you profess. If you profess it, do not profess it before men, and forbear to profess it before God. As to yourself, and all that is yours, you are altogether dark. For what else is it to be a fool, but to be dark in heart? He says of them at last, “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.”

Before they professed this, what do we find? “And their foolish heart was darkened.” Acknowledge then that you are not to yourself a light. At best you are but an eye, you are not the light. And what good is even an open and a sound eye, if the light be wanting? Acknowledge therefore that of your own self you are no light to yourself; and cry out as it is written, “You, Lord, wilt light my candle: You will enlighten, O Lord, my darkness with Your Light.” For myself I was all darkness; but You are the Light that scatters the darkness, and enlightens me; of myself I am no light to myself, yea I have no portion of light but in You.