For thou hast hid their heart from understanding: therefore shalt thou not exalt [them].
Ver. 4. Thou hast hid their heart from understanding] That is, thou hast hidden understanding from their heart, thou hast left them in the dark, destitute of a right judgment, while they condemn me to be a wicked person, because I am grievously afflicted; and thence it is that I do so confidently appeal to thee in Jesus Christ, since my friends are so far mistaken in this controversy. If God give not both light and sight, if he vouchsafe not to irradiate both organ and object, the best will be bemisted. Every good gift and perfect cometh from above, even from the Father of lights, James 1:17. It was he that made Reverend Doctor Sibbs (as one saith of him) spiritually rational and rationally spiritual; one that seemed to see the insides of nature and grace, and the world and heaven, by those perfect anatomies he had made of them all.
Therefore shalt thou not exalt them] Therefore thou shalt not give them honour, so Broughton rendereth it. But that is not all. Litotes est, saith Mercer; it is a figure, wherein less is said, and more is meant; thou shalt not only not exalt them, but thou shalt also abase and humble them; this contestation shall be nothing at all to their commendation in the end. It is sound knowledge of the truth according to godliness, that exalteth a man, and makes him to be accounted of; and the contrary. Howbeit many great and good men have been greatly mistaken in very great controversies and transactions, as was Luther, Doctor resolutus, sed non in omnibus illuminatus. And yet how many learned able men hath his name misled in the point of consubstantiation! Ursin was carried away with it awhile, till he read his arguments, which he found to be little better than an illogical argument. Holy Greenham, when pressed to conformity to the ceremonies, by the bishop of Ely, who urged Luther's approbation of them; and are you wiser than Luther? his sober and gracious answer was, I reverence more the revealed will of God in teaching Luther so many necessary things to salvation than I search into his secret will, why he hid his heart from understanding in things less necessary.