inclined to speak, and to render evil for evil. 0 Lord, help me, a poor feeble man, and hide pride from mine eyes! Suffer me not to fall upon this stumbling-block, which hath overturned the world; but help me to follow Jesus, who was meek and lowly in heart, and by him to find rest to my soul!

CHAPTER XI.

Comparison between Carnal and Spiritual Wisdom.

CARNAL wisdom is the highest attainment of the carnal mind. It is an exhibition of fallen man in his fairest and most cultivated form; and is therefore the aim and desire of the best of natural men.

This wisdom, (for we will call it at present by that name,) arising from a depraved and corrupt principle, is necessarily weak and corrupt likewise. It seeks

earthly and carnal things; is occupied entirely upon them, and looks no higher, and finds no more, when left to its own inclinations and powers.. This wisdom, therefore, is called, in the Scripture, "earthly, sensual, devilish.” It acts only upon and for this present world: it is plunged in the sensuality and designs of it through an earthly evil nature: it is, like Satan, in total opposition to the will and holiness of God, serving, as its last end, the creature instead of the Creator.

Thus the learned man is proud of his knowledge, as it gives him superiority over others: the states

man, by his political understanding, pursues and triumphs in his own grandeur: the merchant, by his skill in trade, heaps up to himself riches: the mechanic, by his art and ingenuity, assumes his peculiar distinction: the carnal divine (for such a one there may be) is learned, and zealous for his party or profession, or for his own carnal exaltation in it. In short, it is no matter whether the means be high or low, but every natural man, of every condition, employs all his understanding and all his powers for carnal views, for earthly glory, and for temporal attainments. If his plans are calculated for these, and especially if they succeed, he is admired, applauded, and admitted to be a great, a wise, or an extraordinary person.

But alas! how vain and perishing, how delusive and unsatisfactory, is this short-lived wisdom, and all that it can seek after or find! To what purpose are the eager wearisome toils and cares, the studious anxieties and restless pursuits, of all the millions of mortals in ages past, whose airy glory is forgotten, and whose very names are extinguished and lost? And, if not lost and extinguished, yet of what value or consequence are they now, beyond the fleeting idea and imagination of mortals like themselves? And to how few, even in this last poor way, doth the remembrance extend? And how unknown and insignificant is all this paper-glory to the owners, whose very image is departed from the world on which they doted?

This is the highest prize of all earthly wisdom: and is not this perfectly fanciful, fleeting, trivial,

and vain? In the grave all its thoughts perish, equally with the low notions and opinions of the ignorant and the foolish, the poor and the despised.

But there is a wisdom, which, unlike the other, deserves the name, and being no production of this corrupted earth, but coming from above, is pure and spiritual in its nature, and, in all its purposes and effects, true, real, lasting, and happy.

Its origin is in grace from Him, who is the Fountain of wisdom. And its first effect is in the renunciation and abasement of self, as that which is false and contrary.

Thus the fear of the Lord is

the beginning, or first-fruits which the soul can present, of wisdom; and thus a man must become a fool, that he may be wise. This wisdom sees the ignorance of all other pretended wisdom, detects its base and grovelling pursuits, and lifts up the soul, not to a temporary dying fame, which is often infamy with God, but to a solid and perpetual good. It discovers the deceivableness of unrighteousness in the heart and in the world, the poorness of every thing out of Christ, and the great value of Christ and of the soul above all other things. It doth not lift up a man in himself, as a great and glorious doctor for human admiration; but it makes him low in his own eyes, through a view of the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus his Lord; and it keeps him from aiming at vain glory, as being a kind of treason against God, and as an unjust attainment for himself, a poor, dependent, ignorant sinner. The Christian, made wise to salvation, dreads to be left to his own wisdom; because he knows that blindness is its other and its truer name.

Christ is made, of God, wisdom to the believer. He spake as never man spake; and none teacheth like him. He often gives a poor and ignorant countryman such instructions, as render him abundantly more wise than the mere scholar by all the florid pomp of the schools. So ingrafted too are his instructions, that the art of man, and the sophistry of Satan, cannot baffle those who possess them. His knowledge is solid, and real, and enjoyable; such as the heart can feel, the soul live by, the spirit exult in, the whole man act upon, amidst a thousand trials in the world, and in the nearest prospect of death and eternity.

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Possessing this wisdom, how serenely can the Christian look down upon the bustling cares and pursuits of men; upon their honours, their pleasures, their riches: even as a man of great natural wisdom would look down upon the follies and recreations of boys! Toys and games employ the attention of children, and engage their passions, though frivolous and fleeting and are the solicitudes of men, and of old men too, less idle or extravagant, when they lay. out all their time, and strength, and souls, for that which profiteth not even here, and which none pretend to be profitable in the day of wrath? What poor things are these of the world in the hours of sickness and pain? and how much poorer still in the hour of approaching death? Honours, titles, and estates, cannot remove a pang, nor give one drop of consolation; but, in many cases, afford a wish of dismal remorse to their owners, that they had never obtained them.

There is, I fear, more than one

Dives in eternity, who laments that he had not been a hundred times poorer and sorer than any Lazarus (with grace) was or could be in this world.

True wisdom proves its own worth by obtaining a proper and valuable end. On the other hand, that cannot be real, but delusive wisdom, which is always working and promising, and at last concludes in nothing, or nothing but ruin. But this is the most which is attained by the wisdom of this world, spiritually viewed: it gains air and dirt, a name and a perishing good (if a good) below; and then it ceases to act, leaving its poor possessor only misery and disappointment, except a fearful expectation of an unwished and unwelcome hereafter. Can the end of the merest idiot be more stupid and unwise?

Without a doubt, the affairs of this life must be carried on, and the Christian must more or less be engaged in them; but the wisdom of grace in his soul will teach him, that there are also other affairs to mind; affairs of infinitely more moment to him than all the world put together. If he should gain the utmost or the whole of this earth, and lose himself and the end of his being, where would be his profit and advantage? People who can speculate clearly and nicely for gains in common matters, would do well to carry their thoughts of profit and loss a little farther towards the end of time, when all things are to be balanced and settled for ever.

Lord, above all wisdom of earth, and earthly gain, may I obtain that wisdom which leadeth to a happy immortality, and which shall abide with me beyond the bounds of time! I am a poor dying creature,