" approved the sayings" of a blind ungodly world, instead of the infallible sayings of their God. This is the way to " walk not as fools, but as wise :" and, so walking, you shall surely ere long have the plaudit of your Judge, " Well done, good and faithful servants ! enter ye into the joy of your Lord."]
Ps. xlix. 20. Man that is in honour, and understandeth not, is like the beasts that perish.
MAN, when first he came out of the hands of his Creator, was perfect ; and fit to be God's vicegerent, if I may so speak, in this lower world. God put all the rest of the creation under him, and gave him dominion over all the work of his hands. But, from the time that man fell, he became degraded in all his faculties, and in many respects like unto the beasts that perish. True, possessing reason, he still held a superiority over them in those things which belong exclusively to the province of reason : but, in every thing which depends on grace, he was reduced to a level with them. To man converted by the grace of God this superiority is restored : but to man in his natural and unregenerate state, even though he be exalted to the highest pinnacle of honour amongst his fellows, this humiliating declaration is fully appli- cable : " Man that is in honour, and understandeth not, is like the beasts that perish."
He is like them,
L In his understanding —
In things pertaining to the body, man is far inferior to the brute creation, being excelled by one or other of them in every faculty and power. In agility and strength he is not to be compared with myriads of beasts, both tame and savage : and in all the senses he falls exceedingly below them. His sight, his smell, his taste, his hearing, his feeling, are in no respect equal to that which exists among the different orders of beasts and birds and insects ; so that, in all that is corporeal, they are superior to him. In what is intellectual, doubtless he retains his superiority;