I. The different portions of the righteous and the wicked —
The world may be divided into two denominations ; the righteous, and the wicked.
" To the righteous, God gives wisdom, and know- ledge, and joy" —
[As to carnal wisdom, I am not sure that the wicked have not in general the advantage ; as it is said, " The children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light \" But the godly have a discernment of earthly things, or, as my text expresses it, a " wisdom and knowledge" in re- lation to them, which no ungodly man has ever attained. The godly see the true use of worldly tilings ; and how they may be rendered conducive to the honour of God, and the good of the soul. As instruments for advancing the welfare of mankind, they may be desired and employed to good effect : and in this mode of using them God will confer real and abiding " joy." Even the portion of them which is consumed upon ourselves will be relished with a richer zest; for " God has given us all things richly to enjoy :" but the thought of honouring God with them, and benefiting mankind, will give to them a kind of sanctified enjoyment, of such as was received from the harvest of which the first-fruits had been duly consecrated to the Lord^. The good man does not merely enjoy the things themselves : he enjoys God in them ; and, in so doing, has the " testimony of his own conscience that he pleases God." Nor is he uncon- scious that he is laying up treasure in heaven, even " bags which wax not old, and a treasure which never faileth^"]
'' To the sinner," on the other hand, " he giveth travail" —
[A man who neglects his God, can find no happiness in earthly things : in his pursuit of them, he is filled with care, which robs him of all real comfort'' : in his enjoyment of them, they prove empty and cloying, " his very laughter being only as the crackling of thorns under a pot :" and, his mind being alienated from God, he has no source of peace from religion. Truly " the way of transgressors is hard^;" or rather I must say, as the Scripture does, *' Destruction and misery are in their ways''." Remarkable is that declaration of Zophar, " In the midst of their sufficiency they are in straits s." And if this be their state in the midst of life and health, what must it be in a time of sickness and death ? Most true is that declaration of Solomon: " What profit hath he that hath laboured for the
=1 Luke xvi. 18. b Luke xi. 41.
" Lukexii. 33, 34. 1 Tim. vi. 19. ^ See ver. 22, 23.
e Prov. xiii. 15. f Rom. iii. \(\, 17. s Job xx. 22.