the heat of the atmosplicre. But, as a shadow, they may screen us from much evil, and alleviate many pains which they cannot entirely ward off.]
But wisdom has an excellency far above money — [Wisdom is more our oivn than money, which soon " makes itself wings and flies away." In many respects, also, has it a te7idency to promote our welfare in life, beyond money. Riches rather contract the mind than enlarge it ; whereas wisdom expands the mind, and dispels that conceit and insolence which characterize a purse-proud man. Money, too, when not com- bined with wisdom, leads a man into every species of dissipation and folly, and opens to him temptations to every kind of sensual indulgence. But tvisdom provides for his mind such occripations as place him at a distajicefrom temptation, and especially when his facilities for profuse expenditure are on a contracted scale. And thus the man of wisdom moves in a far safer and happier sphere ; his pleasures being more refined, and his employments more innocent. I may further observe, that riches render us a prey to designing men ; and subject us to many vexations, to which less opulent persons are but little exposed : whereas wisdom holds not forth any such baits to dishonest and designing men; who, if not disposed to join with us in our pursuits, will leave us, without interruption, to prosecute our own. Nor is it the least excellence of wisdom that it induces thoughtful habits, which are favourable to sobriety, to meditation, and to a candid investigation of conflicting interests: whilst money rather tends to dissipate thought, and to fix the mind only on pre- sent indulgences. In a word, money, without wisdom, tends to the destruction of life ; whereas loisdom, freed from the temp- tations ofivealth, tends rather to the preservation of life, and to the securing of that equanimity which, to a worldly man, is the main source of comfort in the world.]
Whilst we thus acknowledge that both wisdom and money have, though in different degrees, their re- spective excellencies, we are constrained to maintain,
II. The excellence of spiritual wisdom above them both— The benefit ascribed to wisdom in the latter clause of my text necessarily leads our thoughts to a dif- ferent kind of wisdom from that which is mentioned in the former clause. And we find the same distinction made by the Prophet Jeremiah : " Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might : let not the rich man glory in his riches : but let him that glorieth glory in this, that he