908. J The Use And Excellency Of True Wisdom. 59

imbued with divine wisdom, and actuated by the fear of God, and he will have a far juster apprehension of all the things of time and sense than the man of learning has ever attained. David says, " I have more understanding than all my teachers ; for thy testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the ancients, because I keep thy precepts m." The mere worldly man, in his estimate of tilings, keeps eternity out of view: no wonder, therefore, that he " calls evil good, and good evil ; and puts darkness for light, and light for darkness ; bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter11." But the man who is taught of God has learned to view things in their true light, even as God himself views them ; and he speaks of them in accordance with the representation given of them in the inspired volume. The principle of piety which is implanted in his soul has corrected and rectified his judgment : and if the conversation of these two men, the learned and the unlearned, each with his fellows, for the space of one hour, were recorded, we should be perfectly amazed at the mass of error contained in the one ; whilst truth, with per- haps scarcely any mixture of error, pervaded the other. In fact, if the most learned of unregenerate men were, in his daily conversation, to betray as much ignorance of philosophical truth as he does of moral and religious truth, he would, to say the least, stand very low in the estimation of all who knew him : so true is that declaration of our blessed Lord, that " God has hid these things from the wise and prudent, and has revealed them unto babes0." I again there- fore say, that the knowledge of God in Christ Jesus is that which alone deserves the name of " wisdom ;" and that all other knowledge, though, in reference to earthly things, of the highest value, is yet, in reference to heavenly things, no better than learned folly ; as the Scriptures have most pointedly declared : for it is written, " I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? where is the scribe? m Ps. cxix. 98—100. » Isai. v. 20. « Matt. xi. 25.