one who has studied a subject thoroughly to imagine himself as ignorant of it as he was before he turned his attention to it, or as another person who has never spent one hour in the contemplation of it. It is not possible for a philosopher to suppose himself on a level with a peasant in point of intellectual attainment. The very idea is altogether repugnant to reason and common sense : and, therefore, we must be careful not to put on the Apostle's words a construction which would involve such an absurdity as that.
But knowledge, through the corruption of our fallen nature, is attended with many and great defects. It is but too frequently accompanied with, yea, and too often generates in its possessors,
1. Conceit —
[To speak of knowledge generally, would draw us too far from our subject. It is of knowledge as connected with religion that we are called to treat : and perhaps it is in that precise view that its attendant evils are most fully seen. For it is not attained by great labour, like other knowledge. There is a key to that, which is not to be found in relation to any other branch of knowledge whatever ; a key which will open a way to all its richest stores, and without which its stores are inaccessible to mortal man : and that key is a broken and contrite spirit. Now, as this key may be in the possession of a poor unlettered man, whilst a man of learning and research has not found it, the poor man may have his mind enriched with stores to which his more learned neiglibour is an utter stranger: and there- fore it must not be thought strange, if, in an uncultivated mind, it should generate somewhat of conceit. The possessor of that key has a consciousness that " God has revealed to him, a babe, what he has hid from the wise and prudent;" and therefore feels himself, in that respect, superior to his less- enlightened, though more learned, neighbour: and if he be somewhat elated with a superiority which nothing else could give him, we may lament it, but we cannot altogether wonder at it. But this conceit is frequently carried beyond the objects of mere spiritual discernment, and leads persons to think that they have a like superiority in reference to all things connected with religion : and here they greatly err ; for the things which come within the sphere of spiritual discernment are few ; such as, the depth of our fall, the necessity of a Saviour, the beauty of holiness, and our entire dependence on the influences of the Holy Spirit for the production of every good work within us: but the things connected with these are infinite; and, for