Three Sermons and Prayers | Page 9

hear them defended? Is this to
deal like a judge (I mean like a good judge), to listen on one side of the
cause and sleep on the other? I shall add but one word more. That this
indecent sloth is very much owing to that luxury and excess men
usually practise upon this day, by which half the service thereof is
turned to sin; men dividing their time between God and their bellies,
when, after a gluttonous meal, their senses dozed and stupefied, they
retire to God's house to sleep out the afternoon. Surely, brethren, these

things ought not so to be.
"He that hath ears to hear let him hear." And God give us all, grace to
hear and receive His Holy Word to the salvation of our own souls.

ON THE WISDOM OF THIS WORLD

"The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God."--I Cor. iii. 19.
It is remarkable that about the time of our Saviour's coming into the
world all kinds of learning flourished to a very great degree, insomuch
that nothing is more frequent in the mouths of many men, even such
who pretend to read and to know, than an extravagant praise and
opinion of the wisdom and virtue of the Gentile sages of those days,
and likewise of those ancient philosophers who went before them,
whose doctrines are left upon record, either by themselves or other
writers. As far as this may be taken for granted, it may be said that the
providence of God brought this about for several very wise ends and
purposes; for it is certain that these philosophers had been a long time
before searching out where to fix the true happiness of man; and not
being able to agree upon any certainty about it, they could not possibly
but conclude, if they judged impartially, that all their inquiries were in
the end but vain and fruitless, the consequence of which must be not
only an acknowledgment of the weakness of all human wisdom, but
likewise an open passage hereby made for letting in those beams of
light which the glorious sunshine of the Gospel then brought into the
world, by revealing those hidden truths which they had so long before
been labouring to discover, and fixing the general happiness of
mankind beyond all controversy and dispute. And therefore the
providence of God wisely suffered men of deep genius and learning
then to arise, who should search into the truth of the Gospel now made
known, and canvass its doctrines with all the subtilty and knowledge
they were masters of, and in the end freely acknowledge that to be the
true wisdom only "which cometh from above."

However, to make a further inquiry into the truth of this observation, I
doubt not but there is reason to think that a great many of those
encomiums given to ancient philosophers are taken upon trust, and by a
sort of men who are not very likely to be at the pains of an inquiry that
would employ so much time and thinking. For the usual ends why men
affect this kind of discourse appear generally to be either out of
ostentation, that they may pass upon the world for persons of great
knowledge and observation, or, what is worse, there are some who
highly exalt the wisdom of those Gentile sages, thereby obliquely to
glance at and traduce Divine revelation, and more especially that of the
Gospel; for the consequence they would have us draw is this: that since
those ancient philosophers rose to a greater pitch of wisdom and virtue
than was ever known among Christians, and all this purely upon the
strength of their own reason and liberty of thinking; therefore it must
follow that either all revelation is false, or, what is worse, that it has
depraved the nature of man, and left him worse than it found him.
But this high opinion of heathen wisdom is not very ancient in the
world, nor at all countenanced from primitive times. Our Saviour had
but a low esteem of it, as appears by His treatment of the Pharisees and
Sadducees, who followed the doctrines of Plato and Epicurus. St. Paul
likewise, who was well versed in all the Grecian literature, seems very
much to despise their philosophy, as we find in his writings, cautioning
the Colossians to "beware lest any man spoil them through philosophy
and vain deceit;" and in another place he advises Timothy to "avoid
profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so
called;" that is, not to introduce into the Christian doctrine the janglings
of those vain philosophers, which they would pass upon the world for
science. And the reasons he gives are, first, that those who professed
them did err concerning the