XX.

RELIGION THE HIGHEST WISDOM, AND SIN THE GREATEST MADNESS AND FOLLY.

"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; a good understanding have all they that do his commandments."-Psalm iii. 10.

WISDOM is a character so honorable and ornamental to a reasonable being, that those who best know the dignity of their own nature, have had no higher ambition than to be esteemed and called lovers of it.

This little world of ours is an improved spot in the creation. How vastly different an appearance does it now make from its original state of pure nature, when it emerged out of chaos, uncultivated by art! What numerous arts and trades have been found out to furnish life with necessaries and comforts! How deeply have some penetrated into the world of knowledge! They have traced the secret workings of nature; they have even brought intelligence from the worlds above us, and discovered the courses and revolutions of the planets.

When we see these discoveries, you would conclude mankind to be a wise race of creatures; and indeed in such things as these they discover no inconsiderable abilities. Almost every man in his province can manage his affairs with some judgment. Some can manage a farm; others are dexterous in mechanics; others have a turn for mercantile affairs; others can unfold the mysteries of nature, and carry their searches far into the ideal worlds; others can conduct an army, or govern a nation. In short, every man forms some scheme which he apprehends will conduce to his temporal advancement; and prosecutes with some degree of judgment.

But is this all the wisdom that becomes a candidate for eternity? Has he a good understanding who only acts with reason in the affairs of this life; but, though he is to exist for ever in another world, and to be perfectly happy or miserable there, yet takes no thought about the concerns

of his immortal state? Is this wisdom? Is this consistent even with common sense? No; with sorrow and solemnity I would speak it, the most of men in this respect are fools and madmen; and it is impossible for the most frantio madmen in Bedlam to act more foolishly about the affairs of religion and eternity. There is such a thing as a partial madness; a person may have, as it were, one weak side to his mind, and it may be sound and rational in other respects. You may meet with some lunatics and madmen that will converse reasonably with you, and you would not suspect their heads are disordered, till you touch upon some particular point, and then you are to expect reason from them no more; they talk the wildest nonsense, and are governed entirely by their imaginations. They are wise for this world; they talk and act at least agreeably to common sense; but hear them talk, and observe their conduct about the concerns of their souls, and you can call them reasonable creatures no longer. They are wise to do evil; but to do good they have no knowledge; there is none that understandeth; there is none that seeketh after God. To bring them to themselves by exposing to them their madness, is my present design. The text shows us the first step to true wisdom, and the test of common sense. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; a good understanding have all they that do his commandments. The fear of the Lord, in Scripture, signifies not only that pious passion of filial reverence of our adorable Father who is in heaven, but it is frequently put for the whole of practical religion; hence it is explained in the last part of the verse, by doing his commandments. The fear of the Lord, in this latitude, implies all the graces and all the virtues of Christianity; in short, all that holiness of heart and life which is necessary to the enjoyment of everlasting happiness. So that the sense of the text is this: "To practice religion and virtue, to take that way which leads to everlasting happiness, is wisdom, true wisdom, the beginning of wisdom, the first step towards it; unless you begin here, you can never attain it; all your wisdom without this, does not deserve the name; it is madness and nonsense. do his commandments is the best test of a good understanding; a good sound understanding have all they that do this, all of them without exception: however weak some of them may be in other things, they are wise in the

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most important respects; but without this, however cunning they are in other things, they have lost their understandings; they contradict common sense; and there can be none without this."

Wisdom consists in two things: choosing a right end, and using right means to obtain it. Now what end so becoming a creature to live for ever, as everlasting happiness? And in what way can it be obtained, but in the way of holiness? Consult the judgment of God in his Word; consult your own conscience, or even common sense, and you will find that this is the case. Therefore he is a man

of sense that pursues this end in this way; but he is a fool, he is brutish, that chooses an inferior end, or that pursues this in another way.

My time will not allow me to do any more than to mention some instances of folly and madness of such as do not make the fear of the Lord the beginning of wisdom.

I. Men will not take the safest side in religion, which their reason and self-love carry them to do in other cases. It is very possible the love of ease and pleasure, and a self-flattering disposition, may prompt your invention to form a plausible system of religion; a religion that admits of great hopes with little evidences, and that allows you many indulgences and lays few restraints upon you; a religion purged, as you imagined, from some of the melancholy and gloomy doctrines of Christianity, and that releases you from those restraints, so painful to a wicked heart, which the holy religion of Jesus lays upon you. It is very possible you may hope you shall obtain eternal happiness without much pains, and without observing the strictness of universal holiness; you may indulge hopes of heaven, though you indulge yourselves willfully in sin; you may flatter yourselves that the punishments of a future state are not intolerably dreadful, nor of everlasting duration; you may excuse and diminish your sins, and make a great many plausible apologies for them. But are you sure of these things? Have you demonstration for them, upon which you may venture your eternal all? Think the matter over seriously again; have you certainty that these things are so? and are you willing to perish for ever if they should be otherwise? What if you should be mistaken? What if you should find God as strict and holy as his Word represents him? What if all his dreadful

threatenings should be sincere and true? What if in a little time you should find that the Scriptures give a more just account of the punishments of hell than your self-flattering heart suggested to you, and that they are indeed intolera ble and strictly eternal? What if you should find, when it is too late to correct the mistake, that those neglected, ridiculed things, regeneration, conversion, holiness of heart and practice, the mortification of sin, and a laborious course of devotion-what if you should find that they are absolutely necessary to everlasting happiness? What if it should appear that the willful indulgence of the least-known sin will eternally ruin you? Stand and pause, and ask yourselves, what if you should find matters thus, quite the reverse to what you flattered yourselves? What will become of you then? You are undone, irreparably undone through eternity. Well, to speak modestly, this may be the case, for what you know; and is it not then the part of a wise man to provide against such dreadful contingency? Will you run so terrible a risk, and yet claim a good understanding? Do you esteem a life of religion so burdensome, that you had better make such a desperate venture than choose it? Do you esteem the pleasures of sin so sweet, so solid, so lasting, that it is your interest to run the risk of intolerable, eternal misery, rather than part with them? He is certainly not in his right mind, that would rather be tormented in hell for ever, than lead a holy life, and labor to escape the wrath to come. fore act in this as you do in other cases of uncertainty, choose the safest side. Believe and regard what God has said; be holy in all manner of conversation; strive with all your might to enter in at the strait gate; accept of Christ as your Lord and Saviour. Do this, and you are safe, let the case be as it will; there are no bad consequences that can possibly follow from this conduct. But if you are resolutely set upon running the risk, and fool-hardy enough to venture your eternal all upon such improbability, not to say impossibilities, you forfeit the character of a reasonable being; you are mad in this respect, however wise you may be in others.

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II. Is it not the greatest folly to believe, or profess to believe, the greatest truths of religion, and yet act quite contrary to such a belief?

How many are there who own God to be the greatest

and the best of beings, and yet neglect him. They own him lovely, and do not love him; their King, and they do not obey him; and their Benefactor, and make no returns of gratitude to him. They confess that heaven is better than earth, and yet they pursue the things of this life, to the neglect of the happiness of heaven. They believe their souls are of more importance than their bodies; and yet they will not take half the care about them that they take about their bodies. They confess that a life of sin and impenitence is very dangerous, and that it will end in everlasting misery; yet, with this confession in their mouths, and this conviction in their consciences, they will, they obstinately will go on impenitently in sin. They believe that all the pleasures of this transitory life are infinitely inferior to the pleasures of religion and the happiness of the heavenly state; they believe these pleasures will ruin them for ever if they continue in them, and yet they will persist in them, though by this they throw away their everlasting happiness, and incur eternal misery! Thus they believe, or profess to believe; and our country is full of such believers; but what absurd, self-contradicting creatures are they! What madness is it to entertain a belief that answers no other end but to condemn their practice, and aggravate their sin! Do they really believe these things, or do they not? if not, what folly is it to profess to believe them? Do they think to impose by an empty profession on Him who searches the hearts and the reins? But if you suppose they believe these things, it is certain they are entirely mad in this affair. What! to neglect God, and holiness, and heaven, when they know they are of infinite importance! to choose the ways of sin, when they believe they will end in ruin! Is this the part of a wise man?

III. Is it not the greatest folly for men to pretend to love God, when their temper and conduct are inconsistent with it, and plainly evidential of the contrary?

If you go round the world with the question, "Do you love God? do you love him above all?" you will hardly meet with any one but what will answer, "Yes, to be sure; I have loved him all my life." Well, but where are the evidences and effects of this love? If you pretend friendship to men, they expect the expressions of it from you on every occasion; otherwise they will see through the