and limited understandings cannot accountSERM. for, nor make any certain judgment concerning the design and the event of them. For he adds, * He is in one mind, and who can turn him? And what his foul defireth, that he doth, for be performeth the thing that is appointed for me, and many fuch things are with him. He VII. governs the world with steddy counfel, and The dom, and to depart from evil is understanding. SER * Job xxii. 13, 14. † Chap. xxiii. SERMON VIII. Religion diftinguished from Superstition, and shewn to be true Wisdom. SERM. Job xxviii. 28. And unto Man be faid, Behold the fear of the W A ISDOM is naturally agreeable to the human mind; and indeed cannot but be agreeable to an intelligent nature, because it is the best use of understanding, and the proper improvement of reason. What is it that makes confufion and diforder so distasteful, as in an irregular jumble of things and heaps of materials cafually thrown together? And on the contrary, regularity in any work or system, and exact proportion and relation in the parts, and harmony in the whole, appear so beautiful? Certainly, it is because counsel and contrivance, that is, wifdom, is is apprehended in the latter, and the want of SERM. it in the other. But applying this to ourselves, VIII. and to the direction of our own affairs, we shall be yet more sensible how much wisdom is neceffarily in our esteem, and of how great importance to our happiness. For, as we are inwardly conscious of an intelligent principle, our fatisfaction in the part we act, always depends upon our knowing that we are governed by it. Events which have no dependence on our own choice or intention may affect us very sensibly, whether they be supposed to come by chance, or neceffity, or by the will of another agent;-They may, I say, affect us, but in a manner very different from our own actions with the foreseen necessary consequences of them, which are directly the objects of the mind's approbation or disapprobation, and give us pleasure upon the review of them, only fo far as we appear to our selves to have acted wisely. Nay so true are mankind universally to this rule of conduct, however they may be mistaken in the application of it, that in all their divided opinions and pursuits, most directly contradictory to each other, every one flatters himself, that he has reason on his fide. The religious man, the philosopher, the politician, the economist, and even the fordid miser, and the SERM. the luxurious, such, at least, of these several VIII. fects as are the most fixed in their opposite courses, and thoroughly governed by their denominating principle, (and in them the cafe is fairly stated,) imagine that their choice is, all circumstances confidered, the best, and their behaviour the wisest. The men of pleasure and gayety who seem professedly to despise wisdom, (it is only what they fancy to be the outward appearances and affectation of it that is the object of their ridicule,) they think that good sense and reason is with them, which is but another name for wisdom, that the end of their perfecutions is something real, a sensible pleasure, (and there is no arguing against experience) and that the superior enjoyments which others talk of are but visionary. The more grave and sober man, who is wholly devoted to his worldly interest, which he decently and skilfully pursues, imagines he knows the world well, (which he reckons a point of great wisdom,) and the designs he carries on are well concerted, folid and fubstantial, leaving spiritual and intellectual pleafures, fo called, which he despises in his heart to the religionists and virtuosi, as well as the madness of licentious and expenfive mirth to the prodigal. I observe this only to shew that there must be some appearance of wifdom dom in our conduct to justify it to ourselves; SERM. and that we necessarily have such a regard to VIII. reason, that we cannot knowingly and deliberately act against its dictates with any contentment in our own minds. So that lusts and paffions, let them be ever so strong, in order to their having a settled dominion in the heart, must filence understanding, or rather bring it over to their fide. For fuppofing a man's choice, and the course he follows, to be never fo foolish in itself, and in the judgment of others, he cannot be easy in it without, at least, a conceit of wisdom to countenance it, which is apparent in the cafe of the fluggard, (one of the lowest and most contemptible of all characters,) who, as Solomon observes, * is wifer in his own conceit than seven men that can render a reason. Since it is so, this is one principal point which all our deliberations ought to aim at: and the question, by the decifion whereof, we should be determined in our designs and courses of action is, whether they be wife or not, that is, becoming rational agents in our circumstances? And then it evidently follows, that we ought to examine; there being no other way by which we can come to a rational judgment. Let it not be objected that examination is difficult, and we are in danger of mistaking. Difficulty should never be objected Prov. xxvi. 16. |