an affinity, but ought not to be confounded with it. There may be a large compass of knowledge acquired, the fruit of extensive observation and reading, accompanied with a quick perception and a capacious memory, where there is very little wisdom. A wretched misconduct may appear at the same [time] a series of imprudences, thoughtless prodigality, or intemperance, sufficient to invalidate the least pretension to wisdom. They are far more knowing than wise men. Talents of the highest order, and such as are calculated to command universal admiration, may exist apart from wisdom. Though wisdom necessarily presupposes knowledge, and it is impossible to exercise it in things of which we are ignorant, yet it ought to be something more practical, or rather more comprehensive: it ever bears a relation to the end; and, in proportion as it is perfect, to the highest and last end the agent can be supposed to have in view. It first judges of the end fittest to be pursued, and next determines what are the most fitting and suitable means of accomplishing it.

Every other quality besides is subordinate and inferior to wisdom, in the same sense as the mason who lays the bricks and stones in a building is inferior to the architect who drew the plan and superintends the work. The former executes only what the latter contrives and directs. Now, it is the prerogative of wisdom to preside over every inferior principle, to regulate the exercise of every power, and limit the indulgence of every appetite, as shall best conduce to one great end. It being the province of wisdom to preside, it sits as umpire on every difficulty, and so gives the final direction and control to all the powers of our nature. Hence it is entitled to be considered as the top and summit of perfection. It belongs to wisdom to determine when to act and when to cease; when to reveal, and when to conceal a matter; when to speak, and when to keep silence; when to give, and when to receive; in short, to regulate the measure of all things, as well as to determine the end, and provide the means of obtaining the end, pursued in every deliberate course of action.

Every particular faculty or skill besides needs to derive direction from this; they are all quite incapable of directing themselves. The art of navigation, for instance, will teach us to steer a ship across the ocean, but it will never teach us on what occasions it is proper to take a voyage. The art of war will instruct us how to marshal an army, or to fight a battle, to the greatest advantage; but you must learn from a higher school when it is fitting, just, and proper to wage war or to make peace. The art of the husbandman is to sow and bring to maturity the precious fruits of the earth; it belongs to another skill to regulate their consumption by a regard to our health, fortune, and other circumstances.

In short, there is no faculty we can exert, no species of skill we can apply, but requires a superintending hand; but looks up, as it were, to some higher principle, as a maid to her mistress, for direction: and this universal superintendent is wisdom.*

*The admirers of Cowper will, on reading the above, be naturally reminded of his graphic contrast of Knowledge and Wisdom, in the sixth book of the Task:

To carry our ideas of it as high as possible, the wise man traces it up to its fountain, and contemplates it as it subsists in the breast of Deity. "The Lord by wisdom hath founded the earth; by understanding hath he established the heavens. By his knowledge the depths are broken up, and the clouds drop down the dew."*

But though we have taken occasion to speak thus far of wisdom in general, it is doubtful whether we are to take the word in that extension in the passage before us. If we turn to the context, we shall find St. James describing the happy fruits which result from a right temper under affliction and persecution. This epistle, as well as the two epistles of Peter, are supposed to have been addressed to the Jews under circumstances of persecution. St. James had exhorted Christians to count it all joy when they fall into divers temptations; knowing this, that the trying of their faith worketh patience. "But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing." He then adds, "If any of you lack wisdom" (that is, the wisdom necessary to suffer right, the wisdom included in a right and becoming temper under persecutions and trials), "let him ask of God." In this view, the wisdom here mentioned may be considered as including two things.

I. A knowledge of duty.

A clear and just conception of what was duty was not always easily attained. A season of persecution for righteousness' sake would naturally be productive, in many cases, of great difficulty in determining how to act.

"When they persecute you in one city," said our Lord, "flee ye to another." But what is the degree of danger, what the [serious advance] of the approaching storm, that will exempt flight from the charge of pusillanimity? What the just limits between a temporizing policy and imprudent rashness? There is, doubtless, a just limit between wantonly exposing ourselves to danger, and a cowardly shrinking from it; between that selfish timidity which will sacrifice truth to safety, and that undistinguishing fearlessness which will prompt us "to cast pearls before swine," though it be morally certain "they will turn again and rend us."

A nice discernment of the true path of duty on such occasions can only be acquired by divine teaching.

II. The wisdom necessary in such circumstances includes especially a right temper of mind towards God and our fellow-creatures. 1. Towards God. This temper very much consists in an humble acquiescence in his dispensations, in a readiness to suffer under his

"Knowledge and Wisdom, far from being one,
Have ofttimes no connexion. Knowledge dwells
In heads replete with thoughts of other men;
Wisdom in minds attentive to their own.
Knowledge, a rude unprofitable mass,
The mere materials with which Wisdom builds,
Till smooth'd, and squar'd, and fitted to its place,
Does but encumber whom it seems to enrich.
Knowledge is proud that he has learn'd so much;
Wisdom is humble that he knows no more."-ED.

* Prov. iii. 19, 20.

hand, and in his cause. It is one thing to suffer under the hand of God inevitable calamities, and another to suffer with a cheerful resignation, with a full and unreserved acquiescence in the Divine disposals, mixing adoring thoughts of the wisdom of his proceedings and the equity of his dispensations, saying, from the heart, with our blessed Lord, "Not my will, but thine be done;""Father, glorify thy name.” In this, and in every other instance, the conduct of our Lord furnishes us with a perfect example of that wisdom it is our duty to implore of God. The wisdom that bows the mind to submission "stays it upon God," and fills it with meekness and compassion, while we "commit ourselves to him as the faithful Creator," is of no ordinary kind—can be procured only from one quarter.

2. This includes a proper temper towards our fellow-creatures: and particularly towards the authors of our sufferings. Nature, left to itself, is apt to break out into resentment, to feel exasperated; and the more in proportion as the treatment we meet with is unquestionably unreasonable and unjust.

The first suggestion of nature in such circumstances is, "to render evil for evil," to wish to be revenged, and to retaliate the usage we have sustained. Very different is the wisdom that is from above: which teaches "if our enemy be hungry, to feed him; if thirsty, to give him drink; and thus to heap coals of fire upon his head: that, instead of being "overcome of evil, we may overcome evil with good."* To look upon men, however injurious, as instruments in the hand of a just and holy God, and to overlook the former in an attention to the latter, is a high attainment of spiritual wisdom; like David, who, when he was cursed and insulted by Shimei, said, "Let him alone, for the Lord hath bidden him; it may be that the Lord may requite me good for his cursing this day."t

While we feel the effects of their malice, to forgive it freely and sincerely, and to pray with sincerity that it may not be laid to their charge, not to permit the conduct of the enemy to induce a forgetfulness of what belongs to him as a creature of God, and a partaker of the same nature, is a piece of wisdom that is truly godlike. While we are assisted by divine grace to bear persecutions and afflictions in a right spirit, the gracious purpose of God in permitting them advances towards its completion; the process goes on without disturbance; the sanctifying tendency of it continues unchecked; patience has its perfect work; in order to our being "perfect and entire, lacking nothing." Repining and impatience tend eminently to frustrate the [merciful] intentions of Providence in our affliction; while the composure of a well-regulated mind-of a mind stayed upon God, gives them an opportunity of working their full effect. And on this account a suitable temper in a season of persecution and trial may justly be denominated an important branch of wisdom. Though the apostle had, in enjoining the duty before us, an especial view to the case of persecution, yet this is by no means the only case to which the advice is applicable. The occasions in which we lack wisdom are very numerous: in each of them it will behoove us to ask it of God.

We are continually liable to difficulties and sorrows, from which nothing but a superior skill to our own can extricate us: "The way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps."* Are we at a loss in present circumstances to descry the path of duty and safety, when our way appears to be hedged in on every side; is darkness set in our paths, and we know not how to proceed?" Let us ask wisdom of God." Do we feel ourselves habitually overpowered by the force of temptation; do we feel evil present with us, or are we in danger of being carried [along] by the [violence] of our sensual appetites, against which we have hitherto struggled in vain?-[Let us ask wisdom of God.]

Enforce the exhortation of seeking it of God in the following considerations:

I. As it is of indispensable necessity, so it is in vain to seek it elsewhere.

II. It resides in him in its utmost perfection.

III. He is willing to communicate: "For the Lord giveth wisdom: out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding. He layeth up sound wisdom for the righteous."† "Giveth liberally," indus, with

a liberal mind, bountifully.

The caution," nothing doubting."

XXV.

ON ENGAGEDNESS OF HEART IN APPROACHING
UNTO GOD.

JEREMIAH XXX. 21.-For who is this that engaged his heart to approach unto me? saith the Lord.

In this chapter is contained an illustrious prophecy of the restoration of the ancient Israelites to their own land: first, from their captivity in Babylon, whither a part of the nation were already, and the remainder were shortly to be removed; next, from their long captivity and dis persion through all the countries of the earth, which has now subsisted for near eighteen hundred years. As a standing record of the faithfulness of God to his promises, as well as his infallible foreknowledge of all events, the prophet is commanded to commit to writing all the words which God had spoken to him during the whole time he had exercised the prophetic office.

Those who had presumed to speak in the name of the Lord, without being commissioned, had flattered the people with the assurances that the residue of the people should not be carried into Babylon, and that the part of the nation which were already sent thither should speedily be restored to their native country. In opposition to these false sug

gestions, Jeremiah was commanded to send a message to the captives in Babylon, saying, "Build ye houses in Babylon, and dwell in them; and plant gardens, and eat the fruit of them; take ye wives, and beget sons and daughters; and take wives for your sons."* In that message he delivered the famous prediction respecting the precise time of the duration of their captivity, which he limits to seventy years, and the study of which enabled Daniel to perceive its approaching termination. "In the first year of his reign (i. e. of Darius), I Daniel understood by books the number of the years whereof the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet, that he would accomplish seventy years in the destruction of Jerusalem."†

As a part of the distinguishing favours which God said he had in reserve for the people, he promises that at their restoration the oppression of a foreign yoke should be broken, and they should be again ruled by princes of their own race, agreeable to the language of Isaiah respecting the same event; when the people shall first be purified and reformed by divine chastisement, and afterward reinstated in a happy and prosperous condition. “And I will turn my hand upon thee, and purely purge away thy dross, and take away all thy tin: and I will restore thy judges as at the first, and thy counsellors as at the beginning afterward thou shalt be called the city of righteousness, the faithful city. Zion shall be redeemed with judgment, and her converts with righteousness." It is not only foretold that a native governor should be set over the house of Israel, but that he should be distinguished for his piety. "The Lord will cause him to draw nigh unto him." The words of the text may be considered in three points of view. I. As descriptive of the character of Zerubbabel, they were accomplished in the restoration of the Jews, after the seventy years' captivity, when a governor was appointed over them named Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, the great grandson of Jehoiachim. He was a person eminently devoted to God, who exerted himself with much zeal in rebuilding the altar and the temple, and establishing the worship of God. Under his auspices the services of the sanctuary were renewed, after a cessation of seventy years. The feast of tabernacles was established in the seventh month. Masons and builders were hired from Sidon to assist in erecting the temple, the foundation of which was laid amid confused expressions of joy and lamentation: joy on the part of the young men at witnessing the house of God rising up from its ruins; and lamentation on the part of the old, who had beheld the superior glory of the former.

When the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin, envying their prosperity, hired counsellors against them, and procured an order from the King of Persia to put a stop to the work, it was of necessity suspended for a while; but he lost no time in resuming it at the first opportunity, till it was completed in the sixth year of Darius Hystaspes. A feast of dedication was kept on this joyful occasion, and afterward the feast of the passover was celebrated on the fourteenth of the first month,

*Jer. xxix. 5, 6. † Dan. ix. 2.

+ Isa. i. 25-27.

See Ezra iii. 11-13.