“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 faith; secondly, because the knowledge of them did
increase ungodliness, vain babblings being otherwise expounded vanities
or empty sounds; that is, tedious disputes about words, which the
philosophers were always so full of, and which were the natural product
of disputes and dissensions between several sects.
Neither had the primitive fathers any great or good opinion of the
heathen philosophy, as is manifest from several passages in their
writings; so that this vein of affecting to raise the reputation of those
sages so high Is a mode and a vice but of yesterday, assumed chiefly, as
I have said, to disparage revealed knowledge and the consequences of it
among us.
Now, because this is a prejudice which may prevail with some persons so
far as to lessen the influence of the Gospel, and whereas, therefore,
this is an opinion which men of education are likely to be encountered
with when they have produced themselves into the world, I shall endeavour
to show that their preference of heathen wisdom and virtue before that of
the Christian is every way unjust, and grounded upon ignorance or
mistake; in order to which I shall consider four things:—
_First_, I shall produce certain points wherein the wisdom and virtue
of all unrevealed philosophy in general fell short and was very
imperfect.
_Secondly_, I shall show, in several instances, where some of the most
renowned philosophers have been grossly defective in their lessons of
morality.
_Thirdly_, I shall prove the perfection of Christian wisdom from the
proper characters and marks of it.
_Lastly_, I shall show that the great examples of wisdom and virtue
among the heathen wise men were produced by personal merit, and not
influenced by the doctrine of any sect; whereas, in Christianity, it is
quite the contrary.
_First_, I shall produce certain points wherein the wisdom and virtue of
all unrevealed philosophy in general fell short and was very imperfect.
My design is to persuade men that Christian philosophy is in all things
preferable to heathen wisdom; from which, or its professors, I shall,
however, have no occasion to detract. They were as wise and as good as
it was possible for them to be under such disadvantages, and would have
probably been infinitely more so with such aids as we enjoy; but our
lessons are certainly much better, however our practices may fall short.
The first point I shall mention is that universal defect which was in all
their schemes, that they could not agree about their chief good, or
wherein to place the happiness of mankind; nor had any of them a
tolerable answer upon this difficulty to satisfy a reasonable person.
For to say, as the most plausible of them did, “That happiness consisted
in virtue,” was but vain babbling, and a mere sound of words to amuse
others and themselves; because they were not agreed what this virtue was
or wherein it did consist; and likewise, because several among the best
of them taught quite different things, placing happiness in health or
good fortune, in riches or in honour, where all were agreed that virtue
was not, as I shall have occasion to show when I speak of their
particular tenets.
The second great defect in the Gentile philosophy was that it wanted some
suitable reward proportioned to the better part of man—his mind, as an
encouragement for his progress in virtue. The difficulties they met with
upon the score of this default were great, and not to be accounted for;
bodily goods, being only suitable to bodily wants, are no rest at all for
the mind; and if they were, yet are they not the proper fruits of wisdom
and virtue, being equally attainable by the ignorant and wicked. Now
human nature is so constituted that we can never pursue anything heartily
but upon hopes of a reward. If we run a race, it is in expectation of a
prize; and the greater the prize the faster we run; for an incorruptible
crown, if we understand it and believe it to be such, more than a
corruptible one. But some of the philosophers gave all this quite
another turn, and pretended to refine so far as to call virtue its own
reward, and worthy to be followed only for itself; whereas, if there be
anything in this more than the sound of the words, it is at least too
abstracted to become a universal influencing principle in the world, and
therefore could not be of general use.
It was the want of assigning some happiness proportioned to the soul of
man that caused many of them, either on the one hand, to be sour and
morose, supercilious and untreatable, or, on the other, to fall into the
vulgar pursuits of common men, to hunt after greatness and riches, to
make their court and to serve occasions, as Plato did to the younger
Dionysius, and Aristotle to Alexander the Great. So impossible it is for
a man who looks no further than the present world to fix himself long in
a contemplation where the present world has no part; he has no sure hold,
no firm footing; he can never expect to remove the earth he rests upon
while he has no support besides for his feet, but wants, like Archimedes,
some other place whereon to stand. To talk of bearing pain and grief
without any sort of present or future hope cannot be purely greatness of
spirit; there must be a mixture in it of affectation and an alloy of
pride, or perhaps is wholly counterfeit.
It is true there has been all along in the world a notion of rewards and
punishments in another life, but it seems to have rather served as an
entertainment to poets or as a terror of children than a settled
principle by which men pretended to govern any of their actions. The
last celebrated words of Socrates, a little before his death, do not seem
to reckon or build much upon any such opinion; and Cæsar made no scruple
to disown it and ridicule it in open senate.
Thirdly, the greatest and wisest of all their philosophers were never
able to give any satisfaction to others and themselves in their notions
of a deity. They were often extremely gross and absurd in their
conceptions, and those who made the fairest conjectures are such as were
generally allowed by the learned to have seen the system of Moses, if I
may so call it, who was in great reputation at that time in the heathen
world, as we find by Diodorus, Justin, Longinus, and other authors; for
the rest, the wisest among them laid aside all notions after a deity as a
disquisition vain and fruitless, which indeed it was upon unrevealed
principles; and those who ventured to engage too far fell into
incoherence and confusion.
Fourthly, Those among them who had the justest conceptions of a Divine
power, and did also admit a providence, had no notion at all of entirely
relying and depending upon either; they trusted in themselves for all
things, but as for a trust or dependence upon God, they would not have
understood the phrase; it made no part of the profane style.
Therefore it was that, in all issues and events which they could not
reconcile to their own sentiments of reason and justice, they were quite
disconcerted; they had no retreat, but upon every blow of adverse
fortune, either affected to be indifferent, or grew sullen and severe, or
else yielded and sunk like other men.
* * * * *
Having now produced certain points wherein the wisdom and virtue of all
unrevealed philosophy fell short and was very imperfect, I go on, in the
second place, to show, in several instances, where some of the most
renowned philosophers have been grossly defective in their lessons of
morality.
Thales, the founder of the Ionic sect, so celebrated for morality, being
asked how a man might bear ill-fortune with greatest ease, answered, “By
seeing his enemies in a worse condition.” An answer truly barbarous,
unworthy of human nature, and which included such consequences as must
destroy all society from the world.
Solon lamenting the death of a son, one told him, “You lament in vain.”
“Therefore,” said he, “I lament, because it is in vain.” This was a
plain confession how imperfect all his philosophy was, and that something
was still wanting. He owned that all his wisdom and morals were useless,
and this upon one of the most frequent accidents in life. How much
better could he have learned to support himself even from David, by his
entire dependence upon God, and that before our Saviour had advanced the
notions of religion to the height and perfection wherewith He hath
instructed His disciples!
Plato himself, with all his refinements, placed happiness in wisdom,
health, good fortune, honour, and riches, and held that they who enjoyed
all these were perfectly happy; which opinion was indeed unworthy its
owner, leaving the wise and good man wholly at the mercy of uncertain
chance, and to be miserable without resource.
His scholar Aristotle fell more grossly into the same notion, and plainly
affirmed, “That virtue, without the goods of fortune, was not sufficient
for happiness, but that a wise man must be miserable in poverty and
sickness.” Nay, Diogenes himself, from whose pride and singularity one
would have looked for other notions, delivered it as his opinion, “That a
poor old man was the most miserable thing in life.”
Zeno also and his followers fell into many absurdities, among which
nothing could be greater than that of maintaining all crimes to be equal;
which, instead of making vice hateful, rendered it as a thing indifferent
and familiar to all men.
Lastly, Epicurus had no notion of justice but as it was profitable; and
his placing happiness in pleasure, with all the advantages he could
expound it by, was liable to very great exception; for although he taught
that pleasure did consist in virtue, yet he did not any way fix or
ascertain the boundaries of virtue, as he ought to have done; by which
means he misled his followers into the greatest vices, making their names
to become odious and scandalous even in the heathen world.
I have produced these few instances from a great many others to show the
imperfection of heathen philosophy, wherein I have confined myself wholly
to their morality. And surely we may pronounce upon it, in the words of
St. James, that “This wisdom descended not from above, but was earthly
and sensual.” What if I had produced their absurd notions about God and
the soul? It would then have completed the character given it by that
Apostle, and appeared to have been devilish too. But it is easy to
observe from the nature of these few particulars that their defects in
morals were purely the flagging and fainting of the mind for want of a
support by revelation from God.
* * * * *
I proceed, therefore, in the _third_ place, to show the perfection of
Christian wisdom from above; and I shall endeavour to make it appear from
those proper characters and marks of it by the Apostle before mentioned,
in the third chapter, and 15th, 16th, and 17th verses.