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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 above mentioned, in the 3rd chapter, and 15th, 16th and 17th verses. The words run thus:

"This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish.

"For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work.

"But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy."

"The wisdom from above is, first, pure." This purity of the mind and spirit is peculiar to the gospel. Our Saviour says, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." A mind free from all pollution of lusts shall have a daily vision of God, whereof unrevealed religion can form no notion. This it is that keeps us unspotted from the world; and hereby many have been prevailed upon to live in the practice of all purity, holiness, and righteousness, far beyond the examples of the most celebrated philosophers.

It is "peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated." The Christian doctrine teacheth us all those dispositions that make us affable and courteous, gentle and kind, without any morose leaven of pride or vanity, which entered into the composition of most heathen schemes; so we are taught to be meek and lowly. Our Saviour's last legacy was peace; and he commands us to forgive our offending brother unto seventy times seven. Christian wisdom is full of mercy and good works, teaching the height of all moral virtues, of which the heathens fell infinitely short. Plato, indeed (and it is worth observing), has

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somewhere a dialogue, or part of one, about forgiving our enemies, which was, perhaps, the highest strain ever reached by man without Divine assistance; yet, how little is that to what our Saviour commands us! "To love them that hate us; to bless them that curse us; and to do good to them that despitefully use us.'

Christian wisdom is "without partiality;" it is not calculated for this or that nation of people, but the whole race of mankind; not so the philosophical schemes, which were narrow and confined, adapted to their peculiar towns, governments, or sects; but, "in every nation, he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted with him."

Lastly, It is "without hypocrisy;" it appears to be what it really is; it is all of a piece. By the doctrines of the gospel, we are so far from being allowed to publish to the world those virtues we have not, that we are commanded to hide even from ourselves, those we really have, and not to let our right hand know what our left hand does; unlike several branches of the heathen wisdom, which pretended to teach insensibility and indifference, magnanimity and contempt of life, while, at the same time, in other parts, it belied its own doctrines.

I come now, in the last place, to show that the great examples of wisdom and virtue among the Grecian sages were produced by personal merit, and not influenced by the doctrine of any particular sect; whereas, in Christianity, it is quite the contrary.

The two virtues most celebrated by ancient moralists were fortitude and temperance, as relating to the government of man in his private capacity, to which their schemes were generally addressed and confined; and the two instances wherein those virtues arrived at the greatest height were Socrates and Cato. But neither those, nor any other virtues possessed by these two, were at all owing to any lessons or doctrines of a sect. For Socrates himself was of none at all; and although Cato was called a Stoic, it was more from a resemblance of manners in his worst qualities, than that he avowed himself one of their disciples. The same may be affirmed of many other great men of antiquity. Whence I infer that those who were renowned for virtue among them were more obliged to the good natural dispositions of their own minds than to the doctrines of any sect they pretended

to follow.

On the other side, as the examples of fortitude and patience among the primitive Christians have been infinitely greater and more nu

merous, so they were altogether the product of their principles and doctrine; and were such as the same persons, without those aids, would never have arrived to. Of this truth, most of the Apostles, with many thousand martyrs, are a cloud of witnesses beyond exception. Having, therefore, spoken so largely upon the former heads, I shall dwell no longer upon this.

And if it should here be objected, why does not Christianity still produce the same effects? It is easy to answer:-first, that although the number of pretended Christians be great, yet that of true believers, in proportion to the other, was never so small; and it is a true lively faith alone that, by the assistance of God's grace, can influence our practice.

Secondly. We may answer, that Christianity itself has very much suffered by being blended up with Gentile philosophy. The Platonic system, first taken into religion, was thought to have given matter for some early heresies in the church. When disputes began to arise, the Peripatetic forms were introduced by Scotus, as best fitted for controversy. And, however this may now have become necessary, it was surely the author of a litigious vein, which has since occasioned very pernicious consequences, stopped the progress of Christianity, and been a great promoter of vice; verifying that sentence given by St. James, and mentioned before, "Where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work." This was the fatal stop to the Grecians, in their progress both of arts and arms; their wise men were divided under several sects, and their governments under several commonwealths, all in opposition to each other; which engaged them in eternal quarrels among themselves, while they should have been armed against the common enemy. And I wish we had no other examples from the like causes, less foreign or ancient than that. Diogenes said Socrates was a madman; the disciples of Zeno and Epicurus, nay, of Plato and Aristotle, were engaged in fierce disputes about the most insignificant trifles. And if this be the present language and practice among us Christians, no wonder that Christianity does not still produce the same effects which it did at first, when it was received and embraced in its utmost purity and perfection: for such wisdom as this cannot "descend from above;" but must be " earthly, sensual, devilish, full of confusion and every evil work;" whereas, "the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle and easy to be entreated, full of mercy

and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy." This is the true heavenly wisdom, which Christianity only can boast of, and which the greatest of the heathen wise men could never arrive at.

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240.-THE HEIR OF LINNE.

THE ballad of The Heir of Linne' has in its numbers the sound of the "north countree," and is perhaps of Scottish descent, though found in Percy's Southern Ballad-Book.' The hero belongs, however, by all theories, to the other side of the Tweed: he is called, too, a lord of Scotland in the rhyme; not as a lord of parliament, but a laird whose title went with his estate. The old thrifty Laird of Linne died, and left his all to an unthrifty son who loved wine and mirth :

To spend the day with merry cheer,

To drink and revel every night;

To card and dice from eve till morn,
It was, I ween, his heart's delight.

To ride, to run, to rant, to roar,

To always spend and never spare;
I wot, an' it were the king himself,
Of gold and fee he mot be bare.

gone,

And bare he soon became: when all his gold was spent and he bethought him of his father's steward, John of the Scales, now a wealthy man, and to him he went for help: he was received with courtesy :

Now welcome, welcome, Lord of Linne,
Let nought disturb thy merry cheer;
If thou wilt sell thy lands so broad,
Good store of gold I'll give thee here.

My gold is gone, my money is spent,
My land now take it unto thee;
Give me the gold, good John o' the Scales,
And thine for aye my land shall be.

John o' the Scales drew out the agreement as tight as a glove, gave earnest-money that all might be according to custom as well as law, and then reckoned up the purchase-money, which would not have bought more than a third of the land in an honest and open market:He told him the gold upon the board,

He was right glad his land to win;
The gold is thine, the land is mine,

And now I'll be the Lord of Linne.

Thus hath he sold his land so broad,
Both hill and holt, and moor and fen,
All but a poor and lonesome lodge,
That stood far in a lonely glen.

This lonesome lodge was preserved in obedience to a vow made to his father, who told him on his death-bed that when he had spent all his money and all his land, and all the world frowned on him for a spendthrift, he would find in that lonely dwelling-place a sure and faithful friend. Who this friend in need was, the young Lord of Linne never inquired when he made the reservation; but, taking up the gold of John of the Scales, and calling on his companions, drank, and diced, and spared not:

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They routed, drank, and merry made,

Till all his gold it waxed thin;
And then his friends they slunk away,

And left the unthrifty Heir of Linne.
He had never a penny left in his purse,
Never a penny left but three;
And one was brass, another was lead,

And the third it was of white monie.

Well," but said the Heir of Linne, "I have many friends, trusty ones, who ate of the fat and drank of the strong at my table; so let me go and borrow a little from each, in turns, that my pockets may never be empty : "

But one I wis was not at home,

Another had paid his gold away;
Another call'd him a thriftless loon,

And sharply bade him wend his way.

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