If God be indeed a part of the universe, or as the heathen said, the "Anima Mundi," then indeed, "by searching we might find out God." But if it be true, as the Scriptures teach, that even those glorious spirits, who compass his throne rejoicing, can only know him as he is pleased to reveal himself; how much less can man, a guilty and polluted creature, know him, without such a revelation? "No man knoweth the FATHER but the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him." And, blessed be GoD, "all" may thus "know him, from the least to the greatest," as a pardoning GOD, as being "merciful to their unrighteousness, and remembering their sins no more."

To bring the Corinthians to that poverty of spirit, that consciousness of their true character before God, without which the "unsearchable riches of CHRIST would have been preached in vain, seems to have been the Apostle's design in writing this epistle, and especially the first four chapters, in which he beats down all glorying in the flesh. He had thus a call to demonstrate that "the weapons of his warfare were not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds,-destroying reasonings, and every high thing which exalteth itself against the knowledge of GoD, and bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of CHRIST.”

In the text, FIRST, A great FACT is brought before us, on the authority of the HOLY GHOST,- THE WORLD BY WISDOM KNEW NOT GOD:" SECONDLY, We learn, that the WISDOM OF GOD was concerned in the demonstration of this Fact: THIRDLY, It is affirmed, that "it pleased GOD" to give men the knowledge of himself, " BY THE FOOLISHNESS OF PREACHING," and thus to " SAVE THOSE WHO believe."

In

I. "THE WORLD BY WISDOM KNEW NOT GOD." Those who consider the state of the heathen world in the present day, are easily convinced, that the knowledge of GoD is not manifest in it. We have abundant information on this point. Qur Missionary exertions have fully demonstrated the real condition of the natural man. the East and West Indies, in Africa, and in the Islands of the South Sea, how disgusting, how deplorable is the picture of man ;-disgusting even to those who know that they themselves also are sinners, and that there is no essential difference. Here, at least, the advocates for the dignity of man will abate their praise. They will allow what the Ministers of God have in every age declared, (and none more strongly than our own Church, as her Articles, Homilies, and Liturgy, abundantly testify,) that "man is far gone from original righteousness," and is, in truth, a motley compound of beast and devil. "Their hands are" evidently "swift to shed blood:" and "destruction and misery are in their ways." And where is the beast that is not superior to these "lords of the fowl and the brute?" The Holy Scriptures illustrate the headlong rage of man by that of "a bear robbed of her whelps." But who can despise the wrath of that brute-mother? No! we reverence it. In

the scale of being, how greatly superior is that creature, when compared with the human monster, who is so devoid of even natural affection as to sacrifice her own tender offspring ;-who can devote them to the idol-river, or behold them ground in the teeth of the comparatively innocent monsters who inhabit it!

"True;" say some hardy supporters of the dignity of man; "we allow that uneducated, uncivilized, unphilosophical man is thus depraved; and that over him the passions and appetites bear rule. But give him our advantages; give him science and the arts; ennoble him by philosophy; and then you shall see a new creature :you shall soon see how little he needs your 'foolishness of preaching. We might lament, this day, if this question had never been tried. How should we then stop the mouths of such fond reasoners ? Our Apostle says, "Every mouth must be stopped, and all the world become guilty before GOD;" and surely they will, if the word of God have any power over them. But this, which is mighty with those who believe, has no power with those who are "wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own conceit." We therefore, turn to those records which are their boast,-which they think it is learning to know. Let us turn to those nations that had all those advantages of which they speak. Look at the imposing wisdom of Egypt, Greece, and Rome. Here a splendid scene opens to our view. Come hither, ye sons of science,-ye masters of arts, in all generations! You are dazzled at the scene; and perhaps would choose rather to be thought ignorant of the truths which concern eternity; than to be considered as unskilled in these vast monuments of pagan erudition. Such is the ambition of a fallen spirit! FRANKLIN would have been indignant, if ignorance of any branch of science had been imputed to him. But he was not ashamed to say, even in advanced age, that "he had never read the Bible with any attention!"

But will all the knowledge of the present day bear a comparison with that of those mighty empires, concerning which it is not easy to say, if they most excelled in arms or in arts? Of ancient Egypt we know but little. Its people set themselves in array against JEHOVAH at an early period, and were "broken in pieces like a potter's vessel." But the knowledge of their wise men must have been very great. The monuments of their wisdom which have descended to us, strike us with wonder and amazement; and the HOLY GHOST has not a little eulogized them by saying, that "MOSES was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians." But did these men know God? Was He within the grasp of their mighty understandings? Behold the men who could soar to the stars, and with their minds travel round the universe, prostrate before "an ox that eateth hay!" See them adoring reptiles, and even the vegetables that grew in their gardens! Did these men, who had the knowledge of all visible things, attain to the knowledge of the INVISIBLE? No! their creaturely ladder failed them. "The world by wisdom knew not God."

Let us look at ancient GREECE. Of the exalted people who inhabited it, we still see the mighty shadow. Our youth, who are to guide the councils of the nation, or to teach their fellow-sinners the way to be saved from their sins, become early conversant with those remains that speak their greatness. Greek Literature! what a celebrity it confers on those who are skilled in it! Their Lyceum, their Porch, their Academy,-the university for ages of the civilized world,-strike us still with wonder! Their great men have been called the gods of our modern infidels. But why do not these worshippers learn the THEOLOGY of their admired masters? Why do they not, after their example, fall down before wood and stone, the work of men's hands? No! they are too wise for that. But where have they learned their deistical wisdom? From the Bible. Were it not for that book, we might have seen VOLTAIRE, BOLINGBROKE, HUME, and GIBBON, with their infatuated pupils, prostrate before the stock of a tree; or carrying their god in their pocket, like a Hindoo; or, like our ancestors, worshipping THOR, FREA, and WODEN. And do they pretend that they found their superior knowledge in the book of nature? No more than Greeks or Egyptians did. They stole it from God's book; and then, like determined felons, they would add murder to robbery, in the hope that their theft might not be detected. The sublime doctrine of ONE ETERNAL GOD, is part, and a main part too, of that "foolishness of preaching" which they affect to despise.

Shall we next look at the splendid ROMAN scene?—That mighty power which the LORD raised up, and by which the former empires were subdued; the Fourth Beast, in the visionary scene, which devoured and broke in pieces the whole earth. How we seem to sink before them! Their greatness is our romance! Behold their Legislators, their Philosophers, their Poets;-and how true is it, that "half our learning is their epitaph!" Behold their Warriors, and they appear the lords of mankind! They realized the Assyrian's boast, "I have removed the bounds of the people, and have robbed their treasures, and have put down the inhabitants like a valiant man." (Isai. x.) And their greatness was not as the greatness of some, who have had a name to live. Their might was not derived from their standing on the shoulders of the multitude. No;-the high, unconquerable mind,—the courage never to submit or yield,— who can deny this to that great people? And did not the arts, and all science, flourish under their shadow? Yes; all but the science of GOD,-the science of Eternity! Here the deep lesson goes on. The greatest men in the world were the deepest sunk in idolatry, and in the most depraving superstition! It was, indeed, seen in them that "the gods of the heathen were devils." See them in the senate or the field, and it might be said, "Ye are gods!" See them in their temples, or wherever their worship was performed, and all was "earthly, sensual, and devilish." And could there be true

morals, real virtue, where God was thus unknown? The reply of a wicked man stopped the mouth of the Censor,-"What!" said he, "do you expect that I should be better than the immortal gods ?” Look at their Pantheon, where the gods of the whole empire were worshipped. Thirty thousand deities there usurped the throne of JEHOVAH; and sanctioned vice, and the most unnatural crimes, by their history and supposed example!

But whence came all this overflowing of human corruption? It came from their Wise Men. They were not content with God's account of himself, which descended from ADAM to NOAH, and was delivered by NOAH to his posterity, and taught, for some ages after, according to the book of Joв. The Patriarchal religion was too simple, too pure, too powerful, for these depraved children of sense and appetite. No: they would reason about God." Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible GoD into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and to four-footed beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, through the lusts of their own hearts; who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen! And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, backbiters, haters of GoD, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant-breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: who knowing the judgment of GOD, (that they which commit such things are worthy of death,) not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them." (Rom. i.) Behold here the only true account of the great, the magnificent, the wise, the learned Roman People, that ever was given to man! See how the only wise God estimates human greatness, whether of the commanding intellect, or the executing arm! And behold also the absolute necessity of that "foolishness of preaching,"-that "foolishness of God," which alone can abase the pride, assuage the malice, and confound the devices of man!

But is it not so as to make

II. O the depth of the wisdom and the love of GOD! How strange, we might say, that He should suffer this tissue of all evil to offend the pure eyes of his glory for such a length of time! still more strange that he should exalt such depravity, it at once the admiration and the terror of the world. The Apostle solves the problem. This was-"THE Wisdom of GOD:" it is expressly so declared. Here, as in all that is of Him, we have need to remember that word, "My thoughts are not as your thoughts, nor my ways as your ways. For as the heavens are above the earth, so are my ways above your ways, and my thoughts above your

thoughts."-A celebrated Infidel, MR. HUME, boasted that he had discovered an argument that would shame the Gospel from the earth. The mountain at length brought forth-the sophism against Miracles but the inflated worm had the mortification to see the mouse crushed to pieces under the foot of DR. CAMPBELL. But God's demonstration stands; and has in all ages stopped the mouths of the exalters of creaturely science. When men glory in these decorations of their filthy nature, and have pretended, that by searching they could find out God; it is enough to reply, Look at Egypt, Greece, and Rome. What people ever equalled them? Do they not still so shine in our eyes that the brilliancy oppresses us? But did they know GOD? Behold their filthy idolatry, and be humble. And you that have learned a better system from the Bible, acknowledge the source of your purer worship; while those of you who indeed "know Him," according to "the foolishness of preaching," as being "merciful to your unrighteousness, and remembering your sins no more,"-to whom "CHRIST is made, of GoD, wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption,"-glory in the LORD," and weep over the idolatries which still pollute the world.

We see, then, in this fact, his wise design, mingled with awful judgment. It seems that his great plan required that the trial should be made; and the fallen posterity of NoлH naturally presented themselves as the instruments. "They did not like to retain God in their knowledge:" they knew that restraint would be the consequence. And they "professed themselves wise;" contending that "the creature is sufficient to comprehend the Creator." Revelation would bring them into bondage, not allowing them the range of appetite and passion. Their will stood ready to execute the rebellious purpose,- —and the only wise GOD, (awful to think!) seems to have said, Take the liberty you long for; and let all men, in all generations, see, that "The world by wisdom knew not God."

When ST. PAUL, that "chosen vessel,”—that “debtor to the Greeks and the Barbarians, to the wise and the unwise,"-was brought by his Divine Master, in his course, to Athens, the university of this wise world, he could hardly make his way through the crowd of their idols. Beholding with unveiled face God looking upon him, and upon the contemptible objects of the worship of those wise fools, "his spirit was stirred within him" to dispute with them. These intellectual epicures crowded around him, and perceiving that he had something in him which might afford them a treat, they gave him an opportunity to preach to them. Beginning with that doctrine which takes the natural man out of his depth in a moment, the doctrine of the One Eternal GOD, the CREATOR, PRESERVER, GOVERNOR, and JUDGE of the Universe,-he anticipates an objection,-" How is it that this God has never spoken to us before?" "The times of this ignorance," replies the Apostle, "he hath winked at." The eyes of ever-wakeful Providence have seemed to shoot over it. He disturbed

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