ic spirit of christianity
accommodates itself, with an astonishing condescension, to the
circumstances of the whole human race. It rejects none on account of
their pecuniary wants, their personal infirmities, or their intellectual
deficiencies. No superiority of parts is the least recommendation, nor
is any depression of fortune the smallest objection. None are too wise
to be excused from performing the duties of religion, nor are any too
poor to be excluded from the consolations of its promises.

IF we admire the wisdom of God, in having furnished different degrees of
intelligence, so exactly adapted to their different destinations, and in
having fitted every part of his stupendous work, not only to serve its
own immediate purpose, but also to contribute to the beauty and
perfection of the whole: how much more ought we to adore that goodness,
which has perfected the divine plan, by appointing one wide,
comprehensive, and universal means of salvation: a salvation, which all
are invited to partake; by a means which all are capable of using; which
nothing but voluntary blindness can prevent our comprehending, and
nothing but wilful error can hinder us from embracing.

THE Muses are coy, and will only be wooed and won by some
highly-favoured suitors. The Sciences are lofty, and will not stoop to
the reach of ordinary capacities. But "Wisdom (by which the royal
preacher means piety) is a loving spirit: she is easily seen of them
that love her, and found of all such as seek her." Nay, she is so
accessible and condescending, "that she preventeth them that desire
her, making herself first known unto them."

WE are told by the same animated writer, "that Wisdom is the breath of
the power of God." How infinitely superior, in grandeur and sublimity,
is this description to the origin of the _wisdom_ of the heathens, as
described by their poets and mythologists! In the exalted strains of the
Hebrew poetry we read, that "Wisdom is the brightness of the everlasting
light, the unspotted mirror of the power of God, and the image of his
goodness."

THE philosophical author of _The Defence of Learning_ observes, that
knowledge has something of venom and malignity in it, when taken without
its proper corrective, and what that is, the inspired Saint Paul
teaches us, by placing it as the immediate antidote: _Knowledge puffeth
up, but charity edifieth._ Perhaps, it is the vanity of human wisdom,
unchastised by this correcting principle,