many who are in the common sense of the term
clever, and many who are even in the common sense of the terms, prudent,
sensible, thoughtful, and wise. It is but too evident that some of the
ablest men who have ever lived upon earth, have been in no less a degree
spiritually fools. And thus, it is not without much truth that Christian
writers have dwelt upon the insufficiency of worldly wisdom, and have
warned their readers to beware, lest, while professing themselves to be
wise, they should be accounted as fools in the sight of God.

But the opposite to this notion, that those who are, as it were, fools
in worldly matters are wise before God,--although this also is true in a
certain sense, and under certain peculiar circumstances, yet taken
generally, it is the very reverse of truth; and the careless and
incautious language which has been often used on this subject, has been
extremely mischievous. On the contrary, he who is foolish in worldly
matters is likely also to be, and most commonly is, no less foolish in
the things of God. And the opposite belief has arisen mainly from that
strange confusion between ignorance and innocence, with which many
ignorant persons seem to solace themselves. Whereas, if you take away a
man's knowledge, you do not bring him to the state of an infant, but to
that of a brute; and of one of the most mischievous and malignant of the
brute creation. For you do not lessen or weaken the man's body by
lowering his mind; he still retains his strength and his passions, the
passions leading to self-indulgence, the strength which enables him to
feed them by continued gratification. He will not think, it is true, to
any good purpose; it is very possible to destroy in him the power of
reflection, whether as exercised upon outward things, or upon himself
and his own nature, or upon God. But you cannot destroy the power of
adapting means to ends, nor that of concealing his purposes by fraud or
falsehood; you take only his wisdom, and leave that cunning which marks
so notoriously both the savage and the madman. He, then, who is a fool
as far as regards earthly things, is much more a fool with regard to
heavenly things; he who cannot raise himself even to the lower height,
how is he to attain to the higher? he who is without reason and
conscience, how shall he be endowed with the spirit of God?

It is my deep conviction and long experience of this truth, which makes
me so grieve over a want of interest in y