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On the Wisdom of this World
"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 Caesar 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.
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 is it 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 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 these, 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
numerous, 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.
Now to God the Father, &c.
Content of On the Wisdom of this World [Jonathan Swift's book: Three Sermons, Three Prayer]
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