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 -