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 shew 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 shew 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 intreated, 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 it is which 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 intreated.”  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 fall 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 do good to them that despitefully use us.”