e to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled
with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual
understanding_.

This is the first of three verses, all of them forming a part of the
Epistle which was read this morning, and containing St. Paul's prayer
for the Colossians in all the several points of Christian excellence.
And the first thing which he desires for them, as we have heard, is,
that they should be filled with the knowledge of God's will in all
wisdom and spiritual understanding; or, as he expresses the same thing
to the Ephesians, that they should be not unwise, but understanding what
the will of the Lord is. He prays for the Colossians that they should
not be spiritually foolish, but that they should be spiritually wise.

The state of spiritual folly is, I suppose, one of the most universal
evils in the world. For the number of those who are naturally foolish is
exceedingly great; of those, I mean, who understand no worldly thing
well; of those who are careless about everything, carried about by every
breath of opinion, without knowledge, and without principle. But the
term spiritual folly includes, unhappily, a great many more than these;
it takes in not those only who are in the common sense of the term
foolish, but a great 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 s