n man that God establishes his greatest
works,--you will be in part guarded against disappointment or surprise.
He destroys that he might build; for when He is about to rear His
sacred temple in us, He first totally razes that vain and pompous
edifice, which human art and power had erected, and from its horrible
ruins a new structure is formed, by His power only.

Oh, that you could comprehend the depth of this mystery, and learn the
secrets of the conduct of God, revealed to babes, but hid from the wise
and great of this world, who think themselves the Lord's counselor's,
and capable of investigating His procedures, and suppose they have
attained that divine wisdom hidden from the eyes of all who live in
self, and are enveloped in their own works. Who by a lively genius and
elevated faculties mount up to Heaven, and think to comprehend the
height and depth and length and breadth of God.

This divine wisdom is unknown, even to those who pass in the world for
persons of extraordinary illumination and knowledge. To whom then is
she known, and who can tell us any tidings concerning her? Destruction
and death assure us, that they have heard with their ears of her fame
and renown. It is, then, in dying to all things, and in being truly
lost to them, passing forward into God, and existing only in Him, that
we attain to some knowledge of the true wisdom. Oh, how little are her
ways known, and her dealings with her most chosen servants. Scarce do
we discover anything thereof, but surprised at the dissimilitude
betwixt the truth we thus discover and our former ideas of it, we cry
out with St. Paul, "Oh, the depth of the knowledge and wisdom of God!
how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out." The
Lord judgeth not of things as men do, who call good evil and evil good,
and account that as righteousness which is abominable in His sight, and
which according to the prophet He regards as filthy rags. He will enter
into strict judgment with these self-righteous, and they shall, like
the Pharisees, be rather subjects of His wrath, than objects of His
love, or inheritors of His rewards. Doth not Christ Himself assure us,
that "except our righteousness exceed that of the scribes and pharisees
we shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven." And which of us
even approaches them in righteousness; or, if we live in the practice
of virtues, though much inferior to theirs, are we not tenfold more
ostentatious? Who