ted wise, and so you do account
yourselves, and this begets strife and envy in the heart, and predisposeth
the mind to strife and contention with others. And therefore he takes the
mask off, by deciphering the very nature of such a wisdom; he embowels
that pretended wisdom in religion and gives it its own name, and because
things are best known, and most livelily comprehended in their opposition
and comparison with one another, he shows wherein true wisdom and religion
consist, and sets the one against the other, that the deformity of the one
and the beauty of the other may appear. We shall then speak a word of this
that is supposed, and then of that which is expressed, the descriptions of
true wisdom, and pretended wisdom. I conceive this interrogation, "Is
there a wise man among you?" imports chiefly these two one is,--that it is
the natural disease of all men to esteem themselves something, and desire
to be esteemed such by others; another is,--that the misapprehension of
that wherein true wisdom and excellency doth especially consist, is the
ground of many miscarriages in the seeking or venting of that.

It was an ancient remark, that "vain man would be wise, though he be born
like a wild ass's colt." Empty man is wise in his own eyes, and would be
so in other men's too. He hath no reality nor solidity, but is like these
light things which the wind carries away, or the waters bear above, and
tosses hither and thither, yet he apprehends some solid and real worth in
himself, and would impose that apprehension upon others. And truly this is
a drunkenness of mind, which makes a man light and vain, to stagger to and
fro. It is a giddiness of spirit, that makes him inconstant and reeling,
but insensible of it. Though he be born as stupid and void of any real
wisdom and excellency, as a wild ass's colt, yet he hath this madness and
folly superadded to all that natural stupidity, that he seems to be wise
and understanding, and truly it was a more ancient disease than Job's
days. We may trace the steps of its antiquity to be from the very
beginning, and there we shall find the true original of it. What was it, I
pray you, did cast the angels out of heaven, down to the lowest hell, to
be reserved in chains for everlasting darkness? I do not conceive what
their natures so abstracted from all sensual lusts could be capable of,
but this spiritual darkness and madness of self conceit, and an ambitious
aspiring after more wisdom, wh