1 Corinthians 3:18-20 Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seems to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise.… By this, so called by an Hebraism for "worldly wisdom," is taken in Scripture for — 1. That sort of wisdom that consists in speculation called philosophy which, as Stoicism, Epicureanism, &c., was professed for the grand rule of life and certain guide to happiness. But its utter insufficiency is expressed in Colossians 2:8; 1 Timothy 6:20; 1 Corinthians 1:21. It is a wisdom making men accurately and laboriously ignorant of what they were most concerned to know. 2. The policy which consists in a certain dexterity or art of managing business for a man's secular advantage. This is the wisdom here intended in the text; namely, that practical cunning that shows itself in political matters, and has in it really the mystery of a trade or craft. So that God is said to "take the wise in their own craftiness." Note — I. ITS RULES OR PRINCIPLES. 1. That a man must maintain a continued course of dissimulation and profess himself to be what he is not, and employ all the art and industry imaginable to make good the disguise. This dissimulation is the very groundwork of all worldly policy. In the language of the Scripture it is "damnable hypocrisy"; but of those who neither believe Scripture nor damnation it is voted wisdom. It is looked upon as weakness and unfitness for business for a man to be so open as really to think what he says, and when he makes any promise, to have the least intention of performing it. 2. That conscience and religion ought to lay no restraint upon men when it lies opposite to their interest. The great patron of this tribe, Machiavelli, laid down this for a master rule in his political scheme, That the show of religion was helpful to the politician, bat the reality of it hurtful and pernicious. 3. That a man ought to make himself, and not the public, the chief, if not the sole end of all his actions. He is to be his own centre and circumference too, and is not only not to love his neighbour as himself, but to account none for his neighbour but himself. The general interest of the nation is to be nothing to him, but only that portion of it that he either does or would possess. It is not the rain that waters the whole earth, but that which falls into his own cistern that must relieve him: not the common, but the enclosure that must make him rich. Let the public sink or swim, so long as he can hold up his head above water; let the ship be cast away, if he may but have the benefit of the wreck. 4. That in showing kindness, or doing favours, no respect at all is to be had to friendship, gratitude, or sense of honour; but that such favours are to be done only to the rich or potent, from whom a man may receive a further advantage, or to his enemies, from whom he may otherwise fear a mischief. Our politician having baffled his greater conscience must not be nonplussed with inferior obligations; and having leaped over such mountains, at length poorly lie down before a molehill; but he must add perfection to perfection; and being past grace, endeavour, ii need be, to be past shame too; and accordingly, he looks upon friendship, gratitude, and sense of honour, as terms of art to amuse and impose upon weak, undesigning minds. II. THE FOLLY OF THESE PRINCIPLES IN RELATION TO GOD. Foolishness, being properly a man's deviation from right reason in point of practice, must needs consist in — 1. His pitching upon such an end as is unsuitable to his condition. "The wisdom of this world" looks no farther than this world, and if it makes a man rich, potent, and honourable it has its ends and has done its utmost. But now that a man cannot rationally make these things his end will appear from these two considerations — (1) That they reach not the measure of his duration or being; the perpetuity of which surviving this mortal state must needs render a man infinitely miserable and forlorn, if he has no other comforts but what he must leave behind him in this. For nothing can make a man happy, but that which shall last as long as he lasts. And all these enjoyments are much too short for an immortal soul to stretch itself upon, which shall persist in being, not only when profit, pleasure, and honour, but when time itself shall be no more. (2) They fill not the measure of his desires. The foundation of all man's unhappiness here is the great disproportion between his enjoyments and his appetites. Let a man have never so much, he is still desiring something or other more. Alexander was much troubled that there were no more worlds for him to disturb; and, in this respect, every man living has a soul as great as Alexander; and put under the same circumstances would own the very same dissatisfactions. Now in spiritual natures, so much as there is of desire, so much there is also of capacity to receive. Man seems as boundless in his desires as God is in His being; and therefore nothing but God Himself can satisfy him. And then in all these worldly things that a man pursues with such eagerness, he finds not half the pleasure in the possession of them that he proposed to himself in the expectation. 2. His pitching upon means for the acquisition of these enjoyments, that are no ways fit to acquire them, and that upon a double account. (1) That they are in themselves unable and insufficient for them. Let politicians contrive as accurately, and pursue as diligently as possible; yet still the success of all depends upon the favour of an overruling hand (Deuteronomy 8:18; 1 Samuel 2:30). And so upon full trial of all the courses that policy could either devise or practise, the most experienced masters of it have been often forced to sit down with that complaint of the disciples, "We have toiled all night, and have caught nothing." For do we not sometimes see that traitors can be out of favour, and knaves be beggars, and lose their estates, and be stripped of their offices, as well as honester men? (2) That they are frequently opposite to the accomplishment of such ends; nothing being more usual than for these unchristian fishers of men to be fatally caught in their own nets; for does not the text expressly say, that "God taketh the wise in their own craftiness"? Haman wanted nothing to complete his greatness but a gallows upon which to hang Mordecai; but it mattered not for whom he provided the gallows, when Providence designed the rope for him. (R. South, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise. |
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