and said to the captain of fifty, If I be a man of God, then let fire come down from heaven and consume thee and thy fifty; and there came down fire from heaven and consumed him and his fifty. Again also he sent unto him another captain of fifty with his fifty; and he answered and said unto him, O man of God, thus hath the king said, Come down quickly. And Elijah answered and said unto them, If I be a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and consume thee and thy fifty. And the fire of God came down from heaven and consumed him and his fifty. And he sent again a captain of the third fifty with his fifty: and the third captain of fifty went up, and came and fell on his knees before Elijah, and besought him, and said unto him, O man of God, I pray thee, let my life, and the life of these fifty thy servants, be precious in thy sight. Behold, there came fire down from heaven, and burnt up the two captains of the former fifties with their fifties: therefore let my life now be precious in thy sight. And the angel of the Lord said unto Elijah, Go down with him; be not afraid of him. And he arose, and went down with him unto the king," 2 Kings, chap. i. By all which it appears, that the Holy Spirit is easy to be entreated, but he is not to be commanded, much less driven.

5. This wisdom is said to be full of mercy; for the sure mercies of David, which are made sure to Christ, who is of the seed of David, and sure to us in him, are revealed to us by the Holy

Spirit; hence it is said, that "according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost, which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour."

6. This wisdom is full of good fruits. "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, &c." Gal. v. 22, 23.

7. This wisdom is without partiality. It will never justify the wicked, nor condemn the just. It influences a man to love God, and to love those that love him. 66 Every one that loveth him that begat, loveth him also that is begotten of him." It is this spirit of wisdom that makes a man a freeborn citizen of Zion; and the charac ter of such a citizen is, that in his eyes a vile person is contemned; but he honoureth them that fear the Lord, Psalm xv. 4.

8. This wisdom is without hypocrisy. It makes the heart honest and sincere; it deals not deceitfully with God, nor with man; nor will it suffer a man to appear to be something when he is nothing; nor yet to lie against his right when the Spirit bears witness to his sonship.

II. The second general head of this discourse is, the wisdom of divine revelation, especially the covenant of grace, or what is called the gospel. "To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God." The folds

of this wisdom are many. They begin with God's appointing the second Adam before the first Adam was formed; by his fixing his eternal love upon us in Christ before we incurred the wrath of God by the dreadful fall of our first head. By giving us eternal life in a new covenant head before the entrance of death by sin into the world. In his appointing us to obtain mercy through Jesus before the curse and condemnation of the law took place, and declaring his mercy to be from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him. In predestinating us to the adoption of children before we became servants of sin, and appointing us to be conformed to the image of Christ before the image of God was lost in Adam. In setting forth the mystical union between Christ and the church by the marriage of Adam and Eve. "We are of his flesh, and of his bones. This is a great mystery; but I speak concerning Christ. and the church." In making known the appointed incarnation of Christ as soon as man fell. "The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head." In appointing salvation to be of grace, not of works, that it might be sure to all the seed. In choosing the poor, the foolish, the weak, and the base things of the world, for the sake of magnifying his own free, sovereign grace and mercy. In sending forth his own Son, made of a woman; which glorious incarnation of Christ made God and man more closely united than ever they were before, God and man being but one person. In

the work of redemption, in which the glorious grace and mercy of God appear, and yet the justice and holiness of God are highly honoured. In the death of Christ, in which Satan is outshot in his own bow, sin is condemned in the flesh of Christ; Satan, sin, and death, are destroyed; and sinful man saved. In the forgiveness of sins, which is according to the riches of his grace; and yet, by its coming to us through the atonement of Christ, we receive it on the footing of strict justice. "God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." In the aboundings of sin being supplanted by the superaboundings of grace, the vilest of sinners are cleansed from sin; yet vengeance is taken of their inventions. In the imputation of an everlasting righteousness, in which God appears strictly just, and yet he justifies the sinner from all his ungodliness upon his believing in Jesus. The saint is a vessel of free mercy, and yet he is bought with a price. God, of his own good pleasure, works in us both to will and to do; and yet "God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love, which we have showed toward his name." The Lord will give grace, and he will give a crown of glory, even to the chief of sinners; and yet it is the Lord, the righteous judge, that gives that crown, 2 Tim. iv. 7.

III. The third branch of wisdom is Christ himself. "He is made of God unto us wisdom. Christ, in his highest nature, is the essential wis

dom of God; hence he is called the power of God and the wisdom of God. All his children are called fools, and the foolish things of the world; and it required great wisdom to deliver them; and this was done by wisdom. The poor wise man by his wisdom delivered the city. "Then said I, Wisdom is better than strength." To this the New Testament agrees: Christ was crucified through weakness, 2 Cor. xiii. 4. And yet there was such wisdom displayed in this weakness as destroyed all the powers of this world, and all the power of Satan, of sin, death, and the grave; and all this by weakness and wisdom.

2. Christ crucified is the wisdom of God in a mystery. And this wisdom God ordained before the world to our glory, 1 Cor. ii. 7. "And God forbid," says Paul, "that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world."

IV. The fourth branch of this wisdom of the wise lies in the experience of these things. The wise man is a partaker of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit testifies of Christ to him, and forms Christ the hope of glory within him, and leads him into all truth, and especially into all the truth of the promises, which are all yea and amen in Christ, to the glory of God by us. And with the promises. come all the spiritual blessings with which God blessed us in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. I