He gathereth together the outcasts of Israel. He healeth the broken in heart, He telleth the number of the stars; His understanding is infinite. The LORD lifteth up the meek: He casteth the wicked down to the ground.-Psa. cxlvii. 1—6. XL. Earthly wisdom contrasted with heavenly. Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you? let him show out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom. But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth. This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work. But the wisdom that is from above* is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace.—Jas. iii. 13-18. *The true religion of Christ. Margin. Or, wrangling, "The whole is the principle of righteousness in the soul; and all the above virtues are fruits of that righteousness."-A. Clarke. XLI. The house of mourning.—The mirth of fools. It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting: For that is the end of all men; And the living will lay it to his heart. Sorrow is better than laughter: For by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; But the heart of fools is in the house of mirth. It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise, Than for a man to hear the song of fools. For as the crackling of thorns* under a pot, So is the laughter of the fool: this also is vanity. Eccles. vii. 2-6. A great noise and blaze, but soon going out and leaving darkness. XLII. Wisdom and faith.—The rich and poor. If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it But let him ask shall be given him. in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. A double minded† man is unstable in all his ways. : Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted: but the rich, in that he is made low because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away. For the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it withereth the grass, and the flower thereof falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth: so also shall the rich man fade away in his ways. Jas. i. 5-11. *Doubting. the undecided. + Greek, the man of two souls, XLIII. The wicked contrasted with those who fear God. Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil. Though a sinner do evil an hundred times, and his days be prolonged, yet surely I know that it shall be well with them that fear God, which fear before him but it shall not be well with the wicked, neither shall he prolong his days, which are as a shadow; because he feareth not before God.-Eccles. viii. 11-13. XLIV. The saints in glory. And one of the elders answered, saying unto me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they? And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they which came |