*Again, would you farther see the fall of the universal church, look at all _European Christendom_ sailing round the globe, with fire and sword, and every murdering art of war, to seize the possessions, and kill the inhabitants of _both the Indies_. What natural right of man, what supernatural virtue was not here trodden under foot? All that you ever read or heard of Heathen barbarity, was here outdone by Christian conquerors. And to this day, what wars of Christians against Christians, blended with _scalping_ Heathens, still keep staining the _earth_ and the _seas_ with human blood, for a miserable share in the spoils of a plundered Heathen world! A world, which should have heard, or seen, or felt nothing from the followers of Christ, but a divine love, that had forced them from distant lands, and through the perils of long seas, to visit strangers with those glad tidings of peace and salvation to all the world, which angels from heaven, and shepherds on earth, proclaimed at the birth of Christ. *Here now, let the _wisdom of this world_ from its learned throne condemn all this as _enthusiasm_; it need be no trouble to anyone to be condemned by that wisdom, which God himself hath condemned _as foolishness_. For the wisdom of this world hath all the contrariety to _divine wisdom_, that the flesh hath to the Spirit, earth to heaven, or damnation to salvation. It is a wisdom, whose Spirit and breath keep all the evil that is in fallen man alive, and which in its highest excellence, has only the full-grown nature of that _carnal mind, which is at enmity against God_. It is a wisdom, that turns all salvation-truths into empty, learned tales, that instead of helping the sinner to confess his sins, _and feel the misery_ that is hid under them, helps him to an art of hiding, nay of defending them; and so the poor blinded sinner, lives and dies in a total ignorance of that light, blessing, and salvation, which could only be had by a broken and contrite heart. For [N. B.] with respect to conscience, this is the chief office of worldly wisdom; it is to keep all things quiet in the old man, that whether busied in things spiritual or temporal, he may keep up the lusts of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, without any disturbance from religious phantoms, and dreams of idiots, who for want of sober sense, and sound learning, think that Christ really meant what he said in these words, _Except a man be born again, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God_. Now join (if you please) learning and religion to act in fellowship with this worldly wisdom, and then you will have a depravity of craft and subtlety, as high as flesh and blood can carry it, which will bring forth a glittering _Pharisee_, with a hardness of heart, greater than that of the sinner-_publican_.