Paul wrote, that if they looked
their numbers over, they would not find many wise, nor powerful, nor well-
born people among them. Dog-fanciers tell us that performing dogs never
carry their tails; such dogs have eaten of the tree of knowledge, and are
convinced of sin accordingly--they know that they know things, in respect
of which, therefore, they are no longer under grace, but under the law,
and they have yet so much grace left as to be ashamed. So with the human
clever dog; he may speak with the tongues of men and angels, but so long
as he knows that he knows, his tail will droop.
More especially does this hold in the case of those who are born to
wealth and of old family. We must all feel that a rich young nobleman
with a taste for science and principles is rarely a pleasant object. We
do not understand the rich young man in the Bible who wanted to inherit
eternal life, unless, indeed, he merely wanted to know whether there was
not some way by which he could avoid dying, and even so he is hardly
worth considering. Principles are like logic, which never yet made a
good reasoner of a bad one, but might still be occasionally useful if
they did not invariably contradict each other whenever there is any
temptation to appeal to them. They are like fire, good servants but bad
masters. As many people or more have been wrecked on principle as from
want of principle.
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