The Scripture directory for church-officers and people, or, A practical commentary upon the whole…

Secondly, God gives several Gifts, that so the meanest may not be despised, nor the greatest puffed up: Because they did not only all come from God, but they are in their harmony necessary. The foot is a necessary member as well as an eye, but the eye is more noble. So that where the meanest gifts are, if gifts, when faithfully and conscionably employed for the public good, they are not to be contemned, because Gods Gifts. And in this sense, He that reproacheth the poor, reproacheth his Maker. Even as the least creature in the world, is not without its proper use and office. And then, the greatest gifts, they are but gifts, and therefore we must not arrogantly be puffed up with them. We must not take this wedge of gold, and make an Idol of it, and worship it. Great parts and gifts, have many times been great temptations, and brought great misery: As Matthew Paris speaks of one that having spent his time in his Lectures, to prove that Christ was God, and being greatly applauded for it, he cried out and said; O Jesus, thou art beholding to me for thy Divinity this day! (Or to that effect.) Whereupon immediately this great Doctor was stricken with such ignorance and forgetfulness, that for ever after, he could not so much as say the Lords Prayer, but as a little Child said it to him. Let those then that have Parts, take heed they do not promote the Devils Kingdom thereby; and so at last be cursed by God. Ornari à te Diabolus quaerit, said Austin to an Heathen, a great Scholar, whose Conversion he endeavoured. But

Secondly, God gives several Gifts, that so the meanest may not be despised, nor the greatest puffed up: Because they did not only all come from God, but they are in their harmony necessary. The foot is a necessary member as well as an eye, but the eye is more noble. So that where the meanest gifts are, if gifts, when faithfully and conscionably imployed for the publique good, they are not to be contemned, because Gods Gifts. And in this sense, He that reproacheth the poor, reproacheth his Maker. Even as the least creature in the world, is not without its proper use and office. And then, the greatest gifts, they are but gifts, and therefore we must not arrogantly be puffed up with them. We must not take this wedge of gold, and make an Idol of it, and worship it. Great parts and gifts, have many times been great temptations, and brought great misery: As Matthew Paris speaks of one that having spent his time in his Lectures, to prove that Christ was God, and being greatly applauded for it, he cried out and said; O Jesus, thou art beholding to me for thy Divinity this day! (Or to that effect.) Whereupon immediately this great Doctor was stricken with such ignorance and forgetfulness, that for ever after, he could not so much as say the Lords Prayer, but as a little Child said it to him. Let those then that have Parts, take heed they do not promote the Devils Kingdom thereby; and so at last be cursed by God. Ornari à te Diabolus quaerit, said Austin to an Heathen, a great Scholar, whose Conversion he endeavoured. But