Wesley Corpus

4. The second thing which is implied in the character of "an Israelite indeed," is, sincerity. As veracity is opposite to lying, so sincerity is to cunning. But it is not opposite to wisdom, or discretion, which are well consistent with it. "But what is the difference between wisdom and cunning Are they not almost, if not quite, the same thing" By no means. The difference between them is exceeding great. Wisdom is the faculty of discerning the best ends, and the fittest means of attaining them. The end of every rational creature is God: the enjoying him in time and in eternity. The best, indeed the only, means of attaining this end, is "the faith that worketh by love." True prudence, in the general sense of the word, is the same thing with wisdom. Discretion is but another name for prudence, -- if it be not rather a part of it, as it sometimes is referred to our outward behaviour, -- and means, the ordering our words and actions right. On the contrary, cunning (so it is usually termed amongst common men, but policy among the great) is, in plain terms, neither better nor worse than the art of deceiving. If therefore, it be any wisdom at all, it is "the wisdom from beneath;" springing from the bottomless pit, and leading down to the place from whence it came. 5. The two great means which cunning uses in order to deceive, are, simulation and dissimulation. Simulation is the seeming to be what we are not; dissimulation, the seeming not to be what we are; according to the old verse, Quod non est simulo: Dissimuloque quod est. Both the one and the other we commonly term, the "hanging out of false colours." Innumerable are the shapes that simulation puts on in order to deceive. And almost as many are used by dissimulation for the same purpose. But the man of sincerity shuns them both, and always appears exactly what he is.