which are unavoidably happening to a man in his commerce with the world, take it as a rule, as a man's pride is, so is always his displeasure; as the opinion of himself rises, so does the injury-so does his resentment: 'tis this which gives edge and force to the instrument which has struck him, and excites that heat in the wound which renders it incurable.

See how different the case is with the humble man. One half of these painful conflicts he actually escapes; the other part falls lightly on him: he provokes no man by contempt; thrusts himself forward as the mark of no man's envy; so that he cuts off the first fretful occasions of the greatest part of these evils; and for those in which the passions of others would involve him, like the humble shrub in the valley, gently gives way, and scarce feels the injury of those stormy encounters which rend the proud cedar, and tear it up by its roots.

If you consider it with regard to the many disappointments of this life, which arise from the hopes of bettering our condition, and advancing in the world, the reasoning is the same. What we expect is ever in proportion to the estimate made of ourselves. When pride and self-love have brought us in their account of this matter, we find that we are worthy of all honours, fit for all places and employments: as our expectations rise and multiply, so must our disappointments with them; and there needs nothing more to lay the foundation of our unhappiness, and both to make and keep us miserable. And, in truth, there is nothing so common in life as to see thousands, who, you would say, had all the reason in the world to be at rest, so torn up and disquieted with sorrows of this class, and so incessantly tortured with the disappointments which their pride and passions have created for them, that, though they appear to have all the ingredients of happiness in their hands, they can neither compound nor use them :-how should they? the goad is ever in their sides, and so hurries them on from one expectation to another as to leave them no rest day or night.

Humility, therefore, recommends itself as a security against these heart-aches, which though ridiculous sometimes in the eye of the beholder, yet are serious enough to the man who suffers them, and I believe would make no inconsiderable account in a true catalogue of the disquietudes of mortal man: against these, I say, Humility is the best defence.

He that is little in his own eyes is little too in his desires, and consequently moderate in his pursuit of them. Like another man, he may fail in his attempts, and lose the point he aimed at; but that is all-he loses not himself, he loses not his happiness and peace of mind with it even the contentions of the humble man are mild and placid. Blessed character! when such a one is thrust back, who does not pity him?

when he falls, who would not stretch out a hand to raise him up?

And here I cannot help stopping in the midst of this argument to make a short observation, which is this: When we reflect upon the character of Humility, we are apt to think it stands the most naked and defenceless of all virtues whatever, the least able to support its claims against the insolent antagonist who seems ready to bear him down, and all opposition which such a temper can make.

Now if we consider him as standing alone, no doubt in such a case he will be overpowered and trampled upon by his opposer; but if we consider the meek and lowly man as he is, fenced and guarded by the love, the friendship, and wishes of all mankind,-that the other stands alone, hated, discountenanced, without one true friend or hearty wellwisher on his side; when this is balanced, we shall have reason to change our opinion, and be convinced that the humble man, strengthened with such an alliance, is far from being so overmatched as at first sight he may appear: nay, I believe one might venture to go further, and engage for it, that in all such cases, where real fortitude and true personal courage were wanted, he is much more likely to give proof of it, and I would sooner look for it in such a temper than in that of his adversary. Pride may make a man violent, but Humility will make him firm; and which of the two, do you think, likely to come off with honour?-he who acts from the changeable impulse of heated blood, and follows the uncertain motions of his pride and fury; or the man who stands cool and collected in himself, who governs his resentments, instead of being governed by them, and on every occasion acts upon the steady motives of principle and duty?

But this by the way;-though, in truth, it falls in with the main argument; for if the observation is just, and Humility has the advantages where we should least expect them, the argument rises higher in behalf of those which are more apparently on its side. In all which, if the humble man finds, what the proud man must never hope for in this world, that is, 'rest to his soul;' so does he likewise meet with it from the influence such a temper has upon his condition under the evils of his life, not as chargeable upon the vices of men, but as the portion of his inheritance by the appointment of God. For if, as Job says, we are born to trouble as the sparks fly upwards, surely it is he who thinks the greatest of these troubles below his sins, and the smallest favours above his merit, that is likely to suffer the least from the one, and enjoy the most from the other: 'tis he who possesses his soul in meekness, and keeps it subjected to all the issues of fortune, that is the farthest out of their reach. No. He blames not the sun, though it does not ripen

his vine, nor blusters at the winds, though they bring him no profit. If the fountain of the humble man rises not as high as he could wish, he thinks, however, that it rises as high as it ought; and, as the laws of nature still do their duty, that he has no cause to complain against them.

If disappointed of riches, he knows the providence of God is not his debtor; that though he has received less than others, yet, as he thinks himself less than the least, he has reason to be thankful.

If the world goes untoward with the humble man, in other respects, he knows a truth which the proud man does never acknowledge, and that is, that the world was not made for him; and therefore, how little share soever he has of its advantages, he sees an argument of content, in reflecting how little it is that a compound of sin, of ignorance, and frailty, has grounds to expect.

A soul thus turned and resigned, is carried smoothly down the stream of providence; no temptations in his passage disquiet him with desire-no dangers alarm him with fear: though open to all the changes and chances of others, yet by seeing the justice of what happens, and humbly giving way to the blow, though he is smitten, he is not smitten like other men, nor feels the smart which they do.

ministered unto, but to minister; and as the prophet had foretold in that mournful description of him,-to have no form or comeliness, nor any beauty that they should desire him. The voluntary meanness of his birth,-the poverty of his life,-the low offices in which it was engaged, in preaching the gospel to the poor,- | the inconveniences which attended the execu tion of it, in having nowhere to lay his head,— all spoke the same language-That the God of truth should submit to the suspicion of an imposture:-his humble deportment under that, and a thousand provocations of a thankless people, still raises his character higher; and what exalts it to its highest pitch, is the tender and pathetic proof he gave of the same disposition at the conclusion and great catastrophe of his suffering, when a life full of so many | instances of humility was crowned with the most endearing one of 'humbling himself even to the death of the cross;' the death of a slave, a malefactor-dragged to Calvary without opposition, insulted without complaint.

Blessed Jesus! how can the man who calls upon thy name but learn of thee to be meck and lowly in heart?-how can he but profit when such a lesson was seconded by such an example?

If humility shines so bright in the character of Christ, so does it in that of his religion; the

It is observed by some one, that as pride was the passion through which sin and misery entered into the world, and gave our enemy the triumph of ruining our nature, therefore the Son of God, who came to seek and to save that which was lost, when he entered upon the work of our restoration, began at the very point where he knew we had failed; and this he did by endeavouring to bring the soul of man back to its original temper of Humility; so that his first public address from the Mount began with a declaration of blessedness to the poor in spirit, and almost his last exhortation, in the text, was to copy the fair original he had set them of this virtue, and 'to learn of him to be meek and lowly in heart.'

It is the most unanswerable appeal that can be made to the heart of man, and so persuasive, and accommodated to all Christians, that, as much pride as there is still in the world, it is not credible but that every believer must receive some tincture of this character, or bias towards it, from the example of so great and yet so humble a Master, whose whole course of life was a particular lecture to this one virtue; and in every instance of it showed that he came not to share the pride and glories of life, or swell the hopes of ambitious followers, but to cast a damp upon them for ever, by appearing himself rather as a servant than a master, coming, as he continually declared, not to be

Christianity, when rightly explained and practised, is all meekness and candour, and love and courtesy; and there is no one passion our Saviour rebukes so often, or with so much sharpness, as that one which is subversive of these kind effects,-and that is pride, which, in proportion as it governs us, necessarily leads us on to a discourteous opinion and treatment of others. I say necessarily, because 'tis a natural consequence, and the progress from the one to the other is unavoidable.

This our Saviour often remarks in the character of the Pharisees. They trusted in themselves: 'twas no wonder, then, they despised others.

This, I believe, might principally relate to spiritual pride, which, by the way, is the worst | of all pride; and, as it is a very bad species of a very bad passion, I cannot do better than conclude the discourse with some remarks upon it.

In most conceits of a religious superiority, there has usually gone hand in hand with it another fancy, which, I suppose, has fed it; and that is a persuasion of some more than ordinary aids and illuminations from above. Let us examine this matter.

That the influence and assistance of God's Spirit, in a way imperceptible to us, does enable us to render him an acceptable service, we learn from Scripture. In what particular manner this is effected, so that the act shall still be imputed ours, the Scripture says not. We know

only the account is so; but as for any sensible demonstrations of its workings to be felt as such within us, the word of God is utterly silent; nor can that silence be supplied by any experience. We have none, unless you call the false pretences to it such, suggested by an enthusiastic or distempered fancy. Expressly as we are told and pray for the inspiration of God's Spirit, there are no boundaries fixed, nor can any be ever marked, to distinguish them from the efforts and determinations of our own reason; and, firmly as most Christians believe the effects of them upon their hearts, I may venture to affirm that, since the promises were made, there never was a Christian of a cool head and sound judgment that, in any instance of a change of life, would presume to say which part of his reformation was owing to divine help, or which to the operations of his own mind; or who, upon looking back, would pretend to strike the line, and say, 'Here it was that my own reflections ended, and at this point the suggestions of the Spirit of God began to take place.'

However backward the world has been in former ages in the discovery of such points as God never meant us to know, we have been more successful in our own days. Thousands can trace out now the impressions of this divine intercourse in themselves from the first moment they received it, and with such distinct intelligence of its progress and workings as to require no evidence of its truth.

It must be owned that the present age has not altogether the honour of this discovery. There were too many grounds given to improve on in the religious cant of the last century, when the in-comings, in-dwellings, and outlettings of the Spirit were the subjects of so much edification; and when, as they do now, the most illiterate mechanics, who, as a witty divine said of them, were much fitter to make a pulpit than to get into one, were yet able so to frame their nonsense to the nonsense of the times as to beget an opinion in their followers, not only that they prayed and preached by inspiration, but that the most common actions of their lives were set about in the Spirit of the Lord.

The tenets of the Quakers (a harmless quiet people) are collateral descendants from the same enthusiastic original; and their accounts and way of reasoning upon their inward light and spiritual worship are much the same,-which last they carry thus much further, as to believe the Holy Ghost comes down upon their assemblies, and moves them, without regard to eondition or sex, to make intercessions with unutterable groans.

So that, in fact, the opinions of Methodists, upon which I was first entering, are but a republication, with some alterations, of the same extravagant conceits; and, as enthusiasm gene

rally speaks the same language in all ages, 'tis but too sadly verified in this; for though we have not yet got to the old terms of the incomings and in-dwellings of the Spirit, yet we have arrived at the first feelings of its entrance, recorded with as particular an exactness as an act of filiation,- -so that numbers will tell you the identical place, the day of the month, and the hour of the night when the Spirit came in upon them, and took possession of their hearts. Now there is this inconvenience on our side, that there is no arguing with a phrenzy of this kind; for, unless a representation of the case be a confutation of its folly to them, they must for ever be led captive by a delusion, from which no reasoner can redeem them; for if you should inquire upon what evidence so strange a persuasion is grounded, they will tell you, 'They feel it is so.' If you reply that this is no conviction to you, who do not feel it like them, and therefore would wish to be satisfied by what tokens they are able to distinguish such emotions from those of fancy and complexion,-they will answer that the manner of it is incommunicable by human language, but 'tis a matter of fact; they feel its operations as plainly and distinctly as the natural sensations of pleasure, or the pains of a disordered body. And, since I have mentioned a disordered body, I cannot help suggesting that, amongst the more serious and deluded of this sect, 'tis much to be doubted whether a disordered body has not ofttimes as great a share in letting in these conceits as a disordered mind.

When a poor disconsolated drooping creature is terrified from all enjoyment,-prays without ceasing, till his imagination is heated,-fasts, and mortifies, and mopes, till his body is in as bad a plight as his mind,-is it a wonder that the mechanical disturbances and conflicts of an empty belly, interpreted by an empty head, should be mistook for workings of a different kind from what they are? Or that, in such a situation, where the mind sits upon the watch for extraordinary occurrences, and the imagination is pre-engaged on its side, is it strange if every commotion should help to fix him in this malady, and make him a fitter subject for the treatment of a physician than a divine?

In many cases, they seem so much above the skill of either, that unless God in his mercy rebuke this lying spirit, and call it back, it may go on and persuade millions into their destruction.

XXVI.-ADVANTAGES OF CHRISTIANITY TO THE WORLD. 'Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.'ROMANS 1. 22.

THERE is no one project to which the whole race of mankind is so universally a bubble as to

of the powers given them for this great discovery, that, instead of adoring the Being thus manifested to them in purity and truth, they fell into the most gross and absurd delusions,— 'changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like unto corruptible men, to birds, to four-footed beasts and creeping things. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.' All their specious wisdom was but a more glittering kind of ignorance, and ended in the most dishonourable of all mistakes, in setting up fictitious gods, to receive the tribute of their adoration and thanks.

The fountain of religion being thus poisoned, no wonder the stream showed its effects, which are charged upon them in the following words, where he describes the heathen world as full of all unrighteousness,' fornication, covetousness, maliciousness, full of murder, envy, debate, malignity, whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful. God in heaven defend us from such a catalogue!

But these disorders, if fairly considered, you'll say, have in no age arisen so much from want of light as a want of disposition to follow the light which God has ever imparted; that the law written in their hearts was clear and express enough for any reasonable creatures, and would have directed them, had they not suffered their passions more forcibly to direct them otherwise; that, if we are to judge from this effect, namely, the corruption of the world, the same prejudice will recur, even against the Christian religion, since mankind have at least been as wicked in later days as in the more remote and simple ages of the world; and that, if we may trust to facts, there are no vices which the Apostle fixes upon the heathen world, before the preaching of the gospel, which may not be paralleled by as black a catalogue of vices in the Christian world since.

This necessarily brings us to an inquiry, Whether Christianity has done the world any service? And, how far the morals of it have been made better since this system has been embraced?

In litigating this, one might oppose facts to facts to the end of the world, without coming one jot nearer to the point. Let us see how far their mistakes concerning the Deity will throw light upon the subject.

That there was one Supreme Being who made this world, and who ought to be worshipped by his creatures, is the foundation of all religion, and so obvious a truth in nature, that Reason, as the Apostle acknowledges, was always able to discover it; and yet it seems strange that the same faculty which made the discovery should be so little able to keep true to its own judgment, and support it long against the pre

judices of wrong heads, and the propensity of weak ones towards idolatry and a multiplicity of gods.

For want of something to have gone hand in hand with reason, and fixed the persuasion for ever upon their minds that there was in truth but one God, the maker and supporter of heaven and earth, infinite in wisdom, and knowledge, and all perfections,-how soon was this simple idea lost, and mankind led to dispose of these attributes inherent in the Godhead, and divide and subdivide them again amongst deities which their own dreams had given substance to his eternal power and dominion parcelled out to gods of the land, to gods of the sea, to gods of the infernal regions; whilst the great God of gods, and Lord of lords, who ruleth over all the kingdoms of the world, who is so great that nought is able to control or withstand his power, was supposed to rest contented with his allotment, and to want power to act within such parts of his empire as they dismembered and assigned to others!

If the number of their gods, and this partition of their power, would lessen the idea of their majesty, what must be the opinions of their origin, when, instead of that glorious description which Scripture gives of the Ancient of Days who inhabiteth eternity,' they gravely assigned particular times and places for the births and education of their gods; so that there was scarce a hamlet, or even a desert, in Grecce or Italy, which was not rendered memorable by some favour or accident of this kind?

And, what rendered such conceits the more gross and absurd, they supposed not only that the gods they worshipped had a beginning, but that they were produced by fleshly parents, and accordingly they attributed to them corporeal shapes and difference of sex; and, indeed, in this they were a little consistent, for their deities seemed to partake so much of the frailties to which flesh and blood is subject that their history and their pedigree were much of a piece, and might reasonably claim each other. For they imputed to them not only the human defects of ignorance, want, fear, and the like, but the most unmanly sensualities, and what would be a reproach to human nature, such as cruelty, adulteries, rapes, incest; and even the accounts which we have from the sublimest of their poets, what are they but the anecdotes of their squabbles amongst themselves, their intrigues, their jealousies, their ungovernable transports of choler, nay, even their thefts, their drunkenness, and bloodshed?

Here let us stop a moment, and inquire what was Reason doing all this time, to be so miserably insulted and abused? Where held she her empire, whilst her bulwarks were thus borne down, and her first principles of religion and truth lay buried under them? If she was able by herself to regain the power she had lost, and