formula of ceremonies, and a digest of ordinances for one particular people, left not so full an exercise for the use of reason. Descending to the most minute particulars, and being expanded into the most detailed directions, it left little for the disciple but to read the rule and follow it. But the New Testament being, as we have elsewhere observed, rather a system of principles, than a mere didactic table of small as well as great duties, leaves much more to the exercise of reason, and furnishes a much larger field for the understanding to develop, to compare, to separate, to combine. The whole plan of duty is, indeed, most clearly and distinctly laid open; but every uniting particle, every intermediate step, every concatenating link, is not traced out with amplitude and fulness. But let him not in return fall too heavily on what are, to his ear, the obnoxious terms of his adversary. Let him not be so forward to consider the terms virtue and rectitude as implying heresies that must be hewed down without mercy; as substantives which must never find a place in the Christian vocabulary. They are not only very innocent but very excellent words, if he who utters them only means to express by virtue those good works which are the fruits of a right faith, and by rectitude that unbending principle of equity and justice which designates the confirmed Christian. The abuse of these terms may, indeed, make the more pious adversary a little afraid of using them, as the unnecessary multiplication of ordinary cases in which the more scriptural terms are pressed into the service, may make the less advanced Christian unreasonably shy of obtruding them. The more instructed Christian will perceive that some expressions are merely figurative; some are directions for persons under one cir- But why must we villify in others what we cumstance, and some for those under another. are cautious of using ourselves, in order to magThe Gospel requires, indeed, as implicit sub- nify what we chuse to adopt? We should mission from the Christian, as the law required rather be glad that those who somewhat differ from the Jew; but while it proposes truths, all from us, come so near as they do; that they are of which equally demand his obedience, some more religious than we expected; that if they of them require more especially the use of his are in error, they are not in hostility; or if seemreflection, and the exercise of his sagacity. We ingly averse, it is more to the too indiscrimiallude not to the great mysteries of godliness,' nate and light use of the opponent's terms, than but to duties which are of individual application. to the sober reception of the truths they convey. If we were to pursue prejudice through all Let us be glad even at the worst, to see opposiits infinite variety, we should never have done tion mitigated, differences brought into a narwith the inexhaustible subject. Observation rower compass. Let us not encounter as leaders presents to us followers of truth of a very dif- of hostile armies, but try what can be done by ferent cast, though their uniform object be the negotiation, though never of course by concessame. These persons, while they sometimes sion in essentials. If the terms virtue and recseek her temple by different paths, are yet titude are used to the exclusion of faith and oftener kept wide of each other by words than grace, or as substitutes for them, it may afford by things. Whatever, indeed, be the separating an opening for the pious advocate to show the principle, prejudice is always carried to its difference between the principle and its consegreatest height by the impatience of the too quence, the root and its produce. He should fiery on the one hand, and the contempt of the charitably remember that it is one thing for an tco frigid on the other. But both, as we ob- honest inquirer to come short of truth, and anserved, maintain their distance more by certain other for a petulent caviller to wander wide of leading terms by which each is found to be dis-it. It is one thing to err through mistake or criminated, and by an intolerance in each, to the terms adopted by the other, than by any radical distinction which might fairly keep them asunder. Now we do not wish them to relinquish the use of their peculiar terms, because these terms either do, or should designate to their minds the most important characters of religion. The Christian should neither shrink from his own strong hold, nor treat with repulsive disdain, him who appears earnest in his approaches towards it, though he has not as yet, through some prejudice of education, sought it in a direct way. There are many terms, such as faith and grace, and others which might be mentioned, which subject the more advanced Christian to the imputation of enthusiasm and the charge of cant. These, however, are words which are the signs of things on which his eternal hopes depend, and he uses them, even though he may sometimes do it unseasonably, yet not as the Shibboleth of a profession, but because there are no others exactly equivalent to their respective meanings. In fact, if he did not use them when occasion calls, he would be deserting his colours, and be making a compromise, to the ruin of his conscience. timidity, and another to offend through wilfulness and presumption. If the inquirer be of the former class, only deficient, and not malignant, he may be brought to feel his deficiency, and is often in a very improveable state. It would therefore be well to let him see that you think him right as far as he goes, but that he does not go the whole length. If he professes to deny all ungodliness and worldly lusts,' this is no small step: yet he may still require to be convinced that it is 'by the grace of God teaching him.' Here the two ideas expressed by your term of grace, and his of virtue, are brought into united action, with this difference, or if you please with this agreement, that your's being the cause, and his the effect, the Christian character attains its consummation between you. You must, however, endeavour to convince him, that though the greater includes the less, the reverse cannot be true; that faith and grace in the Christian sense involve virtue and rectitude, bat virtue and rectitude in the philosophical sense desire to be excused from any connexion with faith and grace. But the of. fence taken at terms creates hostility at the outset, blocks up the avenues to each other's heart, and leads men to be so filled with the, things in which they differ, as to keep them in the dark as to the things in which they agree. The more strict disputant will perhaps continue to insist that no such terms as virtue and rectitude are to be found in any Evangelist. Granted. Neither do we find there some other solemn words expressive of the most awful verities of our religion. The holy Trinity and the satisfaction made by the death of Christ, are not, I believe, in any part of the New Testament expressed by these terms, which were first used some ages after in the Byzantine church. But can it be said that the things themselves are not to be found there? They are not only conspicuous in every part of the Gospel, but make up the sum and substance of what it teaches. While each disputant then contends for his own phrases, let not the one suspect that grace and faith are the watch words of enthusiasm; nor the other conclude that infidelity skulks behind virtue, and pagan pride behind rectitude. St. Paul expressly exhorts his converts to add to their faith virtue,' and if the inverted injunction was never given, it was not because faith was unnecessary where virtue previously existed, but because virtue, Christian virtue, never could have existed at all without previous faith. In enjoining virtue, the Apostle, upon his own uniform principle, supposes the Christian to be already in possession of faith; this he ever considers the essential substance, virtue the inseparable appendage. Thus the divine preacher on the Mount, in his prohibition of an hypocritical outside, does not say, Give alms, fast, pray; he concluded that his followers were already in the practice of those duties, and on this conviction grounded his cautionary exhortation when thou doest alms, when thou prayest, when thou fastest. He taught them to avoid all ostentation in duties, to which he alluded as already established. Be it observed by the Saviour himself no attribute is so constantly enjoined or commanded as faith. His previous question to those who resorted to him to be cured, was not if they had virtue but faith; but never let it be forgotten, that as soon as the cure was performed, the man of faith was enjoined, as the surest evidence of his virtue, to sin no more. CHAP. XIII. Humility the only true greatness. HUMILITY is one of those qualities of which Christianity requires the perpetual practical exercise. It does not insist that we should be feeding or instructing others-that we should be every moment engaged in acts of benevolence to our fellow creatures, or of mortification to ourselves but, whether we teach or are taught, whether communicate our good things to others, or are dependant on others for the communication to ourselves, humility is required as the invariable, the indispensable, the habitual grace, in the life of a Christian. Pride being the radical distemper of the natural man; the business, the duty, the blessedness of the spiritual man is to be freed from it. However valuable high intellectual attainments have been found in the vindication of religion, however beneficially talents and learning have been exerted in adducing the evidences and augmenting the illustration of divine truth, yet for the most striking exemplification of genuine piety, To this man will I look, saith the Lord, who is of an humble spirit.' Christianity gives a new form to the virtues, by recasting them in this mould. Humility may be said to operate on the human character like the sculptor, who, in chiseling out the statue, accomplishes his object, not by laying on, but by pairing off, not by making extraneous additions, but by retrenching superfluities; till every part of the redundant material is cleared away. The reduction which true religion effects, of swelling passions, irregular thoughts, and encumbering desires, produces at length on the human mind some assimilation to the divine image-that model by which it works-as the human resemblance is gradually, and at length successfully, wrought in the marble. Christianity, though equally favourable to the loftiest as to the lowest condition of life, was not intended to make man great, but to make him contented to be little. Though no enemy to the possession and cultivation of the highest mental powers, but affording, on the contrary, the noblest objects for their investigation, and the richest materials for their exercise; yet she rests not her truth on their discussion, nor depends for making her way to the heart on their reasonings. While the cheering approbation of an humble faith is an encouragement repeatedly held out in the Gospel, there, is not one commendation of talent, except for its application-not the least notice of rank or riches, except to intimate their danger-not any mention of the wisdom of this world, except to pronounce its condemnation. Humility stands at the head of the beatitudes, and incorporated with them all. And the gra cious injunction, 'Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart,' is a plain intimation, that our Redeemer particularly intended that portion of his own divine character for the most immediate object, not of our admiration only, but of our imitation. It is the temper which of all others he most frequently commends, most uniformly enjoins, and which his own pure and holy life most invariably exhibits. If we look into the Old Testament, we see that God, after having described himself as the high and holy One which inhabiteth eternity,' by a transition the most unexpected, and a condescension the most inconceivable, immediately subjoins, that He dwelleth with the contrite and the humble; and this from a motive inexpressibly gracious, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite.' Is it not incredible, that after these repeated declarations and examples of the Almighty Father, and of the Eternal Son, pride should still be thought a mark of greatness, an ebullition of spirit; and that humility should be so little understood to be the true moral dignity of Christians? While in the religion which they profess, there is no excellence to which it is not preliminary, and of which it is not the crown; nor are other virtues genuine but as they are accompanied with this grace, and performed in this spirit. No quality has acquired its perfection, till it is clarified and refined by being steep ed in humility. It is indeed essential to the very reception of Christianity, for, without this principle, we shall be disposed to cavil at divine revelation, to reject, at least, every truth revolting to human pride; we shall require other ground for the belief in God than his revealed word, other evidence of his veracity than the internal conviction of our spiritual wants, and the suitableness of that remedy which the Gospel presents to us. This principle, therefore, is indispensable; without it, we shall be little inclined cordially to receive Christianity as a light, or to obey it as a rule. Without it we shall not discover the evil of our own hearts; and without this discovery, we shall by no means value the grace of the Holy Spirit ; we shall exercise no habitual dependance on the promised assistance, nor seek for a support of which we do not feel the want. supposition of two cases, and, in either, the injunction would be just. As they had made a public profession of Christianity, he intimates, that there was no surer way of evincing that their profession was sincere, and their conversion radical, than by this unequivocal mark, the cultivation of an humble spirit. Or, on the other hand, however deeply rooted they might be in faith and piety, he might feel it necessary to remind them, that they should not consider themselves as having attained a perfection which left no room for improvement. So far was this deep proficient in divine wisdom from thinking that all was done when the convert had entered on his new course, he enjoins them, ever after this effectual change, that they should, as a consequence as well as a proof, therefore, put on' this christian grace; and produces their conversion as a motive, because you are already renewed.' He does not recommend any specific act, so much as a general disposition of mind,' implying, according to his uniform practice, that growth was necessary to life, and progress to perfection. works will make but a feeble resistance. The doctrines of Christianity, and the discourses of its divine Author, are rather pointed against certain radical evil principles, than extended to their lesser ramifications. When the But humility, by leading us to form a just es- powerful artillery of the Gospel was more espe timate of ourselves, teaches us to discern the cially levelled against the strong holds of pride, narrowness of our capacities. It reminds us, it included in the attack all the minor offences that there are many things even in the works resulting from it; implying, that if the citadel of God's natural creation far above our compre-be conquered, the intimidated forces in the outhension; that from the ignorance and blindness of our minds we make frequent mistakes, and Even the worldly and the careless, who are form a very erroneous judgment about things perhaps too inattentive to perceive that humility comparatively obvious and intelligible. This is the predominating feature in the truly reli temper will bring us to credit with fuller cor.gious character, as well as the most amiable and diality the testimony which God in his word gives of himself, and cure us of the vanity of rejecting it, on the mere ground that we cannot comprehend it. It will deliver us from the desire of being-wise above what is written,' and is the sole antidote to the perils of that promise of unhallowed knowledge, with which the grand seducer tempted his first credulous victim. It is not till humility has practically made known to us how slowly religion produces its effects on ourselves, that we cease to marvel at its feeble influence and slow-paced efficacy on those around us. As a consequence, this principle leads the humble Christian to be severe in judging himself, and disposes him to be candid in judging others. When he compares himself with worse men, it furnishes a motive, not for vanity, but gratitude; when with better for additional self-abasement. St. Paul seems to have been fully aware of the lagging movement which even Christians make towards the complete attainment of this heavenly temper. In his address to the Colossians, after having expressed his firm hope of their sincere conversion, in that they had put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him,' he yet finds it expedient to exhort them; and, for this very reason, to put on,' together with other christian qualities which he enumerates, humbleness of mind.' He might have pressed this duty under the engaging part of it, yet pay it a sort of involuntary homage in adopting its outward appearance. Many among the more elegant classes of society, who cannot be brought to adopt the principle, assume the form, as the most unequivocal mark of their superior condition. But while the well-bred exhibit the polished exterior of humility in manner, they are called, as Christians, to cultivate the inward and spiritual grace. In spite of the laws against egotism which the code of good breeding has issued, a nearer intimacy sometimes discloses the self-satisfaction which politeness had thinly veiled. While we are prone to carry our virtues in our memory, we cannot be always on our guard against producing them in our conversation. Such virtues, for the most part popular ones, caught our taste perhaps from the applause with which they were received, or the eloquence with which they were set forth in our presence: and as we acquired them in public, and by hearing and reading, we shall be contented to exercise them in profession and talk. Many, and very many of these quali. ties may be grafted on the old stock, and look green and flourishing, whilst they have no root in themselves; but genuine humility springs out of a root deeply fixed in the soil of a renewed heart, and takes its first ground on the full conviction of our apostacy from God. As we make a proficiency in this humbling knowledge of ourselves, our confidence in our own virtues proportionably diminishes. The de X light we once received in the contemplation is first abated by self-distrust, and finally abolished by self-acquaintance.-Then we begin to profit by the deep sense of our own weakness, and to send forth the genuine fruits of a strength and a virtue derived from higher sources. And thus, the sound conviction of our own frailty, though purchased at the expense of a great error, may prove, if we might venture to say it, of more real benefit to our own mind, than the performance of a splendid action, if of that action all the use we had made had been to repose added confidence in our own strength, or to entertain higher notions of our own goodness. Yet, while we ought to be deeply humbled at every fresh detection of evil in our hearts, to be discouraged at the discovery from proceeding in our Christian course is so far from being an effect of humility, that it is rather the result of pride. The traveller who meets with a fall, does not recover his ground by lying still and lamenting, but by rising and pursuing his journey. Joined with this faulty despondency, or still more frequently preceding it, is to be traced the operation of a blind and morbid pride. Particularly, if the intimation of the fault we have committed comes from others, the heart is found to rise at the bare suggestion that we are not perfect. We had perhaps been guilty of a hundred faults before, of which, as others took no notice, they made little impression on ourselves. We commit a smaller error, which draws the eyes of the world upon us, and we are not only dejected but almost hopeless. The eye of God was equally witness to our preceding faults, yet from their being secret, they produced little compunction, while that which is obvious to human inspection produces sorrow on the mere ground of producing shame. Perhaps we were permitted to fall into this more notorious error that we might be brought to advert to those of which we had been so little sensible; and though the depression consequent upon this fault is rather the consciousness of mortified pride, than of pious contrition, yet God may make use of it to awaken us to a feeling of our general corruptions, to warn us not to depend on ourselves, and to put us on our guard against secret faults,' as well as against open and presumptuous sins.' Even a good man is not entirely exempt from the danger of occasional elation of spirit; even a good man does not always judge himself so rigorously as he ought; yet, though he makes too many partial allowances, is too much disposed to softenings and abatements, to apologies and deductions, still he is, on the whole, suspicious of himself, distrustful of his own rectitude, on his guard against habitual aberrations from humility. Though tremblingly alive to kindness, his sincerity makes him almost ready to regret commendation, because his enlightened conscience tells him, that if the panegyrist knew him as he knows himself, it would have been bestowed with much abatement; and he is little elated with the praise which is produced by ig. norance and mistake.-Though he has fewer faults than some others, yet, as he must know more of himself than he can know of them, his humility will teach him to bear patiently even the censure he does not deserve, conscious how much he does deserve for faults which the censurer cannot know. There is, however, no humility in an excessive depreciation of ourselves. We are not commanded to take a false estimate of our own character, though a low would be too frequently a just one. While the great Apostle St. Peter was contented to call himself the servant of Jesus Christ, his self-constituted successors, by an hyperbole of self-abasement, have denominated themselves servants of the servants of God. And yet they have not, it is to be feared, always surpassed the disciple they profess to follow, in the display of this apostolic grace. Nor is the appearance of this quality any infallible proof of its existence. Nothing is more common than to hear affability to the poor produced as an undoubted evidence of the humility of the affluent. The act, indeed, is always amiable, whatever be the motive; but still the expression is equivocal. Does it not sometimes too much resemble that septennial exhibition of humility which calls forth so much smiling condescension from the powerful, while it conveys an hour's importance to the poor man's heart?" The one enjoys the brief, but keen delight, of reviling his superiors with impunity, with the better gratification of conferring favours instead of receiving them; the other, like Dryden's Achitophel, bowing popularly low,' wins by his courtesy, that favour, which he would not perhaps have obtained by his merit. But the curtain soon closes on the personated scene :-the next day, both fall back into their natural character and condition. The periodical condescension at once reinstates itself into seven year's dignity, while the independent elector cheerfully resumes his place in his dependent class, till the next Saturnalia again invite to the reciprocal exchange of character. Where the difference of condition is obviously great, nothing is lost, and something may be gained by familiarity: the condescension is so apparent, that though it properly excites both adiniration and gratitude in the indigent, it does not infallibly prove the lowliness of the superior. The impassable gulf which separates the two conditions, the immoveable fences which establish that distance, preserve the poor from en. croachment, and the rich from derogation: no swellings of heart arise against the acknowledged dependant, no dread of emulation against the avowed inferior. Even arrogance itself is gratified at seeing its train augmented by so amiable a thing as its own kindness. Notice is richly repaid by panegyric, and condescension finds it has only stooped to rise.—If we give pleasure in order to be paid with praise, we had better be less liberal that we might be less exacting. The discreetly proud are aware, that arrogant manners bar up men's hearts against them; their very pride, therefore, preserves them from insolence; the determined object being to gain hearts, and their good sense telling them that a haughty demeanor is not the way to gain them, they know how to make the exterior affable in proportion as the mind is high; for the ingenuity of pride has taught it, that popularity is only to be obtained by concealing the most offensive part of itself. Thus it can retain its nature and gratify its spirit, without the arro-, ent principle. It knows not only how to assume gant display by which vulgar pride disgusts, and, by disgusting, loses its aim. The true test is, how the same person feels, and how he conducts himself, towards him whose claims come in competition with his own-who treads on his heels in his pretensions, or surpasses him in his success-who is held up as his rival in genius, in reputation, in fortune, in display-who runs the race with him and outstrips him. More severe will be the test, when the competitor is his own familiar friend,' who was his equal, perhaps his inferior, in the contest for academical honours, but is now a more fortunate candidate for the prizes which the world distributes, or his decided conqueror on the professional Arena. His humility is put to the trial, when he hears another extolled for the very quality on which he most values himself-commended for something in which he would, if he dared, monopolize commendation-it is tried when he sees that a man of merit has prospered in an enterprise in which he has failed, or when he is called upon for the magnanimity to acknowledge one who, though below him in general character, is still his superior in this particular respect -it is, when, in some individual instance, this competitor has promoted the public good by a means which he had declared to be totally inapplicable to the end. the garb of the attribute to which it is opposed, but even descends to be abject, which humility never is. Consider it on one side, nothing is so self-supported; survey it on the other, you will perceive that nothing is so dependent, so full of clains, so exacting, so incapable of subsisting on itself. It is made up of extrinsic appendages; it leads a life of mendicity; it stoops to beg the alms of other men's good opinion for its daily bread. It is true, the happiness of a proud man, if he have rank, arises from an idea of his own importance; but still, to feed and maintain this greedy self-importance, he must look around him. His pleasures are derived, not so much from his personal enjoyments as from his supe. riority to others; not so much from what he possesses, as from the respect his possessions inspire. As he cannot entirely support his feelings of greatness by what he finds in himself; he supplies the deficiency by looking backward to his ancestors, and downward upon his train,With all his self-consequence, he is reduced to borrow his dignity from the merits of the one, and the numbers of the other. By thus multiplying himself, he feels not only individually, but numerically, great. These foreign aids and adjuncts help him to enlarge the space he fills in his own imagination, and he is meanly contented to be admired for what is, in effect, no part of himself.-This sentiment is, however, by no means limited to rank or riches. If the penury of pride drives it to seek its ali ment in the praise of others, it is chiefly because we want their good opinion to confirm us in that which we have of ourselves. When we secretly indulge in reckoning up the testimonies we have collected to our worth, it is because we like to bring as many witnesses as we can muster, that we may have their approving verdict in additional proof that our judgment was right. In fact, we think better of ourselves in proportion as we contrive to make more people think well of us. But, however large the circle which high imaginations' draw round the individual self in the centre, we can really occupy no more than our allotted space; we may indeed change our position, but, in shifting it, we fill no more than we filled already, for by the removal we lose as much as we gain. The true Christian will be humble in proportion to the splendor of his endowments. Humility does not require him to stupify or disavow his understanding, and thus disqualify or indispose him for great active duties. If he possesses talents, he is not unconscious of them, but, instead of exulting in the possession, he is abased that he has not turned them to better account, he is habitually thinking how he can most essentially serve God with his own gift. Sensible that he owes every thing to his divine Benefactor, he feels that he has not made him the return to which he was bound, and that his gratitude bears little proportion to his mercies; so that the very review of his abilities and possessions, which inflates the hearts of others, only deepens his humility, only fills his mind with a fuller sense of his own defect of love and thankfulness. Every distinction, instead of intoxicating him, only augments his sense of dependence, magni- It is an humbling truth, that the most powerfies his weight of obligation, increases his feel-ful talents are not seldom accompanied with veing of accountableness. His humility has a double excitement: he receives every blessing as the gift of God though the merits of his Son; it is increased by the reflection, that such is his unworthiness, he dares not even supplicate the mercy of his Creator but through the intercession of a Mediator: where is boasting then? it is excluded.'-Not only on account of any good he may have, but also on account of evils from which he has been preserved, he acknowledges himself indebted to divine assistance; so that his escapes and deliverances, as well as his virtues and successes, are subjects of gratitude rather than of self-exultation. It will not be departing from the present object, if we contrast the quality under consideration with its opposite. While humility is never at variance with itself, pride is a very inconsist. hement passions, that a brilliant imagination is too frequently associated with ungoverned appetites. Neither human reason, nor motives merely moral, are commonly found to keep these impetuous usurpers in order; the strength of men's passions tempting them to violate the rules which the strength of their judgment has laid down.-Nature cannot operate without its own sphere. What is natural in the intellect, will not, of itself, govern what is natural in the appetite. If the lower part of our nature is sub. dued, it is not without the holy Spirit assisting the higher. Wit, especially has such a tendency to lead astray the mind which it embellishes, that it is a striking evidence of the efficacy of grace, when men, whose shining talents make virtue lovely in the eyes of others, reject themselves high thoughts engendering pride" when |