28 hmI1LITY REPRESENTED. and brings the haughtiness of man down to the-dust. This I confess does not so directly tend to this comparative humility, this abasing himself below his fellows, but it has a mighty in- fluence on this virtue absolutely considered, and therefore I name it. The apostle maintains upon his spirit grand ideas of the great God, Me blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords, who only halls immortality, dwelling in the light whichno man can approach, whom no main hath seen nor can see, to whom belongs honour and power everlasting ; 1 Tim. vi. 15, 16. What an atom, what a dust of being, what a dark and diminutive thing is man under the lively apprehension of a pre.. sent God, a God of such majesty and brightness ? And in the words followingmy text he is surveying the grandeurs of Christ, bywhomGod created all things, and the unsearchable riches of his grace ; Eph. iii. 8, 9. And how mean and little must every son of Adam appear in the presence of this Son of God ? He looks upon himself 'as poor and contemptible in the view of such unsearchable riches and glory. A sinful and fallen Ivan, who has been favoured with some attainments above his neigh- bours, when he stands in the midst of sinful and fallen men, may perhaps appear somethinggreat and honourable ; but when he sets himself before a holy God and before Christ the Son of his love, and the express imageof his glories, he must then think himself despicably little, and covered with meanesses and dis- honours. So a worm or an emmet that is a little larger than his brethren may lift up itselfamong fellow -emmets or fellow-worms; but the foot of a man treads it to the dust, andit appears a worth- less and unregarded thing. Oh my soul, if thou wouldst lessen thyself, as a creature and a christian ought to do, live much in the sight of God as seeing him that is invisible. When God appears in the glory of his holiness, God in the person Of his Son Jesus in his pre- existent state, as St. John tells us in chapter xii. then the seraphs cover their faces and their feet with their wings in his presence, and the holy prophet cries out, Woe is me, for I am undone, I am a man ofunclean lips ; mineeyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts; Is. vi. 2, 5. Once have I spoken of myself, saìth Job, to maintain my own honours, yea twice, before I had seen God in his glory ; but nowmine eye has seen thee, behold I am vile, Iwill lay my hand upon my mouth, I lie down in pro- found silence, I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes; Job xl. 4, 5. and xlii. 5, 6. Live much therefore, Omy soul, in the views of God, the fairest, and the first, and the best of beings : Live much in the contemplation of Christ his Son, inwhom dwells all the fulness of the godhead bodily, and who is the first and fairest image of the Father. Thou canst never dare to swell and exalt thyself, thy little worthless self, in the pre-
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