incapable of attaining to IiYifdomn. 245 cellency, and are unbecoming the relation S E R Da. which creatures bear to him. To fpeak X. and to ad as if our lips were our own, and our powers to be employed wholly for our- felves, and by the direction of our own wills, without fubordination or any regard to his ; as if we lived independently on him, and poffeffed any thing which we did n.ot receive from his bounty ; as if we had no need to have recourfe to his liberality for the fupply of our wants ; as if we had a fo- vereign right to difpofe of ourfelves, and our own interefts and affairs ; or as if we were not accountable to him for all our actions : This is proudly to exalt ourfelves againft God, and to forget that we are and mull neceffarily be in the condition of frail depending creatures. Like this was the pride of the angels, who, as St. Jude telleth us, kept not their firfl ejlate, but left their own habitation ; and the apoffle Paul reprefent- eth it as the caufe of the devil's condemna- tion, I Tim. iii. 6. Not that it is to be ima- gined he ever thought himfelf greater than the Almighty in power and perfection, and would on that account attempt to dethrone him by fuperior force ; but in the pride of his heart, the high conceit of his fuf iciency to R 3 condut
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=