475 TT- E ADVANTAGES OF NU:MLLITY, his Creator, he gives it a vent and lets loose his impati- ence against every creature that comes in his way : Hence arises the impious fretfulness, and the tormenting vexa- tion of spirit that haughty persons feel under pressing calamities; they throw their fury all around them : Their impatience under the hand of God is expressed by pee- vishness toward men : They make every one that is near them a witness of that inward indignation and resentment, which they dare not directly aim at him that dwells on high. It is this rising vanity, this fermenting and swelling idea of self that gives us ten -fold agony and smart when we are cast down and pressed under the hand of God. When we sustain evils which we cannot remedy, we mul- tiply and increase their load, and sharpen every sting of calamity by the pride and impatience of our own spirits. God is affronted by us, men grow weary of helping us, we enhance the pain and anguish of every affliction, and we provoke the hand of a holy and jealous God to keep us longer under the weight of sorrow, sickness or distress, till it has done his work, and pressed down the haughti- ness of our spirit. IV. By diminishing thoughts of ourselves we shall attain a nearer and greater conformity to the blessed Jesus the Son of God. What is there in all the character of our dear Redeemer greater and more surprizing than his humble temper and his humbled estate ? The merit and honour of his humility and lowliness are aggrandized and brightened by every glorious and divine idea that enters into his character. Ile is the brightness of his Father's glory, and the express image of his person, yet he hum- bled himself to the form of a man, and to the likeness of sinful flesh : He is the Son of God and one with the Fa- ther, yet he became the son of man, and was born of a poor virgin of the despicable country of Galilee; and when he was a man here upon earth, how did his meek and gentle and condescending behaviour manifest his self abasing virtues? he emptied himself of the splendors which'he once possessed ; Phil. ii. 6, 7. " He made him- self of no reputation, as the English translators have rendered it, and being found in fashion as a man, he be- haved like a fellow-creature, a friend and a brother, though he was reallx superior to angels, and one with God, though his name was God with us, and his cha- rsECT. rr.
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