SECT. IV.] SN REGARD TO OURSELVES. 4 Which may be rendered thus in English : " This shadow shews the frail remains Of care and grief and studious pains. The mind in humble posture waits A suppliant at truth's sacred gates, To find some gleams of light appear, And he that gave it, sees it there." What an elegance of humility lies couched in the last line, as it were retired from the eye of man, and seen to God only! But let notany of us imagine that a subscription to this great man's doctrines of grace, or a zealous vindication of his most evangelical opinions is a sufficient proof of a humble spirit. We may depress and even nullify the pride and power of fallen mari with a spirit of pride and self- sufficiency. So Diogenes the cynic or dogged philo- sopher is said to have set his dirty feet upon some fine furniture of Plato's bed, and then he boasted himself that he had sunk down and humbled the pride of Plato: Yes, replied the more civil philosopher, and that with a greater load of pride. We may talk of our own vileness and nothingness with haughty and vain-glorious language, and defend the most self-abasing doctrines of the gospel with An arrogant and imperious temper. Give me the man that lays nature low before God under a living sense and consciousness of its guilt and wretchedness and im- potence; who appears to feel every word that he speaks, and his style and his airs are all as humble as his divine doctrine represents him. It is possible for us to take the language of heaven upon our lips with a hell of fire and pride in our hearts, and support even truth or grace itself with intolerable and shameful haughtiness. iÌ. As a low esteem of self will help us against many errors of the mind, so it will guard us against the follies of the humourist, which are the vice of the will. The wise and lowly mind has very few humours or unreason- able inclinations, and therefore he feels but little vex'a- tion or disquietude. He'can conform himself to present circumstances without pain, there is no difficulty to please him, he finds an easy chair in every room of his house. It is the humourist that creates perpetual vexa-
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