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SECT.
III.]
IN
REGARD.
OF
MEN.
487
than
his
pride
:
You
will
hear
him
sometimes acknow-
ledging
to his
friend,
"
It
is
the frailty
of
my
nature, this
cursed
passion
!
I
am
of a
warm
and hasty
temper
:
May
God and
man
forgive me
!"
But
you
scarce ever
hear
him say,
" This pride
is
my
folly,,
=
this
pride
is my
secret iniquity."
Yet
I
was
once
acquainted
with
a
christian
of
a
hasty and passionate temper,
who
has many
years since left
his
frailties
in
the
grave,
and
he,
would
confess with freedom and
with
a
becoming
sense
of
his
sin,
that
there
was
no
passion
without
some degrees
of
pride.
VI.
If
we
maintain a mean opinion
of
ourselves
we
shall
be
much more
ready
to
practise benevolence
in
a
disinterested
manner, and
to
deny ourselves for the con
-
veniency
of
those
about
us
:
We
shall
not
be,
ever
pro-
jecting
to
exalt
and gratify self,
nor
shall
we
think it
so
hard
or
so
painful
a
thing
to
be
put out
of our
own way
and
our
course
a
little,
and abate of
our
own
conveni-
ence
in
some instances in
order
to
give
some
greater
con
-
veniency
to
our
friends.
Self-
denial
is
one
of the
first lessons
in
the school
of
Chri,t.
Mat:
xvi. 24.
"
If
any
man
will
come
after
me,
let
him deny
himself;" We must learn
to mortify our own
humour
if
we
would
be
approved of Christ
or
*beloved
of
men.
The
proud and haughty
man
is
generally
so selfish
that
he can
-never
love his
neighbour
as he
ought
to love him,
because
his
opinion
of
self
rises
so
high
as
to
deserve
and
engross all
his
kind affections.
Let
him
make what pre-
tences he
will
to
friendship and goodness
;
let
him
labour
in
works
of
beneficence, and feed the hungry and
clothe
the
naked,
yet
in all
his
schemes,
contrivances and
labours'
he has
stiltssome secret
design for
his
beloved
self
:
As
his.imagination
swells
with
this
dear
idea,
so
his
wishes
and projects
are ever
full
of
it, even when he would
fain
appear
to
practise
a
disinterested
zeal for
the
good
of
others.
If
self and what belongs
to
self
is
well, all is
well
:
If
self
and
family be rich and
happy,
all
is
right
:
the man
is
tolerably
easy
:
But
if
any
thing
cross
his
purposes and
the
wishes
and humours
of
his
heart, nothing
is
right,
no-
tlaing is
well:
His
complaints shall
be
heárd aloud and
the man can
find
no rest.
ß.z4