di HUMILITY REPRESENTED. and an ever -present consciousness of sin that dwells in him. You may read this account in himself in many of his epistles ; 1 Cor. xv. 9. I am the least of the apostles, and_am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 1 'Tim. i. 13, 15. I reas before a blasphemer and a persecutor and inju- rious ; And in this viewI am thechief of sinners. Rom. vii. 14, 18, 24. I am carnal, sold under sin. Inme, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing: O wretched man that Iam! Each of us are best acquainted-with ourselves, and know best what our own, former sins and follies havebeen. Some of us perhaps have been suffered to fall into more criminal actions and shameful iniquities than others ; but there is, not one of us. who has not sinned enough to make him lie humble in the dust, and think meanly of himself if our former iniquities were always kept hr view. But alas ! we are much inclined to forget our sins, to cast thembehind outback, to turn our, eyes away from them ; it is a painful and an uneasy sight ; while at the same time we vainly turn our eyes to our own fancied- excellencies, and with pleasure we dwell long in the survey of our own real or imagined qualifications, and virtues : We aggrandize our little woithless selves into idols, and then we worship the vain image which our pride has made. 'We paY much incense of self flattery and praise to the swelling and exalted idea of the little worthless name I or Me ; and when, we have set up -a false god for our'own' worship, we are fond to, have other men bow down and worship it Mo. Come, my soul, come, let the holy apostle teach thee to secure thyself against the danger and deceit of this foolish pride: Let him instruct thee how to depress and keep down this rising tumour, this ferment- ing swelling thing, self. Take a frequent survey of thy former sins and follies ; look into thy heart, behold the hourly workings of iniquity there ; what abatements of thy fancied honour, what defilements and stains and inward- shàme wilt thou find upon thee ? Methinks, there is something elegant and exalted in the language of a famous English poet*, while he is humbling the vanity of human nature beneath the brute creatures, and even beneath the things which have neither sense nor life : 10 -Let the proud peacock his gay feathers spread And court the female to his painted bed Let' widds and seas, together rage,and swell; This nature teaches, and't becomes them well. Pride- was not made for man. A conscious sense Of guilt and folly and their consequence Destroys the claim, and to beholders tells,. Here nothing but the shape of manhood dwells." As if he should say, " ITere is not that glorious thing, that ltonottrable and holy creature man, as he was first made by the Waller.
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