SBB MISCELLANEOUS THOUGHTS. sacred dignity, but it discovers the sentiments and the piety which attended him through all his life. Pride, saith he, is so extensive, so universal a disease of mankind, that I know no part of the infection which we derive from our first father, that has so intimately mingled itself with the whole mass of blood, has so much corrupted our best powers, and runs without exception through the whole race. Methinks I can scarce move, or speak, but I feel the secret poison working, and I am betrayed at every turn into new folly and guilt by this flattering and subtle enemy, If I am accepted in company, and find favour among men, how ready am I to impute it to my own merit ! And if I meet with reproach, how does my heart swell against the tongue that utter- ed it, and I begin to charge the ignorant world that they have not known me : or 1 accuse them secretly of doing injustice to my character ; for I fancy myself to have deserved the honours of mankind, and not their censures. This active iniquity is never at rest ; whether I have to do with God or man, it besets me on every side, it breaks the com- mands of the first table, as well as the second ; detracts from the honour that I owe to my Maker, and the charity due to my fel- low- creatures. I devote myself and all my powers to God in the morning, and I think I do it with solemn sincerity : Then I meditate, I compose, or perhaps I preach, and diffuse the knowledge and the glory of Christ, my Lord: But if some shining thought break' into my meditations, how fond am I to spread and dress it, to make self shine a little and thus sacrilegiously attempt to share the honour that is due alone to my Saviour and his gospel ! How closely Both this serpent - iniquity twine about my nature, and defile my most religious services ! Often do I assume those lines in my lips, and with the pleasing pain that belongs to repentance, I appropriate the words to myself, as though I had been the author of them : "'Ti, pride, that busy sin, " Spoils all that 1 perform ; " Curst pride, that creeps securely in, And swells a haughty worm! If I begin to write any divine thoughts in verse, to enter- tain myself or my fellow - christians with holy melody, I find this temper at my right -hand, abusing my poesy, to the ruin of my religion, --- - "My God, the songs I frame " Are, faithless to thy cause, " And steal the honours of thy name " To build their own applause."
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