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some pride even in your deepest humility: some sloth in your most cheerful obedience : and much weakness in your strongest faith and love. I neither forget nor palliate this, in you or myself. We may well hide our heads in the dust, when we compare ourselves with holy men and women of old, even when they were not perfect; and, now that they are holy as God is holy, or "without spot before the throne," we may well shrink, and that not a little, from all comparison with them. Indeed, as to the degree of their holiness, there is no comparison between us and them: it is all contrast or dissimilarity.

You see clearly, that I am not about to flatter or compliment you. As, however, I must tell you plainly that, if you "have not the spirit of Christ, you are none of His," I feel equally bound to remind you, that whatever you have of it, is really a part of heavenly

piety, and as truly likeness to the saints above, as it is to the saints below. Now, I remind you of this fact, because whatever agreement you may be able to trace out between your own spirit and their spirit, will be more easily traced up to the Holy Spirit, than even the points in which your experience resembles that of Christians on earth. For, do you not see, that if you think at all, feel at all, desire at all, as saints and angels do in heaven, there must have been some heavenly influence shed upon your heart, and some Divine change passed upon your spirit? For as neither saints nor angels have taught you their creed or their emotions, and as you did not begin your piety by trying to copy their example, all real participation in their great principles must have sprung from Divine teaching.

This conclusion is not so easily drawn, and cannot be so safely drawn, from your resem

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blance to your pious friends on earth. I do not say that it is unsafe to draw it from likeness to them. I have already shown, that it is both useful and encouraging to do so at first. It is not, however, the surest ground to go on: for as we do not know the heart of any man or woman fully, we cannot be absolutely certain that likeness to them is conversion to God. In the case of glorified spirits, however, there is no room for any hesitation. We are absolutely sure of their sincerity, simplicity, and perfection and therefore, if we have any real fellow-feelings with them, we have real evidence of having passed from death to life.

Is there then any thing in your HUMILITY akin to their humility? They veil their faces before God: they fall down before the throne : and even when they stand around the throne of God and the Lamb, they sing of nothing but the wonders of the grace which brought them

to glory. Now this, all this, you intend to do when you join their company. Like them you will be glad to have eternity all before you, and the throne all open to you, in order to express, for ever, your adoring wonder and gratitude, that one so unworthy as yourself should have been put among the children, and made meet for the inheritance of the saints in light. Well; is there any thing of this spirit in your humility now? Does your conscience bear you witness, that you lie low before God in the dust of self-abasement; that you are ashamed, and pained, and burdened, on account of your sins and short comings; that you can hardly bear to think of your own vileness and weakness, nor see how you can ever forgive yourself; that you feel at times as if your heart would break, and your soul melt within you, through heaviness and shame, because of your guilt and ingratitude? This

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is the humility, in an earthly form, of the saints in heaven. They, indeed, no longer weep, nor groan, nor sigh, nor blush, in the His hand has wiped away presence of God. all tears from their eyes, and his smile banished all pain from their hearts: but this wonderful love has only deepened their humility. very absence of all sorrow and sighing, leads their spotless spirits to pour out the fulness of their gratitude, with as much modesty as rapture. Their most breathless pauses of wonder and joy occur, when they remember what they were on earth! Thus they are all as fully "clothed with humility," as with the white robes of righteousness and holiness.

Now, although the degree of their humility is, of course, inimitable on earth, the kind of it is not so. To be ashamed and bowed down in spirit by the remembrance of sin, is real humility in heaven and on earth. And, are not

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