inculcated in the New Teftament; infomuch that it may be reckoned among the diftinguishing Doctrines of the Chriftian Religion. The Heathen Morals almost overlooked it, and in the Old Testament Writings 'tis but fparingly recommended; but in the Chriftian Inftitution we every where meet with it in Capital Characters, as a Precept of the firft Magnitude, Jam. 4. 6. God refifteth the Proud, faith St. James; and, 1 Pet. 5. 5. be ye cloathed with Humility, fays St. Peter. And our Lord himself, who was a perfect Example of all Moral and Divine Perfection, and in whom the Fulness of the Godhead dwelt bodily, feems yet to commend himfelf to our Imitation, chiefly upon the Account of his Humility; Learn of me, fays he, for I am meek, and lowly in heart, Matth. 11. 29. I But there needs no Multiplication of Scripture for the Proof of this. I fhall therefore only farther obferve; That the greatest Perfonages that ever were in the World were always most eminent and confpicuous for this Excellency. Out of many, I fhall felect three Inftances, which may well deferve our Confideration. The firft fhall be the great Fore-runner of our Bleffed Saviour, the Holy Baptift. This Great and Holy Perfon, when the Jews fent Priests and Levites from Jerufalem, to demand of him who he was, not only disclaim'd the Titles of Christ, of Elias, and of that Prophet, (this his humble Spirit was not content with) but went farther, and gave this ftrange and mortified Account of him felf, felf, I am, fays he, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Joh. 1. 23. The Prophet David, indeed, had faid before of himself, That he was a Worm, and no Man, Pfal. 22. 6. And this, one would think, was a fufficient Stretch of Humility: But the Baptift fpeaks in a Strain below him, allowing himself to be no more than a Voice. The fame holy Perfon thought himself unworthy to baptize his Saviour; nay, what makes that lefs admirable, not worthy fo much as to unloose the very Latchet of his Shooes.. THE next Inftance I fhall mention, is the ever-bleffed Mother of our Lord. She, if ever any Creature, had Caufe to be proud: 'Tis impoffible even to imagin a stronger Temptation. She was faluted by an Arch-Angel, faid to be a Perfon highly favoured with God, and bleffed. among Women; and in particular, That fhe fhould be Mother to the Son of the Higheft, and that too by the Power of the Moft High. Was not here enough to betray a poor innocent Virgin into Pride and Vanity? Had the Angels half fo much Reason for their Pride and Haughtiness, when they fell from the Heights of Glory? Well, how did he behave her felf under the dangerous Salutation? Why, fhe feemed to make it rather Matter of Obedience and Refignation, than of Triumph and Boafting. Behold, fays fhe, the handmaid of the Lord: be it unto me according to thy word, Luk. 1. 38. But the moft ftupendous Inftance of Humility that ever was, or can be, was in the Perfon of of our Bleffed Lord; whether we confider him in the Mystery of his Incarnation, or in the mean Circumstances of his Birth, or in the humble Method of his Life; whether we confider him as emptying himself of his Eternal Glories, and drawing a Cloud over his Brightness; or as forbidding the Devils to publifh his Divinity, and Men to declare his Miracles, and his Difciples to tell of his Transfiguration; or as washing his Disciples Feet, or as riding upon an Afs, or as converfing among Sinners; and laftly, chufing to die between Thieves. Thefe, and many other Inftances of Condefcenfion, argue the most profound Humility. that can be imagined; and withal, how concerned our Lord was to commend and endear this moft excellent Duty to the Practice of Men. Of all the Vertues and Excellencies in the World, one wou'd have thought this of Humility leaft capable of being practifed and exemplified by the Son of God. Commend it, indeed, he might by Precept, as well as any other, but fure, one would think, not by Example. But fee what rare Arts and Myfteries God has found out to teach us this Leffon. And therefore we may well conclude, that there is Excellency and Neceffity in it, as well as Difficulty; and how much it concerns us to learn, what God has been fo peculiarly follicitous to teach. IT is then a Chriftian Duty to be thus poor in Spirit: And the Reasonableness of it is as great as the Obligation. This I might fhew from the good good Confequences and happy Effects of this Difpofition of Spirit; but this falling in more properly under the Third Partition of my Dif courfe, I fhall for the prefent content my self with fome other Confideration, taken from the. Condition of Man; whom I fhall confider, I. As a Creature. II. As a Sinner. FIRST then, Man is a Creature, and this is a very reafonable Ground for Humility, and Poverty of Spirit. We usually think it a very bumbling Confideration to re-mind a Perfon of the Meanness of his Original. But now, What Original can be fo mean, as to be from Nothing? It is enough to take down the Spirit of the brightest Intelligence, to confider, that nothing was his Original; a State more vile and difhonourable than the Chaos it felf. Now, this is the Condition of Man: He had his Rife from nothing, and derives his Pedigree, by his Mother's Side, from Darkness and Emptiness: And though now, by the Omnipotency of his Creator, he is fomething; yet ftill he holds his Being as precariously as he firft received it, and depends as much for his Existence upon the Will of his Creator, as Light does upon the Sun, or the Image in the Glafs upon the Prefence of the Body. If God does but turn his Face from him, and ceafe to behold him, he will vanish into nothing. God fpake the Word, indeed, before he was made, but to unmake him there needs no contradictory Fiat; he need only only be filent, and not fuftain him by the Word of his Power. And fhall that Being be proud, which was once Nothing, and has ftill fuch a Natural Bent towards Annihilation, as to need only a bare Negative to make him Nothing again? No, fays the Wife Man, Pride was not made for man, nor furious anger for them that are born of a woman. Man muft forget his Extraction, to give the leaft Admittance to Pride; and he need but ftudy and confider that, to have the most inward and feeling Senfe of Humility. THIS Confideration is yet farther improveable, if we admit the Hypothefis of those who fay, that to be a Creature involves a State of Nothing, as well as an Origination from Nothing; that there is nothing Real or Pofitive in any Creature, but what is from God; and that though a Creature be fomething as of God, yet he is nothing as of himself, nor can exert any pofitive Act or Operation from himself, as a diftinct Principle of Action; being ftill, as to that, as much a Nothing as before. If this be true, (and he that shall confider, and well understand, what is alledged by M. Poiret, in Defence of this Notion, will scarce find it in his Power to think otherwise) certainly Man has infinite Reafon to be poor in Spirit, and to defcend into the lowest Abyss of Humility and Self-Abdication, as becomes a Being that not not only was once, but i ftill a mere Nothing. C Lib. 4. Cogi- tat.Ration.de MAN |