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the heathen; his wonders among the people. Ps. xcvi. 3. Oh give thanks to the Lord of lords, who alone doeth great wonders; for his mercy endureth for ever.

Admiration is a combined exercise of the mind; and is formed of wonder and complacency. It is an exercise eminently delightful; and is every where presented with objects to awaken it. Both Creation and Providence are full of wonders, presented to us at every moment, and at every step. Every attribute of God is fitted to excite this emotion by the amazing degree in which it exists; and by the degree also, in which it is very often displayed. Thus the Psalmist speaks of the marvellous loving-kindness of God; St. Peter, of his marvellous light. King Darius says, He worketh signs and wonders in heaven and earth. Thus David says, I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Thus one of the Names of Christ, whose Redemption is the most marvellous of all the works of God, is Wonderful.

It is to be observed that Religious Admiration is entirely distinguished from wonder in the ordinary sense, by its union with complacency. Ordinary wonder is delightful, but is totally destitute of moral excellence. Religious wonder is still more delightful; and may be excellent in any degree.

Secondly. Dependence is also an exercise of the same spirit.

That we are all dependent on God is known to every person, possessed of reason; and that we are absolutely dependent on him for every thing which we enjoy, or which we need. A Willingness to be thus dependent, a complacency in this state of things as appointed by God, accompanied with that humble frame of mind, necessarily attendant upon these affections, constitute what is called Religious Dependence, a state of mind, exactly suited to our condition, and eminently useful to our whole Christian character and life.

To these may be added Faith, Hope, and Joy, which have already been subjects of discussion; and to these, Submission, which will be made the theme of a future discourse.

The text contains a command, addressed to all those to whom St. Peter wrote, requiring that they should be clothed with humility; and enforces the precept by this combined reason, that God resisteth the proud and giveth grace to the humble. No precept of Revelation has been more disrelished by infidels than this. Hume attacks it in form, and considers the disposition enjoined as both vicious and contemptible. Still it is largely insisted on in the Scriptures, and is required of us unconditionally and indispensably. It is declared to precede all real honour, and thus to be necessary even to its existence. It is pronounced to have been an important attribute in the character of Christ himself. Learn of me, says the Saviour of mankind, for I am meek and lowly of heart. In the text itself it is plainly asserted to be an object of Divine favour in such a sense, that the grace or free love of God is com

municated to those who are humble, and denied to those who are not. In the Scriptural scheme, therefore, humility is invested with an importance which cannot be measured.

It must indeed be confessed that nothing is more unaccordant with the native disposition of mankind. Pride, the first sin of our common parents, has characterized all their posterity. It is not, therefore, to be wondered at, that Humility should be disesteemed and calumniated. If it were of the world, the world would undoubtedly love his own; but because it is not of the world, therefore the world hateth it.

Of this attribute of the human mind, as it is exhibited in the Scriptures, I observe,

1st. It involves, in its nature, a just sense of our character and condition.

We were born yesterday of the dust, and to-morrow return to the dust again. In our origin, and in our end, there is certainly little to awaken our pride. In both, we are closely allied to the beasts that perish; and may with the strictest propriety, say to corruption, Thou art our father; and to the worm, Thou art our mother and our sister. How strange is it that a being should be proud, who is going to the grave; who in a few days will lie down in the dust, to become a feast of worms, and to be changed into a mass of earth! Such however will speedily be the lot of the haughtiest monarch, the most renowned hero, and the proudest philosopher who now says in his heart, I will ascend up to heaven, I will be like the Most High.

During this little period, we are dependent creatures. Nothing is more coveted, nothing more eagerly sought, nothing boasted of with more complacency, by the children of pride, than Independence. But the boast is groundless; and the opinion, which gives birth to it, false. What hast thou, says St. Paul, which thou hast not received? From God we derive life and breath, and all things. All of them are mere gifts of his bounty; and to the least of them we cannot make a single claim. To his sovereign pleasure, also, are we every moment indebted for their continuance. That which He gives, we gather. He opens his hand, and we are filled with good. He takes away our breath; we die and return to dust.

But we are not dependent on God only. To a vast extent we are necessarily indebted, for a great body of our enjoyments, to our fellow-men. We can have neither food nor raiment: we can neither walk nor ride; we can have neither sleep nor medicine; we can neither enjoy ourselves, nor be useful to others without the aid of multitudes of our fellow-men. Especially is the proud man thus dependent. Life to him is only a scene of suffering, unless he is continually regaled by the real or imagined respect of those around him. Homage is the food on which he lives;

and applause, the atmosphere in which alone he is able to breathe.

Among those on whom we are thus dependent sometimes for life itself, and always for its comforts, are to be regularly numbered the poor, whom we are so prone to despise; nay, the slaves whom we regard as having been created merely as instruments of our pleasure. To what a lowly condition is a haughty man thus reduced, and how different his actual situation from that which his conversation and demeanour would induce us to imagine!

Nor is our situation less precarious than it is dependent. The possessions, the comforts, the hopes, which we enjoy to-day, may all to-morrow vanish for ever. Our riches may make to themselves wings as an eagle, and fly away towards heaven. Our health may be wrested from us by disease, and our comfort by pain. We may become decrepit, deaf, or blind. Our friends and families may bid us the last adieu, and retire to the world of spirits. Nay, ourselves and our pride may be buried together in the grave. What foundation does such a state of existence furnish on which to build our pride?

We are also ignorant. Much indeed is said of our learning and science. It would be well if more could be said, and said with truth concerning our wisdom. With all our boasts, how little do we know! How many objects are presented to us every day of which we know nothing except their existence! How many questions do even little children ask, which no philosopher is able to answer! How many subjects of investigation say to every inquirer, "Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further!"

Every thing which we know brings up to our view the many more which we cannot know; and thus daily forces upon us, if we will open our eyes, irresistible conviction of the narrowness of those limits by which our utmost researches are bounded, of the infantile nature of our actual attainments, of the smallness of those which are possible.

Among the subjects which display this ignorance in the strongest degree, those of a moral nature, those which immediately concern our duty and salvation, infinitely more important to us than any others, hold the primary place. What man is able to find out of himself concerning these, we know by what he has actually found out. Cast your eyes over this great globe, and over the past ages of time, and mark the nature of the religious systems invented by man. How childish, how senseless, how self-contradictory, have been the opinions; how infatuated, how sottish, the precepts by which they have professedly regulated the moral conduct of men; how debased, how full of turpitude, how fraught with frenzy, the religious services by which they have laboured to propitiate their Gods, and obtain a future happy existence; nay, what mere creatures of Bedlam were the Gods themselves, and their delirious worshippers!

But for the Scriptures, we should now have the same views, which have been spread over the whole heathen world; and might this day have been prostrating ourselves before stocks and stones, and looking to drunkenness, prostitution, and the butchery of human victims as the means of obtaining a happy immortality. How inexpressibly deplorable is this ignorance! How humble the character of those of whom it can be truly predicated!

For our exemption from all these errors, we are indebted solely to the Bible. But with this invaluable book in our hands we reluctantly admit, in many cases, even its fundamental truths: truths of supreme importance to the establishment of virtue in our minds, and to the acquisition of eternal life beyond the grave: truths which are the glory of the Revealed System, and which have been the means of conducting to heaven a multitude which no man can number. In the place of these, what absurdities have not been imbibed! absurdities immeasurably disgraceful to the understanding, and absolutely ruinous to the soul. How long these absurdities have reigned! How widely they have spread! What innumerable mischiefs they have done! How strongly they discover a violent tendency in our nature to reject truth and welcome error! Who with this picture before him can doubt that on this account we have abundant reason for humility?

In addition to these things, we are sinful creatures. The heart, says the Prophet Jeremiah, is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. He who reads the three first chapters of the Epistle to the Romans, or peruses the history of mankind, or attentively considers the conduct of himself and his fellow-men, will without much hesitation adopt the decision of the Prophet. It is wonderful that sinful beings should be proud of their character; and remarkable that pride is indulged by no other beings. Of what shall we be proud? In our conversation and in our writings we charge each other endlessly with impiety, profaneness, perjury, irreligion, injustice, fraud, falsehood, slander, oppression, cruelty, theft, lewdness, sloth, gluttony, and drunkenness. The charges are either true or false. If they are false, they are in themselves abominable wickedness. If they are true, those on whom they rest are abominably wicked. What an unhappy foundation is here furnished for pride!

If we look into our own hearts, and into our own lives, and perform this duty faithfully, we shall find ample reason for selfcondemnation; we shall see that our own hearts, at least, answer to the declaration of Jeremiah; we shall see ourselves alienated from God, revolted from his government, opposed to his law, ungrateful for his blessings, distrustful of his sincerity, and discontented with his administrations. With all these sins before us, we shall find ourselves slow of heart to believe or repent.

God has provided for us, and proffered to us, deliverance from our sins, and from the punishment which they have merited. He VOL. III.

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has sent a Saviour into the world to redeem us from under the curse of the law, and that by the effusion of his own blood; but we reject him. He has sent his Spirit to sanctify us, and to make us his children; but we resist his influence. He has offered to be reconciled to us: but we refuse to be reconciled to him. We might be virtuous, we might be happy; but we will not. What causes for humiliation are here presented to our view!

Finally. We are miserable creatures. In the present world we are, to a great extent, unhappy. Cold and heat, hunger and thirst, anxiety, disappointment, toil, poverty, loss of friends, disgrace, sorrow, pain, disease, and death, divide among them a great part of our days, and leave us scarcely more than a few transient gleams of ease, comfort and hope. How often are most of these evils doubled and tripled by similar sufferings of such as are dear to us in the bonds of nature and affection! How truly does Job declare that Man, who is born of a woman, is of few days, and full of trouble!

From these calamities our only way of escape conducts us to the grave. Beyond that dreary mansion stands the last tribunal, at which our eternal doom will be irreversibly fixed. But the only reward of sin is perdition, perdition final and irremediable. This is the deplorable end of the sins and miseries, which so extensively constitute our character and our allotments in the present world.

Look now at the description which has been given, and tell me for which of these things we shall be proud. Is it our origin, our dependence, the precariousness of our life and its enjoyments, our ignorance, our errors, our sins, or our miseries?

In the mean time, let it be remembered, that this very pride is one of our grossest sins; whether it be pride of birth, of wealth, of beauty, of talents, of accomplishments, of exploits, of place, of power, or of moral character. A proud look, from whatsoever source derived, is an abomination to the Lord. Angels by their pride lost heaven. Our first parents by their pride ruined the world.

That the view which has been here given of the state and character of man is just, will not, because it cannot, be questioned. Conformed to it are all the views entertained of the same subjects by every man possessing the humility of the Gospel. On these very considerations, especially as applied to himself, is his humility founded.

2dly. Humility involves a train of affections accordant with such a sense of our character and conditions.

It involves that candour and equity, which dispose us to receive and acknowledge truth, however humbling to our pride, or painful to our fears, in preference to error, however soothing or flattering. The humble man feels assured, also, that it is his true interest to know and feel the worst of his situation; that a just sense of his

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