recounted; against all which this frame and preparation of mind is the best protection.

I beg you will go along with me in this argument. Consider how great a share of the uneasinesses which take up and torment our thoughts, owe their rise to nothing else but the dispositions of mind which are opposite to this character.

With regard to the provocations and offences which are unavoidably happening to a man in his commerce with the world,-take it as a rule,—as a man's pride is, so is always his displeasure ;-as the opinion of himself rises,-so does the injury, so does his resentment: 'tis this which gives edge and force to the instrument which has struck him, -and excites that heat in the wound which renders it incurable.

See how different the case is with the humble man: one half of these painful conflicts he actually escapes; the other part falls lightly on him :-he provokes no man by contempt; thrusts himself for ward as the mark of no man's envy: so that he cuts off the first fretful occasions of the greatest part of these evils and for those in which the passions of others would involve him, like the humble shrubs in the valley, gently gives way, and scarce feels the injury of those stormy encounters which rend the proud cedar, and tear it up by its roots.

If you consider it with regard to the many disappointments of this life, which arise from the hopes of bettering our condition, and advancing in the world, the reasoning is the same.

What we expect is ever in proportion to the estimate made of ourselves; when pride and self-love have brought us in their account of this matter,——

we find, that we are worthy of all honours,-fit for all places and employments as our expectations rise and multiply, so must our disappointments with them; and there needs nothing more to lay the foundation of our unhappiness, and both to make and keep us miserable. And in truth there is nothing so common in life as to see thousands, who, you would say, had all the reason in the world to be at rest, so torn up and disquieted with sorrows of this class, and so incessantly tortured with the disappointments which their pride and passions have created for them, that though they appear to have all the ingredients of happiness in their hands, they can neither compound nor use them!-How should they? the goad is ever in their sides, and so hurries them on from one expectation to another, as to leave them no rest day nor night.

Humility, therefore, recommends itself as a security against these heart-aches; which, tho' ridiculous sometimes in the eye of the beholder, yet are serious enough to the man who suffers them; and I believe would make no inconsiderable account in a true catalogue of the disquietudes of mortal man. Against these, I say, humility is the best defence.

He that is little in his own eyes, is little too in his desires, and consequently moderate in his pursuit of them like another man, he may fail in his attempts, and lose the point he aimed at, but that is all, he loses not himself, he loses not his happiness and peace of mind with it;-even the con⚫ tentions of the humble man are mild and placid.Blessed character! When such a one is thrust back, who does not pity him!-When he falls, who would not stretch out a hand to raise him up!

And here, I cannot help stopping in the midst of this argument, to make a short observation, which is this: When we reflect upon the character of humility, we are apt to think it stands the most naked and defenceless of all virtues whatever,-the least able to support its claims against the insolent antagonist who seems ready to bear him down, and all opposition which such a temper can make.

Now, if we consider him as standing alone,-no doubt, in such a case he will be overpowered and trampled upon by his opposer ;-but if we consider the meek and lowly man as he is,-fenced and guarded by the love, the friendship, and wishes of all mankind; that the other stands alone, hated, discountenanced, without one true friend or hearty -well-wisher on his side when this is balanced, we shall have reason to change our opinion, and be convinced that the humble man, strengthened with such an alliance, is far from being so over-matched as at first sight he may appear:-nay, I believe, one might venture to go further, and engage for it, that in all such cases, where real fortitude and true personal courage were wanted, he is much more likely to give proof of it; and I would sooner look for it in such a temper than in that of his adversary. Pride may make a man violent,-but humility will make him firm and which of the two do you think likely to come off with honour?—he who acts from the changeable impulse of heated blood, and follows the uncertain motions of his pride and fury?⚫or the man who stands cool and collected in himself; who governs his resentments, instead of being governed by them, and on every occasion acts upon the steady motives of principle and duty?

But this by the way,-though, in truth, it falls in with the main argument; for if the observation is just, and humility has the advantages where we should least expect them, the argument rises higher in behalf of those which are more apparently on its side:-in all which, if the humble man finds what the proud man must never hope for in this world, that is, "rest to his soul," so does he likewise meet with it from the influence such a temper has upon his condition under the evils of his life, not as changeable upon the vices of men, but as the portion of his inheritance by the appointment of God: for if, as Job says, we are born to trouble as the sparks fly upwards, surely it is he who thinks the greatest of these troubles below his sins,and the smallest favours above his merit, that is likely to suffer the least from the one, and enjoy the most from the other. 'Tis he who possesses his soul in meekness, and keeps it subjected to all the issues of fortune, that is the farthest out of their reach.No; he blames not the sun, though it does not ripen his vine,-nor blusters at the winds, though they bring him no profit.-If the fountain of the humble man rises not as high as he could wish,-he thinks, however, that it rises as high as it ought; and as the laws of nature still do their duty, that he has no cause to complain against them.

If disappointed of riches, he knows the providence of God is not his debtor; that though he has received less than others, yet, as he thinks himself less than the least, he has reason to be thankful.

If the world goes untoward with the humble man in other respects, he knows a truth which the proud man does never acknowledge, and that is

that the world was'not made for him; and, therefore, how little share soever he has of its advantages, he sees an argument of content in reflecting how little it is that a compound of sin, of ignorance, and frailty, has grounds to expect.

A soul thus turned and resigned, is carried smoothly down the stream of Providence; no temptations in his passage disquiet him with desire ;-no dangers alarm him with fear. Though open to all the changes and chances of others,-yet, by secing the justice of what happens, and humbly giving way to the blow, though he is smitten, he is not smitten like other men, nor feels the smart which they do.

Thus much for the doctrine of humility :-let us now look towards the example of it.

It is observed by some one, that as pride was the passion through which sin and misery entered into the world, and gave our enemy the triumph of ru ining our nature, that therefore the Son of God, who came to seek and to save that which was lost, when he entered upon the work of our restoration, he began at the very point where he knew we had failed; and this he did by endeavouring to bring the soul of man back to its original temper of humility; so that his first publick address from the Mount began with a declaration of blessedness to the poor in spirit;—and almost his last exhortation in the text, was to copy the fair original he had set them of this virtue, and "to learn of him to be meek and lowly " in heart."

It is the most unanswerable appeal that can be made to the heart of man; and so persuasive and accommodated to all Christians, that, as much pride