we have his presence, indeed, the truest part of our life will be hidden, and we shall much and gladly retire within to enjoy it. The most certain sign of our real growth will be, the sinking into ourselves as vileness and nothing; the being thought meanly of with content, if not pleasure; and the rising up of our souls towards God with private delight, ardour, affection, and constancy. All this may be done before Him who seeth in secret, far better than in the corners of the streets, or places of public resort. We shall aim, through grace, to be gracious, rather than to appear so. This hidden life my soul pants for, O Lord, thou knowest! whatever becomes of my outward respect among men. If I have the more of thee for the loss of this, it will be indeed a rich amends. Nay, it will be better for me to be without human regards, lest I should grow more proud than I already am, and so lose that blessed sight of thee, which I always enjoy most sweetly and clearly in the deepest renunciation and depression of myself. O make me more and more dead to the opinion of even gracious men, that my poverty and meanness may be ever before me, and that in all forms and circumstances I may constantly be relinquishing myself, so that I may have more inward and intimate fellowship, friendship, complacency, and nearness with thee! Careless, myself a dying man, Of dying men's esteem; Though all beside condemn. CHAPTER IX. On the Spirit of the World. NOTHING more fully proves the fall of man from his original creation, than the opposition and temper of his soul, while in his natural state, to the things of God. His wishes, his hopes, his labours, his principles of action and thinking, all are turned directly another way. "God is not" really, whatever a man of the world may speculate, “in all his thoughts." He is without God; or rather, in sober truth, he is, as the Apostle calls him, an atheist in the world. Hence it is, that the people of the world have, in all ages, reputed the people of God either to be fools, in not laying themselves out for such things as wholly engage themselves, or knavish hypocrites, who only take a pretended spiritual method to accomplish the same carnal and selfish ends. And if they can find an instance or two (as they often have done, and may do) to confirm this opinion, O how do they insult over professors of all kinds, and run down religion itself, as though it were a trap or an engine for all manner of deceit, or at best, a whimsical paradise, framed by superstition for dunces and fools. On the other hand, how wild, mad, besotted, and phrenetic, do all the agitations of these men seem to the Christian, in his retired and considerate hours? They are pursuing, in his view, lies and shadows, vapours and dreams. They grasp after something, they scarce know what. Ever restless, they are always upon the hunt; but never finding, never satisfied. They live weary and tired lives, full of envy, disappointment, and care: and they die hopeless deaths, either in abject terror at what may come upon them hereafter, or in the stupid opinion, that God created them only to live for a while like maggots upon the trash of the earth, and then at last to be thrown into a hole to rot away into nothing. Such is the sordid spirit and wisdom of this world! CHAPTER X. On the Pride of the Heart. MOST of the discomforts of our lives arise from the pride of our hearts, unmortified and unsubdued. Did I think as meanly and humbly of myself, as from the knowledge of my weakness and sinfulness I ought, the contempt or the insult of others would not hurt or afflict me. But I am false to myself, and therefore lifted up, assuming to my vile nature what it hath no right to expect; and I am false to others, wearing appearances to create respect and esteem; which is walking in a mask, and rendering myself foolishly proud. If men saw me, and I saw them, as we really are, we should none of us be much inclined to boast of ourselves; but our glorying must either cease, or else be wholly in the Lord. This pride hath occasioned to my soul a world of trouble, both when it hath reigned unsubdued, and while, through grace and trials, it hath been in the acts of subduing. When it is unsubdued, the heart is open to all manner of mortifications. A look, a gesture, or a word, shall put it to pain; and when this pain rages, the passions will begin to rave, and throw the whole frame into a miserable violence and disorder. Outward opposition will make it worse. The inflammation then grows often to a degree of frenzy, which nothing hardly can sooth or allay. And it is one of the wonders of providence, that this pride of man, when combined and raging in multitudes, doth not confound all order and rules more than it doth, and utterly ruin and destroy the world. To subdue this sore evil, "the pride of heart and life," and all its effects, in his people, is one great end of God in afflicting dispensations. They are high in themselves; and it is necessary for their good that they should be brought down. Whatever answers this end, come in what shape it may, is all a blessing. it Did such a one use me ill, or speak contemptuously of me? As David said of Shimei, it is because the Lord hath permitted him.—Hath he treated me as I deserve? Why then am I angry? He hath been to me a messenger of truth, whatever were his intentions, with which I have nothing to do; and, therefore, let me own the truth, and fall down in abasement and contrition before God.-Is the censure false? I have no right to be offended: He hath not hit me, but himself, and becomes therefore the object of my prayer. If, in this instance, his condemnation hath been wrong; my heart knoweth in how many others, and perhaps in worse, it would have been just and right. In every view, I have no fair claim to be flattered with the applauses of men, but to be humbled in myself for the constant weakness, worthlessness, and evil, that cleave to me in all things. If I felt this as I ought, and walked as I ought, in the continual sense of it, I should be ashamed to be proud, and should abhor myself, for the bold injustice and iniquity of being so, in dust and ashes. I believe that some Christians have more trials and afflictions in the flesh than others, because their is more natural stubbornness of pride and wilfulness in them. The Lord will have these to be subdued. And he suiteth all his chastisements, with great and unerring wisdom, to the occasion. If they thought of this aright, they would not be so much in care to get rid of the visitation, as to have the design of it answered within them. They would pray to be humbled under the mighty hand of God, that he might exalt them in the right way, and in the due time. It is my pride, and my self-will, which proceeds from pride, that render me so uneasy with God and with others. Were I truly lowly, and deeply sensible of my own condition, not the opinion and hard words of others, but my own sin, would offend me. I am imperfect, as in all other graces, so especially in humility; and therefore I fret in myself, and am |