others, or justification of himself with God; but, in reverence to that holier part of the temple where his presence was supposed more immediately to be displayed, he keeps afar off,-is afraid to lift up his eyes towards Heaven;-but smites upon his breast, and, in a short but fervent ejaculation,—— submissively begs God to have mercy upon his sins.-O God! how precious, how amiable is true humility!—what a difference in thy sight does it make to consist betwixt man and man! Pride was not made for a creature with such manifold imperfections:-religious pride is a dress which still worse becomes him; because, of all others, it is that to which he has the least pretence :-the best of us fall seven times a day, and thereby add some degree of unprofitableness to the character of those who do all that is commanded them.-Was I perfect therefore, says Job, I would not know my soul, I would be silent, I would be ignorant of my own righteousness; for, should I say I was perfect, it would prove me to be perverse. From this introduction I will take occasion to recommend this virtue of religious humility, which so naturally falls from the subject, and which cannot more effectually be enforced than by an inquiry into the chief causes which produce the opposite vice to it, that of spiritual pride;--for in this malady of the mind of man, -the case is parallel with most others of his body, the dangers of which can never rightly be apprehended; nor can remedies be applied either with judgment or success, till they are traced back to their first principles, and the seeds of the disorder are laid open and considered. And first, I believe, one of the most general causes of spiritual pride is that which seems to have misled the pharisee:-a mistaken notion of the true principles of his religion. He thought, no doubt, that the whole of it was comprehended in the two articles of paying tythes and frequent fasting; and that when he had discharged his conscience of them, he had done all that was required at his hands, and might with reason go, and thank God that he had not made him like others. It is not to be questioned, but through force of this error, the pharisee might think himself to be, what he pretended, a religious and upright man. For however he might be brought to act a double and insincere part in the eyes of men upon worldly views, -it is not to be supposed-that when he stood by himself, apart in the temple, and no witnesses of what passed between him and his God,-that he should knowingly and wilfully have dared to act so open and barefaced a scene of mockery in the face of Heaven. This is scarce probable;—and therefore it must have been owing to some delusion in his education, which had early implanted in his mind false and wretched notions of the essentials of religion,-which, as he grew up, had proved the seeds of infinite error, both in practice and specula tion. With the rest of his sect, he had been so principled and instructed as to observe a scrupulous nicety and most religious exactness in the lesser matters of his religion,-its frequent washings,—its fastings and other external rites, of no merit in themselves, but to stand exempted from the more troublesome exactness in the weightier matters of the law, which were of eternal and unchangeable obligation. So that they were in truth blind guides, who thus will strain at a gnat and yet swallow a camel; and, as our Saviour reproves them from a familiar instance of domestic inconsistency,-would make clean the outside of the cup and platter,-yet suffer the inside,-the most material part,-to be full of corruption and excess. From this knowledge of the character and principles of the pharisee, 'tis easy to account for his sentiments and behaviour in the temple, which were just such as they would have led one to have expected. Thus it has always happened, by a fatality common to all such abuses of religion, as make it to consist in external rites and ceremonies, more than inward purity and integrity of heart.-As these outward things are easily put in practice, and capable of being attained to without much capacity, or much opposition to flesh and blood,-it too naturally betrays the professors of it into a groundless persuasion of their own godliness, and a despicable one of that of others, in their religious capacities, and the relations in which they stand towards God: which is the very definition of spiritual pride. When the true heat and spirit of devotion is thus lost and extinguished under a cloud of ostentatious ceremonies and gestures, as is remarkable in the Roman church, where the celebration of high mass, when set off to the best advantage with all its scenical decorations and finery, looks more like a theatrical performance than that humble and solemn appeal which dust and ashes are offering up to the throne of God;-when religion, I say, is thus clogged and borne down by such a weight of ceremonies, it is much easier to put in pretensions to holiness upon such a mechanical system as is left of it, than where the character is only to be got and maintained by a painful conflict and perpetual war against the passions. 'Tis easier, for instance, for a zealous Papist to cross himself and tell his beads, than for an humble Protestant to subdue the lusts of anger, intemperance, cruelty, and revenge, to appear before his Maker with that preparation of mind which becomes him. The operation of being sprinkled with holy water is not so difficult in itself as that of being chaste and spotless within,-conscious of no dirty thought or dishonest action. Tis - a much shorter way to kneel down at a confessional and receive absolution,-than to live so as to deserve it, not at the hands of men,-but at the hands of God,-who sees the heart, and cannot be imposed on. The achievement of keeping Lent, or abstaining from flesh on certain days, is not so hard as that of abstaining from the works of it at all times;-especially, as the point is generally managed amongst the richer sort with such art and epicurism at their tables,-and with such indulgence to a poor mortified appetite,—that an entertainment upon a fast is much more likely to produce a surfeit than a fit of sorrow. One might run the parallel much farther, but this may be sufficient to show how dangerous and delusive these mistakes are;-how apt to mislead and overset weak minds, which are ever apt to be caught by the pomp of such external parts of religion. This is so evident that even in our own church, where there is the greatest chastity in things of this nature, -and of which none are retained in our worship but what, I believe, tend to excite and assist it,yet, so strong a propensity is there in our nature to sense, and so unequal a match is the understanding of the bulk of mankind for the impressions of outward things,-that we see thousands who every day mistake the shadow for the substance; and, was it fairly put to the trial, would exchange the reality for the appearance. You see this was almost universally the case of the Jewish church;-where, for want of proper guard and distinction betwixt the means of religion and religion itself, the ceremonial part in time eat away the moral part, and left nothing but a shadow. behind.-'Tis to be feared the buffooneries of the Romish church bid fair to do it the same ill office, to the disgrace and utter ruin of Christianity, wherever Popery is established. What then re mains, but that we rectify these gross and pernicious notions of religion, and place it upon its true bottom, which we can only do by bringing back religion to that cool point of reason which first showed us its obligation,-by always remembering that God is a Spirit, and must be worshipped suitable to his nature, i. e. in spirit and in truth;-and that the most acceptable sacrifice we can offer him, is a virtuous and an upright mind-and however necessary it is, not to leave the ceremonial and positive parts of religion undone,-yet, not like the pharisee, to rest there, and omit the weightier matters, but keep this in view perpetually, that though the instrumental duties of religion are duties of unquestionable obligation to us, yet they are still but Instrumental Duties, conducive to the great end of all religion,-which is to purify our heartsand conquer our passions;-and, in a word, to make us wiser and better men,-better neighbours, -better citizens,and better servants to God. To whom, &c. SERMON VII. VINDICATION OF HUMAN NATURE. ROMANS XIV. 7. For none of us liveth to himself, THERE is not a sentence in scripture which strikes a narrow soul with greater astonishment;-and one might as easily engage to clear up the darkest problem in geometry to an ignorant mind, as make a sordid one comprehend the truth and reasonableness of this plain proposition.-No man liveth to himself!-Why?-Does any man live to any thing else?-In the whole compass of human life, can a |