a friend when I am gone? Who will stand up for them, and plead their cause against the wicked? Blessed God! to thee, who art a Father to the fatherless, and a Husband to the widow, - -I intrust them! Hast thou ever sustained any considerable shock in thy fortune? or, Has the scantiness of thy condition hurried thee into great straits, and brought thee almost to distraction? Consider, who was it that spread a table in that wilderness of thought? who made thy cup to overflow? Was it not a friend of consolation who stepped in, saw thee embarrassed with the tender pledges of thy love, and the partner of thy cares,-took them under his protection? (Heaven! thou wilt reward him for it!) and freed thee from all the terrifying apprehensions of a parent's love? - But how shall I ask a question which must bring tears into so many eyes? Hast thou ever been wounded in a more affecting manner still, by the loss of a most obliging friend? or been torn away from the embraces of a dear and promising child by the stroke of death? Bitter remembrance! Nature droops at it; - but Nature is the same in all conditions and lots of life. A child thrust forth in an evil hour, without food, without raiment, bereft of instruction, and the means of its salvation, is a subject of more tender heart-aches, and will awaken every power of Nature! - As we have felt for ourselves, let us feel for Christ's sake; let us feel for theirs; and may the God of all comfort bless you! Amen. SERMON XXIV. PRIDE. LUKE, XIV. 10, 11. But thou, when thou art bidden, go and sit down in the lowest room, that when he that bade thee cometh, he may say to thee, Friend, go up higher; then shalt thou have worship in the presence of them who sit at meat with thee; for whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted. - IT is an exhortation of our Saviour's to Humility, addressed, by way of inference, from what he had said in the three foregoing verses of the chapter; where, upon entering into the house of one of the chief Pharisees to eat bread, and marking how small a portion of this necessary virtue entered in with the several guests, discovering itself from their choosing the chief rooms, and most distinguished places of honour, he takes the occasion which such a behaviour offered, to caution them against Pride;- states the inconvenience of the passion, shews the disappointments which attend it, the disgrace in which it generally ends, it being forced at last to recede from the pretensions to what is more than our due; which, by the is the very way, thing the passion is eternally prompting us to expect. When, therefore, thou art bidden to a wedding, says our Saviour, sit not down in the highest room, lest a more honourable man than thou be bidden of him; and he that bade thee and him, come and say to thee, Give this man place; and thou begin with shame to take the lowest room. But thou, when thou art bidden, g down in the lowest room. Hard lecture! In the What! do I owe nothing to my lowest room? self? Must I forget my station, my character in life? Resign the precedence which my birth, my fortune, my talents, have already placed me in possession of? - give all up! and suffer inferiors to take honours? Yes; my for that, says our Saviour, is the road to it: "For when he that bade "thee cometh, he will say to thee, Friend, go up higher; then shalt thou have worship in the presence of them who sit at meat with thee: "for whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; 66 - and he that humbleth himself shall be ex"alted." 86 To make good the truth of which declaration, it is not necessary we should look beyond this life, and say, That in the day of retribution, wherein every high thing shall be brought low, and every irregular passion dealt with as it deserves, that pride, amongst the rest (considered as a vicious character) shall meet with its proper punishment of being abased, and lying down for ever in shame and dishonour. It is not necessary we should look so far forwards for the accomplishment of this: the words seem not. so much to imply the threat of a distant punishment, the execution of which was to be respited to that day, as the declaration of a plain truth depending upon the natural course of things, and evidently verified in every hour's commerce of the world; from whence, as well as from our reasoning upon the point, it is found, That Pride lays us open to so many mortifying encounters, which Humility, in its own nature, rests secure from, that verily, each of them, in this world, have their reward faithfully dealt out by the natural workings of men's passions;—which, though very bad executioners in general, yet are so far just ones in this, that they seldom suffer the exultations of an insolent temper to escape the abasement, or the deportment of a humble one to fail of the honour which each of their characters do deserve. In other vicious excesses which a man commits, the world (though it is not much to its credit) seems to stand pretty neuter. If you are extravagant or intemperate, you are looked upon as the greatest enemy to yourself; or, if an enemy to the public, at least, you are so remote a one to each individual, that no one feels himself immediately concerned in your punishment: but, in the instances of Pride, the attack is personal; for, as this passion can only take its rise from a secret comparison, which the party has been making of himself to my disadvantage, every intimation he gives me of what he thinks of the matter, is so far a direct injury, either as it withholds the respect which is my due, or, perhaps, denies me to have any; or else, which presses equally hard, as it puts me in mind of the defects which I really have, and of which I am truly conscious, and, consequently, think myself the less deserving of an admonition in every one of which cases, the proud man, in whatever language he speaks it, if it is expressive of this superiority over me, either in the gifts of fortune, the advantages of birth or improvements, as it has proceeded from a mean estimation, and possibly a very unfair one, of the like pretensions in myself, the attack, I say, is sonal, and has generally the fate to be felt and resented as such. per So that, with regard to the present inconve niences, there is scarce any vice, bating such as are immediately punished by laws, which a man may not indulge with more safety to himself than this one of Pride, the humblest of men not being 14 so entirely void of the passion themselves, but that they suffer so much from the overflowings of it in others, as to make the literal accomplishment of the text a common interest and concern; in which they are generally successful, the nature of the. vice being such, as not only to tempt you to it, but to afford the occasions itself of its own humiliation. - see! The proud man, he is sore all over; touch him, you put him to pain; and though, of all others, he acts as if every mortal was void of all sense and feeling, yet is possessed with so nice and exquisite a one himself, that the slights, the little neglects and instances of disesteem, which would be scarce felt by another man, are perpetually wounding him, and oft-times piercing him to his very heart. I would not, therefore, be a proud man, was it only for this, that it should not be in the power of every one who thought fit to chastise me:-my other infirmities, however unworthy of me, at least will not incommode me ;- so little discountenance do I see given to them, that it is not the world's fault if I suffer by them:- - but here, if I exalt myself, I have no prospect of escaping; -with this vice I stand swoln up in every body's way, and must unavoidably be thrust back. Whichever way I turn, whatever step I take under the direction of this passion, I press unkindly upon some one; and, in return, must prepare myself for such mortifying repulses as will bring me down, and make me go on my way sorrowing. This is from the nature of things, and the experience of life as far back as Solomon, whose observation upon it was the same, - and it will ever hold good," that before honour was humility, and a haughty spirit before a fall:-put not there"fore thyself forth in the presence of the king, |