1 XIV. SERM. preffed on the mind, and God grant they may make a due impreffion! would unite the different orders and conditions of fociety in the strong and tender ties of Chriftian benevolence. By repreffing the pernicious pride of wealth and high station, by correcting the discontent of poverty and meannefs, and by moderating the extravagant defires of middling rank, they would eftablish and maintain that beautiful and folid fyftem of equal duty and obligation, which our holy religion unfolds and inculcates, and repel the fanciful, though deftructive, theories of falfe philofophy.While Chrift reigned in the hearts of the profeffors of his religion, they would contend lefs about earthly poffeffions. Let us ftudy and cherish, more and more, this divine fyftem of faith and practice, which alone can afford prefent confolation and fupport, and introduce us, in the end, into a state of complete and everlasting felicity! SERMON 401 SERMON XV. ON PRIDE. MATTHEW xxiii. 12. Whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased. XV. Ir is obfervable that no fentiment of our SERM. Lord is fo frequently repeated as that contained in the text. It occurs, together with its converse, the exaltation of humility, at least ten times in the gofpels*. What can be the reason of such repetition, if not the neceffity of inculcating on mankind the important truths contained in the passage of holy scripture, of which my text is the first clause? There is, in fact, no vice to which the human race are fo prone, and none fo unfuitable to their nature and condition, as * Matth. xviii. 4.-xx. 26, 27.-xxiii. 10, 11. XV. SFRM. pride. That felf-love, which springs up fo rapidly in our fouls, leads us to view our own qualifications through a magnifying medium, which gives existence and reality to the phantoms of imagination. Pride thus commences with our life, grows with our growth, and fpreads through all our converfation and conduct. She accompanies us through every stage, condition, and circumftance of our terrestrial course. She intermingles with almost every action we perform, and every pursuit in which we engage. She attends us to the grave, in all the pomp, folemnity, and expence of funeral. She engraves her oftentatious infcriptions on the ftone that covers the mouldering body, and, when that body is incorporated with its original duft, and these words of vanity are no longer legible, fhe attempts, by efcutcheons, and pedigrees, and genealogical legends, to perpetuate the name which wisdom had, perhaps, configned to oblivion. This is, more or less, the foible, this the deformity, this the deeprooted vice of all mankind. Pride appears in the cottage, as well as in the palace. in XV. She fits on the workman's bench, as well SERM. as on the monarch's throne. She ftruts, driving a flock of fheep, as well as marching at the head of a victorious army. One great caufe of wrath, and contention, and rancour among men, is, whofe pride has a right to indulgence; who is entitled to that pre-eminence, of which both parties are, perhaps, equally unworthy; and who is authorised to vindicate that fuperiority at which all afpire, but which the generality refuse to every one, but themselves? Since this, then, is the fin which doth most eafily beset the human race; fince it hath defcended to us all from our first parents, enticed to tranfgreffion in Eden, by the temptation, Ye shall be as gods t; fince it is nourished by that inherent corruption, which excludes every foundation for it; the principal difference, in this refpect, among the fons of men, is, not the total abfence, or fome portion of this unfeemly quality, but the greater or fmaller degree in which it exifts. This difference lies in the nearer approach to that ridiculous and monftrous Cc 2 XV. SERM. monftrous excefs of it, by which some perfons are diftinguished, or in the farther diftance from this enormity of the paffion. son * While individuals are diftinguished by an exorbitant opinion of themselves, by a felf-exaltation, which overleaps every boundary of reason, and spurns at every admonition of common-fenfe; the fame frantic imagination pervades, fometimes, whole nations, and conftitutes a striking feature of their character. The divine Teacher, therefore, who being the brightness of bis Father's glory, and the exprefs image of his per, yet, was meek and lowly in heart † ; who being in the form of God, and thinking it no robbery to be equal with God, yet, made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men, and being found in fashion as a man bumbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross; the divine Teacher, the Son of God, ftrongly felt the abfurdity, the wickedness, and pernicious confequences of pride, and defired to imprefs, on the minds of his followers, *Heb. i. 3. + Matth. xi. 29. Phil. ii. 6, 7, 8. a |