but

promotes it, by helping to make him that has it the more Lowly. A half-light indeed is dangerous, perhaps more dangerous than to be quite in the Dark; but a clear and thorough view of things, is one of the best Keys to open the door to Humility, and to fhut it against Pride, which of all the works of Darkness can least indure the Light.

4. Knowledge then is a proper remedy against Pride, fince that, as all other Sins, is the effect of Ignorance. But then if we confider further of what Ignorance, (fince the remedy of any Diftemper is that which is contrary to its cause) this will fuggest to us another rational method of Cure. For Pride more particularly is from the ignorance of our felves; for the knowledge of our felves, is, as we have fhewn, the foundation of Humility, and if we were otherwise never fo ignorant, yet if we knew our felves, we should be Humble and not Proud; as on the contrary, if we were otherwise never fo Humanly or Naturally Wife, and yet knew not our felves, we fhould be Proud and not Humble. And therefore fince our Pride is from the ignorance of our felves, it may be hence again collected that another proper and direct remedy against it, as striking at the cause of it, must be the knowledge of our felves. This therefore is the great Science, and the great Study, that we are to apply

our

our felves to, and to labour in, rightly and truly to understand our felves, to know what we are in our felves, and what we are of our felves, what our Nature is, and what our State and Condition is, what we are in relation to God, and what in relation to our Fellow-Creatures. Without this there is no being Humble, and with it there is no being Proud. And therefore, if after some Application of our felves to this great study we yet are so, we may conclude that we do not yet fufficiently know our felves. For the thorough Knowledge of our felves will lead us into a full Comprehension of our own Nothing, which will pluck up Pride by the very Roots, and plant Humility in its place. And upon this we may depend as a certain and infallible Remedy.

5. There are not many fuch in any Diftemper, and except the Grace of God,I know not any other that is fo in this. However, as those things are ordinarily call'd Remedies which have a natural tendency towards a Cure, though by being over-ruled by the obftinate and prevailing malignity of the Dif ease, they may become ineffectual as to this or that Cafe, or which ferve to abate and qualifie the force and violence of the Distemper, though they do not always perfectly remove it; fo there are certain afsisting Confiderations, that may be very useful and fer

viceable

viceable to us in helping us to tame and fubdue our Pride, and to bring our Minds under the most excellent temper of true Chriftian Humility; though I fhall not so far act the Spiritual Empiric, as to warrant an infallible Cure.

6. Of these, the firft is to confider frequently and attentively with our felves, the great reasonableness of Humility, how well it becomes us as Creatures, as finful Creatures, as infirm and imperfect Creatures, and as obliged and indebted Creatures, that have received all our Good from the free and undeferv'd Bounty and Magnificence of our Creator. These were the four Pillars upon which the reasonableness of Humility was laid in the foregoing part of this Difcourfe, and as they fufficiently establish the Vertue in it felf, fo to fix and establish our felves in it, we should do well to confider them. But we may also confider the reasonableness of Humility abftra&tly, and in the general, that It is not a Duty laid upon us by the arbitrary Will and pofitive Command of God, but founded in the natural reason of the thing, and therefore imposed by him who as he acts nothing without reafon himself, fo he requires nothing from us but what is reafonable both for him to require, and for us to do. And this whole Confideration is very proper to fortifie us against Pride, and to Ż

affift

affift us in the practice of Humility. For fince we are reasonable Creatures, and do in all things act by fome reafon or other, (for even when we act against reason, we have fome reafon for fo acting) the most proper Motive or Perfwafive for the doing any thing, must be the reasonablenefs of that thing. And therefore when St. Paul, who was in himself a very Rational, as well as an Inspired Writer, exhorts the Romans by the Mercies of God, to prefent their Bodies a living Sacrifice, Holy, Acceptable to God; he does it by this Motive, that it was their Reasonable Service, Rom. 12. both as that fignifies the Service of a reasonable Nature, in oppofition to the dead and brute Sacrifices of the Law,and as it also fignifies a Service that is agreeable to right reason, and founded in the Eternal and Immutable Rules of it, which the Legal Services were not,being in themselves Changeable, and now Abolish'd. Now Humility is this reasonable Service, the reason of it being founded in our very Natures,and therefore we would do well to fet our felves to confider the great reason of it, and to fix and stay our Minds upon it, 'till we enter into the clearness and fullness of its Light, and come under a lively and convincing fenfe of its great Reasonableness, and then we fhall find it no fuch easie thing to give way to Pride, (as much as our Natures are

inclined to it) when we fee fo much plain reason to the contrary.

7. Again, another very affifting Confideration against Pride, will be to confider the great and tranfcending Excellency of Humility, as it discovers it self by those many good and happy Effects which it produces whereever it is, both in Private and in Public, both in our Selves and in the World. To confider how it calms and ferenes the Regions of the Breast, and makes all quiet within, gives reft to our Minds when they labour, and ease to them when they are heavy laden. How it sweetens our Temper, and graces and adorns our Behaviour, and renders both that and our felves eafie and acceptable to those who converfe with us. What a Key it is to all useful and folid Knowledge, ef pecially to that true Spiritual Wisdom which makes us wife unto Salvation, and how it qualifies us for further improvements in it, while in the mean time, the Proud Man holds up his Head too high to fee his way, and so ftumbles as much as if he were in the Dark. To confider also what a friend it is to Goodnefs, both as deriving a Value and an Excellency upon that Goodness which we have, whereof it is the Perfection and the Crown, and alfo as difpofing us to endeavour after further degrees of it, from a fenfe of our little proficiency in it. To confider further Z 2 what