CHAP. XV.

The subject of prayer is humility.

ALTHOUGH the number and repetition of our prayers is of little value; yet, since prayer, rightly and attentively performed, is the most natural mean of amending and purifying our hearts; since opportunity and frequency in prayer is as much pressed upon us by scripture, as prayer itself; we may be sure that, when we are frequent and importunate in our prayers, we are taking the best mean of obtaining the highest benefits of a devout life.

If you are of a devout spirit, you will rejoice at these returns of prayer, which keep your soul in an holy enjoyment of God; which change your passions into divine love, and fill your heart with stronger joys and consolations, than you can possiby meet in any thing else.

If a worldly minded man prayed every day against all the instances of a worldly temper; if he should make a large description of the temptations of covetousness, and desire God to assist him to reject them all, and to disappoint him in all his covetous designs; he would find his conscience so much awakened, that he would be forced, either to forsake such prayers, or to forsake a worldly life.

The same will hold true, in any other instance. If we ask, and have not, it is because we ask amiss. Because we ask in cold and general forms; such, as only name the virtues, without describing their particular parts; such as are not enough particular to our condition, and therefore make no change in our hearts. Whereas when a man enumerates all the parts of any

virtue in his prayers, his conscience is thereby awakened, and he is frightened at seeing, how far short he is of it.

Because a humble state of soul is the very state of religion; because humility is the life and soul of piety; the foundation and support of every virtue and good work; the best security of all holy affections; I shall recommend humility to you, as highly proper to be made the constant subject of your devotions; earnestly desiring you to think no day safe, or likely to end well, in which you have not early put yourself in this posture of humility, and called upon God, to carry you through the day in the exercise of a meek and lowly spirit.

This virtue is so essential to the right state of our souls, that there is no pretending to a reasonable or pious life without it. We may as well think to see without eyes, or live without breath, as to live in the spirit of religion, without the spirit of humility.

Although it is thus the soul and essence of all religious duties; yet is it, generally speaking, the least understood, the least regarded, the least desired, of all virtues among Christians.

No persons have more occasion to be afraid of the approaches of pride, than those, who have made some advances in a pious life. For pride can grow as well upon our virtues, as our vices; and steals upon us on all occasions.

Every good thought, every good action, we do, lays us open to pride; and exposes us to the assaults of vanity and self satisfaction.

Not only the beauty of our persons, the gifts of forture, or our natural talents and the distinctions of life; but even our devotions and alms, our fastings and humiliations, expose us to strong temptations of this evil spirit.

For this reason, I so earnestly advise every devout person, to begin every day in this exercise of humility, that he may go on in safety under the protection of his good guide, and not fall a sacrifice to his own progress

in those virtues which are to save mankind from destruction.

Humility does not consist in having a worse opinion of ourselves, than we deserve; nor in abasing ourselves lower, than we really are. But, as all virtue is founded in truth; so humility is founded in a true and just sense of our weakness, misery, and sin. He, that rightly feels and lives in this sense of his condition, lives in humility.

The weakness of our state appears from our inability to do any thing, as of ourselves. In our natural state we are entirely without any power; we are indeed active beings, but can only act by a power, that is every moment lent us from God.

We have no more power of our own to move a hand, or stir a foot, than to move the sun, or stop the clouds.

When we speak a word, we feel no more power in ourselves to do it, than we feel ourselves able to raise the dead. For we act no more within our own power, or by our own strength, when we speak a word or make a sound, than the apostles acted within their own power, or by their own strength when a word from their mouth cast out devils, and cured diseases.

As it was solely the power of God, that enabled them to speak to such purposes, so it is solely the power of God, that enables us to speak at all.

We indeed find that we can speak, as we find that we are alive; but the actual exercise of speaking is no more in our own power, than the actual enjoyment of life.

This is the dependent, helpless poverty of our state; which is a great reason for humility. For, since we neither are, nor can do any thing of ourselves; to be proud of any thing that we are, or of any thing, that we can do, and to ascribe glory to ourselves for these things, as our own ornaments, has the guilt of stealing and lying. It has the guilt of stealing, as it gives to ourselves those things, which belong to God. It has the guilt of lying, as it is the denying the truth of our state, and pretend, ing to be something, that we are not.

Another argument for humility is founded in the misery of our condition.

Now the misery of our condition appears in this, that we use the borrowed powers of our nature, to the torment and vexation of ourselves, and our fellow creatures.

God has entrusted us with the use of reason, and we use it to the disorder and corruption of our nature. We reason ourselves into all kinds of folly and misery, and make our lives the sport of foolish and extravagant passions; Seeking imaginary happiness in all shapes, creating to ourselves a thousand wants, amusing our hearts with false hopes and fears, using the world worse, than irrational animals, envying, vexing, and tormenting one another with restless passions, and unreasonable contentions.

Let any man look back on his life, and see, what use he has made of his reason; how little he has consulted and followed it. What foolish passions, what vain thoughts, what needless labors, what extravagant projects, have taken up the greatest part of his life. How foolish he has been in his words and conversation; how seldom he has done well with judgment, and how often he has been kept from doing ill by accident; how seldom he has been able to please himself, and how often he has displeased others; how often he has changed his counsels; how often he has been enraged at trifles, pleased and displeased with the very same things, and constantly changing from one vanity to another. Let a man take this view of his life, and he will see reason enough to confess, that pride was not made for man.

Let him consider, that, if the world knew all that of him, which he knows of himself; if they saw, what vanity and passion govern his inside, and what secret tempers corrupt his best actions; he would have no more pretence to be honoured for his goodness and wisdom, than a distempered body to be admired for its beauty and comeliness.

This is so true, and so known to the hearts of almost all people, that nothing would appear more dreadful to them, than to have their hearts thus fully discovered to the eyes of all beholders.

Perhaps there are very few persons, who would not rather die, than have all their secret follies, the errors of their judgment, the vanity of their minds, the falseness of their pretences, the frequency of their vain and disorderly passions, their uneasiness, hatreds, envies, and vexations, made known to the world. And shall pride be entertained in a heart, thus conscious of its own miserable behaviour?

Shall such a creature, because his shame is only known to God; and his own conscience dare to be vain and proud of himself?

If to this we add the shame and guilt of sin, we shall find still greater reason for humility.

No creature, that had lived in innocence, would have thereby any pretence for self esteem; because, as a creature, all that it is, or has, or does, is from God; and therefore the honor of all is only due to God.

But if a creature that is under the displeasure of the Governor of the world, and deserving nothing from him but pains and punishments for the shameful abuse of his powers; if such a creature pretends to self glory for any thing that he is, or does; he can only be said to glory in his shame.

How monstrous and shameful the nature of sin is, is apparent from that great atonement, necessary to cleanse us from the guilt of it.

Nothing less has been required, to take away the guilt of our sins, than the sufferings and death of the Son of God. Had he not taken our nature upon him, our nature had been forever separated from God, and incapable of ever appearing before him. Is there any room for pride, while we are partakers of such a nature, as this?

Have our sins rendered us so odious to him, that made us, that he could not so much, as receive our prayers, or admit our repentance, till the Son of God made himself man, and became a suffering advocate for our whole race; and can we in this state pretend to high thoughts of ourselves?

Thus deep is the foundation of humility laid in these deplorable circumstances of our condition; which shows