3. The subject exhorts those who are strangers to the grace of God, to seek that grace, that they may thus attain to this spirit of humility.

-If such be your character, you are now destitute of a Christian spirit, which is a spirit of grace; and so, wholly destitute of humility. Your spirit is a proud spirit; and though you may not seem to carry yourself very proudly amongst men, yet you are lifting yourself up against God, in refusing to submit your heart and life to him. And in doing this, you are disregarding or defying God's sovereignty, and daring to contend with your maker, though he dreadfully threatens those who do this. You are proudly casting contempt on God's authority, in refusing to obey it, and continuing to live in disobedience; in refusing to be conformed to his will, and to comply with the humbling conditions and way of salvation by Christ, and in trusting to your own strength and righteousness, instead of that which Christ so freely offers. Now as to such a spirit, consider that this is, in an especial sense, the sin of devils, "Not a novice,” says the Apostle (1 Timothy iii. 6), "lest being lifted up with pride, he fall into condemnation of the devil." And consider, too,

how odious and abominable such a spirit is to God, and how terribly he has threatened it; declaring (Proverbs xvi. 5) that "every one that is proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord; though hand join in hand, he shall not go unpunished;" and again (Proverbs vi. 16), "These things doth the Lord hate, a proud look, &c.:" and again (Proverbs xxix. 23), that " a man's pride shall bring him low," and (2 Samuel xxii. 28) that the eyes of the Lord are upon the haughty that he may bring them down; and still again (Isaiah xxiii. 9), that "the Lord of hosts hath purposed it, to stain the pride of all glory, and to bring into contempt all the honorable of the earth.” Consider, too, how Pharaoh and Korah, and Haman, and Belshazzar, and Herod, were awfully punished for their pride of heart and conduct; and be admonished, by their example, to cherish an humble spirit, and to walk humbly with God, and toward men. nally,

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4. Let all be exhorted earnestly to seek much of an humble spirit, and to endeavor to be humble in all their behavior toward God and men. -Seek for a deep and abiding sense of your comparative meanness before God and man.

Know God. Confess your nothingness and ill-desert before him. Distrust yourself. Rely only on God. Renounce all glory except from him. Yield yourself heartily to his will and service. Avoid an aspiring, ambitious, ostentatious, assuming, arrogant, scornful, stubborn, wilful, levelling, self-justifying behavior; and strive for more and more of the humble spirit that Christ manifested while he was on earth. Consider the many motives to such a spirit. Humility is a most essential and distinguishing trait in all true piety. It is the attendant of every grace, and in a peculiar manner tends to the purity of Christian feeling. It is the ornament of the spirit; the source of some of the sweetest exercises of Christian experience; the most acceptable sacrifice we can offer to God; the subject of the richest of his promises; the spirit with which he will dwell on earth, and which he will crown with glory in heaven hereafter. Earnestly seek then, and diligently, and prayerfully cherish an humble spirit, and God shall walk with you here below, and when a few more days shall have passed, he will receive you to the honors bestowed on his people at Christ's right hand.

LECTURE VIII.

THE SPIRIT OF CHARITY THE OPPOSITE OF

SELFISH SPIRIT.

"Seeketh not her own."-1 COR. xiii. 5.

HAVING shown the nature of charity in respect to the good of others, in the two particulars that it is kind to them, and envies not their enjoyments and blessings; and also in respect to our own good, that it is not proud, either in spirit or behavior, I pass to the next point presented by the Apostle, viz. that charity"seeketh not her own." The doctrine of these words plainly is,

THAT THE SPIRIT OF CHARITY, OR CHRISTIAN LOVE, IS THE OPPOSITE OF A SELFISH SPIRIT.-The ruin that the fall brought upon the soul of man, consists very much in his losing the nobler and more benevolent principles of his nature, and falling wholly under the power

and government of self-love. Before, and as God created him, he was exalted and noble, and generous; but now he is debased, and ignoble, and selfish. Immediately upon the fall, the mind of man shrank from its primitive greatness and expandedness, to an exceeding smallness and contractedness; and as in other respects, so especially in this. Before his soul was under the government of that noble principle of divine love, whereby it was enlarged to the comprehension of all his fellow-creatures and their welfare. And not only so, but it was not confined within such narrow limits as the bounds of the creation, but went forth in the exercise of holy love to the Creator, and abroad upon the infinite ocean of good, and was, as it were, swallowed up by it, and became one with it. But so soon as he had transgressed against God, these noble principles were immediately lost, and all this excellent enlargedness of man's soul was gone; and thenceforward, he himself shrank, as it were, into a little space, circumscribed and closely shut up within itself to the exclusion of all things else. Sin, like some powerful astringent, contracted his soul to the very small dimensions of selfishness; and God was