Chapter II: A second reason is almost as extensive as the former, because

founded upon it; I mean, the power of _habit and institution_.

The bias of our minds towards a just self-esteem, not properly directed, presently became _pride_: and pride, from being a general, was easily mistaken for a _natural_ principle; which would then, of course, be unconfined in its operation, and spread its influence through every quarter of human life.

Hence our earliest education is tinctured with this vicious self-esteem, and all our subsequent institutions are infected with it. It is cherished in the schools, under the name of emulation; and in the world at large, under that of ambition. Either sex, every age, every condition, is governed by it. The female world are called upon to value themselves; and the male world to assert their own dignity. The young are applauded for shewing signs of spirit; and the old must vindicate themselves from contempt. The lower ranks of men are not to be trampled upon; and the higher, not to be affronted. Our camps encourage it, as the spring of courage: and our courts, as the source of honour.

Thus pride predominates every where: and even the moralist or preacher, who would give some check to this principle, is thought to have an abject mind himself, or not to know that world, which he pretends to inform and regulate.

What wonder then that this impatient and tyrannical passion, which has general custom, and therefore claims to have reason, on her side, should yield with reluctance even to the authority of religion?

III. _Another_ cause, which contributes to the same effect, a partial one indeed, but of no small efficacy, where it prevails, is, perhaps, the _Gothic principle of honour_, deeply interwoven with most of our civil constitutions: a principle, in itself not friendly to Christian humility; but, as confederated with the other two principles before mentioned, what can it do but inflame them both, and give an infinite force to all their operations?

In these three considerations then, we have the true account and history of _pride_, the bane of civil life, and the disgrace of our moral nature. It springs, first, from the _natural sentiment_, easily indulged too far: it is, next, fostered by _general habit_; and, in the end, made sacred by _fashion_. Thus, its tyranny grew up, and is now so complete, that _lowliness of mind_ is ill looked upon even in the Christian world; and her offspring, _meekness_, (the more provoking of the two, as being that virtue drawn forth into outward act) seems in a way to be fairly dismissed from it.

It would hardly serve to reinstate these despised virtues in their pristine honours, to tell of their natures and conditions, to define their properties, and deliver the grounds of reason on which their pretensions are founded. Cold, abstracted philosophy, would do but little in this service. Besides, few persons want to be informed what humility is, or how becoming such a creature as man. And no informations, in the general way of reasoning, could be given with so much precision, but that a willing mind might find a way to mistake or pervert them.

’Tis well then that the text supplies another method of combating the universal pride of mankind. It calls upon us to contemplate, in the person of Jesus, the true and living form of _humility_; and holds out a solid, and suitable reward to the votaries of this divine virtue. Would ye know what it is to be _meek and lowly in heart? Learn of Jesus._ Do ye ask for what end ye should learn this lesson of him? the answer is direct and satisfactory, _Ye shall find rest to your souls_. These topics, then, must employ what remains of this discourse.

I. The particulars of Christ’s humility may be seen at large in the history of his life. But they are summed up by the Apostle Paul in few words.

_Let this mind be in you_, says he to the Philippians, _which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it no robbery to be equal with God_ [i. e. was in no haste to seize upon and assert his right of equality with him]; _but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of man; and being found in fashion, as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient to death, even the death of the cross_[152].

Who, that hears these words, can have a doubt concerning the nature of humility, or concerning the duties of it? If heaven stooped to earth; if Jesus descended from the dignity, I do not say of an angel, or an archangel, but of God himself, to the abject state of man; if he humbled himself to the lowest condition of that state; veiled all his glories in the form of a servant; in that form administered to our infirmities and necessities; bore all the scorn, the contradiction, the contumely of injurious men; and even submitted himself to death, the ignominious death of the cross, for their sake—If _this mind was in Christ Jesus_, who but must see, that the greatest of mankind may well descend from all his real or fancied eminence, for the service of his brother? may easily forego the little advantage, which his birth, his rank, his wealth, his learning, or his parts, may seem to give him over his fellows, when an act of charity is to be performed by him; when the distresses, the infirmities, nay the vices of humanity, may be relieved, and covered, and corrected, by such condescension? To stoop for such ends is almost pride itself: and to emulate such a pattern, is scarce humility, but glory.

Nor think, that this humility requires of you more than reason requires. You may suppress your pride, without giving up necessary self-defence. Ye may be _meek and lowly in heart_, without being unjust to yourselves, or imprudent. When your essential interests are concerned, ye may assert them with firmness, and even with spirit, in all ways, which good sense allows, or true wisdom recommends. But let not every petty injury, much less any fancied injury, be presently avenged; let not little neglects or discourtesies be hastily resented; overlook many injuries, if not considerable; nay, and many considerable injuries, if they be but tolerable. Think not that your dignity will suffer by such connivance. The true dignity of man, is the performance of his duty. Or, if some indignity be sustained, consider on whose account, and by whose command ye suffer it. Consider, that He, whose dignity was infinitely above yours, submitted to _every_ indignity, and for your sake. The authority of your divine Master is nothing, if it cannot bind you in any instance to bear his _yoke_: And to what end is the example of your divine Saviour set before you, if ye resolve, on no account, to _take up your cross and follow him_[153]?

But, because our compassionate Lord saw how uneasy this precept would be to the indulged and inveterate pride of his followers, he has therefore condescended to assure them that their obedience to it will, even in this world, be attended with a suitable reward. _Ye shall find rest to your souls._ And this

II. Is the other topic, which I engaged to insist upon, in this discourse.

The great objection to the virtues of _meekness and humility_, is, that the practice of them will put us to some present pain in resisting the impulse of our disordered passions. It will do so. Nature prompts us to repel an injury; and that nature, vitiated and depraved, is in haste to repel it with indignation, and even fury. To give way to the impetuous sentiment, would give us immediate ease; and to suppress it, till the practice becomes habitual, will cost us some throws and agitation of mind. To counteract this instant disquiet, a recompence is proposed, exactly suited to the trial. Our mind is discomposed, for the instant, by the struggle we have to make with the incensed passion: When that is over, it settles again into a full and permanent tranquillity. _We find rest_, as the text speaks, _to our souls_: we have the purest peace within, and have no disturbance of it to apprehend, from without.

1. The uneasiness which _pride_ engenders, receives, as I said, some present relief, from the free course of that passion. But see the consequence of giving way to it. Disgust, remorse, fear, and hate, succeed to the indulgence of this fiery sentiment, I mean, when it proceeds so far as to acts of revenge. But, if it stop short of this extreme, still the mind, by nourishing its resentments, and brooding over the idea of a supposed indignity, hurts its own peace; grows sore and fretful, and suspicious; and, though it be somewhat flattered by the first tumultuous effort of its indignation, which looks like courage and high spirit; yet, the briskness of this sensation soon goes off, and flattens into a sullen gloom of thought, the bane of every selfish, as well as social enjoyment.

It is much otherwise with the _meek and lowly in heart_. They never retaliate injuries, and seldom resent them. They either feel not the stroke of them; or, if they do, the wound is instantly healed by the balsamic virtue of their own minds. But, indeed, a man, well disciplined in the school of humility, receives but few injuries, for he _suspects_ none; it being, I think, true, that, for one real injury done us by others, a hundred such things, as we call by that name, are only bred in our own captious and distempered imaginations. And then, for those few injuries which he actually receives, they are easily slighted or forgotten by him; because he sees them only in their true shape and size, and not as magnified by an extravagant opinion of his own worth, and as extravagant a contempt of the aggressor. He knows his own infirmities, and can allow for those of other men. If they are petulant or unjust, he, perhaps, has been inobservant or imprudent: besides, he never thought himself entitled to any special respect, and therefore wonders the less, if no great ceremony has been used towards him. To these suggestions of humanity, he adds those of _religion_. He knows what his Master enjoins, and he remembers on what terms the injunction is pressed upon him. And thus, though the indignity seem great, he easily excuses one half of it, and forgives the other. The issue is, that he finds _rest_ in his own soul, which the proud man never does: so that, as to internal peace, the advantage is clearly on the side of meekness and humility. But then,

2. As to _external peace_, the matter may be thought more problematical. “For that softness of mind, which religion calls _humility_, invites, it is said, and multiplies injuries. Forgive one insult, and you draw upon you a hundred more so that, if humility be a virtue, it is never likely to be out of breath for want of exercise and employment. In a word, the world is so base, that there is no keeping it in respect, but by _fear_: and how is that needful sentiment to be impressed on the minds of injurious men, in those numberless cases which civil justice cannot reach, but by a quick resentment and personal high spirit?”

Such is the language of those who have learned their ethics of the world, and not of the Gospel. But let us see what there is in the allegation itself.

_To connive at one indignity, is_, they say, _the ready way to invite another_. It may be so, in some rare cases, when we have to do with singularly base and ungenerous natures; but even then, I think, chiefly, if not solely, when that connivance is joined with imprudence or folly: and then it is not humility should bear the blame, but our own indiscretion. Besides, the question is concerning a general rule of conduct: and this rule may be a fit and reasonable one, though it admit, as most rules do, of some exceptions.

Again, though a wise and good man will frequently suppress, and always moderate resentment, yet neither reason nor the religion of Jesus requires, that in no case whatsoever should we be actuated by that principle. The principle itself, as I have shewn, is a natural one, and under due restraint may serve to good purposes; one of which, perhaps, is to give check to overbearing insolence and oppression, I mean when it rises to a certain degree and exceeds certain bounds. Even our blessed Lord, who was meekness itself, thought fit on some occasions to express a very strong resentment: as, when he upbraided the Pharisees in no gentle terms, but, in a just indignation at their malice, went so far as to brand them with the bitter names of _vipers and serpents_, and to menace them with the flames of _hell_[154]. So that meekness and resentment are not absolutely incompatible; though the danger of exceeding in this last quality is so great, that the general rule both of reason and Christianity, is to cultivate meekness in ourselves, and to restrain our resentments.

“But, if exceptions be allowed in any case, the rule, it will be said, becomes of no use; for that pride and passion will find an exception in every case.” If they should, they must answer for themselves. In all moral matters, something, nay much, must be left to the fairness and honesty of the mind. Without this principle, the plainest rule of life may be evaded or abused: and with it, even that hard saying, of _loving our enemies_, which is near of kin to this of _meekness_, is easily understood, and may be reasonably applied.

“Still, the rule, it is said, must be an improper one; for that the world, not some few persons, but mankind in general, are only to be kept in order by _force and fear_.” So far as there is truth in this observation, the civil sword, in every country, supplies that needful restraint. But in the general commerce between man and man, in all offices of civility and society, that is, in cases where the stronger passions and more important interests of men are not directly concerned, as they are in what relates to property and power, the observation is clearly not true. Here, pride is the predominant vice of mankind. And pride is naturally softened and disarmed by placability and meekness. The good humour of the world is easily and most effectually maintained by mutual concessions and reciprocal civilities: for pride, having a mixture of generosity in it, yields to these, and loses all the fierceness of its nature. So that they, who bring this charge against the world, calumniate their kind, and either shew that they have kept ill company; or, as I rather suspect, have never tried the experiment, which they say is so hopeless. Let them learn to think more favourably, that is, more justly, of human nature. We are passionate, infirm creatures, indeed; but still men, and not fiends. Let them set the example of that _humility_, which they affect to think so unpromising a guard against injuries: and I dare assure them they will generally find themselves better defended by it, than by any resentment or high spirit which they can possibly exert.

Lastly, I would observe, that, if in some rare instances, and in places, especially, where fashion has made resentment highly creditable, this practice be found inconvenient, the rule is not to be set aside on that account. The authority of the legislator should exact obedience to it; and the inconvenience will be amply compensated by other considerations. We shall have the merit of testifying the sincerity of our religion, by giving to God and man so eminent a proof of it; and, in due time, we shall have our reward.

To conclude: in this and all other cases, we shall do well to _learn of Jesus, who was meek and lowly in heart_. His authority, his example, his affectionate call upon us in the words of the text, are powerful motives to the practice of this duty. And for the rest, we have seen, that it leads directly to _peace and quiet_, in our intercourse with each other; or, if the perverseness of man should sometimes disappoint us in this expectation, that it will certainly and infallibly _yield rest to our own souls_.

SERMON XXIV.

PREACHED APRIL 30, 1769.

LUKE xvi. 14.

_And the Pharisees also, who were covetous, heard all those things, and they derided him._

But what then were _those things_ which our Lord had said in the hearing of the Pharisees, and for which they derided him?

Had he been inveighing against the vice of covetousness in any unreasonable manner? Had he carried the opposite virtue to an extreme, as some moralists have done? Had he told the Pharisees that the possession, and much more the enjoyment of riches, was, universally, and under all circumstances, unlawful? Had he pressed it as a matter of conscience upon them, to divest themselves of their wealth, and to embrace an absolute and voluntary poverty? Had he even gone so far as to advise these Pharisees, as he once did a rich man, to _sell what they had and give it to the poor, and then take up the cross and follow him_[155]?

Alas, no. He had been saying none of _these things_. He did not think well enough of the Pharisees to give this last counsel of exalted charity to _them_; a counsel, which he had addressed to one whom he loved, to one who was a virtuous man as well as rich, and who wanted only this _one thing_, to make him perfect.

And as for those other precepts, which would have implied, that riches were unlawful in themselves, and the possession of them a crime, he was too sober a moralist to address a lecture of this sort to any of his hearers.

The truth is, he had only been advising rich men to employ their wealth in such a way as should turn to the best account, to _make themselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness_; that is, such friends, as should be able to repay them with interest, and, when these houses of clay are overturned, should _receive them into everlasting habitations_: and, to give this advice the greater weight with them, he had concluded his discourse with saying, that such conduct was even necessary, if they aspired to this reward, for that they _could not serve God and mammon_; that is, they could not serve _God_ acceptably, unless they withdrew their service from _mammon_ in all those cases, in which the commands of two such different masters interfered with each other.

Such, and so reasonable was the doctrine which Jesus had been delivering to the Pharisees. And how then could it provoke their _derision_?

The text answers this question—THEY WERE COVETOUS. Their life was a contradiction to this doctrine, and therefore they found it unreasonable, and even ridiculous.

Nor let it be thought, that this illusion is peculiar to avarice. It is familiar to vice of every kind, to scorn reproof; to make light of the doctrine, which condemns it; and, when it cannot confute, to deride the teacher.

So that the text affords this general observation, “That, when the heart is corrupted by any vice, it naturally breeds a disposition to unreasonable mirth and ridicule.”

And, because this levity of mind, in its turn, corrupts the heart still further, it may be of use to open to you, more particularly, _the sources of irreligious scorn_; to let you see from how base an origin it springs; how it rises, indeed, on the subversion of every principle, by which a virtuous man is governed, and by which there is hope that a vicious man may be reclaimed.

Now ye will easily apprehend how the sinner comes to cultivate in himself this miserable talent, if ye reflect; _how much he is concerned to avoid the_ EVIDENCE _of moral truth; how insensible he chuses to be to the_ DIFFERENCES _of moral sentiment; how studiously he would keep out of sight the_ CONSEQUENCES _of moral action_: And if ye consider, withal, how well adapted _the way of ridicule_ is, to answer all these purposes.