with panegyric, recommended to imitation? Have ye not heard of proper Pride, of decent Pride, of honourable Pride, of manly Pride? Do you not inceffantly hear this jargon from the lips of profeffed Christians? Proper Pride, decent Pride, honourable Pride, manly Pride! Talk rather of proper malignity; of decent blafphemy; of honourable barbarity; of manly murder! Be not deceived: God is not mocked. Pride, with whatever epithets it may be attended, under whatever decorations it may be difguised, is pride, is fin. That the proud in heart fhould vindicate Pride; that by subtleties of expreffion and delufive distinctions they should labour to provide excuses and pleas for the indulgence of their ruling paffion, is not wonderful. Leave Pride to the proud. Be not ye corrupted by evil communication to call evil good, and darkness light. The word of God is your ftandard. By that standard try every word, and motive, and temper, and action.

Pride is ever setting up itself against Heaven. When it looks to God, it is with a defire of being freed from dependence on Him. When it confiders men, it undervalues His gifts to others; and prompts us to act, with respect to His gifts

to ourselves, as though they were inherent in us, or were our due. Hence the fretful impatience of the prefumptuous under the laws and difpenfations of Infinite Wisdom. Hence the scornful eye and the boastful tongue. Hence, in the daily paths of common life, men avow themselves proud of the fuccefs, proud of the marks of favour, of preference, of honour, by which they are diftinguished. What are these diftinctions but calls for gratitude and humility? When St. Paul, comparing the extent of his exertions with those of the other Apoftles, incidentally exclaims, I laboured more abundantly than they all: with what folicitude does he inftantly guard the expreffion against the imputation of seeming Pride-Yet not I; but the grace of God which was with me (g)! Whoever thou art who glorieft, give the glory to God. Who maketḥ thee to differ from another? And what haft thou that thou didst not receive? Now if thou didft receive it, why doft thou glory as if thou badft not received it (b)?

Finally, in fcrutinifing your own bosom, that you may discover whether it is under the influence of Pride, investigate with the

(g) 1 Cor. xv. 10.

(b) 1 Cor. iv. 7. minutest

minutest accuracy your fenfations in cafes of competition. Men, reflecting with complacency on their affable deportment towards their inferiors, on that ground take frequent credit with themselves for humility; and actually become puffed up with arrogance in the contemplation of their imaginary meeknefs. But bring them into contact with their equals and rivals: and the dominion of Pride is flagrant. Unless your bofom is fwayed by unaffected humility in your intercourse with equals and with rivals; unless habitually and univerfally you mind not high things; conceive not that you are not the slave of Pride because you condescend to men of low estate (i).

i) Rom. xii. 16.

SERMON VIII,

Zeal illuftrated by the Character of Jehu.

1

2 KINGS, X. 16.

Come with me, and fee my zeal for the
Lord.

IN regions where civilization has made

but feeble advances, opinions grossly erroneous prevail concerning fome of the most valuable productions of the earth. Substances which, among nations enlightened by fcience, are daily introduced with fignal utility in medicine, in manufactures, in various arts which smoothen or embellifh the paths of life, are indifcriminately neglected and despised: or, in consequence of mischievous effects produced by a rash and unfkilful application of them, or by heterogeneous mixtures with which they are debased, become objects of averfion and of

dread.

Zeal illuftrated by the Character of Febu. 153 dread, Or having been found, in cafual trials, to be endued with beneficial powers; they are extolled as invested with a kind of magical influence, and are blindly employed as poffeffed of universal efficacy. Similar mifconceptions not unfrequently predominate even among ourselves concerning highly eftimable endowments of the mind; and predominate from fimilar causes, a very inaccurate infight into the nature of those endowments, and a hafty and unwarrantable use and appropriation of them. Thus by fome, genius is admired as an allpowerful talent, grafping without an effort the treasures of Tafte and Knowledge; while by others it is depreciated as unfitting the intellect for patient research, and terminating in tinsel and fuperficial attainments. And thus it is that industry at one time is dignified as nearly superseding the neceffity of penetration and invention: at another is degraded as cold, plodding, fervile, infenfible to refinement, the affociate of pedantry and dulness.

Among mental qualities there is scarcely, perhaps, one more commonly misunderstood and lefs accurately appreciated than zeal. One clafs of men, furveying with indignation the timidity and selfishness of the luke