Our least was always the highest in his esteem. blessed Lord reproved the Scribes and Pharisees for loving the highest rooms at feasts and the chief places in synagogues. How many Pharisees are there among us who call ourselves Christians! This spirit, so contrary to the spirit of Christ, this pushing worldly disposition brings with it in reality no advantage whatever. Worldly wisdom is only another name for cunning, and cunning supposes a course of action different from that which those pursue who remember that the eye of the Lord is upon them. All is cunning, and not wisdom which does not bear the test of his all-seeing eye. Do you desire reputation and esteem among men? Be indifferent about it. Trust your reputation altogether to the hands of the Lord, and never fear but that those that honour Him He will honour. It is also a remedy against pride to consider how small a matter it is to be judged of men who have no power to fix our everlasting state. He that judgeth is the Lord. Not that the esteem of wise, discerning, and regenerate persons is to be undervalued. Wise, discerning, and regenerate persons are the saints of the Lord, if there be any saints on earth; and the opinions of such, that is, of such as judge according to the rules of the Gospel, may give us comfort hope and encouragement in well-doing. But it is chiefly perhaps in solitude that we have to contend against pride. In solitude It is a remedy against pride to call to mind twice every day, morning and evening, in your prayers all of which your conscience accuses you; Do so to search and try your ways as to bring to mind clearly, with a view to confession and repentance not only all of which you can accuse yourself on this or that particular day, but all of which you can accuse your former self, the blackest, the most deformed, the most unsightly of all the workings and effects of a carnal unregenerate mind. not spare yourself in this respect. What avails it to wear a mask before the Lord?" Dissemble and cloke" nothing, but confess all with a "humble, penitent, and contrite heart." Thou hast made me to serve with thy sins, thou hast wearied me with thine iniquities. I even I am He that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins. Put me in remembrance: let us plead together: declare thou, that thou mayest be justified. This will give you confidence towards God. It will teach you to acquaint yourself with Him and be at peace. It will give ease to your heart, and keep pride away from it. It is a remedy against pride never to suffer your thoughts to dwell on any good thing that you have done. Have you by the Lord's grace been enabled to do any good thing? those things which are behind. Forget it. Forget Press forwards to those things which are before. hand know what your right hand doeth saith the Lord. Observe, there is much significancy in this expression of the left hand. By the left hand we may understand our carnal nature in contradistinction to our better or regenerate nature. Let not your left hand know; let not your carnal nature take any occasion to exalt itself; let not the old man be puffed up with conceit at those deeds which the new man has, by preventing and assisting grace, been enabled to perform. It is a remedy against pride rightly to observe the apostolic injunction of unceasing prayer. This is the Scripture standard. Why should it be softened or explained away? It is not impossible; it is not difficult to those who are accustomed to this discipline. The hearts of such are always ready to mount, so that they say, do, and think nothing without prayer to the Holy Trinity for permission, counsel, assistance, and blessing. It is a remedy against pride to remember our last account; that the hour is fast approaching when we shall be called upon to render it up; that the day is very near, no one knows how near which will pass us into another state of life where we shall appear before that Judge, who though above angels, principalities and powers, assumed the form of a man, the servant of all, despised and rejected, that Judge who when upon earth by every action showed that He resisteth the proud and giveth grace to the humble. For indeed Lastly the words of the text suggest the proper remedy for pride. God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. When we are inclined to be proud of any little thing let cur imagination bring to our view the cross with the Lord of Life the King of Glory hanging upon it, with the iron driven through the palms of his hands and the soles of his feet. Let us glory now if we can. Which of us who glories in any little thing could resolve to look such a death as this in the face? Which of us would give himself up to be crucified, to be crucified for others, to be crucified for the sin of others, to be crucified for the sin of others more beneath us than the poorest beggar is beneath the greatest prince? Do we desire to glory? Let us glory in having the same spirit of suffering, of dying to the world, of humility, meekness and forgiveness, of rewarding good for evil, of patiently bearing the most outrageous wrongs, of making a sacrifice of ourselves for the good of others. Or if we cannot immediately attain to this perfection, yet let us glory that our sins are forgiven by means of that precious blood, of that great sacrifice and atonement which was offered upon the cross; let us glory in the light and comfort of that blessed Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son who, unless we shut Him out by pride, will guide us with his counsel and receive us into glory, through the merits and mediation and the atoning blood of the Lord Jesus. Now to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, be ascribed all honour, praise, and glory, might, majesty, dominion, and thanksgiving, for ever and ever. Amen. SERMON XX. ON THE LORD'S WILLINGNESS TO ACCEPT OUR SERVICES. ISAIAH Vi. 5—9. Then said I, woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. . . . Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar and he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged. Also I heard the voice of the Lord saying whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me. And he said, Go. O HAPPY prophet! Happy in being purified, in being consecrated, in being sent to announce the glad tidings of the birth in human flesh of the same Saviour whom thou sawest in his glory! (For that it was Christ whom Isaiah saw seven hundred years before his birth in human flesh St. John plainly declares in his Gospel, where he says, concerning this very part of Scripture, these things said Esaias when he saw his glory (the glory of Jesus Christ,) and spake of Him. Yet this case of |