Look to the character which our Saviour gives of pride, where he enumerates the moral defilements of the heart of man, and classes it with adulteries, thefts, and murders b. Look to the portraits which St. Paul exhibits of the reprobate condition of the heathen world, and of those "perilous times, which should come in the last days;" and you will find pride introduced among their characteristic features. Look to the contrast, which the scriptures repeatedly mark between the respective rewards, as well as the natures, of the Christian and the opposite temper, where it is said, that "God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble "." Look finally to the reason of all this in the assertion of the text, where St. John coupling" the pride of life" with "the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes," in other words with sensuality and covetousness, affirms, that" it is not of the Father, but is of the world:" that it is not of heavenly origin, the valuable and fruitful gift of the Holy Spirit of God; but is on the contrary de

rived from "the god of this world," sinful as a principle, and mischievous in its tendency.

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Pride is defined by a celebrated moralist, to be" inordinate and unreasonable self-esteem." Now where a man thinks too highly of himself, it is in the course of nature that he should think too lowly of others and it may be laid down as a general axiom, that the concomitants of pride are scorn and insolence towards one's fellow-creatures, and impiety and irreverence towards God. "The proud have had me greatly in derision," was the remark of the Psalmist ; and he laid his finger precisely on that spring, where irreligion has its origin, when he said, "The wicked through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God: God is not in all his thoughts £.

These are the distinguishing marks of pride, where it is permitted to get dominion over the heart, and (which is a necessary consequence) to influence the actions. However it be nourished, and whatever be 'Psalm x. 4.

Psalm cxix. 51.

the shape it is invested with, its effects are uniformly hateful and pestilential; uniformly subversive of piety towards God and charity towards man, as well as injurious to the happiness of him who is actuated by it. In the pride of exalted birth, Absalom the son of David broke the ties of religion, allegiance, and filial duty; and rebelled against his father, whom the Lord had anointed king over Israel; and was violently cut off in the flower of his age. In the pride of arbitrary power, Jezebel usurped the vineyard of Naboth by perjury and murder; and "her carcass was eaten by dogs." In the pride of majesty, "the heart of Nebuchadnezzar was lifted up, and his mind hardened" to forget his almighty Benefactor; and he was "driven from men, and his dwelling was with the beasts of the field." In the pride of despotic authority, Pharaoh " refused to let the people of Israel go to serve the Lord;" and the Lord "hardened his heart" for a. punishment, because he had himself already hardened it by his sin. In the pride of victory, Saul" rejected the word of the Lord; and the Lord rejected him from

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being king over Israel." In the pride of royal favour, the insatiable ambition of Haman would not rest, "so long as he saw Mordecai the Jew sitting at the king's gate;" until he himself was hanged on the gallows," that he had prepared for the object of his malice. In the pride of popular applause, Herod permitted himself to be saluted with divine honours ;

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and " immediately an Angel of the Lord smote him, and he was eaten of worms, and gave up the ghost." In the pride of wealth, the covetous man in one parable thought of nothing, but to "eat, drink, and be merry ;" and the rich man in another thought not of the beggar that "lay at his gate full of sores;" until the soul or the former was " required of him that night;" and the latter" lift up his eyes in hell, being in torments." In the pride of youth, Rehoboam threatened to "chastise his subjects with scorpions ;" and was punished by the loss of his hereditary authority. In the pride of bodily strength, Goliah “defied the armies of the living God;" and was slain by the hand of a stripling, whom he had disdained and cursed by his

gods. In the pride of female beauty and accomplishments, the heart of Herodias's daughter was hardened into the commission of an act of wanton barbarity in demanding the head of John the Baptist; and the crime was recompensed by the degradation and banishment of her partners in guilt, if not by her own untimely destruction. In the pride of learning, the Greeks esteemed "the preaching of Christ crucified to be foolishness," and were judicially "given over by God to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient." In the pride of a fancied equality and consequent disobedience to their rulers, Korah and his company rebelled against Moses and Aaron, and "went down alive into the pit," because they "had provoked the Lord." Proud of their spiritual privileges and of their descent from Abraham, the Jews despised, rejected, and crucified the Lord of glory; and "his blood was on them and on their children;" and "their house was left unto them desolate." Would we see even a more decisive and alarming proof of the origin of pride