tence has that man to the esteem and love of men whose conduct eis insupportable to all those who converse or dwell with him? y and what is it but the vast and vain idea he has of himself, that attempts him to suppose his will must be the absolute rule of duty stand submission to all who are near him or concerned with him?

Se Let such persons declaim against tyranny as often and as loud as they please, and argue upon the theme with much wit and reason; let them talk of liberty and slavery in philosophical and just discourses, and appear the most forward and zealous patrons of the freedom of mankind, yet if they were exalted to a throne they would be very tyrants, and the world around them must be all their slaves. Native vice and inbred iniquity would prevail even above their own good reasonings, and mould their practice into that absolute sovereignity and dominion which their own mind and conscience must ever condemn and which their own lips at special seasons have so plentifully and so justly exposed.

This is sufficiently evident by their conduct wheresoever they happen to have power: They are already little tyrants in their own little dominions, and if they have but one inferior belongs to them, he shall know and feel that they are lords and masters. If their will be crossed in soine common affair of life, their loud complaints shall break out at the windows and the doors: The walls of the house shall echo with the sound of their indignation, till the neighbours are alarmed and enquire into the domestic mischief. Ye shall see these sons of humour rise from their table in a fury and renounce their food .The breast swells with inward passion, and leaves no room for the refreshments of nature: The servants fly scattering into corners for fear: The peace of their dearest relatives is broken, the order of the family thrown into wild confusion, and the tempest rises so high in their own bosom, that it will require some hours to calm and compose it. Pride and bumour have raised a storm, and it is no small labour to reduce the passions to peace, to smooth all the billows that roar and roll within, and to make the countenance serene again.

And after all, what is the cause of this tumult? What gross and unpardonable crime gave occasion for such resentment and violence? Perhaps dinner was not set upon the table exactly at the appointed moment, the clock has struck five minutes and the table is not covered; or it may be the cook has not performed her part to such a precise degree of nicety and elegance as the master expected, or as the mistress had taught her. "This dish is so insipid and seasoned so low, it is impossible to eat it, and the other is nothing but salt and fire." It is strange that for both these reasons the passions must burn and the heart broil with fury: "What, saith he, shall I never be gratified at my own table?" Or it is frosty weather and the plates are not quite warm enough, and therefore the master kindles; "must I still be

served so? Have ye all conspired that I shall eat a cold dinner to day." And yet this man possesses to be a philosopher, a man of virtue; he disdains to be led by that mean and brutal thing called appetite, and talks much of subduing the passions. I wish he could suppose he had any to be subdued. Or perhaps a word is inadvertently spoken in the dining room which used to be forbidden there; perhaps some grave and serious theme is started in a jovial hour, or some innocent mirth at another time is thought to be unseasonably introduced. Let the cause be what it will, the ear receives the sudden offence, pride feels the affront, the soul ferments into wrath, the tongue gives reproof in thunder and sets the softer part of the household all in tears.

The next day a plate is let fall from a servant's hand, or a glass is broken and the wine spilled on the floor; and if one were to judge of the mischief done by the degree of the sudden clamour, one would be ready to imagine that the pillars of the house were shaken or thrown down, and the outcry gave notice of immediate ruin and death. My reader, it may be, will presently enquire where this house stands? and where is this wretched character to be found? I confess I was never yet so unhappy as to live in such a family, nor was I ever an eye-witness to these disorders. I must acknowledge also that I know not the persons nor the door of their house: Perhaps they are dead, and the rising generation may be grown calmer and wiser: Nor will I presume to say where any of their kindred dwell: But I fear we need not go far to seek them. It is well if there be any street in this great city which cannot shew us such an in habitant: It is well if a month can pass away in any town in Great Britain without some such ferment of pride and passion, some domestic tumult which has this unhappy original*. Mark the tempestuous scene, O my soul, mark it wheresoever it occurs with just and everlasting abhorrence; and stand aloof from the vice that raised it. Pursue and practise, O my heart, the lovely virtue of humility: Acquire and maintain a low idea of thyself; then thou wilt bear to have thy humour thwarted, and thy own will opposed without such clamarous ad sounding consequences; thou wilt bear the cross incidents of life without the ruffle and disturbance of thy own inward powers, without the pain and terror of thy kindred and friends, and without giving half the street notice of thy folly.

course.

But, "strange doctrine is this," saith the master of the

*I almost reprove myself here and suspect my friends will reprove me-for introducing such low scenes of life, and such trivial occurrences into a grave disI have put the matter into the balances as well as I can, and weighed the case, and the result is this: General and distant declamations seldom strike the conscience with such conviction as particular representations do; and since this iniquity often betrays itself in these trivial instances, it is better perhaps to set them forth in their full and proper light, than that the guilty should never feel a reproof, who by the very nature of their distemper are unwilling to see or learn their own folly, unless it is set in a glaring view.

house, "must I not bear rule in my own family? Must I not be heard," says the mistress," and obeyed by my own servants? Must not the authority of a father appear among his children, and the mother demand due honour?" Yes by all means: And the superior character should always appear and shine bright before the household in the wisdom of the command or reproof, and not by the loud and haughty words or the terrible airs of the reprover. The authority of a parent or a master has but a poor support where it is maintained with such unreasonable and noisy

resentments.

Thus far concerning wrath and tyranny of the violent and sonorous kind: But pride and humour in some complexions have their private and sullen airs, as well as in others the sounding and the clamorous ones. The soul may be full of self and the man an intolerable humourist, and yet never shake the house, or affright the neighbourhood. Should you happen to cross his will in a trifling instance, he puts on a sudden gloom of countenance and assumes a forbidding brow without a single word from his lips; and sometimes it is hard to know what has offended him. Here the haughty and the sullen humours mingle their cursed influences; the soul is like a prisoner in majesty, the wretch stalks about in dark resentment and supercilious silence: a short and disdainful sentence full of spite and rancour and fire shall break out at certain intervals and give notice of the hell within. The proud wrath which is pent up in the bosom as in a close and boiling furnice, must have time to vent itself by slow degrees; in a day or two, or sometimes more, perhaps the ferment may subside, and the man return to his speech again, and to his hours of business, of food and rest. But after all the poisonous leaven is left still within, and waits only for some new occasion to heave and swell and raise a fresh disturbance. I name the man only in this cursed and hateful character, if the softer sex should find it working in themselves, I leave them to be their own reprovers.

Dread the thoughts, O my heart, of such a frantic and self-punishing iniquity. Suppress all haughty conceits of thy own worth and grandeur, lest meeting with some unhappy ferments of blood and complexion of humours they work up into such a world of mischief. Have a care of magnifying the image of thyself, and thou wilt not become a slave to such unmanly humours, such haughty and sullen airs, or such wild and unruly hurricanes of spirit. Let the fond child cry and roar because his play-thing is broken: Let the fool storm or grow sullen because his will is thwarted; let the dog bark, and the ox bellow, when the brutal choler is roused within them; but remember thou art a man, a reasonable creature, a christian. It becomes thee well

to know thyself, and to govern thy conduct and thy temper. Do not over-rate thy own fancy or appetite, nor be too fond of thy own will. Be not violent in any of thy desires: All thy inclinations and thy aversions to the indifferent and common things of life should be but feeble and indifferent: Do not thou imagine thyself worthy of such a profound subjection of the wills and humours of all mankind to thy own will and humour. Remember, O my soul, thou art upon a level with all other men in the world, in many more instances than those few things wherein providence has raised thee above them.

III. The man who has low thoughts of himself, is not ever in pain to publish his own excellencies, nor seeking to proclaim his own qualifications and honours. Though his zeal for God and his desire of the good of inen forbid him to wrap his talents in a napkin, yet you find him rather backward at first to appear, and not hasty and zealous to display himself. He hardly hears even the voice of providence when it calls him forth to arise and shine. He is so fearful of exaltation among the great, so sensible of his own defects, and pays so much honour to his fellows, that he thinks many a one fitter to perform public offices than himself, and to sustain public honours. Less than the least is his motto, and therefore he often hides himself as unworthy to be seen, and below the notice of the world.

But if the world should happen to be so just to merit and virtue as to raise the humble man from his obscure circumstances, and fix him in a point of light and bonour, he shall be the fast man that proclaims the justice which the world hath done him, and ascribes it all to the favour of God and man. He carries none of those meannesses about him by which little souls always distinguish themselves, and betray and expose their folly; for they are vainly fond of their own new title and character, and speedy in demanding due notice of it from others. This humble man practised the true sublime in his lower station, and you see nothing exalted in him now, though his inward worth is rendered more conspicuous. His friends and his kindred find him the same man still. His garments of honour sit close about him and swell not his figure or appearance. His titles add nothing to his own idea of himself, nor do they tempt him to assume any parculiar airs. He does not imagine that his opinions are now grown more sacred or more worthy to be imposed, nor does he give a loose to any of his passions with more freedom or sovereignity. Before the hour of his advancement he was a diamond in a cabinet, and he shone at home and gave light and beauty to what was near him: And now he is the same jewel set in a pub-' lic ornament of gold to glitter and give light to the world, but he owns that he borrows it all from heaven. Place him on high and displace him again, his constant business is to approve himself to God and to remember that he is but a man.

How different a character is this from what multitudes assume in our day? How many are impatient of obscurity and yet worthless of observation! They are daily and hourly pushing forward into every company and fond of shewing themselves to the world betimes, while their talents are very few and their furniture exceeding slender. The vain man is not content to enjoy the common pleasures of conversation, but he assumes the first place in it, and affects to outshine all the circle. He is not satisfied to have said a wise or a witty thing upon a proper occa→ sion, or to tell it perhaps to a friend, but without any occasion at all, he must once a week, repeat his wise sayings to the world: He makes them often hear his jests over again till they are weary, and is ever acquainting new company with the pert repartees that he had made some days before. These forward and conceited creatures will make the world know all their talents of body and mind, and will carefully spread abroad those possessions of equipage or title, which help to support their pride and as a noble author expresses, "they are so top-full of self that they spill it upon all the company; and a nobler person than he confirms the reason, Out of the abundance of their heart the mouth speaketh; Mat. xii. 34. And surely if the vessel of the heart were not brim-full of self it would not be always running over at the lips. They regard not the advice of the wisest of men; Prob. xxvii. 9. Let another praise thee and not thy own mouth; not thy lips, but the lips of a stranger.

Besides these vain and shameful boasters there is another tribe of creatures who are as vain adorers of self; but they put on a disguise that they may more effectually and secretly secure the praises of their dear and beloved idol. You shall hear them now and then invent an occasion, without any incident leading to it, to drop some lessening word concerning themselves, that the company may give them the pleasure of contradicting them. It is not that these appearing self-abasers believe a word of what they say, nor is it said with a desire that you should believe them, when they express their mean esteem of their own talents or virtues; but they are exceeding fond to hear themselves talked of to advantage, and when they give you this oscasion, they expect your civility should incline you to take it. These persons are always angling for praise, and some of them practise in so gross and inartificial a manner, that the design of their vanity too plainly discovers itself. The bait is lost because the hook appears; and when they have made a speech of their own unworthiness, the company sometimes is so just and so wise as to allow them to be in the right, and so complaisant as not to contradict them But then how abject, how mortified and simple they look under the painful disappointment! They fished for honour and to their sore regret they caught the truth. O when shall this VOL. III.

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