Note: In Part 1 (in the last issue) the author stated, “There are four things in particular which we ought always to have before our minds with regard to this heritage: I. What it is. II. What it cost. III. How it is endangered. IV. Our duty towards it.” We now give the concluding half of the article, containing points III and IV.
III. The third point we notice is that this heritage is in danger. It is in danger from without when it is persecuted. In an age when much is spoken and written concerning toleration, one would hardly expect to find persecution, but, nevertheless, this monster will put forth its ugly head in ways and in places where one would least expect it. Let a local committee be given the opportunity of choosing from a short list a man to fill a vacancy in one of the professions. The man may come with excellent credentials. His qualifications for his work are more numerous than any of the others who apply for the post but he is rejected; representations adverse to him have been made to the body responsible for filling the vacancy. Why? His fault is that he is a Free Presbyterian, and the committee naturally conclude that if he is a true Free Presbyterian he will not be one of the ringleaders of their concerts and dances, and so of no use to them.
Further, this heritage is in danger from without when instead of persecution there is plausibility. Certain individuals, clerical and lay, make it their business to associate with adherents and members of the Free Presbyterian Church. They speak of their great regard for our Church, and give us credit for adhering to the old paths. They sometimes attend public worship in our congregations, and none appear to listen more attentively, but it is all done in order to create a good
* See page 193 in the previous issue for a biographical footnote about the Rev. Donald Beaton.
impression, and as a means to an end. They even go to the length of shedding crocodile tears over the ecclesiastical divisions among us and piously sigh for the day when these divisions will be healed. The hollow hypocrisy of such play-acting ought to be apparent if one would remember that these same individuals never raise their voices within the pale of their own church against the cause of these divisions. Let Free Presbyterians beware of such plausible creatures.
There is danger from within when we become lukewarm towards the testimony which our church raises against error. This constitutes a real danger to our heritage, for it manifests that we are not alive as we should be to the ruin which heretical doctrines will bring upon the soul. Those who raised a testimony on behalf of the truth in 1893 did not look with a complacent eye on heresy. They realised only too well how it militates against the glory of God and the highest interests of the soul, and treated it as a poisonous viper which they were duty bound, as the professed friends of Christ, to put forth all their power to crush, and to apply the Gospel antidote in order to counteract the baneful effects of its poison. Was there not a great difference between them and us in this respect? Have we not reasons to smite upon our breasts and confess that we are not so vigilant, and our voice is not so often heard, as was the case with them, against Arminianism, Antinomianism, and Romanism? Have these “three unclean spirits like frogs” which “come out of the mouth of the dragon” become less harmful in our day than they were in their day? Is the reason for our comparative silence not to be found in our lukewarmness, and, therefore, it must be a guilty silence, which will be bitter to us some day?
Our heritage is in danger from within when we show signs of being ashamed of it. It has become fashionable with the majority to look upon us as old-fashioned and behind the times, and as an “impracticable element.” It is contrary to nature not to be perturbed by having these things cast at one, with the result that many, when in certain company, hide and even deny the fact that they were brought up in the Free Presbyterian Church. This is often the case with some when they remove to localities where they are not known, for though there may be a congregation of our Church within a short distance of their homes they will not go near it, but instead will go to places where their very conscience tells them that they will not hear the pure gospel. In that way they manifest unfaithfulness of the most glaring kind to the cause of Christ. We are well aware also that many efforts are put forth to draw our young people away from us, and when those who put forth these efforts are successful with any individual, very often that individual becomes more hostile to us than those who seduced him. We cannot but conclude that these seducers come under the terrible denunciation of the Saviour when He says, “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make
him two-fold more the child of hell than yourselves.”
There is also a danger to our heritage when people place more value on the things of the world than on the legacy that has been bequeathed to us. In God’s Word we read that Esau, “for one morsel of meat, sold his birthright,” and one can find no better comparison for young women, brought up in the Free Presbyterian Church, when they marry men from other churches and go away with them to these churches. Such women ought to remember that they have not married their consciences to any man, and that it is wrong for them to follow any man into a Church where the Word of God and their conscience tells them they should not go. We have heard of husbands who insist that their wives follow them into such churches, but they are doing what neither the law of God nor the law of man permits them to do. This, along with the exercise of discipline in a scriptural manner, has caused many to forsake the Word of God, and embrace what may well be described as a counterfeit of Satan.
IV. The fourth point that falls to be noticed in connection with our heritage is our duty towards it.
It is our duty to hold fast to the Word of God, and to the doctrines contained in it, which have been handed down to us at such great cost. The Apostle Paul, in writing to Timothy, says, “Hold fast the form of sound words, which thou hast heard of me, in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.” Thus he would have Timothy be careful of that priceless heritage that was bequeathed to him, and not only Timothy but us also, “for whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning.”
Let us consider the testimony that had been raised in 1893. It was raised in order to hand down to us entire an inspired and infallible Bible, given of God to be the only rule of faith and conduct. It was not raised by men who occupied an influential position in the professing Church. It is true that some of these said great things beforehand as to what they were going to do, but when the testing time came they were like “the children of Ephraim, being armed, and carrying bows, turned back in the day of battle.” The testimony was raised by weak men whom the world despised, but whose action was owned by God, and though their action was characterised by former friends as a “storm in a teacup” we believe their work will continue to the Millennium.
Further, it is our duty to keep a vigilant eye on attempts made to injure our heritage, and in doing so we should be on our guard against actions, by ourselves or others, which have selfish and self-justifying ends in view. These actions always tend to the breaking down of the walls of our Zion and will give no delight to a true child of God, but will strengthen, encourage and delight that class of people who are Sabbath-breakers, fornicators, drunkards and fugitives
from church discipline generally. Therefore, in every line of action which we take we ought to ask ourselves if we have the approbation of that class of people, or the approbation of God. Our duty, therefore, is to seek grace to obey the exhortation which says, “Hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown,” and in our endeavours on behalf of our heritage to seek a single eye to the glory of God. In spite of the endeavours of some and the wishes of many that heritage is still preserved for us; therefore in all humility we can say, “Hitherto hath the Lord helped us.”
Sermon
The Humble Soul the Peculiar Favourite of Heaven
Rev Ebenezer Erskine*
Preached on the fast-day before the administration of the Lord’s Supper at Orwell, on 27th July, 1721.
Concluded from page 172
TEXT: Psalm 138:6, “Though the Lord be high, yet hath he respect unto the lowly; but the proud he knoweth afar off.“
In the first part of the sermon, in the last issue, the preacher stated: “The doctrine of the text is that the lowly and humble soul is the peculiar favourite of the high God. Though the Lord be high, yet hath he respect unto the lowly”.
“This truth is so evidently founded on the text, that I shall not consume time in adducing other texts of Scripture to confirm it; many that I might name will be cited in expounding the doctrine. Through grace, I shall attempt to:
“First: Give some account of this lowliness and humility, and shew wherein it consists;
“Second: Prove, that the humble and lowly soul is the peculiar favourite of heaven;
“Third: Show why God has such respect to the lowly;
“Fourth: Lay before you some marks or characters of the lowly and humble soul;
“Fifth: Offer some motives pressing you to seek after it;
“Sixth: Offer a few directions and advices how it may be attained.”
Having given the first three heads in the June issue, we now give the remainder. -Editor.
THE fourth principal thing proposed was to lay before you some marks by which you might try whether you be among the humble and lowly, to whom God has such a regard.
You have especially need to try this now, when you are to make a solemn approach to God at His table. “Let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup.” If you lack this lowly frame of spirit, you cannot be welcome guests at the supper of the great King.
Now, for your examining yourselves, I shall suggest these following marks:
* See page 164 of the June issue for a biographical note about Ebenezer Erskine.
First, the lowly soul is one who is many times ashamed to look up to heaven under a sense of his own vileness and unworthiness; as we see in the poor publican, and also in David when he said, “Innumerable evils have compassed me about, mine iniquities have taken hold upon me, so that I am not able to look up: they are more than the hairs of mine head, therefore my heart faileth me.” Psalm 40:12. It is true that when by faith the lowly soul looks to his surety: to Christ’s everlasting righteousness, and His mediation and intercession, he has boldness to come to the throne of grace. I say, when he looks to Christ, he is not ashamed; as in Psalm 34, verse 5, “They looked unto him, and were lightened; and their faces were not ashamed.” But when he looks to himself, as he is in himself, he is even ashamed and confounded before the Lord, and ready to cry out with the prophet, “Woe is me, for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips,” Isaiah 6:5. He says as it were, “How shall I speak unto the King, the Lord of hosts? or how shall I appear before Him?”
A second mark is that he is one who is many times put to wonder that God has not destroyed him. He wonders that God has kept him out of hell so long, or that He has not let loose His hand, and made an utter end of him; and therefore he is much in the exercise of adoring God’s mercy and long-suffering patience with the church. “It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not,” Lamentations 3:22.
Thirdly, the lowly soul is one who is most abased under the receipt of the greatest mercies and sweetest manifestations. We see this in the instance of David, when God promised to build him a sure house, and gave him a promise of the Messiah to come from his loins: the man is not lifted up, but, on the contrary, is filled with wonder that God should stoop so far toward the like of him. “Who am I,” said he, “that thou hast brought me hitherto?” The nearer that the humble soul is admitted unto God, and the higher that he is lifted up to the mount of enjoyments, the lower and lower he falls in his own esteem. Abraham, when admitted to plead with God on the behalf of Sodom, sinks into nothing in his own eyes? “Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord, which am but dust and ashes,” Genesis 18.
Fourth, the humble man renounces the law as a covenant, and disclaims all pretensions to righteousness from that direction. “I through the law, am dead to the law, that I might live unto God.” “O,” says the man when he looks upon the law of God in its spirituality and extent, “what can I expect from it but wrath and ruin? Indeed, I am condemned already by the law; and if God mark iniquity, according to the tenor of it, I am undone for ever. ‘If thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities; O Lord, who shall stand?'” Psalm 130:3. So try yourselves by this: has a discovery of the law of God, in its spirituality, made you acknowledge that all your own righteousnesses are but filthy rags, dung, and loss?
Fifth, the lowly soul is one that has high, raised, and admiring thoughts of
Christ, and of His righteousness. As for the person of Christ, O, the humble soul admires this. The lower that he falls in his own esteem, the higher does Christ rise in his esteem. In Psalm 73, Asaph is so laid low in his own eyes that he cries, “So foolish was I, and ignorant: I was as a beast before thee.” Well, while it is so with him, what are his thoughts of Christ? See them in verses 25 and 26, “Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee. My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever.” And as for the righteousness of Christ, O how does his soul admire that, and clasp it! “O,” says he, “I have no works, no righteousness of my own, to commend me to God, or wherewith to stand before him: but he is ‘the Lord my righteousness.’ I will go on in His strength, making mention of His righteousness, even of His only.”
Sixth, the lowly soul is one that looks on sin as his greatest burden. He says with David, “‘Mine iniquities are gone over mine head: as an heavy burden they are too heavy for me;’ and particularly indwelling corruption, the fountain of sin.” How he mourns and groans under that, saying with Paul, “O, wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death,” Romans 6:24.
Seventh, he is one that values himself least, when others value him most. “O,” says he, “others see only my outside; but if they saw the swarms of abominations that I see and feel in my own heart, I would be a terror unto them.” When the multitude is crying, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” we see that Christ is meek and lowly, riding upon an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass.
Eighth, the meek soul is not puffed up with the falls of others, (like those in 1 Corinthians 5:2); but rather, the falls of others contribute to humble and empty him the more of himself. He sees, from the breaking out of sin in others, what is in his own heart, and how much he is obliged to God for restraining grace. “If the bridle were but laid on my neck,” the humble soul will say, “I would be soon carried into the same excess of riot with others.”
Ninth, the lowly soul is one that is thankful for little; he will not despise the day of small things. Like the woman of Canaan, he is content with the crumbs that fall from the children’s table. The humble soul is content with a bare word from the Lord. “O,” says David, “God hath spoken in his holiness, I will rejoice.” He thinks much of a single word from the Lord’s mouth, and waits for it, as the servants of Benhadad, that caught at every word that dropped from the mouth of the king of Israel.
Tenth, the humble soul is content and desirous to know what is God’s will, that he may do it. Paul is no sooner humbled, but he cries, “‘Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?’ Give grace to obey: and command what Thou wilt.”
V. The fifth matter proposed was, to offer some motives to press upon you and recommend this lowliness and humility of spirit.
The first motive shall be drawn from the excellence of the grace of humility.
This excellency appears in two things especially:
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It assimilates the soul to Christ. Men are inclined to imitate the example of the great ones of the earth; but here is the most noble pattern that ever was, even an incarnate Deity, saying, “Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly.”
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The excellence of humility appears also in that it is the distinguishing character of a Christian. The people of God are ordinarily called the humble and meek of the earth. A proud Christian is a contradiction; for pride is just an opposite to true religion. O what a difference did it put between the Pharisee and the publican. The proud Pharisee brags to God, as it were, about his good works. “God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess.” But the poor publican stands afar off, as if the Majesty of Heaven were about to strike him dead; and yet, the publican is the one who goes home to his house justified, while the other is rejected.
The second motive is this: consider how reasonable this lowliness and humility of soul is, whether we view ourselves singly, or, as together in connection with the evils of the land and of our day.
First, begin with this view: a view of yourself alone, man or woman, and you shall find reason for humiliation, and how reasonable lowliness is.
And in viewing yourself, see, first, that you are a creature: a creature sprung of earth, whose foundation is in the dust of the earth. Hence, the exhortation of the prophet Jeremiah, “O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord.” You are earth in your original, earth as to the supports of nature, and to the earth you shall return in the end.
Also, you are not only a creature, but a frail creature, whose breath is in your nostrils. You stand continually upon the brink of an endless eternity. And as but a few years have passed since we arose out of the dust, so before long, death will sweep us off the stage. Then all our beauty, strength, stature, and other bodily excellencies, will be covered with rottenness. In Isaiah, chapter 40, you see it is the cry both of heaven and earth that “all flesh is grass.” Solomon, giving a description of the life of man, sums it all up in two short phrases: “There is a time to be born, and a time to die.” He leaps over the intermediate distance between man’s birth and his burial, as a thing that was not worthy of his notice. He is born, and then he dies. He says, as it were, “The moment of time between the womb and the tomb is so short that it does not deserve to be named.”
Furthermore, you are not only a frail creature, but also a sinful creature, wholly overrun with that loathsome leprosy of sin, from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot. O, what reason we have to be humble, who have defaced the image of God, cast dirt on all the divine attributes, trampled His law and authority under our feet. The sinner has swallowed a cup of deadly poison,
which will infallibly destroy him, if infinite mercy and free grace prevent not. What ground has he then to be proud? “O,” says the prodigal, “I have sinned against heaven, and therefore am no more worthy to be called thy son.”
You are not only a sinful creature but also an impotent creature, that can do nothing in order to your own help and relief. If God had not laid help upon One that is mighty, we had been all of us this day sinking under the fiery mountains of eternal vengeance and wrath. Such an impotent creature is sinful man, that as to natural things, he cannot make one hair of his head white or black, or add one cubit to his stature. And so helpless is he, as to spiritual and eternal concerns, that he can no more change the wicked habits of his heart, or the wicked ways of his life, than the Ethiopian can change his colour, or the leopard his spots.
Again, you are a variable, changeable, and inconstant creature: liable to many alterations, both as to your outward lot and your inward frame. The man that is in greatest esteem today, may have his reputation ruined by the envenomed tongue of calumny tomorrow. Your health may soon be changed into sickness, your riches into poverty, your strength into weakness, your beauty into ugly deformity. And as for you, believer, though your state be firm like the mountains, yet your frame is but a changeable thing. Perhaps you may be saying with David one day, “By thy favour my mountain stands strong;” and the next day be crying out, “Thou didst hide thy face, and I am troubled.” Although perhaps the candle of the Lord may be shining on your tabernacle, yet in a little time you may be going mourning without the sun.
Secondly, this lowly frame of spirit is highly reasonable, if we consider ourselves not only singly, but also as together, in connection with the evils of the land and of the day wherein we live. Look at the world, and particularly the land wherein we live.
O what great cause of deep humiliation all of us have this day before the Lord, when we take a view of the abounding profanity of our day! All ranks have corrupted their ways; a flood of atheism and wickedness, Jordan-like, has broken down all its banks.
Have we not reason to be humbled for the barrenness that is found among us under the glorious gospel? The Lord says to us, as he said to His vineyard, “I planted thee in a fruitful soil; I took all imaginable pains upon thee, by ordinances, by the rod, by mercies and crosses; yet, after all, when I looked that they should bring forth grapes, behold, they brought forth wild grapes.”
Again, have all of us not reason to be humbled for the lamentable divisions that are found among us? “Ephraim against Manasseh, Manasseh against Ephraim, and both they together against Israel.” “For the divisions of Reuben there were great thoughts of heart,” Judges 5:15. Church and State are divided. And we are likely to have a new division among us with regard to doctrine. There is a handful of ministers who have lately put in a petition to our General
Assembly, in favour of some of the pure and precious truths of the gospel, which they conceive to be injured by an Act of Assembly. There is a mighty cry raised against them, both in pulpits and in common conversation, as if they were the “troublers of Israel”, “Antinomians”, and what not. Many strange errors are fathered upon them, which they never once thought of. I shall be far from bringing a railing accusation against those who try to wound their reputation and to mar the success of their ministry, for I look on many of them as great and good men. But if they whom they cry against be helped to bear reproach for the name of Christ and for the cause of His truths, with humility and lowliness of mind, the Lord in His own time will find out a way to bring them forth to the light, so as they shall behold His righteousness. And although their reputation should sink for ever in the world, under the load of calumny that is cast upon them, I hope they think it but a small sacrifice for the least truth of God, which is of more worth than heaven and earth. However, I say this is a cause of humiliation in our day: that any of the precious truths of Christ should be under a cloud, and that we should be divided in our sentiments about them. Have we not reason to be deeply humbled for our woeful defections and backsliding, which are the ground of our divisions? We are departed from the Lord, and the Lord is in a great measure departed from us. What a woeful withering wind has blown upon God’s vineyard in the land! We are fallen from our first love, our former zeal for God and His precious truths, and the royalties of our Redeemer’s crown. And is there not a lamentable decay as to the power and life of godliness, which has dwindled away into an empty form with the most? In Scotland, it is not with the nobles, gentry, ministers and people as it once was. And the worst of it is, that though it be so, though grey hairs are here and there upon us, yet we do not perceive it. We make our faces harder than a rock, and refuse to return to the Lord. But I hasten to a close.
The third motive to press us to this lowliness is the noble patterns of humility that are set before us for our imitation. Take a view of them.
The saints militant are patterns of it. Consider Abraham, the father of the faithful, in the 18th chapter of Genesis. With what humility does he address himself to God? “Behold, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord, which am but dust and ashes.” And his grandson, Jacob, follows his footsteps. “I am not worthy,” says he, “of the least of all thy mercies.” In Job, David, Isaiah, Paul, and all the cloud of witnesses, we have a copy of humility.
Again, the saints triumphant are a pattern of this grace. They take their crowns off their heads, and cast them down at the Mediator’s feet, ascribing the glory of all unto Him, saying, “Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen,” Revelation 1:5.
Also, angels are patterns of humility. They do not look on it as a
disparagement to be ministering spirits unto the heirs of glory. And with what humility do they cover their faces with their wings in the presence of God.
Again, Christ is a blessed pattern of lowliness. “Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly.” He has left us an example, that we should follow His steps. “He humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.” Though He was the high God, yet he “took upon him the form of a servant.” And therefore “let the same mind be in us, which was also in Christ Jesus.”
Even the infinite Jehovah, the eternal God, gives us a pattern of humility; for “he humbleth himself to behold the things that are in heaven, and in the earth.” And, as you see in our text, “Though the Lord be high, yet hath he respect unto the lowly.” And are not all these patterns worthy of our very highest imitation?
If this will not prevail, I offer a fourth motive. Consider the evil and danger of the sin of pride, that is directly opposite to humility and lowliness.
First: pride is loathsome in the sight of God; He cannot endure to look on it; He beholds it afar off. It is set in the very front of those sins that the Lord hates: “These six things doth the Lord hate; yea, seven are an abomination unto him:” and the first of them is a proud look, Proverbs 6:16. God hates every sin, but he proclaims open war and hostility against pride.
The evil and loathsomeness of it appears in that it is a sign of a rotten heart within. “Behold, his soul which is lifted up, is not upright in him,” Habakkuk 2:4. As humility and sincerity go hand in hand, so do pride and hypocrisy.
Again, pride is loathsome because it is the fertile womb of many other evils. It is the spring of division. “Only by pride cometh contention,” Proverbs 13:10. As I was saying just now, there are a great many divisions amongst us at this day. Church and State are divided, congregations and families are divided, ministers and people are divided. What is the matter? Pride lies at the bottom. If our proud hearts were but so far humbled as to confess our faults one to another, our divisions would soon come to an end.
Pride is also the mother of error and heresy; a root of bitterness that is troubling our Israel at this day. When men, especially clergymen, who have an air of infallibility about them, have asserted anything that is amiss in point of doctrine, their pride will not allow them to retract. Truth itself must rather fall as a sacrifice than their reputation sink. Pride of reason is the soul of Socinianism, and pride of will the soul of Arminian errors, and pride of self-righteousness is the source of that legal spirit that so much prevails in our day.
Again, is not pride loathsome when it is the spring and root of apostasy? Solomon says, “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.” Peter’s pride was the immediate forerunner of his denying his Master.
But secondly, pride is not only loathsome in God’s sight, but also He has a particular quarrel with it. He has threatened to “scatter the proud, in the imagination of their own hearts.” You may read of God’s controversy with the
proud in Isaiah, chapter 2, “The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down…. The day of the Lord of Hosts shall be upon every one that is proud and lofty, and upon every one that is lifted up, and he shall be brought low… The loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of men shall be made low: and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day.” And, O, what ruin has the sin of pride brought along with it!
See how it turned angels into devils, and threw them from heaven into hell; being lifted up with pride, they fell into condemnation, as the Apostle insinuates. God could not endure pride to dwell so near Him; and therefore He cast them down from heaven, and laid them under chains of eternal darkness.
It was pride that has ruined all mankind, when it crept out of the higher into the lower Paradise. “Ye shall be as gods,” said the serpent; and immediately the bait was taken; though in the event it made them like the devil, not as gods.
We might see God’s particular quarrel with pride also in the story of what ruin it hath brought with it upon the ungodly world. Pharaoh refuses to bow so far to the command of God as to let Israel go, saying, “Who is the Lord that I should obey him?” Therefore he and his host were to “sink like lead in the mighty waters.” Haman’s pride brought him to an ignominious end: though he was his prince’s greatest favourite today, he was hanged tomorrow on the gallows which he had set up for poor Mordecai. Nebuchadnezzar proudly vaunts himself of his royal palace, “Is not this great Babylon that I have built for the house of the kingdom, by the might of my power, and for the honour of my majesty?” Immediately he is turned out from the society of men, and made to eat grass with the oxen. Herod, after his fine oration, receives that applause from the people without any check, “It is the voice of a god, and not of a man;” and immediately the angel of the Lord smites him, and he is eaten of worms.
As God has punished pride in the wicked, so He has shown His resentment against it in His own children. And escape who will, His children shall not miss the stroke of the rod, if their hearts be lifted up within them. “You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.” David’s pride prompted him to number Israel, that he might make his boast that he was king over so many thousands; and thereupon a raging pestilence, in three days’ time, swept away seventy thousand of Israel. Hezekiah’s pride made him shew his treasure of precious things to the ambassadors of the king of Babylon, and therefore his posterity and his treasures must be carried away to Babylon. In a word, though you were as the signet on God’s right hand, you shall not escape a stroke of fatherly wrath and anger, if you allow pride to lodge in your hearts. This threatening shall surely take place, both among friends and enemies: “A man’s pride shall bring him low,” Proverbs 29: 23. And if it miss his person, it shall fall heavy on his family: “The Lord will destroy the house of the proud,” Proverbs 15:25.
VI. The sixth and last principle thing I proposed was, to offer a few advices, in order to your attaining this lowly frame and temper of soul, which the high God so much regards.
First, go to the law as a schoolmaster. Read the Commandments, and Christ’s spiritual commentary on them in Matthew 5. View the law of God in its spirituality and extent, for it is exceeding broad. This should make the proudest heart to lie in the dust. Paul said, “I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.” The feathers of his pride and legal righteousness soon fell, when the law in its spirituality was set before his eyes.
Secondly: get Christ to dwell in your heart by faith; for the reigning power of this evil of pride is never broken till Christ come by the power of His Spirit, bringing down the towering imaginations of the heart, and erect His throne there. The more of Christ, the more humility; and the less of Christ, the more pride. When the Spirit of Christ enters into the heart, He stamps the likeness and image of Christ there. O then, if you would have this humility and lowliness of spirit, “lift up the everlasting doors, that the King of glory may come in.” He brings a glorious retinue of graces with Him, whereof humility is one of the first.
Thirdly, be much in viewing the glorious perfections of the Majesty of heaven, as they are displayed in the works of creation and providence; but especially as they shine in the face of Jesus Christ, and the glorious work of redemption through him. When the prophet Isaiah saw the Lord high and lifted up, and His train filling the temple, he cried out, “Woe is me, for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips.” Job also said, “I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes,” Job 42:5, 6.
Fourthly, be much in viewing “the rock whence ye are hewn, and the hole of the pit whence ye are digged”; I mean your original corruption and depravity; how you were conceived in sin, and brought forth in iniquity. And O, how much of this cleaves even to believers themselves, while they are on this side of eternity! There is a law in the members continually warring against the law of the mind. This laid the great apostle Paul in the dust, notwithstanding his high standards.
Fifthly, be much in viewing the vanity of the creature, and all things below. “Vanity and vexation of spirit,” is written in legible characters upon all things under the sun. “The fashion of this world is passing away.” Be much in viewing the bed of the grave, where you must lie down shortly, and where corruption shall cover you. Like Job, say “to corruption, Thou art my father; and to the worm, Thou art my mother, and my sister.” View an awful tribunal, and an endless eternity, that is to follow on the back of death, where you and I shortly shall stand trial, and receive a sentence from the righteous Judge, which shall determine our state for ever.
Lastly, be much in eyeing these patterns of lowliness and humility which I already mentioned. God, angels, and saints have cast you a pattern of it. But especially be much in viewing the humility and humiliation of the Son of God, as these are proposed as the great pattern in these words: “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus: who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross,” Philippians 2:5-8. •