dealing? If these symptoms be undeniably in thy heart, thou art a proud person. There is too much of hell abiding in thee, to have any acquaintance with heaven; thy soul is too like the Devil, to have any familiarity with God. A proud man makes himself his God, and sets up himself as his idol; how then can his affections be set on God? How can he possibly have his heart in heaven? Invention and memory may possibly furnish his tongue with humble and heavenly expressions, but in his spirit there is no more heaven than there is humility. I speak the more of it, because it is the most common and dangerous sin in morality, and most promotes the great sin of infidelity. O Christian! if thou wouldst live continually in the presence of thy Lord, lie in the dust, and he will thence take thee up. _Learn of him to be meek and lowly, and thou shalt find rest unto thy soul._[325] Otherwise thy soul will be _like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt_;[326] and instead of these sweet delights in God, thy pride will fill thee with perpetual disquiet. As he _that humbleth himself as a little child_, shall hereafter _be greatest in the kingdom of heaven_;[327] so shall he now be greatest in the foretastes of that kingdom. God _dwells with a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones_.[328] Therefore _humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up_.[329] And _when others are cast down, then thou shalt say, there is lifting up, and he shall save the humble person_.[330] [Footnote 322] Isaiah lxvi, 2. [Footnote 323] Psalm cxxxviii, 6. [Footnote 324] 1 Peter v, 5. [Footnote 325] Matthew xi, 29. [Footnote 326] Isaiah lvii, 20. [Footnote 327] Matthew xviii, 4. [Footnote 328] Isaiah lvii, 15. [Footnote 329] James iv, 10. [Footnote 330] Job xvii, 29.