6. But waving the consideration of whatever he has or has not experienced in time past; by the present marks may we easily distinguish a child of God, from a presumptuous self-deceiver. The scriptures describe that joy in the Lord which accompanies the witness of his Spirit, as an humble joy, a joy that abases to the dust; that makes a pardoned sinner cry out, “I am vile! What am I or my father’s house?――Now mine eye seeth thee, I abhor myself in dust and ashes?” And wherever lowliness is, there is meekness, patience, gentleness, long-suffering. There is a soft yielding spirit; a mildness and sweetness; a tenderness of soul which words cannot express. But do these fruits attend that _supposed_ testimony of the Spirit, in a presumptuous man? Just the reverse. The more confident he is of the favour of God, the more is he lifted up. The more does he exalt himself; the more haughty and assuming is his whole behaviour. The stronger witness he imagines himself to have, the more overbearing is he to all around him; the more incapable of receiving any reproof, the more impatient of contradiction. Instead of being more meek, and gentle, and teachable, more _swift to hear, and slow to speak_, he is more slow to hear and swift to speak, more unready to learn of any one; more fiery and vehement in his temper, and eager in his conversation. Yea, perhaps, there will sometimes appear a kind of fierceness, in his air, his manner of speaking, his whole deportment, as if he were just going to take the matter out of God’s hands, and himself to _devour the adversaries_.