*His religious affections were attended with _evangelical humiliation_; consisting in a sense of his own insufficiency, and despicableness. How deeply affected was he almost continually with his great defects in religion; with his vast distance from that spirituality that became him; with his ignorance, deadness, unsteadiness, barrenness? He was not only affected with the remembrance of his former sinfulness, but with the sense of his present vileness. He was not only disposed to think meanly of himself as _before God_; but among men, and compared with them. He was apt to think ♦other saints better than he; yea, to look upon himself as the least of saints; yea, the vilest and worst of mankind, And notwithstanding his great attainments in spiritual knowledge, yet we find there is scarce any thing he is more frequently abased with, than his ignorance.
♦ “think of other” replaced with “think other” per Errata
*How eminently did he appear to be of a _meek_ and _quiet_ spirit, resembling the lamb-like, dove-like Spirit of Christ! How full of love, meekness, quietness, forgiveness, and mercy! His love was not fondness for a party, but universal; often exercised to his greatest opposers and enemies. His love and meekness were effectual in expensive and painful deeds of kindness; readily confessing faults under the greatest trials, and humbling himself even at the feet of those from whom he had suffered most: and from time to time praying for his enemies, abhorring the thoughts of bitterness and resentment towards them. I scarce knew where to look for a parallel instance of self-denial, in these respects, in the present age. He was a person of great zeal; but how did he abhor a bitter zeal, and lament it where he saw it! And though he was once drawn into some degrees of it, by the force of example; yet how did he go about with a heart bruised and broken in pieces for it all his life after!
Of how _soft_ and _tender_ a spirit was he! How far were his experiences, hopes, and joys, from a tendency to lessen conviction and tenderness of conscience, to cause him to be less affected with present and past sins, and less conscientious with respect to future sins, more easy in the neglect of duties that are troublesome, less apt to be alarmed at his own defects, and more easily induced to a compliance with carnal appetites! On the contrary, how tender was his conscience! how apt was his heart to smite him! how greatly was he alarmed at the appearance of evil! how great and constant was his jealousy over his own heart! how strict his care and watchfulness against sin! how deep and sensible were the wounds that sin made in his conscience! Those evils that are generally accounted small, were almost an insupportable burden to him; such as his inward deficiencies, his having no more love to God, any slackness or dulness, any unsteadiness, or wandering, how did the consideration of such things as these abase him, and fill him with shame and confusion! His love and hope, though they cast out a servile fear of hell, yet were attended with, and promoted a reverential filial fear of God, a dread of sin, and of God’s holy displeasure. His assurance and comfort promoted and maintained mourning for sin: holy mourning with him, was not only the work of an hour or a day, at his first conversion; but he was a mourner for sin all his days. He did not, after he received forgiveness, forget his past sins, committed before his conversion; but the remembrance of them from time to time, filled his heart with renewed grief: and how lastingly did the sins committed after his conversion, affect and break his heart! If he did any thing whereby he thought he had dishonoured God, he had never done with calling it to mind with sorrow: though he was assured that God had forgiven it, yet he never forgave himself.
His religion was not like a blazing meteor, flying through the firmament with a bright train, and then quickly going out; but like the steady lights of heaven, that are constant principles of light, though sometimes hid with clouds. Nor like a land-flood, which flows far and wide, bearing down all afore it, and then dried up; but like a stream fed by living springs; which though sometimes diminished, yet is a _constant stream_.