only evil continually :" it is such a sense of this as makes us really to " lothe and abhor ourselves, and to repent before God in dust and ashes." This is that " broken and contrite heart which God will not despise." But where do we find persons penetrated with this contrition, and smiting on their breasts, and crying for mercy as sinners deserving of God's wrath and indignation ? Or, if we saw one under such dis- tressing apprehensions, who amongst us would not be ready to think that he carried matters to excess ; and that, unless he had been guilty of some sins beyond what were commonly committed, he had no need for such excessive griefs and sorrows ? It is well known that such penitents are few; and that such comforters, if indeed disgust did not preclude any attempt to administer comfort, would be found in every company we meet with. But to what is all this owing ? It arises from men's ignorance of the law : they try not either themselves or others by so high a standard : and, being insensible of their de- partures from it, they see no cause for such humilia- tion on account of those departures. In fact, the very idea of such humility enters not into the mind of the natural man : and, copious as were the languages of Greece and Rome, they had no word whereby to express it. With the word which they used to express their idea of humility, they associated rather the notion of meanness, than of an exalted virtue : and, though all of us profess to admire humility as a grace, there is not in the universe a man, in his natural state, that either possesses or approves of it, according to its real import.
The same may be said of gratitude. — What is gratitude, but a thankful sense of mercies received ? A truly enlightened Christian will view himself as a poor bond-slave redeemed from sin and Satan, death and hell ; redeemed, too, by the precious blood of our incarnate God. He will be altogether, in his own apprehension, " a brand plucked out of the burning :" an apostate fiend would not, in his estimation, be a greater monument of grace than he. Hence he
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