Selected quad for the lemma: world_n
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A46799
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Practical discourses upon the morality of the Gospel
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Jenks, Sylvester, 1656?-1714.
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1699
(1699)
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Wing J630D; ESTC R220354
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63,738
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198
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and an Humble Person must undertake it or else 't will never succeed A Proud Man must be always treated gently and gain'd by Insensible Degrees To gain upon him we must not offer to Attack him as if we design'd a Victory over him neither must we directly Contradict him His Maxims indeed are often Contradictory to one another But the great Difficulty is how to go about to make him see it To take upon us to shew it plainly to him is as great an Affront as if we pretended to be clearer-sighted than he And therefore the best way is to lead him fairly and softly by his own Principles till we have brought him so near the Matter that he may easily and clearly see his own Mistake without our pointing at it Let him but have the Honour of seeming to find it himself and then he 'll willingly own it To do all this is no hard Task unless we are as Proud as he If we are truly Humble we shall take Delight in it The Prouder he is the greater is his Fall and the Humbler we are the Lower we shall willingly stoop to help him up again We have already seen how Humble our Saviour was in not offering to Cure the Dropsical Man before he had Consulted the Company and by their Silence had a just Pretence to take it for granted that the thing was fitting to be done Let us now consider how Humbly he behaved himself afterwards as soon as he had Heal'd the Man and let him go To let them see how far he was from Slighting or Despising their Opinion of him he Appeals to their own Principles and by a Familiar Example lets them understand what Reason he had to judge they could not possibly dislike what he had done Which of you says he shall have an Ass or an Ox fallen into a Pit and will not straightway pull him out on the Sabbath-Day A Proud Man would have gloried in being bold enough to tell them to their Faces how Blind how Covetous and how Uncharitable they were Our Saviour teaches us another Lesson Learn of me because I am Humble He does not tell them they are Proud and Blind but endeavours to put them in a way of Opening their Eyes and chuses that Method of discoursing which was least offensive to them He does not tell them they are Covetous but argues from a particular Maxim of their own which he knew their Covetousness would always help them to approve of Their Vanity of being exact in the Observance of the Sabbath was greater than their Charity to their Neighbour And therefore they concluded it was a Transgression of the Law to Cure a Man upon the Sabbath But yet their Covetousness was more Predominant than all their Vain Hypocrisie and therefore if any of their Goods were endanger'd upon the Sabbath they did not doubt but it was Lawful to secure them The Life of an Ass or an Ox provided it were their own was a great deal more to them than the Life of a Neighbour To save the Life of a Beast which was worth Money to them this was a thing of real Importance which the Ceremonious Piety of the Sabbath might very well give Place to But to save the Life of a Neighbour by whom perhaps they were not like to get a Penny alas What signified his Life to them They were never like to be the better for it Let him e'en die say they and let us keep the Sabbath Behold what Blindness we are capable of when Pride and Passion over-rule our Reason Let us consider it well and lay it seriously to Heart Let it be a continual Instruction to us which may daily Humble us and make us always Jealous of our selves We are made of the same Flesh and Blood we are liable to the same Pride and Passion and may for ought we know be as Extravagantly and as Proudly Blind as they The only way to Open our Eyes and see that Pride which Blinds us is to observe the Doctrine and Example of our Humble Saviour He is the Light of the World He Enlightens every Man that comes into it He is the only Light in which we can truly see how Proud we are And is it not a wonderful thing that Light it self should shine so bright before the Pharisees and they not see it The Gospel takes notice that they could not answer him to these things But however we do not read that they submitted to him Their Pride and Passion made them love Darkness rather than Light And yet our Saviour took all Care imaginable to make his Light acceptable and pleasing to them for fear lest they might shut their Eyes against it Which of you shall have an Ass or an Ox fallen into a Pit and will not straightway pull him out on the Sabbath-day He only proposes with all Humility a modest Question without the least reflecting upon them and leaves them to their own Discretion to apply it to themselves My God! How profoundly Humble is thy Infinite Charity How infinitely Charitable is thy Profound Humility II. If it be true that Charity makes us Humble 't is no less certain that Self-Love makes us Proud When once we lose the Love of God above all things we turn our Back upon the Light and being in the Dark it is no wonder that we blindly doat upon our selves We have lost the Presence of our God whose Infinite Goodness was the Boundless Object of our Minds and fill'd the utmost Stretch of our Unlimited Desires And when we lose him 't is no wonder if we find our Hearts as Empty as our God is Great As he is infinitely Great so we are infinitely Empty without him And all that we can find amongst His Creatures is never Great enough to satisfie us This is the Reason why we are so fond of Greatness 'T is the true Cause why we are so Proud Ambitious Vain and Envious All our Honours Dignities and Praises all our Actions and Pretentions every thing belonging to us must be Great And if we cannot in our selves be Great according to our Wishes we make it out with fancying we are greater than our Neighbours We study their Faults and wink at our own we study our own Advantages and wink at theirs we do what we can to lessen them and magnifie our selves and all this Care is taken only to purchase an Agreeable Mistake of htinking we are greater than they If this succeeds not but in spite of all Self-flattering Arts we still are Conscious of our Neighbour's Merit being greater than ours our last Refuge is to have Recourse to the Opinion of others to make Amends for what 's deficient in our own Although we cannot deceive our selves yet still we hope that they may be deceiv'd in us and think us Great in spite of all our Littleness And 't is no matter how little we are at home provided we are great abroad If our Acquaintance Love us Honour us and Praise us