far as it is mortified by grace. O the turnings and windings of the
heart upon itself, in all the most apparently direct motions towards God
and the good of men! What serpentine and crooked circumgirations and
reflections are there in the soul of man when the outward action and
expression seems most regular and directed towards God's glory, and others
edification! Whoever of you have any acquaintance with your own spirits
cannot but know this, and be ashamed and confounded at the very thought of
it. Self boasting, self complacency, self seeking, all those being of kin
one to another, are insinuated into your best notions, and infect them
with more atheism before God, than the strongest pious affection can
instil of goodness into them. How often will men's actions and expressions
be outwardly clothed with a habit of condescendency and self-denial! And
many may declaim with such zeal and vehemency against this evil, and yet,
_latet anquis_, the serpent is in the bosom and his venom may be diffused
into the heart, and the poison of self-seeking and self-boasting may run
through the veins of humble-like carriage and passionate discourses for
self denial. O that we could above all things establish that fundamental
principle of Christianity in our hearts, even as we would be his
disciples, truly and sincerely, and not in outward resemblance,--to deny
ourselves, to renounce ourselves and our lusts, to make a whole
resignation of our love, will, glory, and all to him, in whom to be lost
it is only truly to find ourselves.

But, though man have this strange self idolizing humour, and a self
glorying disposition, yet he is so poor and beggarly a creature, that he
hath not sufficient matter within himself to give complacency to his
heart, therefore he must borrow from all external things, and when there
is any kind of propriety in, or title to them, then he glories in himself
for them, as if they were truly in himself. We are creatures by nature
most indigent, yet most proud, which is unnatural. No man is satisfied
within himself (except the good man, Prov. xiv. 14), but he goes abroad to
seek it at the door of every creature, and when there are some plumes or
feathers borrowed from other birds, like that foolish bird in the fable,
we begin to raise our crests, and boast ourselves, as if we had all these
of our own, and were beholden to none, but as things that are truly our
own will not be sufficient to feed this flame of gloriati