we are at their mercy.  We have given them the privilege of feeling that they are above us.  We have invited them to spurn us.  And therefore vanity is but a thing for scorn.  But it is very different with pride.  No man can look down on him that is proud, for he has asked no man for anything.  They are forced to feel respect for pride, because it is thoroughly independent of them.  It wraps itself up in the consequence of its own excellences, and scorns to care whether others take note of them or not.

It is just here that the danger lies.  We have exalted a sin into a virtue.  No man will acknowledge that he is vain, but almost any man will acknowledge that he is proud.  But tried by the balance of the sanctuary, there is little to choose between the two.  If a man look for greatness out of God, it matters little whether he seek it in his own applause, or in the applause of others.  The proud Pharisee, who trusted in himself that he was righteous, was condemned by Christ as severely, and even more, than the vain Jews who “could not believe because they sought honour from one another, and not that honour which cometh from God only.”  It may be a more dazzling, and a more splendid sin to be proud.  It is not less hateful in God’s sight.  Let us speak God’s word to our own unquiet, swelling, burning hearts.  Pride may disguise itself as it will in its own majesty, but in the presence of the High and Lofty One, it is but littleness after all.

 XIX.

 Preached June 27, 1852.

 THE LAWFUL AND UNLAWFUL USE OF LAW.

 (A FRAGMENT.)

   “But we know that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully.”—­1
    Tim. i. 8.

 It is scarcely ever possible to understand a passage without some
 acquaintance with the history of the circumstances under which it was
 written.

At Ephesus, over which Timothy was bishop, people had been bewildered by the teaching of converted Jews, who mixed the old leaven of Judaism with the new spirituality of Christianity.  They maintained the perpetual obligation of the Jewish law.—­v. 7.  They desired to be teachers of the law.  They required strict performance of a number of severe observances.  They talked mysteriously of angels and powers intermediate between God and the human soul.—­v. 4.  The result was an interminable discussion at Ephesus.  The Church was filled with disputations and controversies.

Now there is something always refreshing to see the Apostle Paul descending upon an arena of controversy, where minds have been bewildered; and so much is to be said on both sides, that people are uncertain which to take.  You know at once that he will pour light upon the question, and illuminate all the dark corners.  You know that he will not trim, and balance, and hang doubtful, or become a partisan; but that he will seize some great principle which lies at the root of the whole controversy,