he stands; the danger is, that he may fall; and the counsel is, “let him take heed.”
4. I. My first business shall be to FIND OUT THE CHARACTER intended by the presumptuous man, the man who thinks he stands. I could find a multitude of such if I might search the wide world o’er. I could find men in business filled with an arrogant hardihood, who, because they have in one speculation been successful will wade far out into the stormy sea of this contending life, risk their all — and lose it too. I might mention others who, presuming upon their health, are spending their years in sin and their lives in iniquity, because they think their bones iron and their nerves steel, and “all men mortal but themselves.” I might speak of men who will venture into the midst of temptation, confident in their boasted power, exclaiming with self-complacency, “Do you think I am so weak as to sin? Oh! no; I shall stand. Give me the glass; I shall never be a drunkard. Give me the song; you will not find me a midnight reveller. I can drink a little and then I can stop.” Such are presumptuous men. But I am not about to find them there; my business this morning is with God’s church. The fanning must begin with the floor; the winnowing must try the wheat. So we are to winnow the church this morning to discover the presumptuous. We need not go far to find them. There are in every Christian church men who think they stand, men who vaunt themselves in fancied might and power, children of nature finely dressed, but not the living children of the living God; they have not been humbled or broken in spirit, or if they have, they have fostered carnal security until it has grown to a giant and trampled the sweet flower of humility under its foot. They think they stand. I speak now of real Christians, who, notwithstanding, have grown presumptuous, and indulge in a fleshly security. May my Master arouse such, while in preaching I endeavour to go to the core and root of the matter. For a little while I will expatiate upon the frequent causes of presumption in a Christian.
5. 1. And first a very common cause, is continued worldly prosperity. Moab is settled on his lees, {Jeremiah 48:11} he has not been emptied from vessel to vessel. Give a man wealth; let his ships bring home continually rich freights; let the winds and waves appear to be his servants to bear his vessels across the bosom of the mighty deep; let his lands yield abundantly; let the weather be propitious to his crops, and the skies smile pleasantly upon his enterprise; let the bands of Orion be loosed for him; let the sweet influence of the Pleiades descend upon him; let uninterrupted success attend him; let him stand among men as a successful merchant, as a princely Dives as a man who is heaping up riches to a large extent, who is always prospering: or, if not wealth, let him enjoy continued health; let him know no sickness; allow him with braced nerve and brilliant eye, to march through the world, and live happily; give him the buoyant spirit; let him have the song perpetually on his lips, and his eye be ever sparkling with joy: — the happy, happy man who laughs at care, and cries, “Begone, dull care, I pray you begone from me.” I say the consequence of such a state to a man, let him be the best Christian who ever breathed, will be presumption; and he will say, “I stand.” “In my prosperity,” says David, “I said, I shall never be moved.” And we are not much better than David, nor half as good. If God should always rock us in the cradle of prosperity — if we were always candled on the knees of fortune — if we had not some stain on the alabaster pillar, if there were not a few clouds in the sky, some specks in our sunshine — if we had not some bitter drops in the wine of this life, we should become intoxicated with pleasure, we should dream “we stand”; and stand we should, but it would be upon a pinnacle; stand we might, but like the man asleep upon the mast, each moment we should be in jeopardy. We bless God, then, for our afflictions; we thank him for our depressions of spirit; we extol his name for the losses of our property; for we feel that had it not so happened to us, had he not chastened us every morning and vexed us every evening, we might have become too secure. Continued worldly prosperity is a fiery trial. If it is so with any of you, apply this proverb to your own state, “As the refining pot for silver, and the furnace for gold: so is a man to his praise.”
6. 2. Again, light thoughts of sin will engender presumption. When we are first converted, our conscience is so very tender, that we are afraid of the slightest sin. I have known young converts almost afraid to proceed a step, lest they should put their feet in the wrong direction. They will ask advice of their minister, and difficult cases of moral casuistry will they bring before us, such as we hardly know how to answer. They have a holy timidity, a godly fear, lest they should offend against God. But alas! very soon the fine bloom upon these first ripe fruits is removed by the rough handling of the surrounding world. The sensitive plant of young piety turns into a willow in later life, too pliant, too easily yielding. It is sadly true, that even a Christian will grow by degrees so callous, that the sin which once startled him and made his blood run cold, does not alarm him in the least. I can speak from my own experience. When first I heard an oath, I stood aghast, and knew not where to hide myself; yet now I can hear an imprecation or blasphemy against God, and though a shudder still runs through my veins, there is not that solemn feeling, that intense anguish, which I felt when first I heard such evil utterances. By degrees we get familiar with sin. The ear in which the cannon has been booming will not notice slight sounds. The men who work in those huge vessels, the hammering of which causes immense noise, cannot at first sleep, for the continual din in their ears; but by and by, they, when they are used to it, think nothing of it. So with sin. First, a little sin does startle us. Soon we say, “Is it not a little one?” like Lot did of Zoar. Then there comes another, larger, and then another, until by degrees we begin to regard it as but a little ill; and then you know, there comes an unholy presumption, and we think we stand. “We have not fallen,” say we, “we only did such a little thing; we have not gone astray. True, we tripped a little, but we stood upright in the main. We might have uttered one unholy word, but as for the most of our conversation, it was consistent.” So we palliate sin; we throw a gloss over it, we try to hide it. Christian, beware! when you think lightly of sin then you have become presumptuous. Take heed, lest you should fall. Sin — a little thing! Is it not a poison? Who knows its deadliness? Sin — a little thing! Do not the little foxes spoil the vines? Sin — a little thing! Does not the tiny coral insect build a rock that wrecks a navy? Do not little strokes fell lofty oaks? Will not continual droppings wear away stones? Sin — a little thing! It girded his head with thorns that now is crowned with glory. Sin — a little thing! It made him suffer anguish, bitterness, and woe, until he endured —
All that incarnate God could bear,
With strength enough, and none to spare.
It is not a little thing, sirs. Could you weigh it in the scales of eternity, you would flee from it as from a serpent, and abhor the least appearance of evil. But alas! loose thoughts of sin often beget a presumptuous spirit, and we think we stand.
7. 3. A third reason often is, low thoughts of the value of religion. None of us value religion enough. Religious furore, as it is called, is laughed at everywhere; but I do not believe there is such a thing as religious furore at all. If a man could be so enthusiastic as to give his body to be burned at the stake, could he pour out his drops of blood and turn each drop into a life, and then let that life be slaughtered in perpetual martyrdom, he would not love his God too much. Oh, no! when we think that this world is only a narrow space; that time will soon be gone, and we shall be in the for ever of eternity; when we consider we must be either in hell or in heaven throughout a never ending state of immortality, how sirs, can we love too much? how can we set too high a value on the immortal soul? Can we ask too great a price for heaven? Can we think we do too much to serve that God who gave himself for our sins? Ah! no; and yet my friends, most of us do not sufficiently regard the value of religion. We cannot any of us estimate the soul rightly; we have nothing with which to compare it. Gold is sordid dust; diamonds are but small lumps of congealed air that can be made to melt away. We have nothing with which to compare the soul; therefore we cannot tell its value. It is because we do not know this, that we presume. Does the miser who loves his gold let it be scattered on the floor that his servant may steal it? Does he not hide it in some secret place where no eye shall behold it? Day after day, night after night, he counts out his treasure because he loves it. Does the mother trust
