Complete Works by Laurence Sterne

Author:Laurence Sterne [Sterne, Laurence]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-02-10T00:00:00+00:00

SERMON X.

Humility.

SERMON X.

Matthew xi. 29.

Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls.

THE great business of man is, the regulation of his spirit; the possession of such a frame and temper of mind, as will lead us peaceably through this world, and in the many weary stages of it, affords us what we shall be sure to stand in need of,—“ Rest unto our souls. ”

Rest unto our souls!—’tis all we want—the end of all our wishes and pursuits: give us a prospect of this, we take the wings of the morning, and fly to the uttermost parts of the earth to have it in possession: we seek for it in titles, in riches, and pleasures;—climb up after it by ambition, come down again, and stoop for it by avarice,—try all extremes; still we are gone out of the way, nor is it, till after many miserable experiments, that we are convinced at last, we have been seeking every where for it, but where there is a prospect of finding it; and that is, within ourselves, in a meek and lowly disposition of heart. This, and this only, will give us rest unto our souls:—test, from those turbulent and haughty passions which disturb our quiet:—rest, from the provocations and disappointments of the world, and a train of untold evils too long to be recounted, against all which this frame and preparation of mind is the best protection.

I beg you will go along with me in this argument. Consider how great a share of the uneasinesses which take up and torment our thoughts, owe their rise to nothing else but the dispositions of mind which are opposite to this character.

With regard to the provocations and offences which are unavoidably happening to a man in his commerce with the world, take it as a rule,—as a man’s pride is, so is always his displeasure:—as the opinion of himself rises, so does the injury,—so does his resentment: ’tis this which gives edge and force to the instrument which has struck him, and excites that heat in the wound which renders it incurable.

See how different the case is with the humble man: one half of these painful conflicts he actually escapes; the other part fall lightly on him:—he provokes no man by contempt; thrusts himself forward as the mark of no man’s envy: so that he cuts off the first fretful occasions of the greatest part of these evils; and for those in which the passions of others would involve him, like the humble shrub in the valley, gently gives way, and scarce feels the injury of those stormy encounters which rend the proud cedar, and tear it up by its roots.

If you consider it with regard to the many disappointments of this life, which arise from the hopes of bettering our condition, and advancing in the world, the reasoning is the same.

What we expect, is ever in proportion to the estimate made of

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