xxii. 28.

continued with me in my temptations, therefore I leave unto Luke you a Kingdom, as my Father hath appointed me, that ye 30. may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and sit on seats, and judge the twelve tribes of Israel." But my Kingdom is no such Kingdom as ye dream of; and, therefore, these hungry ambitious contentions are seemlier in Heathens than in you. Wherefore, from Christ's intent and purpose, nothing is further removed than dislike of distinctions in titles and callings, annexed for order's sake unto Authority, whether it be Ecclesiastical or Civil. And when we have examined throughly what the nature of this vice is, no man knowing it can be so simple, as not to see an uglier shape thereof apparent many times in rejecting honours offered, than in the very exacting of them at the hands of men. For, as Judas his care for the poor was [Matt. mere covetousness; and that frank-hearted wastefulness 7—15.] spoken of in the Gospel, thrift; so, there is no doubt, but that going in rags may be Pride, and thrones be clothed with unfeigned humility.

xxvi.

8. We must go further, therefore, and enter somewhat deeper, before we can come to the closet wherein this poison lieth. There is in the heart of every proud man, first, an error of understanding; a vain opinion whereby he thinketh his own excellency, and by reason thereof his worthiness of estimation, regard, and honour, to be greater than in truth it is. This maketh him in all his affections accordingly to raise up himself; and by his inward affections his outward acts are fashioned. Which if you list to have exemplified, you may, either by calling to mind things spoken of them whom God himself hath in Scripture specially noted with this fault; or by presenting to your secret cogitations that which you daily behold in the odious lives and manners of high-minded men. It were too long to gather together so plentiful an harvest of examples in this kind as the sacred Scripture affordeth. That which we drink in at our ears doth not so piercingly enter, as that which the mind doth conceive by sight. Is there any thing written concerning the Assyrian Monarch, in the tenth of Isaiah, of his swelling mind, his haughty looks, his great and presumptuous vaunts; By the power of mine own [Isai. hand I have done all things, and by mine own wisdom I have subdued the world?" any thing, concerning the

x. 13.]

[Isai.

iii. 16.]

xvi.]

dames of Sion, in the third of the Prophet Isaiah, of their stretched-out necks, their immodest eyes, their pageant-like, stately, and pompous gait? any thing, concerning the [Num. practices of Corah, Dathan, and Abiram, of their impatience to live in subjection, their mutinies, repining at lawful Authority, their grudging against their Superiors, Ecclesiastical and Civil? any thing, concerning Pride in any sort of sect, which the present face of the world doth not, as in a glass, represent to the view of all men's beholding? So that if books, both profane and holy, were all lost, as long as the manners of men retain the state they are in; for him which observeth, how that when men have once conceived an over-weening of themselves, it maketh them in all their affections to swell; how deadly their hatred, how heavy their displeasure, how unappeasable their indignation and wrath is above other men's, in what manner they compose themselves to be as Heteroclites, without the compass of all such rules as the common sort are measured by; how the oaths which religious hearts do tremble at, they affect as principal graces of speech; what felicity they take to see the enormity of their crimes above the reach of Laws and punishments; how much it delighteth them when they are able to appal with the cloudiness of their look; how far they exceed the terms wherewith man's nature should be limited; how high they bear their heads over others; how they browbeat all men which do not receive their sentences as oracles, with marvellous applause and approbation; how they look upon no man, but with an indirect countenance, nor hear any thing, saving their own praise, with patience, nor speak without scornfulness and disdain; how they use their servants, as if they were beasts, their inferiors as servants, their equals as inferiors, and as for superiors they acknowledge none; how they admire themselves as venerable, puissant, wise, circumspect, provident, every-way great, taking all men besides themselves for ciphers, poor, inglorious, silly creatures, needless burthens of the earth, off-scourings, nothing in a word, for him which marketh how irregular and exorbitant they are in all things, it can be no hard thing hereby to gather, that Pride is nothing but an inordinate elation of the mind, proceeding from a false conceit of men's excellency in things honoured, which accordingly frameth also their deeds and behaviour, unless there be

cunning to conceal it; for a foul scar may be covered with a fair cloth; and as proud as Lucifer, may be in outward appearance, lowly.

vii. 16.]

No man expecteth grapes of thistles; nor from a thing [Matt. of so bad a nature, can other than suitable fruits be looked for. What harm soever in private families there groweth by disobedience of children, stubbornness of servants, untractableness in them, who, although they otherwise may rule, yet should in consideration of the imparity of their sex, be also subject; whatsoever, by strife amongst men combined in the fellowship of greater societies, by tyranny of Potentates, ambition of Nobles, rebellion of Subjects in Civil States; by heresies, schisms, divisions in the Church; naming Pride, we name the mother which brought them forth, and the only nurse that feedeth them. Give me the hearts of all men humbled, and what is there that can overthrow or disturb the peace of the world? wherein many things are the cause of much evil; but Pride of all.

9. To declaim of the swarms of evils issuing out of Pride, is an easy labour. I rather wish that I could exactly prescribe and persuade effectually the Remedies, whereby a sore so grievous might be cured, and the Means how the pride of swelling minds might be taken down. Whereunto so much we have already gained, that the evidence of the cause which breedeth it, pointeth directly unto the likeliest and fittest helps to take it away: diseases that come of fulness, emptiness must remove. Pride is not cured but by abating the error which causeth the mind to swell. Then seeing that they swell by misconceit of their own excellency; for this cause, all which tends to the beating down of their Pride, whether it be advertisement from men, or from God himself chastisement; it then maketh them cease to be proud, when it causeth them to see their error in overseeing the thing they were proud of. At this mark Job, in his apology unto his eloquent friends, aimeth. For perceiving how much they delighted to hear themselves talk, as if they had given their poor afflicted familiar a schooling of marvellous deep and rare instruction, as if they had taught him more than all the world besides could acquaint him with; his answer was to this effect; Ye swell as though ye had conceived some greater matter; but as for that which ye are delivered of, who knoweth it not? Is any man ignorant

iv. 8.]

[Isa. i. 6.]

of these things? At the same mark the blessed Apostle [1 Cor. driveth; "Ye abound in all things, ye are rich, ye reign, and would to Christ we did reign with you:" but boast not. For what have ye, or are ye of yourselves? To this mark all those humble confessions are referred, which have been always frequent in the mouths of Saints, truly wading in the trial of themselves; as that of the Prophet, "We are nothing but soreness, and festered corruption;" our very light is darkness, and our righteousness itself unrighteousness: that of Gregory, "Let no man ever put confidence in his own deserts; Sordet in conspectu Judicis, quod fulget in conspectu operantis, in the sight of the dreadful Judge, it is noisome, which in the doer's judgment maketh a beautiful shew" that of Anselm, "I adore thee, I bless thee, Lord God of Heaven and Redeemer of the world, with all the power, ability, and strength of my heart and soul, for thy goodness so unmeasurably extended; not in regard of my merits, whereunto only torments were due, but of thy mere unprocured benignity." If these Fathers should be raised again from the dust, and have the books laid open before them, [Annot. wherein such sentences are found as this, "Works, in 1 Cor. other than the value, desert, price, and the worth of the joys of the Kingdom of Heaven; Heaven, in relation to our works, as the very stipend, which the hired labourer covenanteth to have of him whose work he doth, a thing equally and justly answering unto the time and weight of his travails, rather than to a voluntary or bountiful gift;" if, I say, those reverend fore-rehearsed Fathers, whose books are so full of sentences witnessing their Christian humility, should be raised from the dead, and behold with their eyes such things written; would they not plainly pronounce of the authors of such writ, that they were fuller of Lucifer than of Christ, that they were proud-hearted men, and carried more swelling minds than sincerely and feelingly known Christianity can tolerate?

Rhem.

iii. 8.]

no

10. But as unruly children, with whom wholesome admonition prevaileth little, are notwithstanding brought to fear that ever after which they have once well smarted for; so the mind which falleth not with instruction, yet under the rod of divine chastisement ceaseth to swell. If, therefore, the Prophet David, instructed by good experience, have acknowledged, Lord, I was even at the point of clean

cxix.71.]

xii. 7.

forgetting myself, and so straying from my right mind, but [Psalm thy rod hath been my reformer; it hath been good for me, even as much as my soul is worth, that I have been with sorrow troubled: if the blessed Apostle did need the corrosive of sharp and bitter strokes, lest his heart should swell with too great" abundance of heavenly revelations:" surely, [2 Cor. upon us whatsoever God in this world doth or shall inflict, it cannot seem more than our Pride doth exact, not only by way of revenge, but of remedy. So hard it is to cure a sore of such quality as Pride is, inasmuch as that which rooteth out other vices, causeth this; and (which is even above all conceit) if we were clean from all spot and blemish both of other faults and of Pride, the fall of Angels doth make it almost a question, whether we might not need a preservative still, lest we should happily wax proud, that we are not proud. What is virtue but a medicine, and vice but a wound? Yet we have so often deeply wounded ourselves with medicines, that God hath been fain to make wounds medicinable; to cure by vice where virtue hath stricken; to suffer the just man to fall, that, being raised, he may be taught what power it was which upheld him standing. I am not afraid to affirm it boldly, with St. Augustine, that men puffed up through a proud opinion of their own sanctity and holiness, receive a benefit at the hands of God, and are assisted with his grace, when with his grace they are not assisted, but permitted, and that grievously, to transgress; whereby, as they were in overgreat liking of themselves supplanted, so the dislike of that which did supplant them, may establish them afterwards the surer. Ask the very soul of Peter, and it shall undoubtedly make you itself this answer, My eager protestations, made in the glory of my ghostly strength, I am ashamed of; but those crystal tears, wherewith my sin and weakness was bewailed, have procured my endless joy; my strength hath been my ruin, and my fall my stay!