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the cross of Jesus, and an entire dependence, by him, upon God.*

Famous are the exploits of this divine gift: time would fail to recount them; all sacred story is filled with them. But let it suffice, that by it the holy ancients endured all trials, overcame all enemies, prevailed with God, renowned his truth, finished their testimony, and obtained the reward of the faithful, a crown of righteousness, which is the eternal blessedness of the just.

CHAP. VII.

SECT. 1. Of pride, the first capital lust, its rise. 2. Its definition and distinction. 3. That an inordinate desire of knowledge in Adam, introduced man's misery. 4. He thereby lost his integrity. 5. Who are in Adam's state. 6. Knowledge puffs up. 7. The evil effects of false, and the benefit of true knowledge. 8. Cain's example a proof in the case. 9. The Jews' pride in pretending to be wiser than Moses, God's servant, in setting their post by God's post. 10. The effect of which was the persecution of the true prophets. 11. The divine knowledge of Christ brought peace on earth. 12. Of the blind guides, the priests, and the mischief they have done. 13. The fall of Christians, and the pride they have taken in it, hath exceeded the Jews: under the profession of their new-moulded Christianity, they have

* John xvi. 9, 10.

murdered the witness of the Lord Jesus. 14. The angels sang peace on earth, at the birth of the Lord of meekness and humility; but the pride of the Pharisees withstood and calumniated him. 15. As Adam and the Jews lost themselves by their ambition, so the Christians, losing the fear of God, grew creed and worship-makers, with this injunction, Conform or burn. 16. The evil effects of this in Christendom (so called). 17. The way of recovery out of such miserable defection.

SECT. 1. HAVING thus discharged my conscience against that part of unlawful self, that fain would be a Christian, a believer, a saint, whilst a plain stranger to the cross of Christ, and the holy exercises of it; and in that briefly discovered what is true worship, and the use and business of the holy cross, therein to render its performance pleasing to Almighty God; I shall now, the same Lord assisting me, more largely prosecute that other part of unlawful self, which fills the study, care, and conversation of the world, presented to us in these three capital lusts; that is to say,

Pride, avarice, and luxury; from whence all other mischiefs daily flow, as streams from their proper fountains the mortifying of which makes up the other; and indeed a very great part of the work of the true cross; and though last in place, yet first in experience and duty; which done, it introduces in the room of those evil habits, the blessed effects of that so-much needed reformation, to wit, "mortification, humility, temperance, love, patience, and heavenly-mindedness," with all other graces of the Spirit, becoming the followers of the perfect Jesus, that most heavenly man.

The care and love of mankind are either directed to God or themselves. Those that love God above all, are ever humbling self to his commands, and only love self in subserviency to him that is Lord of all. But those that are declined from that love to God, are lovers of themselves more than God: for supreme love must

a Gal. v. 22, 23:

center in one of these two. To that inordinate self-love, the apostle rightly joins proud and high-minded. For no sooner had the angels declined their love, duty, and reverence to God, than they inordinately loved and valued themselves; which made them exceed their station, and aspire above the order of their creation. This was

their pride, and this sad defection their dismal fall: who are reserved in chains of darkness unto the judgment of the great day of God.

Sect. 2. Pride, that pernicious evil, which begins this chapter, did also begin the misery of mankind: a most mischievous quality; and so commonly known by its motions, and sad effects, that every unmortified breast carries its definition in it. However, I will say, in short, that pride is an excess of self-love, joined with an undervaluing of others, and a desire of dominion over them the most troublesome thing in the world. 'There are four things by which it hath made itself best known to mankind, the consequences of which have brought an equal misery to its evil. The first is, an inordinate pursuit of knowledge. The second, an ambitious seeking and craving after power. The third, an extreme desire of personal respect and deference. The last excess is that of worldly furniture and ornaments. To the just and true witness of the eternal God, placed in the souls of all people, I appeal as to the truth of these things.

Sect. 3. To the first, it is plain that an inordinate desire of knowledge introduced man's misery, and brought an universal lapse from the glory of his primitive state. Adam would needs be wiser than God had made him. It did not serve his turn to know his Creator, and give him that holy homage, his being and innocence naturally engaged and excited him to; nor to have an “understanding above all the beasts of the field, the fowls of the air, and the fishes of the sea," joined with a

b2 Tim. iii. 2, 3:

eGen. ii. 19-29.

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power to rule over all the visible creation of God, but he must be as wise as God too. This unwarrantable search, and as foolish as unjust ambition, made him unworthy of the blessings he received from God. This drives him out of paradise; and instead of being lord of the whole world, Adam becomes the wretchedest vagabond of the earth.

Sect. 4. A strange change! that instead of being as gods, they should fall below the very beasts; in comparison of whom even God had made them as gods. The lamentable consequence of this great defection has been an exchange of innocency for guilt, and a paradise for a wilderness. But, which is yet worse, in this state Adam and Eve had got another god than the only true and living God: and he that had enticed them to all this mischief, furnished them with a vain knowledge, and pernicious wisdom: the skill of lies and equivocations, shifts, evasions, and excuses. They had lost their plainness and sincerity; and from an upright heart, the image in which God had made man, he became a crooked, twining, twisting serpent; the image of that unrighteous spirit, to whose temptations he yielded up, with his obedience, his paradisical happiness.

Sect. 5. Nor is this limited to Adam; for all who have fallen short of the glory of God, are right-born sons of his disobedience. They, like him, have eaten of what they have been forbidden: they have "committed the things they ought not to have done, and left undone the things they ought to have done." They have sinned against that divine light of knowledge, which God has given them: they have grieved his spirit: and that dismal sentence has been executed, "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt die." That is, when thou doest the thing which thou oughtest not to do, thou shalt no more live in my favour, and enjoy the comforts of the peace of my spirit; which is a dying to

Gen. iii. 5.

e

Chap. iii 4.

f Rom. vii.

g Gen. ii. 17.

all those innocent and holy desires and affections, which God created man with: and he becomes as one cold and benumbed; insensible of the love of God, of his Holy Spirit, power and wisdom; of the light and joy of his countenance, and of the evidence of a good conscience, and the co-witnessing and approbation of God's Holy Spirit.

Sect. 6. So that fallen Adam's knowledge of God stood no more in a daily experience of the love and work of God in his soul, but in a notion of what he once did know and experience; which being not the true and living wisdom that is from above, but a mere picture, it cannot preserve man in purity; but puffs up, makes people proud, high-minded, and impatient of contradiction. This was the state of the apostate Jews before Christ came; and has been the condition of apostate Christians ever since he came their religion standing, some bodily performances excepted, either in what they once knew of the work of God in themselves, and which they have revolted from; or in an historical belief, and an imaginary conception and paraphrase upon the experiences and prophecies of such holy men and women of God, as in all ages have deserved the style and character of his true children.

Sect. 7. As such a knowledge of God cannot be true, so by experience we find, that it ever brings forth the quite contrary fruits to the true wisdom. For as this is first pure, then peaceable, then gentle, and easy to be entreated so the knowledge of degenerated and unmortified men is first impure : for it came by the commission of evil, and is held in an evil and impure conscience and heart, that disobey God's law, and that daily do those things which they ought not to do; and for which they stand condemned before God's judgmentseat in the souls of men: the light of whose presence searches the most hidden things of darkness, the most

h Jam. iii. 17.

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