2. When a sinner is convinced of the necessity of holiness in a time and place where it is rare, and infidelity or profaneness and ungodliness is the common road, the necessary singularity of such a one in giving up himself to the will of God, is commonly charged on him as his pride; as if he were proud that cannot be contented to be damned in hell for company with the most; or to despise salvation if most despise it, and to forsake his God when most forsake him, and to serve the devil when most men serve him. If you will not swear, and be drunk, and game, and spend your time, even the Lord's day, in vanity and sensuality, as if you were afraid of being saved, and as if it were your business to work out your damnation, the world will call you proud and singular, and "think it strange that you run not with them to excess of riot, speaking evil of you," 1 Pet. iv. 4.[198] You shall quickly hear them say, What! will you be wiser than all the town? What a saint, what a holy precisian is this! When Lot was grieved for the filthiness of Sodom, they scorn him as a proud controller: Gen. xix. 9, "This one fellow came in to sojourn, and he will needs be a judge." And what thought they of Noah that walked with God in so great singularity, when all the world was drowned in (and for) their wickedness? When David "humbled his soul with fasting," they turned it to his "reproach," Psal lxix. 10; xxxv. 13. Especially when any of the servants of Christ do press towards the highest degree of holiness, they shall be sure to be accounted proud and hypocrites. And yet they accuse not that child or servant of pride who excelleth all the rest in pleasing them, and doing their work; nor do they take a sick man to be proud, if he be carefuller than others to recover his health. But he that will do most for heaven, and most carefully avoideth sin and hell, and is most serious in his religion, and most industrious to please his God, this man shall be accounted proud.
3. He that will not forsake his God and betray the truth, and wound his conscience by wilful sin, but will do as Daniel and the three confessors did, Dan. vi. 3, and answer as they answered, will be accounted proud. But it is no pride to prefer God before men, and to fear damnation more than imprisonment or death. The army of martyrs did not in pride prefer their own judgments before their superiors that condemned them; but they did it in obedience to God and truth, when that was revealed to babes, which was hid from the wise, and prudent, and great, and noble of the world.
4. When those that are faithful to the honour of Christ's sovereignty, dare not approve of papal usurpations, against his laws, and over his church, and the consciences of his subjects, they shall by the popish usurpers be called proud and despisers of government; as if a usurper of the kingly power should call us proud, because we dare not consent to his pride; or call us traitors, for not being traitors as he is himself.
5. When a man that hath the sense of the matters of God and men's salvation upon his heart, is zealous and diligent to teach them to others, and if he be a minister, be fervent and laborious in his ministry, he is called proud, as one that must needs have all men of his mind: though compassion to souls, and aptness to teach, and preaching instantly in season and out of season, be his necessary duty required of God. And what is the ministry for, but to change men's minds, and bring them to the full obedience of the truth?
6. If a man understand the truth, in any point of divinity better than most others, and holdeth any truth which is there in credit, or commonly received, he shall be accounted proud, for presuming to be so singular, and seeming wiser than those that think they are wiser than he. But humility teacheth us not to err for company, nor to grow no wiser when once we arrive at the common stature; nor to forsake the truth which others understand not, nor to forbear to teach it because it is not known already. If some of the pastors in Abassia, Syria, Armenia, Russia, Greece, or Italy, or Spain, were as wise as the ministers in England are, it were no evidence of their pride.
7. If a man that understandeth any thing contrary to the judgment of another, cannot forsake it, and think or say as another would have him; especially if you contradict him in disputation; he will take it to be your pride, and overvaluing your own understanding, and being too tenacious of your own conceits.[199] Erroneous men that in their pride are over eager to have others of their mind, will call you proud because you yield not to their pride. They think that the evidence is so clear on their side, that if you were not proud you could not choose but think as they do.