_Sign_ XIX. A proud man is discontented with his degree, especially if it be low. He would be higher in power, and honour, and wealth; yea, he is never so high but he would fain be one step higher. If he had a kingdom, he would have another: and if he had the dominions of the Turkish or Tartarian emperor, he would desire to enlarge them, and to have more; and would not be satisfied till he had all the world. Men feel not this in their low condition; they think, If I had but so much or so much, I would be content: but this is their ignorance of the insatiable pride that dwelleth in them. Do you not see the greatest emperors on earth still seeking to be greater. Every man naturally would be a pope, the universal monarch of the world. And every such pope would have both swords, and have princes and people wholly at their will: and when they have no mind to hurt, they would have power to hurt; that all the world might hold their estates, and liberties, and lives, as by their clemency and gift, and they might be as God to other men. And if they had attained this, pride would not stop, till it had caused them to aspire to all the prerogatives of God, and to depose him, and dethrone him of his Godhead and majesty, that they might have his place.
_Sign_ XX. A proud man would fain have God's independency. Though need make him stoop, yet he would willingly be beholden to none. Not only because in prudence he would keep his liberty, and not be unnecessarily the servant of men, nor under obligations to serve them in any evil way (for so the humblest would fain be independent); but because he would be so great, and high, as to scorn to lean on any other. Thus you see how pride is that great idolatry that sets up man as in the place of God.
_Signs of the next Degrees of Pride as against God._
_Sign_ I. A proud heart is very hardly brought to see the greatness of its sins, or to know its emptiness of grace, or to be convinced of its unpardoned, miserable state, or of the justice of God if he should damn it to everlasting torments.[212] Concerning others it may confess all this; but hardly of itself. Its own unbelief and averseness from God and holiness, seemeth to it a small and tolerable fault; its own pride, and lust, and worldliness, and sensuality, seem not to be so bad as to deserve damnation; much less the smallest sin which it committeth. Though customarily they may say that God were just, if he did condemn them, yet they believe it not at the heart. The most convincing preacher shall have much ado to bring a proud man heartily to confess that he is an enemy to God, a child of wrath, and under the guilt of all his sins, and sure to be condemned unless he be converted. He will confess that he is a sinner, or any thing else which the most godly must confess, or which doth not conclude him to be in a damnable, unrenewed state. But to make an ungodly man know that he is ungodly, and an impenitent person know that he is impenitent, and an unsanctified person know that he is unsanctified, is wonderful hard, because that pride hath dominion in them. "Are we blind also?" say the proud, incorrigible Pharisees to Christ, John ix. 40.
_Sign_ II. A proud heart doth so much overvalue all that is in itself, that every common grace or duty doth seem to it to be a state of godliness. Their common knowledge seemeth to them to be saving illumination: every little sorrow for their sin, or wish that they had done better, when they have had all the sweetness of it, doth go with them for true repentance; their heartless lip-labour goes for acceptable prayer; their image of religion seemeth to them to be the life of godliness; they take their own presumption for true faith, and their false expectation for christian hope, and their carnal security and blockish stupidity for spiritual peace of conscience, and their desperate venturing their souls upon deceit they take for a trusting them with God. If they forbear but such sins as their flesh can spare, as unnecessary to its ease, provision, or content, yea, or such sins as the flesh commandeth them to forbear, as tending to their dishonour in the world, they take this for true obedience to God. Because they had rather have heaven than hell, when they must leave the earth, whether they will or no, they think that they are heavenly-minded, and lay up their treasure there, and take it for their portion: because conscience sometimes troubleth them for their sin, they think they renew a sincere repentance, and think all is pardoned, because they daily ask for pardon. Their forced submission to the hand of God they take for patience; and a "Lord, have mercy on us, and forgive us, and save us," they take for a true preparation for death. Thus pride deceiveth sinners, by making them believe that they have what they have not, and do what they do not, and are something when they are nothing, Gal. vi. 3, and by multiplying and magnifying the little common good that is in them.