_Sign_ III. If a proud man be a ruler, he is apt to be lifted up in mind; and to despise his inferiors, as if they were not men, or he were more. He is apt to disdain the counsels of the wise, and to scorn admonition from the ministers of Christ, and to hate every Micaiah that prophesieth not good of him, and to value none but flatterers, and discountenance faithful dealers, and not endure to hear of his faults. He is apt to fall out with the power of godliness, and the gospel of Christ, as that which seemeth to cross his interest; and to forget his own subjection to God, and the danger of his subjects. He is more desirous to be obeyed by his inferiors, than himself to obey his absolute Lord. He expecteth that his commands be obeyed, though God command the contrary; and is more offended at the neglect of his laws and honour, than at the contempt of the honour and laws of God.
_Sign_ IV. If there be any place of office, honour, or preferment void, a proud man thinks that he is the fittest for it; and if he seek it he taketh it for an injury if another be preferred before him as more deserving: and though they that had a hand in putting him by, and preferring another, did it never so judiciously, and impartially, and for the common good, without any respect to any friend or interest of their own, yet all this will not satisfy the proud, who knoweth no reason or law but selfishness; but he will bear a grudge to men for the most righteous, necessary action. What ignorant men and impious have we known displeased, because they were not thought worthy to be teachers in the church! or because a people that knew the worth of their souls, had the wit and conscience to prefer a worthier man before them! What worthless men (in corporations and elsewhere) have we seen displeased, because they were not chosen to be governors! So unreasonable a sin is pride.
_Sign_ V. A proud man thinks, when he looks at the works of his superiors, that he could do them better himself, if he had the doing of them. There is not one of them of a hundred but think that they could rule better than the king doth, and judge better than the judge doth, and perhaps preach better than the preacher doth, unless his ignorance be so palpable as that he cannot question it. Absalom would do the people justice better than his father David, if he were king. If all the matters of church and commonwealth were at his disposal, how confident is he that they should be well ordered, and all faults mended; and oh! how happy a world should we have!
_Sign_ VI. A proud man is apt to overvalue his own knowledge, and to be much unacquainted with his ignorance: he is much more sensible of what he knoweth, than how much he is wanting of what he ought to know: he thinks himself fit to contradict the ablest divine, when he hath scarce so much knowledge as will save his soul.[220] If he have but some smattering to enable him to talk confidently of what he understandeth not, he thinks himself fittest for the chair; and is elevated to a pugnacious courage, and thinks he is able to dispute with any man, and constantly gives himself the victory. If it be a woman that hath gathered up a few receipts, she thinketh herself fit to be a physician, and venture the lives of dearest friends upon her ignorant skilfulness; when seven years' study more is necessary to make such novices know how little they know, and how much is utterly unknown to them, and seven years more to give them an encouraging taste of knowledge: yet pride makes them doctors in divinity and physic by its mandamus, without so much ado; and as they commenced, so they practise, in the dark: and to save the labour of so long studies, can spare, and gravely deride, that knowledge, which they cannot get at cheaper rates. And no wonder, when it is the nature of pride and ignorance to cause the birth and increase of each other. It were a wonder for an ignorant person to be humble; and when he knoweth not what abundance of excellent truths are still unknown to him, nor what difficulties there are in every controversy which he never saw. How many studious, learned, holy divines would go many thousand miles (if that would serve) to be well resolved of many doubts in the mysteries of providence, decrees, redemption, grace, free-will, and many the like, and that after twenty or forty years' study: when I can take them a boy or a woman in the streets, that can confidently determine them all in a few words, and pity the ignorance or error of such divines, and shake the head at their blindness, and say, God hath revealed them to themselves that are babes! yea, and perhaps their confidence taketh dissenters for such heretical, erroneous, intolerable persons, that they look upon them as heathens and publicans, and either with the papists reproach and persecute them, or with the lesser sects divide from them, as from men that receive not the truth: and thus pride makes as many churches as there are different opinions.