Part 384

_Direct._ XVIII. Look to the humbling judgments of God on yourselves and others, and turn them all against your pride. You will sure think it an unsuitable and unseasonable thing for the calamitous to be proud. Are you not oft complaining of one thing or other, upon your consciences, your bodies, your estates, your names, your relations, or friends? and yet will you be proud while you complain? If the judgments that have already befallen you humble you not, if God love you, and will save you, you may expect you should feel more, and the load should be increased, till it make you stoop. O miserable, obstinate sinners! that can groan with sickness, and yet be proud! and murmur under want, and yet be proud! and daily crossed by one or other, and yet be proud! yea, and tormented with fears of God's displeasure, and yet be proud! Have not all the wars, and blood, and ruins that have befallen us in these kingdoms, been yet enough to take down pride? Many humbling sights we have seen, and many humbling stripes we have felt, and yet are we not humbled! We have seen houses robbed, and towns fired, and the country pillaged, and the blood of many thousands shed, and their carcasses scattered about the fields, and yet are we not humbled! If we were proud of our riches, they have been taken from us; if proud of our buildings, they have been turned into ruinous heaps; if we have been proud of our government, and the fame and glory of our country, we have seen how our sins have pulled down our government, dishonoured our rulers, and blemished our glory, and turned it into shame; and yet are we not humbled! If you lived in a house infected with the plague, and had buried father and mother, and brothers and sisters, and but a very few were left alive, expecting when their turn came next; if these few were not humbled, would you not think them blind and sottish persons? Do you yet look high, and contend for pre-eminence, and look for honour, and envy others, and desire to domineer, and have your will and way, and set out yourselves in the neatest dress? Must you have sharper stripes, before you will be humbled? Must greater injuries, and violences, and losses, and fears, and reproaches be the means? Why will you choose so painful a remedy, by frustrating the easier? If it must be so, the judgment shall shortly come yet nearer to thee: it shall either strip thee of the rest, or cover thee with shame, or lay thee in pain upon thy couch, where thy head shall ache, and thy heart be sick, and thy body weary, and thou shalt pant and gasp for breath; wilt thou then be proud, and contest for honour, when thou expectest hourly when thy proud and guilty soul shall be turned out of thy body, and appear before the holy God? when the bell is ready to toll for thee, and thy winding-sheet to be fetched out, and thy coffin prepared, and the bier to be fetched to carry thee to thy grave, and leave thee in the dark with worms and rottenness; wilt thou then be proud? Where then are your high looks, and lofty minds, and splendid ornaments, and honours? Then will you be climbing into higher rooms, and seeking to be revenged on those that did eclipse your honour? Saith David, even of princes, and all the sons of men, Psal. cxlvi. 3, 4, "His breath goeth forth: he returneth to his earth: in that very day his thoughts perish."