A Christian Directory, Part 1: Christian Ethics

by Richard Baxter

Sign IX. A proud man hath an heretical disposition, even when he crieth out against heretics. He is apt to look most after matters of dispute and contention in religion; obscure prophecies, God's decrees, controversies which trouble the church more than edify, circumstances, ceremonies, forms, outwards, orders, and words: and for his opinion in these he must be somebody.

Sign X. A proud man is unsatisfied with his standing in communion with the church of Christ, and is either ambitiously aspiring to a dominion over it, or is inclined to a separation from it. They are too good to stand on even ground with their brethren: if they be teachers or rulers they can approve the constitution of the church; but otherwise it is too bad for them to have communion with; they must be of some more refined or elevated society: they are not content to come out and be separate from the infidel and idolatrous world, but they must also come out and be separate from the churches of Christ, consisting of men that make a credible profession of faith and godliness. They think it not enough to forbear sin themselves, and to have no fellowship with the works of darkness, but reprove them, nor to separate from men as they separate from Christ; but they will also separate from them in their duty, and odiously aggravate every imperfection, and fill the church with clamours and contentions, and break it into fractions by their schisms, and this not for any true reformation or edifying of the body, (for how can division edify it?) but to tell the world that they account themselves more holy than the church.[218] Thus Christ himself was quarrelled with as unholy by the Pharisees for eating with publicans and sinners; and his disciples for not washing before meat, and observing the traditions of the elders;[219] and for rubbing out corn to eat on the sabbath-day. And they that will not be strict in their conformity to Christ, will be righteous overmuch, and stricter than Christ would have them be, where pride commandeth it. They will be of the strictest party and opinions, and make opinions and parties that are stricter than God's commands; and run into errors and schisms that they may be singular, from the general communion of the church; and will be of a lesser than Christ's little flock.

Signs of Pride in common Converse.

Sign I. Pride causeth subjects to be too quick in censuring the actions of their governors, and too impatient of what they suffer from them, and apt to murmur at them, and rebel against them. It makes inferiors think themselves competent judges of those commands and actions of their superiors, the reasons of which they never heard, nor can be fit to judge of, unless they were of their council. It makes them forget all the benefits of government, and mind only the burdens and suffering part, and say as Korah, Numb. xvi. 3, "Ye take too much upon you, seeing all the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them: wherefore then lift ye up yourselves above the congregation of the Lord?" Ver. 13, 14, "Is it a small thing that thou hast brought us up out of a land that floweth with milk and honey, to kill us in the wilderness, except thou make thyself altogether a prince over us?—Wilt thou put out the eyes of these men?" Proud men are impatient, and aggravate their disappointments, and think they have reason and justice on their side.

Sign II. A proud man is more disposed to command than to obey, and cannot serve God contentedly in a mean and low condition. He is never a good subject, or servant, or child, for subjection seems a slavery to him. He thinks it a baseness to be governed by another. He hath a reason of his own, which still contradicteth the reason of his rulers, and a will of his own that must needs be fulfilled, and cannot submit or yield to government. He is still ready to step out of his rank, and prepare for suffering by disorder, that he may taste the sweetness of present liberty; as if your horse or cattle should break out from you to be free, and famish in the winter, when snow depriveth them of grass. Whereas the humble know it is much easier to obey than govern, and that the valleys are the most fruitful grounds, and that it is the cedars and mountain trees that are blown down, and not the shrubs, and that a low condition affordeth not only more safety, but more quietness and leisure to converse with God, and that it is a mercy that others may be employed in his preservation, and keeping the walls, and watching the house, while he may follow his work in quietness and peace; and therefore willingly payeth honour and tribute to whom it is due.

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.

Sign VII. Pride maketh men wonderful partial in judging of their own virtues and vices in comparison of other mens. When the humble are complaining of their weaknesses and sinfulness, and have much ado to believe that they are any thing, or to discern the sincerity of their grace; and think their prayers are as no prayers, and their duties so bad that God will not regard them; the proud think well of all they do, and are little troubled at their greater wants. They easily see another man's failings; but the very same, or worse, they justify in themselves. Their own passions, their own overreachings or injurious dealings, their own ill words, are smoothed over as harmless things, when other men's are aggravated as intolerable crimes. Another is judged by them unfit for human societies, for less than that which they cannot endure to be themselves reproved for, and will hardly be convinced that it is any fault: so blind is pride about themselves.