454 The Life of Faith. me; for I am bolier than thou This is, when Pride fpeaketh it, moil odious blafphemy ; to father the firft -born of the Devil upon God. There are two fad inflances ofthis kind ofPride, which are now too familiarly teenamong us. The one is in the cafeof many convinced Hypocrites, yea and many pátlionate feeble Chriftians, who are afrighted with the terroursofthe Lord, and partly difiurbed by their guilt, or palfions, and partly take it to be an honourable fi;n of humili- ty to condemn thcmfclve; ; and therefore will fill the cars of Knitters with lad complaintsof their fears and doubts, and fins and wants, as Ache)! would hardly be kept from dcfpera- tion. And yet if they know that another doth believe them, and think and (peak as bad of them as they (peak of them. Gives ; yea ifhe do but it girt them, and prefer others before them, or plainly reprove them for any dfgraceful fin, they (well with the w.ath of Pride againft him, and will not caf- ly think or (peak well offuch a one : And they love_himbell that thinketh bell of them, and praifeth hen, moll, even when they molt difpraTfe themfelves ; which theweth that a man may be really humbled in Come refpcas,and f eats to behumbled in more, and yet at the heart be dangeroufly proud. The other inflance is, in the common (epataring Spirit of Scetarians ; and in particular, in thofecalled _uakers in thcfe times (For agaiinfl commanded reparation from Jtn, by [elf -pre- fervationor drfcipline, I am far from (peaking.) Their great pretence of Gngularity is, to avoid and detefl the Pride of others ; they cryout againft Pride as much as any. Their garb is plain; humility, and felt emptinefs, arid povertyof fruit, is their profeflion. And yet when they are fo ígnorant,that they can fcarce fpcak fenfc ; and when they underhand not the Ca- techi(m or Creed, but have need to be taught which arc- the principles of the Oracles of God; they think they are taken into the countcls ofthe Almighty; they think they rbound in the Spirit, and in wifdom, in revelations, and in holinefs ; and the wifeff and bolieff ofChritts Minifters and People, who are as far above them in knowledgeand godlincfs, as the aged arc above a Hammering Infant, are proudlydefpifed by them, and openly and impenitently reviled and rattled at, as ignorant fools,
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