Third Kind of Spiritual Pride — PRIDE OF PRIVILEGES 3/3

1. To look that thou measurest not thy grace by thy comfort, lest so thou beest led into a false opinion that thy grace is strong, because thy comforts are so. Satan will be ready to help forward such thought as a fir medium to lift thee up, and slacken thy care in duty for the future.  Such discoveries do indeed bear witness to the truth of thy grace, but not to the degree and measure of it.  The weak child may be, yea, is, oftener in the lap than the strong.
2. Do not so much applaud thyself in thy pres­ent comfort, as labour to improve it, for the glory of God.  ‘Arise and eat,’ saith the angel to the prophet, ‘because the journey is too great for thee.’  The mani­festations of God's love are to fit us for our work.  It is one thing to rejoice in the light of our comfort, and another to go forth in the power of the Spirit com­forting us—as giants refreshed with this wine—to run our race of duty and obedience with more strength and alacrity.  He shows his pride that spends his time in telling his money merely to see how rich he is; but he his wisdom, that lays out his money and trades with it.  The boaster of his comforts will lose what he hath, when he that improves his comforts in a fuller trade of duty shall add more to what he hath.
3. Remember thou dependest on God for the continuance of thy comfort.  They are not the smiles thou hadst yesterday [that] make thee joyous to-day, any more than the bread thou didst then eat can make thee strong without more.  Thou needest new discoveries for new comforts.  Let God hide his face, and thou wilt soon lose the sight, and forget the taste, of what thou even now hadst.  It is beyond our skill or power to preserve those impressions of joy, and comfortable apprehensions of God's favour on our spirits, which sometimes we find; as God's presence brings those, so, when he goes, he carries them away with him, as the setting sun doth the day.  We would laugh heartily at him who, when the sun shines in at his window, should think by shutting that to imprison the sunbeams in his chamber; and dost thou now show as much folly, who thinkest, because thou now hast comfort, thou therefore shalt never be in dark­ness of spirit more?  The believer’s comfort is like Israel’s manna.  It is not like the ordinary bread and provision we buy at market, and lock up in our cup­boards where we can go to it when we will; no, it is rained, as that was, from heaven.  Indeed, God pro­vided for them after this sort to humble them: ‘Who fed thee in the wilderness with manna, which thy fathers knew not, that he might humble thee,’ Deut. 8:16.  It was not because [it was] such mean food, that God is said to humble them, for it was delicious food, therefore called ‘angels' food,’ Ps. 78:25, such as if angels did eat, might serve them; but the manner of the dispensing it—from hand to mouth, every day their portion, and no more.  Thus God kept the key of their cupboard—they stood to his immediate allowance; and thus God communicates our spiritual comforts for the same end, to humble us.  So much for this second sort of spiritual wickedness.

           I had thought to have instanced in some others, as hypocrisy, unbelief, formality; but possibly the sub­ject being general, what I have already said may be thought but a digression, and that too long.  I shall therefore conclude this branch of spiritual wicked­ness, in a word to those who are yet in a natural and unsanctified state—which is to stir them up, from what I have said concerning Satan’s assaulting believers with such temptations, to consider seriously how that Satan’s chief design against them also lies in the same sins.  It is your seared conscience, blind mind, and dedolent impenitent heart, will be your undoing, if you miscarry finally.  Other sins, the devil knows, are preparatory to these, and therefore he draws thee into them to bring thee into these.  Two ways they prepare a way to spiritual sins:  First. As they naturally dispose the sinner to them; it is the nature of sin to blind the mind, stupify the conscience, harden the heart, as is implied, ‘Lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin,’ Heb. 3:13.  As the feet of travellers beat the highway hard, so does walking in carnal gross sins the heart. They benumb the conscience, so that in time the sin­ner loses his feeling, and can carry his lusts in his heart, as bedlams their pins in their very flesh, without pain and remorse.  Secondly, As they do provoke God by a judiciary act to give them up to these sins, ‘Give them obstinacy of heart,’ Lam. 3:65, so it is in your margin, ‘thy curse unto them;’ and when the devil hath got sinners at this pass, then he hath them under lock and key.  They are the fore­runners of damnation.  If God leave thy heart hard and unbroken up, it is a sad sign he means not to sow the seed of grace there.  O sinners, pray, as he, Acts 8:24, did request Peter for him, that none of these things may come upon you; which that they may not, take heed thou rejectest not the offers he makes to soften thee.  God’s hardening is a consequent of, and a punishment for, our hardening our own hearts.  It is most true what Prosper saith, ‘A man may lose temporals against his will, but not spirituals.’  God will harden none, damn none, against their will.

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2. Consider who bears thee up, and carries thee through thy sufferings for Christ.  Is it thy grace, or his, that is sufficient for such a work? thy spirit, or Christ's, by which thou speakest when called to bear witness for the truth?  How comes it to pass [that] thou art a sufferer and not a persecutor? a confessor, and not a denier, yea, betrayer of Christ and his gos­pel?  This thou owest for to God.  He is not behol­den to thee, that thou wilt part with estate, credit, or life itself for his sake—if thou hadst a thousand lives, thou wouldst owe them all to him; but thou art beholden to God exceedingly, that he will call for these in this way, which has such an honour and reward attending it.  He might have suffered thee to live in thy lusts, and at last to suffer the loss of all these for them.  O how many die at the gallows as martyrs in the devil’s cause, for felonies, rapes and murders!  Or, he might withdraw his grace, and leave thee to thy own cowardice and unbelief, and then thou wouldst soon show thyself in thy colours.  The stoutest champions for Christ have been taught how weak they are if Christ steps aside.  Some that have given great testimony of their faith and resolution in Christ's cause—even to come so near dying for his name as to give themselves to be bound to the stake, and [to the] fire to be kindled upon them—yet then their hearts have failed, as that holy man Mr. Ben­bridge, in our English martyrology, who thrust the faggots from him, and cried out, 'I recant, I recant.’  Yet this man, when reinforced in his faith, and en­dued with power from above, was able, within the space of a week after that sad foil, to die at the stake cheerfully.  ‘He that once overcame death for us, is he that always overcomes death in us.’And who should be thy song, but he that is thy strength? ap­plaud not thyself, but bless him.  It is one of God’s names; he is called ‘the glory of his people’s strength,’ Ps. 89:17.  The more thou gloriest in God that gives thee strength to suffer for him, the less thou wilt boast of thyself.  A thankful heart and a proud cannot dwell together in one bosom.

3. Consider what a foul blot pride gives to all thy sufferings; where it is not bewailed and resisted, it alters the case.  The old saying is, that it is not the punishment but the cause [that] makes the martyr.  We may safely say further, ‘It is not barely the cause, but the sincere frame of the heart in suffering for a good cause, that makes a man a martyr in God's sight.’  Though thou shouldst give thy body to be burned, if thou hast not the humble heart of a suf­ferer for Christ, thou turnest merchant for thyself.  Thou deniest but one self, to set up another; runnest the hazard of thy estate and life, to gain some ap­plause may be, and rear up a monument to thy hon­our in the opinions of men.  Thou doest no more, in this case, than a soldier, who for a name of valour will venture into the mouth of death and danger; only thou showest thy pride under a religious disguise; but that helps it not, but makes it the worse.  If thou wilt in thy sufferings be a sacrifice acceptable to God, thou must not only be ready to offer up thy life for his truth, but [to] sacrifice thy pride also, or else thou mayst tumble out of one fire into another—suffer here from man as a seeming champion for the gospel, and in another world from God, for robbing him of his glory in thy sufferings.

           Third Privilege. A third privilege is, when God flows in with more than ordinary manifestations of his love.  Then the Christian is in danger of having his heart secretly lift up in pride.  Indeed, the genuine and natural effect which such discoveries of divine love have on a gracious soul is to humble it.  The sight of mercy increaseth the sense of sin, and that sense dissolves the soul kindly into sorrow, as we see in Magdalene.  The heart which possibly was hard and frozen in the shade, will give and thaw in the sunshine of love, and so long is pride hid from the creature’s eye.  ‘Then,’ saith God, ‘shall ye remember your own evil ways, and your doings that were not good, and shall loathe yourselves in your own sight,’ &c., Eze. 36:31.  And when shall this be, but when God would save them from all their uncleannesses? as appears, ver. 25; yet notwithstanding this, there remain such dregs of corruption unpurged out of the best, that Satan finds it not impossible to make the mani­festations of God's love an occasion of pride to the Christian.  And truly God lets us see our proneness to this sin in the short stay he makes, when he comes with any greater discoveries of his love.  The Com­forter, it is true, abides for ever in the saint's bosom; but his joys, they come and are gone again quickly.  They are as exceedings with which he feasts the be­liever, but the cloth is soon drawn; and why so, but because we cannot bear them for our everyday food?  A short interview of heaven, and a vision of love now and then upon the mount of an ordinance, or afflic­tion, cheers the spirits of drooping Christians, who —might they have leave to build their tabernacles there, and dwell under a constant shine of such mani­festations—would be prone to forget themselves, and think they were lords of their own comforts.  If holy Paul was in danger of falling into this distemper of pride from his short rapture—to prevent which, God saw it needful to let him bleed with a thorn in the flesh—would not our blood much more grow too rank, and we too crank and wanton, if we should feed long on such luscious food?  And therefore, if ever, Christian, thou hadst need to watch, then is the time—when comforts abound, and God dandles thee most on the knee of his love—when his face shines with clearest manifestations; lest this sin of pride, as a thief in the candle, should swale out thy joy.  To prevent which, thou shouldst do well,

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  Third. Pride of privileges is the third kind of spiritual pride, with which these wicked spirits labour to blow up the Christian.  To name three [of these privileges]: First. When God calls a person to some eminent place, or useth him to do some special piece of service.  Second. When God honours a saint to suffer for his truth or cause.  Third. When God flows in with more than ordinary manifestations of his love, and fills the soul with joy and comfort.  These are privileges not equally dispensed to all; and therefore, where they are, Satan takes advantage of assaulting such with pride.

           First Privilege. When God calls a person to some eminent place, or useth him to do some special piece of service.  Indeed it requires a great measure of grace to keep the heart low, when the man stands high. The apostle, speaking how a minister of the gospel should be qualified, saith he must not be ‘a novice,’ or a young convert, ‘lest being lifted up with pride, he fall into the condemnation of the devil,’ I Tim 3:6; as if he had said, ‘This calling is honourable, if he be not well balanced with humility, a little gust from Satan will topple him into this sin.’  The seventy that Christ first sent out to preach the gospel, and [who] prevailed so miraculously over Satan—even these, while they trod on the serpent's head, he turned again, and had like to have stung them with pride. This our Saviour perceived, when they returned in triumph, and told what great miracles they had wrought; and therefore he takes them off that glorying, lest it should degenerate into vainglory, and bids them ‘rejoice not that spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven,’ Luke 10:20.  As if he had said, ‘It is not the honour of your calling, and success of your ministry [that] will save you.  There shall be some cast to the devils, who shall then say, “Lord, Lord, in thy name we have cast out devils,” and therefore value not yourselves by that, but rather evidence to your souls, that you are mine elect ones, which will stand you more in stead at the great day than all this.’

           Second Privilege. A second privilege is, when God honours a person to suffer for his truth.  This is a great privilege.  ‘Unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake,’ Php. 1:29.  God doth not use to give worthless gifts to his saints, there is some precious­ness in it, which a carnal eye cannot see.  Faith, you will say, is a great gift, but perseverance greater —without which faith would be little worth—and perseverance in suffering is, above both, honourable.  This made John Careless, our English martyr—who, though he died not at the stake, yet [died] in prison for Christ—say, ‘Such an honour it is, as angels are not permitted to have, therefore God forgive me mine unthankfulness.’  Now when Satan cannot scare a soul from prison, yet then he will labour to puff him up in prison; when he cannot make him pity himself, then he will flatter him till he prides in himself.  Affliction from God, exposeth to impatience, afflic­tion for God, to pride; and therefore, Christians, la­bour to fortify yourselves against this temptation of Satan.  How soon you may be called to suffering work you know not—such clouds oft are not long arising. Now to keep thy heart humble when thou art honoured to suffer for the truth, consider,

1. Though thou dost not deserve those suffer­ings at man’s hand, thou canst and mayst, in that regard, glory in thy innocency [that] thou sufferest not as an evildoer; yet thou canst not but confess it is a just affliction from God in regard of sin in thee, and this methinks should keep thee humble.  The same suffering may be martyrdom in regard of man, and yet a fatherly chastening for sin in regard of God.  None suffered without sin but Christ, and therefore none may glory in sufferings but he—Christ in his own, we in his.  ‘God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,’ Gal. 6:14.  This kept Mr. Bradford humble in his sufferings for the truth. None more rejoiced in them, and blessed God for them, yet none more humble under them, than he. And what kept him in this humble frame?  Read his godly letters, and you shall find almost in all how he bemoans his sins, and the sins of the Protestants under the reign of king Edward, ‘It was time,’ saith he, ‘for God to put his rod into the Papists’ hands.  We were grown so proud, formal, unfruitful, yea, to loathe and despise the means of grace, when we en­joyed the liberty thereof, and therefore God hath brought the wheel of persecution on us.’  As he looked at the honour to make him thankful, so to sin to make him humble.