of his parts to ask advice, or to receive it from any man, who out of kindness (which he calls presumption) offers to give him any: and if he be so wise (as few proud men are) as to profit by others, it is by a haughty way of asking questions, which seem to question their sufficiency rather than a thought of improving his own; and he is still more inquisitive, and takes more pains to discover the faults which other men commit in their office, than to prevent or reform his own: with all his undervaluing other men, he is far from contemning what others say of him, how unjust and untrue soever it is, but is grieved and afflicted that they dare do it, and out of fear that other men would believe, and so neglect and contemn him too; for though he takes no other way to attain to it but by admiring himself, he doth heartily wish that all men would likewise admire him. Pride, as it is compounded of the vanity and ill nature that disposes men to admire themselves and to contemn other men (which is its genuine composition) retains its vigour longer than any other vice, and rarely expires but with life itself. Age wears out many other vices, loses the memory of injuries and provocations, and the thought of revenge is weary of the pursuit it hath

already made, and so is without ambition; it hath outlived those appetites and affections which were most importunate for satisfaction and most obstinate against counsel, and so abhors both lusts and surfeits; it seldom engenders vice which it hath not been heretofore acquainted with: for that covetousness which men commonly think that age is most liable to, is rather a diminution of the generosity and bounty and expense that youth is naturally delighted with, and uses to exercise, than a sordid appetite and love of money; and though it be the season in which men gather and collect most, and keep it by them when they have gathered it, it is (as was said before) because they know not how to spend it, and the bounty that was in their nature is shrunk and dried up, and they take no pleasure in giving; besides, that age is always apprehensive of want, and therefore loves to be provided against all possible accidents and emergencies. But pride finds a welcome and pleasant residence in that parched flesh and dried bones, and exercises itself more imperiously, because it meets not with that opposition and contradiction which it usually finds in younger company. Age, though it too often consists only in length of days, in having been longer

than other men, not in the experiments of life above those who are much younger, is naturally censorious, and expects reverence and submission to their white hairs, which they cannot challenge to any rudiments or example which they have given to virtue; and superciliously censure all who are younger than themselves, and the vices of the present time as new and unheard of, when in truth they are the very same they practised, and practised as long as they were able; they talk much of their observation and experience, in order to be obeyed in things they understand not, and out of vanity and morosity contract a pride that never departs from them whilst they are alive, and they die in an opinion that they have left none wiser behind them, though they have left none behind them, who ever had any esteem of their wisdom and judgment.

But when we have laid all the reproaches upon it that it deserves, to make it odious to ourselves and to all the world, and have raised all the fences and fortifications we can against it, to keep it from entering upon and into us, we have need still to have recourse to God Almighty, and to implore his assistance in the guarding us from the assaults of this bold enemy; that he will preserve us from its

approaches when we most approach him, and when we are doing that which most pleases him; in those seasons when we discharge our duty with most integrity, most ability, and most reputation, that men speak well of us, and speak but true, that he will then watch for us, that pride steal not into our hearts, and persuade us to think better of ourselves than we ought to do; that he will take care of us, when we take most care of ourselves to preserve our innocence, and even in our most secret devotions and addresses to his Divine Majesty, that with the serenity of conscience which is naturally the effect of such devout addresses, no information of pride may enter into us, to make us believe that we are better than other men, which will quickly make us worse; that he will not suffer us to grow, from the vices of others, because by his grace we are yet without those vices which they are transported with, proud of that which in truth is virtue in us; that we be not exalted with our own integrity, and neglect and despise those applications and condescensions which are necessary in this world to the support of the greatest integrity and innocence. The pride of a good conscience hath often exposed many men to great cala

mities, when they have too much neglected the friendships and affections of others, it may be the better to preserve their innocence; and so have been abandoned in the time of powerful calumny and persecution by those, who having reverence for their virtue, yet are without kindness for their persons, and so conclude that they are the less concerned for justice, because they are not at all concerned for their affection, or for any obligation they have received. It is very necessary therefore, that they who do their duty best, and have the greatest evidence and testimony of a good conscience within their own breasts, have likewise the greatest care that they be not only not exalted with that pride of conscience, but that they be not suspected to be so; and it is great pity that so ill an effect should proceed from so good a cause; that the same uprightness and integrity, which raises naturally jealousy, and envy, and malice, in the hearts of other men, should deprive those who are possessed of it of all wariness and dexterity and address, which is at least convenient for the manifestation and support of that sincerity and uprightness: "He is grievous unto us even to behold, for his life is not like other men's, his ways are of another fashion;

t