there is no superiority, there can be no obedience; and where there is no obedience, there must be great confusion, which is the highest contradiction and opposition of order and peace; and the keeping those bounds and fences strictly and severely, and thereby obliging all men to contain themselves within the limits prescribed to them, is very well consisting with the greatest humility, and therefore can be no discovery or symptom of pride. And it may

be, the most diabolical pride may not more inhabit in the breasts of any sort of men, than of those who are forward to stoop from the dignity they ought to uphold, to a mean and low condescension to inferior persons; for all pride being a violation of justice, it may be presumed, or reasonably suspected, that he that practises that injustice towards himself hath his ambition complied with, and satisfied by some unworthy effects from such condescension. I do not say that these necessary distances and distinctions and precedencies are always exercised without pride, but that they may be so and ought to be so. No doubt, men who are in the highest stations, and have a pre-eminence over other men, and are bound to exercise that superiority over those men who,

it may be, have been better men than they, and deserve still to be so, to constrain them to perform their duty, which they ought to do without constraint, have great temptations, especially if they have vulgar minds, to be proud; and ought to take great care, by their gentle and modest behaviour in their conversation, by doing all the offices which charity or courtesy invite them to, and by executing that most rigid part of their obligation, which obliges them to punish corrupt men and corrupt manners, without the least arrogance or insolence towards their persons, as if he were well pleased with the opportunity; which is in truth as if he could satisfy public justice and his particular malice together, which are inconsistent, and cannot but be the effect and product of great pride in his heart, and he is not glad that he can do justice so much, as that he takes revenge upon a guilty person that he doth not love. The seat of pride is in the heart, and only there; and if it be not there, it is neither in the looks, nor in the clothes. A cloud in the countenance, a melancholy and absence of mind, which detains a man from suddenly taking notice of what is said or done, very often makes a man thought to be proud, who is most free from that corruption;

and the excess in clothes may be some manifestation of folly or levity, but can be no evidence of pride: for first, the particular quality and condition of men may oblige them to some cost and curiosity in their clothes; and then the very affecting a neatness and expense of decent habit, (if it does not exceed the limits of one's fortune), is not only very lawful, and an innocent delight, but very commendable; and men, who most affect a gallantry in their dress, have hearts too cheerful and liberal to be affected with so troublesome a passion as pride, which always possesses itself of the heart, and branches itself out into two very notable and visible affections; which are, a very high and immoderate esteem of themselves, and admiration and overvaluing of their own parts and qualities, and a contempt of the persons of other men, and disesteem and undervaluing of all their faculties and endowments, how conspicuous soever to all others: and without both those excesses, pride will hardly be nourished to a monstrous magnitude; but thus fed and cherished, outgrows all other vices, and indeed comprehends them.

The disesteem and contempt of others is inseparable from pride. It is hardly possible to overvalue ourselves, but by under

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valuing our neighbours; and we commonly most undervalue those who are by other men thought to be wiser than we are; and it is a kind of jealousy in ourselves that they are so, which provokes our pride; "Only by pride cometh contention," says Solomon (Prov. xiii. 10.) In truth, pride is contention itself, an insolent passion that always contends, and contends for that which doth not belong to him who contends; contends by calumny to rob another man of his reputation, of his good name; contends by force to extort that which another man hath no mind to part with; and oftentimes contends by fraud and flattery to deprive a man of what barefaced and by force he could not compass; and does as much contemn a man whom he hath cozened and deceived, as if he had by courage overcome him; nay, he takes no pleasure in the good that is in him, otherwise than as it is set off and illustrated by the infirmities of other men; he doth not enjoy the advantages nature or fortune have conferred upon him with that relish, as when it brings a prejudice to some others; he never likes his wit so well, as when it makes his companions, it may be his friends, ridiculous; nor ever feels the pleasure of his fortune so much, as

when it enables him to oppress his neighbour: in the pursuit of his ambition, he had much rather obtain an office that is promised to another, than one that is vacant to all pretenders; to be preferred before another, how unreasonably or unjust soever, is a full feast to his pride, and a warrant in his own opinion ever after to prefer himself before all men; and if he could have his wish, he would see all men miserable who have contended with him, and presumed to think themselves worthy of any thing which he hath been content to accept: whatever benefits and preferments other men attain to, he imputes to their fortune, and to the weakness of those men who contributed to it, out of want of abilities to discover their defects and unworthiness; what is thrown upon himself, from the blind affection and bounty of his superiors, he receives as a reward below his merit: he sees no man discharge the obligation of his office and trust, but he believes he could do it much better, and that it is partiality, not justice, that gives him a good testimony; whereas if he comes to have any province of his own to manage and govern, no man does it with more remissness or more insufficiency; for he thinks it below the estimation he would have all men to have