SERMON LXI. OF SELF-CONCEIT. 2 TIM. iii. 2. For men fhall be lovers of themselves, &c. LXI. 1. THE first and most radical kind of vicious felf-love is SERM. felf-conceitedness; that which St. Paul calleth rò ÚTEрOроVeiv, to overween, or to think highly of one's felf, beyond what he ought to think. This doth confift in feveral acts or inftances. at least to The plea Sometimes we in our imagination affume to ourselves perfections not belonging to us, in kind or in degree; we take ourselves to be other men than we are; to be wife, to be good, to be happy, when we are not fo; be far wiser, better, and happier than we are. fure naturally springing from a good opinion of ourselves doth often fo blind our eyes and pervert our judgment, that we fee in us what is not there, or fee it magnified and transformed into another fhape than its own; any appearance doth fuffice to produce fuch mistakes, and having once entertained them, we are unwilling to depofe them; we cannot endure by fevere reflection on ourselves to correct fuch pleafant errors; hence commonly we prefume ourselves to be very confiderable, very excellent, very extraordinary perfons, when in truth we are very mean and worthlefs: fo did St. Paul' fuppofe when he faid, If a man think himself to be fomething, when he is Gal. vi. §. nothing, he deceiveth himself; fuch was the cafe of that SERM. church in the Apocalypfe; Thou fayeft I am rich, and men in a dream, or in a frenzy, who take themselves for Again; Sometimes we make vain judgments upon the things we do poffefs, prizing them much beyond their true worth and merit; confequently overvaluing ourselves for them; the most trivial and pitiful things (things which in themselves have no worth, but are mere tools, and commonly serve bad purposes; things which do not render our fouls anywife better, which do not breed any real content, which do not conduce to our welfare and happiness) we value at a monftrous rate, as if they were the most excellent and admirable things in the world. Have we wit? how witlefs are we in prizing it, or ourfelves for it; although we employ it to no good end, not ferving God, not benefiting men, not furthering our own good, or anywife bettering our condition with it; although we no otherwise use it, than vainly to please ourfelves or others, that is, to act the part of fools or buffoons. Have we learning or knowledge? then are we rare perfons; not confidering that many a bad, many a wretched perfon, hath had much more than we, who hath used it to the abuse of others, to the torment of himself; that hell may be full of learned scribes and fubtile difputers, of eloquent Rom. i. 21. Orators and profound philofophers; who when they knew hæc eft, God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful, opibus non but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart Ardua res tradere mores. was darkened; not confidering also how very defective our Mart. xi. 6. knowledge is, how mixed with error and darkness; how useless and vain, yea how pernicious it is, if not sanctified by God's grace, and managed to his fervice. Have we riches? then are we brave men, as fine and glorious in our conceit as in our outward attire; although the veriest fools, the baseft and moft miferable of men, that go on SERM. the ground, do exceed us therein; although, as Ariftotle LIX. faith, Moft either not use it, or abuse it; although our wealth affordeth us no real benefit or comfort, but expofeth us to numberlefs fnares, temptations, and mischiefs; although it hath no stability, but eafily may be taken from us. Have we reputation? how doth that make us highly to repute ourselves in a flavish imitation of others! yet nothing is less fubftantial, nothing is lefs felt, nothing is so easily loft, nothing is more brittle and flippery than it; a bubble is not fooner broken, or a wave funk, than is the opinion of men altered concerning us. Have we power? what doth more raise our minds! yet what is that commonly but a dangerous inftrument of mischief to others, and of ruin to ourselves; at least an engagement to care and trouble? What but that did render Caligula, Nero, and Domitian fo hurtful to others, fo unhappy themselves? what but that hath filled the world with difafters, and turned all history into tragedy? Have we profperous fuccefs in our affairs? then we boast and triumph in our hearts; not remembering what the Wise Man faith, The profperity of fools deftroyeth them; and Prov. i. 32. that experience fheweth, profperity doth usually either find or make us fools b; that the wisest men (as Solomon) 2 Chron. the best men (as Hezekiah), have been befooled by it: xxxii. 25. thus are we apt to overvalue our things, and ourselves for them. There is no way indeed wherein we do not thus impose upon ourselves, either affuming false, or mifrating true advantages; the general ill confequences of which misdemeanour are, that our minds are stuffed with dreams and fantastic imaginations, instead of wife and fober thoughts; that we misbehave ourselves toward ourselves, treating ourselves like other men than we are, with unfeemly regard; that we expect other men fhould have 2 Τῶν πολλῶν οἱ μὲν ἡ χρῶνται τῷ πλούτῳ διὰ μικρολογίαν, οἱ δὲ παραχρῶνται δι ἀσωτίαν. Arift. apud Plut. in Pelop. b Rarus enim ferme fenfus communis in illa LXI. SERM. like opinions, and yield answerable deferences to us; and are, if we find it otherwise, grievously offended; that we are apt to defpife or difregard others, demeaning ourselves infolently and fastuously toward them; that we are apt to feek and undertake things, which we cannot attain or achieve; that we neglect the fuccours needful to help or comfort us, and the like: which will appear more plainly by confidering the feveral objects or matters in which self-conceit is exercised; they are especially three: intellectual endowments; moral qualities; advantages of body, fortune, and outward ftate. 1 Cor. iii. 18. Μωρὸς Pos. Vid. Phil. Or. 7. 1. We are apt to conceit highly of ourselves upon preMagos ys- fumption of our intellectual endowments or capacities, whether natural (as wit, fancy, memory, judgment) or acquired, (as learning, skill, experience,) especially of that which is called wifdom, which in a manner comprehendeth the reft, and manageth them; whereby we rightly difcern what is true, and what is fit to be done in any cafe proposed: this we are prone in great measure to arrogate, and much to pride ourselves therein. The world is full as it can hold of wife men, or of those who take themselves to be fuch; not only abfolutely, but comparatively, in derogation and preference to all others: May Job xii. 2. it not be faid to us as Job did to his friends, No doubt but ye are the people, and wisdom shall die with you? Do we not fancy ourselves incomparably wife, so that all our imaginations are deep and fubtile, all our refolutions found and safe, all our opinions irrefragably certain, all our fayings like fo many oracles, or indubitable maxims? Do we not expect that every man's judgment should stoop to ours? do we not wonder that any man should prefume to diffent from us? muft any man's voice be heard when we speak? Do we not suppose that our authority doth add huge weight to our words? that it is unqueftionably true because we say it? that it is prefumption, it is temerity, it is rudeness hardly pardonable to contest our dictates? This is a common practice, and that which is Prov. iii. 7. often prohibited and blamed in Scripture: Be not wife in Rom. xii. thine own eyes, faith the Wife Man; and, Be not wife in Olos TET ται· τοὶ δὲ xial aio σουσι. your own conceits, faith the Apostle; and, I fay, through SERM. the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, LXI. not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think ; Rom.xii. 3. but to think foberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith. The great reasonableness of which precepts will appear by confidering both the abfurdity and the inconveniences of the practice which they forbid. of If we do reflect either upon the common nature of men, or upon our own constitution, we cannot but find our conceits of our wisdom very abfurd: for how can we take ourselves for wife, if we obferve the great blindness of our mind, and feebleness of human reafon, by many palpable arguments discovering itself? if we mark how painful the search, and how difficult the comprehenfion is any truth; how hardly the moft fagacious can defcry any thing, how eafily the moft judicious mistake; how the most learned everlastingly difpute, and the wifeft irreconcileably clash about matters seeming most familiar and facile; how often the most wary and steady do shift their opinions; how the wifer a man is, and the more experience he gaineth, the lefs confident he is in his own judg ment, and the more fenfible he groweth of his weakness; how dim the fight is of the most perfpicacious, and how fhallow the conceptions of the most profound; how narrow is the horizon of our knowledge, and how immenfely the region of our ignorance is diftended; how imperfectly and uncertainly we know thofe few things, to which our knowledge reacheth ; how answerably to fuch experience we are told in facred Writ, that every man is brutish in his Jer. x. 14. knowledge; that the Lord knoweth the thoughts of man, that they are vanity; that vain man would be wife, though 1 Cor. iii. he be born like an aff's colt, (that is, he is naturally wild job xi. 12. and ftupid;) that wifdom is hid from the eyes of all men, Job xxviii. and is not found in the land of the living; that the thoughts wird. ix. Pfal. xciv. 11. 20. 21, 12. 14. Quamcunque partem rerum humanarum divinarumque comprehenderis, ingenti copia quærendarum ac difcendarum fatigaberis. Sen. Ep. 88. |