they grow jealous; and so blow us up when they cannot throw us down. There is no guard to be kept against envy, because no man knows where it dwells; and generous and innocent men are seldom jealous and suspicious till they feel the wound, or discern some notorious effect of it. It shelters itself for the most part in dark and melancholy constitutions, yet sometimes gets into less suspected lodgings, but never owns to be within when it is asked for. All other passions do not only betray and discover, but likewise confess themselves; the choleric man confesses he is angry, and the proud man confesses he is ambitious; the covetous man never denies that he loves money, and the drunkard confesses that he loves wine: but no envious man ever confessed that he did envy; he commands his words much better than his looks, and those would betray him, if he had not bodily infirmities apparent enough, that those of the mind cannot easily be discovered, but in the mischief they do. Envy pretends always to be a rival to virtue, and to court honour only by merit, and never to be afflicted but on the behalf of justice, when persons less meritorious come to be preferred; and it is so far true, that it seldom assaults unfortunate virtue, and is as seldom troubled for any success, how unworthy soever, that doth not carry a man farther than the envious man himself can attain to; he envies and hates, and would destroy every man who hath better parts or better fortune than himself; and that he is not a witch, proceeds only from the devil's want of power, that he cannot give him illustrious conditions, for he hath more pride and ambition than any other sort of sinner.

VII. OF PRIDE.

Montpellier, 1669,

"THE beginning of pride is when one departeth from God, and his heart is turned away from his Maker," says the son of Sirach, x. 12. It is no wonder that a proud man despiseth his neighbour, when he is departed from his God; and since he is so, it is no less a wonder that he doth all he can to conceal himself: and he hath oftentimes very good tuck in doing it; and as few men ever acknowledge themselves to be proud, so they who are so are not easily discovered. It is a pride as gross and as ridiculous as folly itself, which appears and exposes itself to the eyes of all men; it is a guest that nobody seems willing to harbour, and yet it finds entrance and admission and entertainment in the breasts of all men as well as women: it is a weed that grows in all soils and climates, and is no less luxuriant in the country than in the court; is not confined to any rank of men or extent of fortune, but rages in the breasts of all degrees. Alexander was not prouder than Diogenes; and it may be, if we would endeavour to surprise it in its most gaudy dress and attire, and in the exercise of its full empire and tyranny, we should find it in schoolmasters and scholars, or in some country lady, or the knight her husband; all which ranks of people more despise their neighbours, than all the degrees of honour in which courts abound: and it rages as much in a sordid affected dress, as in all the silks and embroideries which the excess of the age and the folly of youth delight to be adorned with. Since

then it keeps all sorts of company, and wriggles itself into the liking of the most contrary natures and dispositions, and yet carries so much poison and venom with it, that it alienates the affections from heaven, and raises rebellion against God himself, it is worth our utmost care to watch it in all its disguises and approaches, that we may discover it in its first entrance, and dislodge it before it procures a shelter or retiring place to lodge and conceal itself. Since God himself makes war against it; "Pride and arrogance, and the evil way and the froward mouth, do I hate," says the spirit of God; (Prov. viii. 13.) since when pride comes, then cometh shame, nay then cometh destruction, we cannot be too solicitous that this declared destroying foe doth not steal upon us unawares, for want of sentinels, for want of knowing him before he crowds in. Let us therefore take as exact a survey as we can what pride in truth is: in the disquisition whereof, because we find that they who entertain it most, and are most possessed by it, use all the endeavours and art they can to conceal it best, and that they who are least infected or corrupted by it, are oftentimes suspected to have it most, it will not be amiss, in the first place, to consider the negative, What is not pride, that so often deceives the standers-by, that we may the better illustrate the affirmative, in the stating what pride indeed is, that is so little suspected sometimes, that it escapes all but very vigilant observations upon the most strict and sharpest examination.

The outward preservation of men's dignity, according to the several qualities and stations they hold in the world, by their birth or office, or other

qualification, is not pride. The peace and quiet of nations cannot be preserved without order and government; and order and government cannot be maintained and supported without distinction and degrees of men, which must be subordinate one to the other: where all are equal, there can be no superiority; and where 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 sym-ptom 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 con

straint, 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,