people that truly honour him in the world. But O that they were more! And O that they were more perfect! Alas! what a number are there that are otherwise!

Even among divines this plague is most pernicious, as being of most public influence. Take him that never had a natural acuteness of wit, nor is capable of judging of difficult points, if he be but of long standing, and grey hairs, and can preach well to the people, and have studied long; he is not only confident of his fitness to judge of that which he never understood, but his reputation of wisdom, must be kept up among the people by his supercilious talking against what he understandeth not ?. Yea, if he be one that never macerated his flesh with the difficult and long studies of the matter, without which hard points will never be well digested and distinctly understood; yet, if he be a doctor, and have lived long in a reputation for wisdom, his ignorant, flashy conjectures, and hasty, superficial apprehensions, must needs go for the more excellent knowledge. And if you put him to make good any of his contradictions to the truth, his magisterial contempt, or his uncivil wrath, and unmannerly interruptions of you in your talk, must go for reason: and if he cannot resist the strength of your evidence, he cannot bear the hearing of it; but like a scold, rather than a scholar, taketh your words out of your mouth before you come to the end; as if he said, 'Hold your tongue, and hear me who am wiser: I came to teach, and not to hear.' If you tell him how uncivil it is, not patiently to hear you to the end, he thinks you wrong him, and are too bold to pretend to a liberty to speak without interruption: or he will tell you that you are too long; he cannot remember all at once.' If you reply that the sense of the former part of a speech usually depends much on the latter part, and he cannot have your sense till he have all; and that he must not answer, before he understandeth you; and that if his memory fail, he should take notes; and that to have uninterrupted turns of speaking, is necessary in the order of all sober conferences, without which they will be but noise and strife; he will let you know that he came not to hear, or keep any laws of order or civility, but to have a combat with you for the reputation of wisdom or orthodoxy: and

p Yea, now it is also young, ignorant novices that are sick of the same feverish temerity.

what he wants in reason and evidence, he will make up in ignorant confidence and reviling, and call you by some ill name or other, that shall go for a confutation.

But yet this is not the usual way: it is too great a hazard to the reputation of their wisdom, to cast it on a dispute. The common way is, never to speak to the person himself; but if any one cross their conceits, or become the object of their envy, they backbite him among those that reverence their wisdom; and when they are sure that he is far enough out of hearing, they tell their credulous followers, 'O such a man holdeth unsound or dangerous opinions! Take heed how you hear him or read his writings; this or that heresy they savour of;' when the poor man knoweth not what he talketh of. And if any one have the wit to say to him, Sir, he is neither so sottish, nor so proud as to be incapable of instruction; if you are so much wiser than he, why do you not teach him?' he will excuse his omission and commission together with a further calumny, and say, These erroneous persons will hear no reason: it is in vain.' If he be asked, 'Sir, did you ever try?' it is likely he must confess that he did not, unless some magisterial rebuke once went for evidence of truth. If the hearers, (which is rare) have so much Christian wit and honesty, as to say, 'Sir, ministers above all men must be no backbiters, nor unjust: You know it is unlawful for us to judge another man, till we hear him speak for himself. If you would have us know whether he or you be in the right, let us hear you both together: his answer would be like Cardinal Turnon at the conference at Poisie, and as the Papists' ordinarily is, 'It is dangerous letting heretics speak to the people, and it agreeth not with our zeal for God, to hear such odious things uttered against the truth.'

In a word, there are more that have the spirit of a pope in the world, than one, even among them that cry out against Popery; and that would be fain to be taken for the dictators of the world, whom none must dissent from, much less contradict. And there are more idolaters than heathens, who would have their ignorant understandings to be instead of God, the uncontrolled director of all about them.

But if these men have not any confidence in their selfsufficiency, if they can but embody in a society of their minds, or gather into a synod, he must needs go for a proud

and arrogant schismatic at least, that will set any reason and evidence of truth, against their magisterial ignorance, when it is the major vote.

The very truth is, the great Benefactor of the World hath not been pleased to dispense his benefits equally, but with marvellous disparity. As he is the God of nature, he hath been pleased to give a natural capacity for judiciousness and acuteness in difficult speculations but to few. And as he is the Lord of all, he hath not given men equal education, nor advantages for such extraordinary knowledge: nor have all that have leisure and capacity, self-denial and patience enough for so long and difficult studies. But the devil and ourselves have given to all men pride enough, to desire to be thought to be wiser and better than we are; and he that cannot be equal with the wisest and best, would be thought to be so and while all men must needs seem wise, while few are so indeed, you may easily see what must thence follow.

2. And it is not divines only, but all ranks of people, who are sick of this disease. The most unlearned, ignorant people, the silliest women, if they will not for shame say that they are wiser than their teachers in general, yet when it cometh to particular cases, they take themselves to be always in the right: and O how confident are they of it! And who more peremptory and bold in their judgments, than those that least know what they say? It is hard to meet with a person above eighteen or twenty years of age, that is not notably tainted with this malady.

And it is not only these great mischiefs in matters of religion which spring from self-conceitedness; but even in our common converse, it is the cause of disorder, ruin and destruction for it is the common vice of blinded nature, and it is rare to meet with one that is not notably guilty of it, when they are past the state of professed learners.

1. It is ordinary for self-conceited persons to ruin their own estates, and healths, and lives. When they are rashly making ill bargains, or undertaking things which they understand not, they rush on till they find their error too late; and their poverty, prisons or ruined families, must declare their sin for they have not humility enough to seek counsel in time, nor to take it when it is offered them. What great numbers have I heard begging relief from others, under the confession of this sin! And far more, even the

most of men and women, overthrow their health, and lose their lives by it. Experience doth not suffice to teach them what is hurtful to their bodies; and as they know not, so you cannot convince them that they know not. Most per

sons by the excess in quantity of food, do suffocate nature, and lay the foundation of future maladies: and most of the diseases that kill men untimely, are but the effects of former gluttony or excess. But as long as they feel not any present hurt, no man can persuade them but their fulness is for their health, as well as for their pleasure. They will laugh, perhaps, at those that tell them what they do, and what diseases they are preparing for. Let physicians, if they be so honest, tell them, It is the perfection of the nutritive juices, the blood and nervous oil, which are the causes of health in man. Perfect concoction causeth that perfection. Nature cannot perfectly concoct too much, or that which is of too hard digestion. While you feel no harm, your blood groweth dispirited, and being but half concocted, and half blood, doth perform its office accordingly by the halves; till crudities are heaped up, and obstructions fixed, and a dunghill of excrements, or the dispirited humours are ready to take in any disease, which a small occasion offereth; either agues, fevers, coughs, consumptions, pleurisies, dropsies, cholics and windiness, headachs, convulsions, &c., or till the inflammations or other tumours of the inward parts, or the torment of the stone in the reins or bladder, do sharply tell men what they have been doing. A clean body and perfect concoction, which are procured by temperance and bodily labours, which suscitate the spirits, and purify the blood, are the proper means which God in the course of nature hath appointed, for a long and healthful life.'

This is all true, and the reason is evident; and yet this talk will be but despised and derided by the most; and they will say, 'I have so long eaten what I loved, and lived by no such rules as these, and I have found no harm by it.' Yea, if excess have brought diseases on them, if abstinence do but make them more to feel them, they will rather impute their illness to the remedy, than to the proper cause: and so they do about the quality as well as the quantity. Self-conceitedness maketh men incurable. Many an one have I known that daily lived in that fulness which I saw would shortly quench the vital spirits; and fain I would

have saved their lives, but I was not able to make them willing. Had I seen another assault them, I could have done somewhat for them; but when I foresaw their death, I could not save them from themselves. They still said, they found their measures of eating and drinking between meals refresh them, and they were the worse if they forbore it; and they would not believe me against both appetite, reason and experience. And thus have I seen abundance of my acquaintance wilfully hasten to the grave; and all through an unhumbled, self-conceited understanding, which would not be brought to suspect itself, and know its error.

2. And O how often have I seen the dearest friends thus kill their friends; even mothers kill their dearest children, and too often their husbands, kindred, servants and neighbours, by their self-conceit, and confidence in their ignorance and error! Alas, what abundance empty their own houses, gratify covetous landlords, and set their lands by lives, and bring their dearest relations to untimely ends, and a wise man knoweth not how to hinder them! How often and often have I heard ignorant women confidently persuade even their own children to eat as long as they have an appetite, and so they have vitiated their blood and humours in their childhood, that their lives have been either soon ended, or ever after miserable by diseases! How often have I heard them persuade sick or weak, diseased persons, to eat, eat, eat, and take what they have a mind to, when, unless they would poison them, or cut their throats, they could scarcely more certainly dispatch them! How often have these good women been persuading myself, that eating and drinking more would make me better, and that it is abstinence that causeth all my illness, (when excess in my childhood causeth it :) as if every wise woman that doth but know me, knew better what is good for me, than myself, after threescore years experience, or than all the physicians in the city! And had I obeyed them, how many years ago had I been dead!

How ordinary is it for such self-conceited women to obtrude their skill and medicines on their sick neighbours, with the greatest confidence, when they know not what they do! Yea, upon their husbands and children! One can scarcely come about sick persons, but one woman or other is persuading them to take that, or do that which is likely