By the REV. WILLIAM GURNALL.
THE third kind of pride (spiritual pride, I mean) is pride of privileges; with which these wicked spirits labour to blow up the Christian. To name three: First, when God calls a person to some eminent place, or useth him to do some special piece of service. Secondly, when God honours a saint to suffer for His truth or cause. Thirdly, when God flows in with more than ordinary manifestations of His love, and fills the soul with joy and comfort. These are privileges not equally dispensed to all; and therefore, when they are, Satan takes the advantage of assaulting such with pride.
First, when God calls a person to some eminent place, or useth him to do some special piece of service. Indeed it requires a great measure of grace to keep the heart low when the man stands high. The apostle,
speaking how a minister of the gospel should be qualified, saith, he must not be a novice or a young convert, “lest he should be lifted up with pride and fall into the condemnation of the devil” (I Tim. iii. 6). As if he had said, This calling is honourable; if he be not well ballasted with humility, a little gust from Satan will toss him into this sin. The seventy that Christ just sent out to preach the gospel, and prevailed so miraculously over Satan, even these, while they trod on the serpent’s head, he turned again, and was like to have stung them with pride; which our Saviour perceived, when they returned in triumph and told what great miracles they had wrought; and therefore He takes them off the glorying lest it should degenerate into vain glory or bids them “not rejoice that devils were subject to them, but rather that their names were writ in heaven.” As if he had said, It is not the honour of your calling, and success of your ministry that will save you; there will be some cast to the devils, who shall then say, “Lord, Lord, in Thy name we have cast out devils,” and therefore value not yourselves by that; but rather evidence to your souls that ye are of mine elect ones, which will stand you more in stead at the great day than all this.
A second privilege is, when God honours a person to suffer for His truth: this is a great privilege. “Unto you it is given, not only to believe, but to suffer for His sake.” God doth not use to give worthless gifts to His saints: there is some preciousness in it which a carnal eye cannot see. Faith, you will say, is a great gift; but perseverance greater: without which faith would be little worth; and perseverance in suffering, this above both honourable. This made John Careless our English martyr (who, though he died not at the stake, yet in prison for Christ) say “Such an hour it is as angels are not permitted to have, therefore God forgive me mine unthankfulness.” Now when Satan cannot scare a soul from prison, yet then he will flatter him till he prides in himself. Affliction from God exposeth to impatience; for God, to pride; and therefore, Christians, labour to fortify yourselves against this temptation of Satan. How soon you may be called to suffering work, you know not; such clouds oft are not long arising. Now, to keep thy heart humble, when thou art honoured to suffer for the truth, consider.
First. Although thou dost not deserve those sufferings at man’s hand (thou canst and mayest in that regard glory in thy innocence; thou sufferest not as an evil-doer) yet thou canst not but confess it is a just application from God in regard of sin in thee and this methinks should keep thee humble. The same suffering may be martyrdom in regard of man, and yet a fatherly chastising for sin in regard of God. None suffered without sin but Christ; and therefore none may glory in them but He; Christ in His own, we in His. “God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of Christ.” This kept Mr. Bradford humble in his sufferings for the truth: none more rejoiced in them, and blessed God for them, yet none more humble under them than he. And what kept him in this humble frame? Read his godly letters and you shall find almost in all how he bemoans his sins, and the sins of the Protestants under the reign of King Edward:—”It was time,” saith he, “for God to put His rod into the Papists’ hands: we were grown so proud, formal, unfruitful, yea, so as to loathe and despise the means of grace, when we enjoyed the liberty thereof; and therefore God hath brought the wheel of persecution
on us.” As he looked at the honour, to make him thankful; so to sin, to keep him humble.
Secondly, consider who bears thee up, and carries thee through thy sufferings for Christ. Is it thy grace or His that is sufficient for such a work? Thy spirit or Christ’s by which thou speakest, when called to bear witness to the truth? How comes it to pass that thou art a sufferer and not a persecutor; a confessor and not a denier; yea, a betrayer of Christ and His gospel? This thou owest to God; He is not beholden to thee, that thou wilt part with estate, credit or life itself for His sake. If thou hadst a thousand lives, thou wouldst owe them all to Him; but thou art beholden to God exceedingly, that He will call for these in this way, which has such an honour and reward attending it. He might have suffered thee to live in thy lusts, and at last to suffer the loss of all these for them. Oh, how many die at the gallows, as martyrs in the devil’s cause, for felonies, rapes and murders! Or, He might withdraw His grace, and leave this to thy own cowardice or unbelief, and then thou wouldst show thyself in thy colours. The stoutest champions of Christ have been taught how weak they are if Christ steps aside. Some have given great testimony of their faith and resolution in Christ’s cause, even to come so near dying for His name as to give themselves to be bound to the stake, and fire to be kindled upon them, yet their hearts have failed; as that holy man, Mr. Benbridge, in our English martyrology, who thrust the faggots from him and cried out, “I recant! I recant!” Yet this man, when reinforced in his faith, and endowed with power from above, was able within the space of a week after that sad foil, to die at the stake cheerfully: “Qui pro nobis mortem simul vicit, semper in nobis vicit” (“He that overcame death for us, is He that always overcomes death in us”). And who should be thy song but He that is thy strength? Applaud not thyself, but bless Him. It is one of God’s names: He is called the “glory of His people’s strength.” The more thou gloriest in God that gives thee strength to suffer for Him, the less thou wilt boast of thyself. A thankful heart and a proud cannot dwell together in one bosom.
Thirdly, consider what a foul blot, pride gives to all thy sufferings, when it is not bewailed and resisted; it alters the case. The old saying is, that it is not the punishment but the cause makes the martyr; we may safely say further, it is not barely the cause, but the sincere frame of the heart in suffering for a good cause, that makes a man a martyr in God’s sight. Though thou shouldst give thy body to be burned, if thou hast not a humble heart of a sufferer for Christ, thou turnest merchant for thyself. Thou deniest but one self to set up another; runnest the hazard of thy estate and life to gain some applause, it may be, and rear up a monument to thy honour in the opinions of men; thou dost no more in this case than a soldier, or for the name of valour will venture into the mouth of danger and death; only thou showest thy pride under a religious disguise; yet that helps it not, but makes it the worse. If thou wilt in thy sufferings be a sacrifice acceptable to God, thou must not only be ready to offer up thy life for His truth, but sacrifice thy pride also, or else thou mayest tumble out of one fire into another; suffer here from man as a seeming champion for the gospel, and in another world from God, for robbing Him of the glory of thy sufferings.