A LEARNED SERMON OF THE NATURE OF PRIDE, BY RICHARD HOOKER, SOMEtimes fellow of Corpus Christi College in Oxford.  
AC: OX   printer's or publisher's device 
AT OXFORD, Printed by joseph Barnes, and are to be sold by John Barnes dwelling near Holborn Conduit. 1612.   
ABAC. 2. 4. His mind swelleth and is not right in him: But the just by his faith shall live. 
THE nature of man being much more delighted to be led then drawn, doth many times stubbornly resist authority when to persuasion it easily yieldeth. Where upon the wisest Lawmakers have endeavoured always that those laws might seem most reasonable which they would have most inviolably kept. A law simply commanding or forbidding is but dead in comparison of that which expresseth the reason wherefore it doth the one or the other. And surely even in the Laws of God, although that he hath given commandment, be in itself a reason sufficient to exact all obedience at the hands of men: yet a forcible inducement it is to obey with greater alacrity and cheerfulness of mind, when we see plainly that nothing is imposed more than we must needs yield unto, except we willbe unreasonable. In a word, whatsoever we be taught, be it precept for direction of our manners, or article for instruction of our faith, or document any way for information of our minds, it than taketh root and abideth when we conceive not only what God doth speak, but why. Neither is it a small thing which we derogate as well from the honour of his truth, as from the comfort, joy, & delight which we ourselves should take by it, when we loosely slide over his speech as though it were as our own is, commonly vulgar and trivial: whereas he uttereth nothing but it hath beside the substance of doctrine delivered a depth of wisdom in the very choice and frame of words to deliver it in: the reason whereof being not perceived but by greater intention of brain than our nice minds for the most part can well away with, fain we would bring the world if we might to think it but a needless curiosity to rip up any thing further than extemporal readiness of wit doth serve to reach unto. Which course if here we did list to follow, we might tell you that in the first branch of this sentence God doth condemn the Babylonians pride, and in the second teach what happiness of state shall grow to the righteous by the constancy of their faith, notwithstanding the troubles which now they suffer; and after certain notes of wholesome instruction hereupon collected, pass over without detaining your minds in any further removed speculation. But as I take it there is a difference between the talk that beseemeth Nurses amongst children, & that which men of capacity and judgement do or should receive instruction by.  
The mind of the Prophet being erected with that which hath been hitherto spoken, receiveth here for full satisfaction, a short abridgement of that which is afterwards more particularly unfolded. Wherefore as the question befores disputed of doth concern two sorts of men, the wicked flourishing as the Bay, and the righteous like the withered grass; the one full of pride the other cast down with utter discouragement: so the answer which God doth make for resolution of doubts hereupon arisen hath reference unto both sorts, & this present sentence containing a brief abstract thereof, comprehendeth summarily as well the fearful estate of iniquity over exalted, as the hope laid up for righteousness oppressed. In the former branch of which sentence, let us first examine what this rectitude or straightness importeth which God denieth to be in the mind of the Babylonian. All things which God did create he made them at the first, true good, and right. True, in respect of correspondence unto that pattern of their being, which was eternally drawn in the counsel of Gods fore knowledge; Good, in regard of the use and benefit which each thing yieldeth unto other; Right, by an apt conformity of all parts with that end which is outwardly proposed for each thing to tend unto. Other things have ends proposed, but have not the faculty to know, judge, and esteem of them, and therefore as they tend thereunto unwittingly, so likewise in the means whereby they acquire their appointed ends, they are by necessity so held, that they cannot divert from them. The ends why the heavens do move, the heavens themselves know not, and their motions they cannot but continue. Only men in all their actions know what it is which they seek for, neither are they by any such necessity tied naturally unto any certain determinate mean to obtain their end by, but that they may, if they will, forsake it. And therefore in the whole world no creature but only man which hath the last end of his actions proposed as a recompense and reward: whereunto his mind directly bending itself, is termed right or strait, otherwise perverse.  
To make this somewhat more plain, we must note, that as they which travel from city to city, inquire ever for the straightest way, because the straightest is that which soonest bringeth them unto their journeys end: So we having here as the Apostle speaketh no abiding City, but being always in travel towards that place of joy, immortality, and rest, cannot but in every of our deeds, words, and thoughts, think that to be best which with most expedition leadeth us thereunto, and is for that very cause termed right. That Sovereign good, which is the eternal fruition of all good, being our last and chiefest felicity, there is no desperate despiser of God and godliness living which doth not wish for. The difference between right and crooked minds, is in the means which the one or the other do eschew or follow. Certain it is, that all particular things which are naturally desired in the world, as food, raiment, honour, wealth, pleasure, knowledge, they are subordinated in such wise unto that future good which we look for in the world to come, that even in them there lieth a direct way tending unto this. Otherwise we must think that God making promises of good things in this life, did seek to pervert men & to lead them from their right minds. Where is then the obliquity of the mind of man? His mind is perverse, came, and crooked, not when it bendeth itself unto any of these things, but when it bendeth so, that it swarveth either to the right hand or to the left by excess or defect from that exact rule whereby human actions are measured. The rule to measure and judge them by is the law of God. For this cause the Prophet doth make so often and so earnest suit, O direct me in the way of thy commandments: As long as I have respect to thy Statutes I am sure not to tread amiss. Under the name of the Law we must comprehend not only that which God hath written in tables and leaves, but that which nature also hath engraven in the hearts of men. Else how shall those heathen which never had books but heaven and earth to look upon be convicted of perverseness? But the Gentiles which had not the law in books, had, saith the Apostle, the effect of the law written in their hearts.  
Then seeing that the heart of man is not right exactly unless it be found in all parts such that God examining and calling it unto account with all severity of rigour be not able once to charge it with declining or suarving aside, (which absolute perfection when did God ever find in the sons of mere mortal men?) Doth it not follow that all flesh must of necessity fall down and confess, we are not dust and ashes but worse, our minds from the highest to the lowest are not right? If not right, then undoubtedly not capable of that blessedness which we naturally seek, but subject unto that which we most abhor, anguish, tribulation, death, woe, endless misery. For whatsoever misseth the way of life, the issue thereof cannot be but perdition. By which reason all being wrapped up in sin, and made thereby the children of death, the minds of all men being plainly convicted not to be right: shall we think that God hath endued them with so many excellencies, more not only then any, but then all the creatures in the world beside, to leave them in such estate that they had been happier if they had never been? Here cometh necessarily in a new way unto salvation, so that they which were in the other perverse, may in this be found strait and righteous. That the way of nature, this the way of grace. The end of that way salvation merited presupposing the righteousness of men's works, their righteousness a natural ability to do them, that ability the goodness of God which created them in such perfection. But the end of this way salvation bestowed upon men as a gift presupposing not their righteousness, but the forgiveness of their unrighteousness, justification; their justification not their natural ability to do good, but their hearty sorrow for not doing, & unfeigned belief in him for whose sake not doers are accepted, which is their vocation; their vocation the election of God taking them out from the number of lost children; their election a mediator in whom to be elect; this mediation inexplicable mercy, his mercy their misery, for whom he vouchsafed to make himself a mediator. The want of exact distinguishing between these two ways, and observing what they have common, what peculiar, hath been the cause of the greatest part of that confusion whereof christianity at this day laboureth. The lack of diligence in searching, laying down, and invring men's minds with those hidden grounds of reason, whereupon the least particulars in each of these are most firmly and strongly builded; is the only reason of all those scruples and uncertainties wherewith we are in such sort entangled that a number despair of ever discerning what is right or wrong in any thing. But we will let this matter rest whereinto we stepped to search out away how some minds may be and are right truly even in the sight of God, though they be simply in themselves not right.  
Howbeit there is not only this difference between the just and impious, that the mind of the one is right in the sight of God because his obliquity is imputed, the other perverse because his sin is unrepented of: but even as lines that are drawn with a trembling hand, but yet to the point which they should, are thought ragged and uneven, nevertheless direct in comparison of them which run clean another way; so there is no incongruity in terming them right minded men, whom though God may charge with many things amiss, yet they are not as those hideous and ugly monsters, in whom because there is nothing but wilful opposition of mind against God, a more than tolerable deformity is noted in them by saying that their minds are not right. The Angel of the Church of Thyatira unto whom the son of God sendeth this greeting, I know thy works and thy love, and service, and faith: Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee, was not as he unto whom St Peter, Thou hast no fellowship in this business, for thy heart is not right in the sight of God. So that whereas the orderly disposition of the mind of man should be this, perturbations and sensual appetities all kept in awe by a moderate and sober will; will in all things framed by reason; reason directed by the law of God and nature; this Babyloman had his mind as it were turned upside down. In him unreasonable cecity and blindness trampled all laws both of God and nature under feet; wilfulness tyrannised over reason, & brutish sensuality over will. An evident token that his outrage would work his overthrow and procure his speedy ruin. The mother whereof was that which the Prophet in these words signifieth; His mind doth swell.  
Immoderate swelling, a token of very eminent breach, and of inevitable destruction; Pride, a vice which cleaveth so fast unto the hearts of men that if we were to strip ourselves of all faults one by one, we should undoubtedly find it the very last and hardest to put of. But I am not here to touch the secret itching humour of vanity wherewith men are generally touched. It was a thing more than meanly inordinate wherewith the Babylonian did swell. Which that we may both the better conceive, and the more easily reap profit by the nature of this vice which sets the whole world out of course, and hath put so many even of the wisest besides themselves, is first of all to be inquired into; secondly the dangers to be discovered, which it draweth inevitable after it, being not cured; and last of all the ways to cure it.  
Whether we look upon the gifts of nature, or of grace, or whatsoever is in the world admired as a part of man's excellency, adorning his body, beutifying his mind, or externally any way commending him in the account and opinion of men, there is in every kind somewhat possible which no man hath, and somewhat had which few men can attain unto. By occasion whereof there groweth disparagement necessarily; and by occasion of disparagement, pride through men's ignorance. First therefore although men be not proud of any thing which is not at the least in opinion good, yet every good thing they are not proud of, but only of that which neither is common unto many, and being desired of all, causeth them which have it to be honoured above the rest. Now there is no man so void of brain, as to suppose that pride consisteth in the bare possession of such things; for then to have virtue were a vice, and they should be the happiest men who are most wretched, because they have least of that which they would have. And though in speech we do intimate a kind of vanity to be in them of whom we say, They are wise men and they know it, yet this doth not prove that everywise man is proud which doth not think himself to be blockish. What we may have and know that we have it without offence, do we then make offensive when we take joy and delight in having it? What difference between men enriched with all abundance of earthly and heavenly blessings, and Idols gorgeously attired, but this, the one takes pleasure in that which they have, the other none? If we may be possessed with beauty, strength, riches, power, knowledge, if we may be privy what we are every way, if glad and joyful for our own welfare and in all this remain unblamable, nevertheless some there are who granting thus much, doubt whether it may stand with humility to except those testimonies of praise and commendation, those titles, rooms, and other honours which the world yieldeth as acknowledgements of some men's excellency above others. For in as much as Christ hath said unto those that are his; The kings of the Gentiles reign over them, and they that bear rule over them are called gracious Lords: Be ye not so; The Anabaptist hereupon urgeth equality amongst Christians, as if all exercise of authority were nothing else but heathenish pride. Our Lord and saviour had no such meaning. But his Disciples feeding themselves with a vain imagination for the time, that the Messias of the world should in jerusalem erect his throne, and exercise dominion with great pomp and outward stateliness, advanced in honour and terrene power above all the Princes of the earth, began to think how with their Lord's condition, their own would also rise: that having left and forsaken all to follow him, their place about him should not be mean: & because they were many it troubled them much, which of the should be the greatest man. When sure was made for two by name, that of them one might sit at his right hand, and the other at his left, the rest began to stomach, each taking it grievously that any should have what all did affect. Their Lord and Master to correct this humour turneth aside their cogitations from these vain and fanciful conceits, giving them plainly to understand that they did but deceive themselves. His coming was not to purchase an earthly but to bestow an heavenly kingdom, wherein they (if any) shallbe greatest whom unfeigned humility maketh in this world lowest, & least amongst others: Ye are they which have continued with me in my temptations, therefore I leave unto you a kingdom as my father hath appointed me, that ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, 
Luk. 22, 28.  & sit on seats, & judge the twelve tribes of Israel. But my kingdom is no such kingdom as ye dream of. And therefore these hungry ambitious contentions are seemlier in heathens than in you. Wherefore from Christ's intent and purpose nothing further removed than dislike of distinctions in titles and callings annexed for order's sake unto authority, whether it be Ecclesiastical or civil. And when we have examined thoroughly what the nature of this vice is no man knowing it, can he so simple as not to see an ugly: shape thereof apparent many times in rejecting honours offered, then in the very exacting of them at the hands of men. For as judas his care for the poor was mere covetousness, and that franckhearted wastefulness spoken of in the Gospel, thrift; so there is no doubt but that going in rags may be pride, and thrones be challenged with unfeigned humility.  
We must go further therefore and enter somewhat deeper before we can come to the closet wherein this poison lieth. There is in the heart of every proud man, first an error of understanding; a vain opinion where by he thinketh his own excellency, and by reason thereof, his worthiness of estimation, regard, and honour, to be greater than in truth it is. This maketh him in all his affections accordingly to raise up himself, & by his inward affections his outward acts are fashioned. Which if you list to have exemplified, you may either by calling to mind things spoken of them whom God himself hath in Scripture specially noted with this fault, or by presenting to your secret cogitations that which you daily behold in the odious lives & manners of high minded men. It were too long to gather together so plentiful an harvest of examples in this kind as the sacred Scripture affordeth. That which we drink in at our ears doth not so percingly enter, as that which the mind doth conceive by sight. Is there any thing written concerning the Assyrian Monarch in the 10. of Esay, of his swelling mind, his haughty looks, his great and presumptuous vaunts; By the power of mine own hand I have done all things, and by mine own wisdom I have subdued the world? Any thing concerning the dames of Zion in the third of the Prophet Esay, of their stretched out necks, their immodesteys, their pageantlike, stately, and pompous gate? Any thing concerning the practices of Corah, Dathan, and Abiram; of their impatience to live in subjection, their mutinies, repining at lawful authority, their grudging against their superiors Ecclesiastical and Civil? Any thing concerning pride in any sort or sect which the present face of the world doth not as in a glass represent to the view of all men's beholding? So that if books, both profane and holy, were all lost, as long as the manners of men retain the state they are in: for him which observeth how that when men have once conceived an overweening of themselves it maketh them in all their affections to swell how deadly their hatred, how heavy their displeasunre, how unappeasable their indignation and wrath is above other men's, in what manner they compose themselves to be as Heteroclites without the compass of all such rules as common sort are measured by; how the oaths which religious hearts do tremble at they affect as principal graces of speech; what felicity they take to see the enormity of their crimes above the reach of laws and punishments; how much it delighteth them when they are able to appall with the cloudiness of their look; how far they exceed the terms wherewith man's nature should be limited; how high they bear their heads over others, how they browbeat all men which do not receive their sentences as oracles with marvelous applause and approbation; how they look upon no man but with an indirect countenance, nor hear any thing saving their own praise with patience, nor speak without scornfulness and disdain; how they use their servants as if they were beasts, their inferiors as servants, their equals as inferiors, and as for superiors acknowledge none; how they admire themselves as venerable, puissant, wise, circumspect, provident, every way great, taking all men besides themselves for ciphers, poor, inglorious, silly creatures, needless burdens of the earth, of scour nothing: in a word for him which marketh how irregular and exorbitant they are in all things, it can be no hard thing hereby to gather, that pride is nothing but an inordinate elation of the mind proceeding from a false conceit of men's excellency in things honoured, which accordingly frameth also their deeds and behaviour unless there be cunning to conceal it. For a foul scar may be covered with a fair cloth. And as proud as Lucifer, may be in outward appearance lowly.  
No man expecteth grapes of thistles: nor from a thing of so bad a nature can other then suitable fruits be looked for, What harm soever in private families there groweth by disobedience of children, stubbornness of servants, untractablenesse in them, who, although they otherwise may rule, yet should in consideration of the imparity of their sex be also subject; whatsoever by strife amongst men combined in the fellowship of greater societies, by tyranny of potentates, ambition of nobles, rebellion of subjects in civil states; by heresies, schisms, divisions in the Church; naming pride we name the mother which brought them forth, and the only nurse that feedeth them. Give me the hearts of all men humbled, and what is there that can overthrew or disturb the peace of th● world? Wherein many things are the cause of much evil, but pride of all.  
To declaim of the swarms of evils issuing, out of pride is an easy labour. I rather wish that I could exactly prescribe and persuade effectually the remedies whereby a so are so grievous might be cured, and the means how the pride of swelling minds might be taken down. Whereunto so much we have already gained, that the evidence of the cause which breedeth it pointeth directly unto the likeliest and fittest helps to take it away: diseases that come of fullness, emptiness must remove. Pride is not cured, but by abating the error which causeth the mind to swell. Then seeing that they swell by misconceit of their own excellency; for this cause all which tend to the beating down of their pride, whether it be advertisement from men, or from God himself chastisement, it than maketh them cease to be proud, when it causeth them to see their error in overseeing the thing they were proud of. At this mark job in his apology unto his eloquent friends aimeth. For perceiving how much they delighted to hear themselves talk, as if they had given their poor afflicted familiar a schooling of marvelous deep and rare instruction, as if they had taught him more than all the world beside could acquaint him with, his answer was to this effect. Ye swell as though ye had conceived some greater matter, but as for that which ye are delivered of who knoweth it not? Is any man ignorant of these things? At the same mark the blessed Apostle driveth; ye abound in all things, ye are rich, ye reign, and would to Christ we did reign with you. But boast not. For what have ye or are ye of yourselves? To this mark all those humble confessions are referred, which have been always frequent in the mouths of Saints truly wading in the trial of themselves: as that of the Prophet, we are nothing but soreness and festered corruption, our very light is darkness and our righteousness itself unrighteousness; that of Gregory, Let no man ever put confidence in his own deserts, Sordet in conspectu indicis, quod fulget in conspectu operantis, In the fight of that dreadful judge it is noisome, which in the doers judgement maketh a beautiful show; That of Anselm, I adore thee, I bless thee Lord God of heaven and redeemer of the world with all the power, ability, and strength of my heart and soul, for thy goodness so unmeasurably extended, not in regard of my merits whereunto only torments were due, but of thy mere unprocured benignity. If these fathers should be raised again from the dust and have the books laid open before them wherein such sentences are found as this Works no other than the value, desert, price, and worth of the joys of the kingdom of heaven; 
Annot. ●he● in 1. Cor. 3.  Heaven in relation to our works as the very stipend which the hired labourer covenanteth to have of him whose works he doth, a thing equally and tustly answering unto the time and weight of his travails rather than to a voluntary or bountiful gift. If I say those reverend fore-rehearsed fathers whose books are so full of sentences witnessing their Christian humility should be raised from the dead, and behold with their eyes such things written; would they not plainly pronounce of the authors of such writ, that they were fuller of Lucifer then of Christ, that they were proud-hearted men, and carried more swelling minds then sincerely and feelingly known Christianity can tolerate?  
But as unruly children with whom wholesome admonition prevaileth little are notwithstanding brought to fear that ever after which they have once well smarted for: so the mind which falleth not with instruction, yet under the rod of divine chastisement ceaseth to swell. If therefore the Prophet David instructed by good experience have acknowledged, Lord I was even at the point of clean forgetting myself, and so straying from my right mind: but thy rod hath been my reformer, it hath been good for me even as much as my foul is worth that I have been with sorrow troubled: if the blessed Apostle did need the corrosive of sharp and bitter strokes lest his heart should swell with too great abundance of heavenly revelations, surely upon us whatsoever God in this world doth, or shall inflict, it cannot seem more than our pride doth exact, not only by way of revenge, but of remedy. So hard it is to cure afore of such quality as pride is, in as much as that which rooteth out other vices, causeth this, and (which is even above all conceit) if we were clean from all spot & blemish both of other faults and of pride, the fall of Angels doth make it almost a question whether we might not need a preservative still lest we should happily wax proud that we are not proud. What is virtue but a medicine, and vice but a wound? Yet we have so often deeply wounded ourselves with medicines, that God hath been fain to make wounds medicinable, to cure by vice where virtue hath stricken, to suffer the just man to fall that being raised he may be taught what power it was which upheld him standing. I am not afraid to affirm it boldly with S. Augustine, that men puffed up through a proud opinion of their own sanctity and holiness receive a benefit at the hands of God and are assisted with his grace, when with his grace they are not assisted but permitted & that grievously to transgress, whereby as they were in over great liking of themselves supplanted, so the dislike of that which did supplant them may establish them afterwards the surer. Ask the very soul of Peter, and it shall undoubtedly make you itself this answer; my eager protestations made in the glory of my ghostly strength I am ashamed of, but those christ all tears wherewith my sin and weakness was bewailed have procured my endless joy, my strength hath been my ruin, and my fall my stay.  
FINIS.