_Direct._ XII. Take heed that command or successes do not puff you up and make you overvalue yourselves, and incline you to rebel against your governors. What lamentable effects hath England lately seen of this! A silly, half-witted soldier, if he be but made a captain, doth carry it as if he were wiser than the preachers, or the judge! as if his dignity had added to his wit! When victories have laid the power at men's feet, and they think now that none is able to control them, how few are they that abuse not such success to their undoing, and are not conquered by the pride of their own hearts, when they have conquered others! How ordinarily do they mis-expound the providence of God, and think he hath put the government into their hands, because they have the strength; and from the histories of former successful rebels, and the fairness of their opportunity, encourage themselves to rebel, and think they do but what is their duty! How easily do they justify themselves in those unlawful deeds, which impartial by-standers see the evil of! And how easily do they quiet their consciences, when they have but power enough to raise up flatterers, and to stop the mouth of wholesome reprehension! How lamentably doth prosperity make them drunk, and sudden advancement overturn their brains! And their greatness, together with their pride and fury, preserveth them from the accesses of wisdom, and of sober men, that so their malady may have no remedy: and there, like a drunken man, they rave awhile, and speak big words, and lay about them, and glory in the honour of a pestilence, that they can kill men; and we must not speak to them, till their heads are settled, and they come to themselves, and that is not usually till the hand of God have laid them lower than it found them, and then perhaps they will again hear reason; unless pride hath left their souls as desperate as at last it doth their bodies or estates. The experience of this age may stand on record, as a teacher to future generations, what power there is in great successes, to conquer both reason, religion, righteousness, professions, vows, and all obligations to God and man, by puffing up the heart with pride, and thereby making the understanding drunken. [123] Neander in Chron. p. 104. [124] And though I ignore not that it is a much more fashionable and celebrated practice in young gentlemen to kill men, than to cure them; and that mistaken mortals think it to be the noblest exercise of virtue, to destroy the noblest workmanship of nature, (and indeed in some few cases, the requisiteness and danger of destructive valour, may make its actions become a virtuous patriot,) yet when I consider the character given of our great Master and Exemplar, that he went about doing good, and healing all manner of sicknesses--I cannot but think such an employment worthy of the very noblest of his disciples. Mr. Boyle's Experiment. Philos. p. 303, 304. CHAPTER VIII. DIRECTIONS AGAINST MURDER.