_Direct._ I. Get your own hearts into a humble frame; and abhor all the motions of pride and self-exalting. A humble man hath no high expectations from another; and therefore is easily pleased or quieted. He can bow and yield to the pride and violence of others, as the willow to the impetuous winds. His language will be submissive; his patience great; he is content that others go before him; he is not offended that another is preferred. A low mind is pleased in a low condition. But pride is the gunpowder of the mind, the family, the church, and state; it maketh men ambitious, and setteth them on striving who shall be the greatest. A proud man's opinion must always go for truth, and his will must be a law to others, and to be slighted or crossed seemeth to him an unsufferable wrong. And he must be a man of wonderful compliance, or an excellent artificer in man-pleasing and flattery, that shall not be taken as an injurious undervaluer of him: he that overvalueth himself, will take it ill of all that do not also overvalue him. If you (forgetfully) go before him, or overlook him, or neglect a compliment, or deny him something which he expected, or speak not honourably of him, much more if you reprove him, and tell him of his faults, you have put fire to the gunpowder, you have broke his peace, and he will break yours if he can. Pride broke the peace between God and the apostate angels; but nothing unpeaceable must be in heaven; and therefore by self-exalting they descended into darkness; and Christ by self-humbling ascended unto glory. It is a matter of very great difficulty to live peaceably in any family, church, or society with any one that is very proud. They expect so much of you, that you can never answer all their expectations, but will displease them by your omissions, though you neither speak or do any thing to displease them. What is it but the lust of pride which causeth most of the wars and bloodshed throughout the world? The pride of two or three men, must cost many thousands of their subjects the loss of their peace, estates, and lives. _Delirant reges, plectuntur Achivi._ What were the conquests of those emperors, Alexander, Cæsar, Tamerlane, Mahomet, &c. but the pernicious effects of their infamous pride; which like gunpowder taking fire in their breasts, did blow up so many cities and kingdoms, and call their villanies by the name of valour, and their murders and robberies by the name of war? If one man's pride do swell so big, that his own kingdom cannot contain it, the peace of as much of the world as he can conquer is taken to be but a reasonable sacrifice to this infernal vice. The lives of thousands, both subjects and neighbours, (called enemies by this malignant spirit,) must be cast away, merely to make this one man the ruler of the rest, and subdue the persons of others to his will. Who perhaps when he hath done, will say that he is no tyrant, but maketh the _bonum publicum_ his end; and is kind to men against their wills;