This is the dependent, helpless poverty of our state, which is a great reason for humility. For since we neither are, nor can do any thing of ourselves; to be proud of any thing that we are, or of any thing that we can do, and to ascribe glory to ourselves for these things, has the guilt both of _stealing_ and _lying_. It has the guilt of stealing, as it gives to ourselves those things which only belong to God. It has the guilt of lying, as it is denying the truth of our state, and pretending to be something that we are not. ♦3. The misery of our condition appears in this, that we use these _borrowed_ powers of our nature, to the _torment_ and _vexation_ of ourselves, and our fellow creatures. ♦ Numbers 1. and 2. omitted in text. *God has entrusted us with reason, and we use it to the disorder and corruption of our nature. We reason ourselves into all kinds of folly and misery, and make our lives the sport of foolish and extravagant passions: seeking after imaginary happiness in all kinds, creating to ourselves a thousand wants, amusing our hearts with false hopes and fears, using the world worse than irrational animals, envying, vexing, and tormenting one another with restless passions, and unreasonable contentions. Let any man but look back upon his own life, and see what use he has made of his reason. What foolish _passions_, what vain _thoughts_, what needless _labours_, what extravagant _projects_, have taken up the greatest part of his life: how foolish he has been in his _words_ and _conversation_; how seldom he has been able to _please_ himself, and how often he has _displeased_ others; how often he has changed his counsels, hated what he loved, and loved what he hated; how often he has been enraged and transported at _trifles_, pleased and displeased with the very _same things_, and constantly changing from one vanity to another. Let a man but take this view of his own life, and he will see cause enough to confess, _that pride was not made for man_. *Let him but consider, that if the world knew all that of him, which he knows of himself; if they saw what _vanity_ and _passions_ govern his inside, and what secret _tempers_ sully and corrupt his best actions, he would have no more pretence to be honoured and admired for his _goodness_ and _wisdom_, than a _rotten_ and _distempered_ body to be loved and admired for its _health_ and _comeliness_. 4. This is so true, and so known to the hearts of almost all people, that nothing would appear more dreadful to them, than to have their hearts thus fully discovered to the eyes of all beholders. And perhaps there are very few people in the world, who would not rather chuse to die, than to have all their _secret_ follies, the vanity of their minds, the frequency of their _vain_ and disorderly _passions_, their _uneasiness_, _hatreds_, _envies_, and _vexations_, made known unto the world. And shall pride be entertained in a heart thus _conscious_ of its own _miserable behaviour_?