CHAPTER IX.

1. The third evil effect of pride is love of honour and respect. Too many are guilty of it.--2. It had like to have cost Mordecai dear. Great mischief has befallen nations on this account.--3. The world is out in the business of true honour, as well as in that of true science.--4. Reasons why the author, and the rest of the people he walks with, use not these fashions.--5. The first is, the sense they had in the hour of their conviction, of the unsuitableness of them to the Christian spirit and practice, and that the root they came from was pride and self-love.--6. Reproach could not move them from that sense and practice accordingly.--7. They do it not to make sects, or for distinction.--8. Nor yet to countenance formality, but passively let drop vain customs, and so are negative to forms.--9. Their behaviour is a test upon the world.--10. And this cross to the world a test upon them.--11. The second reason against them is their emptiness.--12. Honour in Scripture is not so taken as it is in the world. It is used for obedience.--13. It is used for preferments.--14. A digression about folly in a Scripture sense.--15. Honour is used for reputation.--16. Honour is also attributed to functions and capacities, by way of esteem.--17. Honour is taken for help and countenance of inferiors.--18. Honour is used for service and esteem to all states and capacities: honour all men.--19. Yet there is a limitation, in a sense, to the righteous, by the Psalmist; to honour the godly, and contemn the wicked.--20. Little of this honour found in the world's fashions.--21. The third reason against them is, they mock and cheat people of the honour due to them.--22. The author and his friends are for true honour.--23. The fourth reason is, that if the fashions carried true honour in them, the debauched could honour men, which cannot be.--24. The fifth reason is, that then men of spite, hypocrisy, and revenge, could pay honour, which is impossible.--25. The sixth reason is drawn from the antiquity of true honour.--26. The seventh reason is from the rise of the vain honour, and the teachers of it, wherein the clown, upon a comparison, excels the courtier for a man of breeding.--27. The eighth reason against these honours is, that they may be had for money, which true honour cannot be.--28. The ninth and last reason is, because the holy Scripture expressly forbids them to true Christians.--29. As in the case of Mordecai.--30. A passage between a bishop and the author in this matter.--31. Likewise the case of Elihu in Job.--32. Also the doctrine of CHRIST to his disciples.--33. Paul against conforming to the world's fashions.--34. Peter against fashioning ourselves according to the world's lusts.--35. James against respect to persons.--36. Yet Christians are civil and mannerly in a right way.--37. But unlike the world in the nature of it, and motives to it.--38. Testimonies in favour of our dissent and practice.

I. The third evil effect of pride, is an excessive desire of personal honour and respect.

Pride, therefore loves power, that she might have homage, and that every one may give her honour, and such as are wanting in that, expose themselves to her anger and revenge. And as pride, so this evil effect is more or less diffused through corrupt mankind; and has been the occasion of great animosity, and mischief in the world.

II. We have a pregnant instance in holy writ, what malice and revenge proud man is capable of, when not gratified in this particular. It had almost cost Mordecai his neck, and the whole people of the Jews their lives, because he would not bow himself to Haman, who was a great favourite to king Ahasuerus. And the practice of the world, even in our own age, will tell us, that not striking a flag or sail, and not saluting certain ports or garrisons, yea, less things have given rise to mighty wars between states and kingdoms, to the expense of much treasure, but more blood. The like has followed about the precedency of princes and their ambassadors. Also the envy, quarrels, and mischiefs that have happened among private persons, upon conceit that they have not been respected to their degree or quality among men, without hat, knee, or title: to be sure, duels and murders not a few. I was once myself in France[3] set upon about eleven at night, as I was walking to my lodging, by a person that waylaid me, with his naked sword in his hand, who demanded satisfaction of me for taking no notice of him, at a time when he civilly saluted me with his hat; though the truth was, I saw him not when he did it. I will suppose he had killed me, for he made several passes at me, or I, in my defence, had killed him, when I disarmed him, as the earl of Crawford's servant saw, that was by; I ask any man of understanding or conscience, if the whole ceremony was worth the life of a man, considering the dignity of the nature, and the importance of the life of man, both with respect to God his Creator, himself, and the benefit of civil society.

[3] Which was before I professed the communion I am now of.

III. But the truth is, the world, under its degeneracy from God, is as much out of the way as to true honour and respect, as in other things; for mere shows, and those vain ones, too, are much of the honour and respect that are expressed in the world; that a man may say concerning them, as the apostle speaks of science, that is, they are honours and respects falsely so called; having nothing of the nature of true honour and respect in them: but as degenerate men, loving to be honoured, first devised them, so pride only loves and seeks them, and is affronted and angry for want of them. Did men know a true Christian state, and the honour that comes from above, which JESUS teaches, they would not covet these very vanities, much less insist upon them.

IV. And here give me leave to set down the reasons more particularly, why I, and the people with whom I walk in religious society, have declined, as vain and foolish, several worldly customs and fashions of respect, much in request at this time of day: and I beseech thee, reader, to lay aside all prejudice and scorn, and with the meekness and inquiry of a sober and discreet mind, read and weigh what may be here alleged in our defence: and if we are mistaken, rather pity and inform, than despise and abuse our simplicity.

V. The first and most pressing motive upon our spirits, to decline the practice of these present customs, pulling off the hat, bowing the body or knee, and giving people gaudy titles and epithets in our salutations and addresses, was that savour, sight and sense of God, by his light and Spirit given us, of the Christian world's apostacy from God, and the cause and effects of that great and lamentable defection. In the discovery of which the sense of our state came first before us, and we were made to see him whom we pierced, and to mourn for it. A day of humiliation overtook us, and we fainted to that pleasure and delight we once loved. Now our works went beforehand to judgment, and a thorough search was made, and the words of the prophet became well understood by us; "Who can abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appears?" "He is like a refiner's fire, and like fullers' soap." (Mal. iii. 2.) And as the apostle said, "If the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?" (1 Peter, iv. 18.) "Wherefore," says the apostle Paul, "knowing the terror of the Lord, we persuade men:" (2 Cor. v. 11:) what to do? To come out of the nature, spirit, lusts, and customs of this wicked world: remembering that, as Jesus has said, "For every idle word that man shall speak, he shall give account thereof in the day of judgment." (Matt. xii. 36.)

This concern of mind and dejection of spirit was visible to our neighbours; and we are not ashamed to own, that the terrors of the Lord took such hold upon us, because we had long, under a profession of religion, grieved God's Holy Spirit, that reproved us in secret for our disobedience; that as we abhorred to think of continuing in our old sins, so we feared to use lawful things, lest we should use them unlawfully. Our heaven seemed to melt away, and our earth to be removed out of its place; and we were like men, as the apostle said, upon whom the ends of the world were come. God knows it was so in this day; the brightness of his coming to our souls discovered, and the breath of his mouth destroyed every plant he had not planted in us. He was a swift witness against every evil thought and every unfruitful work; and, blessed be his name, we were not offended in him, or at his righteous judgments. Now it was that a grand inquest came upon our whole life: every word, thought, and deed was brought to judgment, the root examined, and its tendency considered. "The lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life," (1 John, ii. 16,) were opened to our view; the mystery of iniquity in us. And by knowing the evil leaven, and its divers evil effects in ourselves, how it had wrought, and what it had done, we came to have a sense and knowledge of the states of others: and what we could not, nay, we dare not let live and continue in ourselves, as being manifested to us to proceed from an evil principle in the time of man's degeneracy, we could not comply with in others. Now this I say, and that in the fear and presence of the all-seeing, just God, the present honours and respect of the world, among other things, became burdensome to us: we saw they had no being in paradise, that they grew in the night-time, and came from an ill root; and that they only delighted a vain and ill mind, and that much pride and folly were in them.

VI. And though we easily foresaw the storms of reproach that would fall upon us for our refusing to practise them; yet we were so far from being shaken in our judgment, that it abundantly confirmed our sense of them. For so exalted a thing is man, and so loving of honour and respect, even from his fellow-creatures, that so soon as in tenderness of conscience towards God we could not perform them as formerly, he became more concerned than for all the rest of our differences, however material to salvation. So that let the honour of God and our own salvation do as it will, it was greater heresy and blasphemy to refuse him the homage of the hat, and his usual titles of honour; to deny to pledge his healths, or play with him at cards and dice, than any other principle we maintained: for being less in his view, it seemed not so much in his way.

VII. And though it be frequently objected that we seek to set up outward forms of preciseness, and that is but as a green riband, the badge of the party, the better to be known: I do declare, in the fear of Almighty God, that these are but the imaginations and vain constructions of insensible men, that have not had that sense which the Lord hath given us, of what arises from the right and the wrong root in man: and when such censurers of our simplicity shall be inwardly touched and awakened by the mighty power of God, and see things as they are in their proper natures and seeds, they will then know their own burden, and easily acquit us, without the imputation of folly or hypocrisy herein.

VIII. To say that we strain at small things, which becomes not people of so fair pretensions to liberty and freedom of spirit: I answer with meekness, truth, and sobriety; first, nothing is small that God makes matter of conscience to do, or leave undone. Next as inconsiderable as they are made, by those that object upon us, they are much set by; so greatly as for our not giving them to be beaten, imprisoned, refused justice, &c. To say nothing of the derision and reproach that hath been frequently flung at us on this account. So that if we had wanted a proof of the truth of our inward belief and judgment, the very practice of them that opposed it would have abundantly confirmed us. But let it suffice to us, that "Wisdom is justified of her children:" (Matt. xi. 19:) we only passively let fall the practice of what we are taught to believe is vain and unchristian: in which we are negative to forms: for we leave off, we do not set up forms.

IX. The world is so set upon the ceremonious parts and outside of things, that it has well beseemed the wisdom of God in all ages to bring forth his dispensations with very different appearances to their settled customs; thereby contradicting human inventions, and proving the integrity of his confessors. Nay, it is a test upon the world: it tries what patience, kindness, sobriety, and moderation they have: if the rough and homely outside of truth stumble not their minds from the reception of it, whose beauty is within: it makes a great discovery upon them. For he who refuses a precious jewel, because it is presented in a plain box, will never esteem it to its value, nor set his heart upon keeping it; therefore I call it a test, because it shows where the hearts and affections of the people stick, after all their great pretence to more excellent things.

X. It is also a mighty trial upon God's people, in that they are put upon the discovery of their contradiction to the customs generally received and esteemed in the world; which exposes them to the wonder, scorn, and abuse of the multitude. But there is a hidden treasure in it: it inures us to reproach, it teaches us to despise the false reputation of the world, and silently to undergo the contradiction and scorn of its votaries; and finally with a Christian meekness and patience to overcome their injuries and reproaches. Add to this; it weans thee of thy familiars; for being slighted of them as a ninny, a fool, a frantic, &c. thou art delivered from a greater temptation; and that is the power and influence of their vain conversation. And last of all, it lists thee of the company of the blessed, mocked, persecuted JESUS: to fight under his banner against the world, the flesh, and the devil: that after having faithfully suffered with him in a state of humiliation, thou mayst reign with him in a state of glorification: who glorifies his poor, despised, constant followers with the glory he had with the Father before the world began. (John, xvii. 5.) This was the first reason of our declining to practise the before-mentioned honours, respect, &c.

XI. The second reason why we decline and refuse the present use of these customs in our addresses and salutations, is from the consideration of their very emptiness and vanity: that there is nothing of true honour and respect in them, supposing them not to be evil. And, as religion and worship are degenerated into form and ceremony, and they not according to primitive practice neither, so is honour and respect too; there being little of that in the world as well as of the other; and to be sure, in these customs, none that is justifiable by Scripture or reason.

XII. In Scripture we find the word honour often and diversely used. First for obedience: as when God saith, "They that honour me;" (1 Sam. ii. 30:) that is, that keep my commandments. "Honour the king;" (1 Pet. ii. 17;) that is, obey the king. "Honour thy father and mother;" (Exod. xx. 12;) that is, saith the apostle to the Ephesians, "Obey thy father and thy mother in the Lord, for that is right:" (Eph. vi. 1, 2:) take heed to their precepts and advice: presupposing always, that rulers and parents command lawful things, else they dishonour themselves to enjoin unlawful things; and subjects and children dishonour their superiors and parents, in complying with their unrighteous commands. Also Christ uses this word so, when he says, "I have not a devil, but I honour my Father, and ye dishonour me;" (John, viii. 49;) that is, I do my Father's will in what I do, but you will not hear me; you reject my counsel, and will not obey my voice. It was not refusing hat and knee, nor empty trifles: no, it was disobedience; resisting him that God had sent, and not believing in him. This was the dishonour he taxed them with; using him as an impostor, that God had ordained for the salvation of the world. And of these dishonourers there are but too many at this day. Christ has a saying to the same effect; "That all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father; and he that honoureth not the Son, honoureth not the Father, which hath sent him:" (John, v. 23:) that is, they that hearken not to Christ, and do not worship and obey him, they do not hear, worship, nor obey God. As they pretended to believe in God, so they were to have believed in him; he told them so. This is pregnantly manifested in the case of the centurion, whose faith was so much commended by Christ; where, giving Jesus an account of his honourable station, he tells him, "He had soldiers under his authority, and when he said to one, Go, he went; to another, Come, he came; and to a third, Do this, he did it." (Luke, vii. 8.) In this it was he placed the honour of his capacity, and the respect of his soldiers, and not in hats and legs: nor are such customs yet in use amongst soldiers, being effeminate, and unworthy of masculine gravity.

XIII. In the next place, honour is used for preferment to trust and eminent employments. So the Psalmist, speaking to God: "For thou hast crowned him with glory and honour:" again, "Honour and majesty hast thou laid on him;" (Psalm viii. 5; xxi. 5;) that is, God hath given Christ power over all his enemies, and exalted him to great dominion. Thus the wise man intimates, when he says, "The fear of the Lord is the instruction of wisdom, and before honour is humility." (Prov. xv. 33.) That is, before advancement or preferment is humility. Further, he has this saying, "As snow in summer, and as rain in harvest, so honour is not seemly for a fool:" (Prov.