praise and glory and love,
that is only due to the Lord God Almighty; and invert and appropriate
these to ourselves, which is, as if the axe should boast itself, as if it
were no iron, or the staff, as if it were no timber. Hence it is, that of
all evils in man's nature, God hath the most perfect antipathy and direct
opposition against pride and self love, because it is sacrilege and
idolatry in the highest manner. It strikes at the sovereignty and honour
of God's name, which is dear to him as himself, it sets up a vile idol in
the choicest temple of God, that is, in the heart, and this is the
abomination of desolation. Other evils strike against his holy will, but
this peculiarly points at the very nature and being of the most high God,
and so it is with child of blasphemy,--atheism is the very heart and life
of it. And then it is most unnatural, and so monstrous and deformed. For,
consider all the creation, though every one of them have particular
inclinations towards their own proper ends, and so a happiness suitable to
their own nature; yet how diverse, how contrary soever they be, there is
no selfishness in them, they all concur and conspire to the good of the
whole, and the mutual help of each other. If once that poison should
infect the material world, which hath spoiled the spiritual; let once such
a selfish disposition or inclination possess any part of the world, and
presently the order, harmony, beauty, pleasure, and profit of the whole
world should be interrupted, defaced, and destroyed. Let the sun be
supposed to boast itself of its light and influence, and so disdain to
impart it to the lower world, and all would run into confusion. Again, I
desire you but to take a view of this humour in another's person, (for we
are more ready to see others evils than our own,) and how deformed is it?
So vile is self-seeking and self boasting, that all men loathe it in
others, and hide it from others. It disgraces all actions, how beautiful
soever, it is the very bane of human society, that which looses all the
links of it, and makes them cross and thwart one another.

But, alas! how much more easy is it, to point out such an evil in a
deformed visage, than to discern it in ourselves, and how many will hate
it in the picture, who love and entertain it in their own persons! Such
deceitfulness is intermingled with most desperate wickedness. I verily
believe that it is the predominant of every man, good and bad, except in
so