Reasons or Causes for Pride [1]
Are You Full Of Pride and Self Deceit?
Proverbs 16:18-19 (KJV)Pride goes before destruction, And an haughty spirit before a fall. Better it is to be of an humble spirit with the lowly, Than to divide the spoil with the proud.
The first [cause] is . . . such persons are led by their own hearts, rather than by the Word of God (Mark 7:21-23). . . . [T]he original fountain of pride is the heart. For out of the heart comes pride; it is, therefore, because they are led by their hearts, which naturally tend to lift them up in pride. This pride of heart tempts them, and by its deceits overcometh them; yea, it doth put a bewitching virtue into their peacock’s feathers, and then they are swallowed up with the vanity of them (Oba 3).
Another reason why professors are so proud for those we are talking of now, is because they are more apt to take example by those that are of the world, than they are to take example of those that are saints indeed. Pride is of the world. ‘For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father but of the world’ (1 John 2:16). Of the world, therefore, professors learn to be proud. But they should not take them for example. It will be objected, No, nor your saints neither, for you are as proud as others; well, let them take shame that are guilty. But when I say professors should take example for their life by those that are saints indeed, I mean as Peter says; they should take example of those that were in old time the saints; for sin at of old time were the best, therefore to these he directed us for our pattern. Let the wives’ conversation be chaste and also coupled with fear. ‘Whose adorning,’ saith Peter, ‘let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel; but let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price. For after this manner, in the old time, the holy women also who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection to their own husbands’ (1 Peter 3:1-5).
Another reason is, because they have forgotten the pollution of their nature. For the remembrance of that must needs keep us humble, and . . . [if we be] kept humble, we shall be at a distance from pride. The proud and the humble are set in opposition; ‘God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.’ And can it be imagined that a sensible Christian should be a proud one; sense of baseness tends to lay us low, not to lift us up with pride; not with pride of heart, nor pride of life. But when a man begins to forget what he is, then he, if ever, begins to be proud. Methinks it is one of the most senseless and ridiculous things in the world that a man should be proud of that which is given him on purpose to cover the shame of his nakedness with.
Persons that are proud have gotten God and his holiness out of their sight. If God was before them, as he is behind their back. And if they saw him in his holiness, as he sees them in their sins and shame, they would take but little pleasure in their apish knacks. The holiness of God makes the angels cover their faces, crumbles Christians, when they behold it, into dust and ashes. And as his majesty is, such is his Word (Isa 6). Therefore they abuse it that bring it to countenance pride.
Lastly. But what can be the end of those that are proud in the decking of themselves after their antic manner? Why are they for going with their bull’s foretops, with their naked shoulders, and paps hanging out like a cow’s bag? Why are they for painting their faces, for stretching out their neck, and for putting of themselves unto all the formalities which proud fancy leads them to? Is it because they would honour God? because they would adorn the gospel? because they would beautify religion, and make sinners to fall in love with their own salvation? No, no, it is rather to please their lusts, to satisfy their wild and extravagant fancies; and I wish none doth it to stir up lust in others, to the end they may commit uncleanness with them. I believe, whatever is their end, this is one of the great designs of the devil and I believe also that Satan has drawn more into the sin of uncleanness by the spangling show of fine cloths, than he could possibly have drawn unto it without them. I wonder what it was that of old was called the attire of a harlot; certainly it could not be more bewitching and tempting than are the garments of many professors this day.
[1] John Bunyan, The Life and Death of Mr. Badman: Presented to the World in a Familiar Dialogue Between Mr. Wiseman and Mr. Attentive 1680; (reprint Goodyear, Arizona: Diggory Press, 2007), 94-96 (page citations are to the reprint edition). The original version was edited by “Geo. Offor.” The reprint version states: “Published two years after Pilgrim’s Progress,” 1.
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