A saint or a brute the certain necessity and excellency of holiness, &c. ...…

1. Worldly Honours are of a more swelling nature then Heavenly Honours: and yet it would scarcely be taken well, if this conclusion should pass for currant, that the most Honourable are the most Proud. For then it would follow that none are so vile, so like the Devil, so unlike God: and so the Princes and nobles of the earth would become the most despicable persons in the world, and their very Honour it self would be their dishonour, and so no Honour. And if worldly Honours will not warrant you to conclude the persons to be most Proud, much less will the Heavenly Honour.

There is the more Need and the less Fear of the Honour of the Godly, because it is the blessing of an Humbled soul. God casts them down before he lifts them up: It is only the Humble that he exalteth. They feel their sin and misery before they know their Honour. A Broken heart hath need of healing, and a fainting soul is fittest for a Cordial. You need not fear when you refresh the sick, lest it should make them wanton as it may do the sound. A comfortable word to one that is samenting over the dead, and weeping at a grave, is not so likely to make them Proud, as to others in prosperity. A drooping and discouraged soul, is hardly raised high enough, and kept from sinking: They have had the sentence past upon ⟨p. 259⟩them, and have had the rope as it were about their neck: they have been at the very gates of Hell: they have seen by faith what work, what woes there are for sin in the life to come, and therefore these souls have need to hear of their Felicity.

3. Moreover, they have a great deal of work to do; and their strength and courage is too small: and the work is such as flesh and blood cannot away with, much less afford them sufficient strength for. Such labourers must have encouraging strengthening food. Their work is such as will keep them under. God doth not keep his servants idle: and therefore they are in the less danger of xing Proud and wanton.