A treatise of self-denial. By Richard Baxter, pastor of the church at KidderminsterA treatise of self-denial. By Richard Baxter, pastor of the church at Kederminster

and it is the very work of their Prayers, and conference, and teaching, to exercise self-conceitedness, and to make it appear that they are some body in knowledge: Hence is it that they are so apt to fall upon novelties wch either few receive, or none before themselves devised, that being singular, self may be the more observed, and they may have something which may be called their Own: Hence also it is that they are so little suspicious of their own opinions, never bending their studies impartially to try whether they are of God or not, but rather to maintain them, and to find out all that can be said for them, and against the contrary minded: Hence is it that men have such light and contemptuous thoughts of the judgment of those that excel them in knowledge, and that the voice of Corah, and those other Conspirators, Numb. 16. 3. is grown so common in the mouths of ignorant proud professors, [Ye take too much upon you (say they to their Guides and Teachers) seeing all the Congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them: wherefore then lift ye up your selves above the Congregation of the Lord?] It is the Holiness of the Congregation, and all its members, and the presence of God himself among them, that is pleaded against the Superiority of Moses & Aaron, as if with so Holy a people, that had God himself to be their Teacher and Guide, there were no need of men to be lift up above the Congregation of the Lord. But it was self that was intended, what ever was pretended. From this self-conceitedness also it is that the weightiest common truths that self hath no special interest in, are so little valued and relished, and insisted on; and that a less and more uncertain point which self hath espoused, shall be more relished, insisted on, and ⟨p. 96⟩contended for: Hence also is most of the common confidence of men in their own Opinions; that when the point is doubtful, if not certainly false, in the eyes of wiser men than themselves, yet the fool rageth and is confident, Prov. 14. 16. He can carry on a conceit of his Own with as brazen a face, and proud contempt of other mens arguments, as if he were maintaining that the Sun is light, and other men pleaded to prove it dark: when, alas, it is self-interest that is the life, the strength, the goodness of the cause.