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

But when self is mens instructor, and chooseth their Text, and furnisheth them with matter, and nothing is savoury but what is either suited to the common interest of self, or which it hath not a special interest in; when men are absolutely wise in their own eyes, and comparatively wiser than those that know much more than they; when self-interest serves instead of evidence to the receiving, retaining, or contending for a point; when men think they know that which indeed they do not know; and observe the little which they do know, more than an hundred fold more that they are ignorant of; doubtless here's self-conceitedness with a witness; and they that will not see it in a lower degree, methinks should see it in such a case as this. He that will not believe that a man is drunk when he reels and stammereth, may know it when he lieth spewing in the streets.

Well Sirs, I beseech you see that self in the understanding be mortified and pulled down. It's the throne of God, the Lantern of holy truth, the temple of the Spirit; and shall self Rule there? The understanding is it that guideth the soul and all the actions of your lives: and if self rule there, what a Ruler will you have? and what a case will heart and life be in? If your eye be dark, your Light be dark, how great will be your darkness: and if it be selfish, it is certainly so far dark. O believe the Holy Ghost, Prov. 26. 12. [Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit? there is more hope of a fool than of him.] For a mere fool that is ignorant only for want of teaching, hath no such prejudice against the truth, as the self-conceited ⟨p. 99⟩have: Nor is it so hard to make him know that he is ignorant: nor yet to make him willing to Learn: He that knoweth himself to be blind, is willing to be led. Moreover the self-conceited have much to unlearn, before they can be fit to receive the truth in a saving manner. O how many thousands are undone by self-conceitedness! It is this that keeps out Knowledge, and every Grace, and consequently all true peace and comfort; and this it is that defendeth and cherisheth all sin. Let us show men the plainest word of God for duty and against sin, and show them the clearest reasons, and yet self-conceitedness bolts the door against all: Yea so wonderfully doth this sin prevail, that the ignorant silly people that know almost nothing, are as proudly self-conceited as if they were the wisest men: They that will not learn, and cannot give an account of their knowledge, in the very Catechism or Principles of Christian Religion, nor cannot pray, nor scarce speak a word of sense about the matters of Salvation, but excuse themselves that they are no Scholars, yet these very people will proudly resist their Teachers, though they were the wisest and learnedst men in the Land: Let us but cross their conceits of Doctrine or Practice in Religion; about their own title to Church-privileges, or fitness for them, and they are confident and furious against their Ministers, as if we were as ignorant as they, and they were the wisest men in the world: so that pride and self-conceitedness makes people mad, or deal like mad men. We cannot humble men for sin, nor reclaim them from it, till they know the sin, and the danger of it: