Discourses upon the Existence and Attributes of God

4. Pride and presumption is another invasion of his dominion. When men will resolve to go to morrow to such a City, to such a Fair and Market, to traffic, and get gain, without thinking of the necessity of a Divine License, as if our selves were the Lords of our time, and of our lives, and God were to lackey after us. James 4.13.15. Ye that say, to day we will go into such a City, and buy and sell, whereas ye ought to say, if the Lord will we shall live; As if they had a free hold, and were not Tenants at will to the Lord of the Manor. When we presume upon our own strength or wit, to get the better of our adversaries; As the Germans (as Tacitus relates) assured themselves by the numerousness of their Army of a victory against the Romans, and prepared chains to fetter the Captives before the conquest, which were found in their camp after their defeat; When we are peremptory in expectations of success according to our will; As Pharaoh, Exod. 15.9. I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil, my lust shall be satisfied upon them, I will draw my sword, my hand shall destroy them. He speaks more like a God, than a man, as if he were the Sovereign power, and God only his Vicar and Lieutenant; How he struts, without thinking of a superior power to curb him! When men ascribe to themselves what is the sole fruit of God's Sovereign pleasure. As the King of Assyria speaks a Language, fit only to be spoken by God. Isa. 10 13, 14. &c. I have removed the bounds of the people, my ⟨p. 762⟩hand hath found as a nest, the riches of the people, I have gathered all the earth; which God declares to be a wrong to his Sovereignty by the title wherewith he prefaceth his threatening against him. ver. 16. Therefore shall the Lord, the Lord of Hosts, send among his fat ones leanness, &c. 'Tis indeed a rifling, if not of his Crown, yet of the most glittering Jewel of it, his Glory. He that mocks the poor reproacheth his Maker, Prov. 17.5. He never thinks that God made them poor, and himself rich; He owns not his riches to be dropped upon him by the divine hand. Self is the great invader of God's Sovereignty, doth not only spurn at it, but usurp it, and assume divine honours, payable only to the Universal Sovereign. The Assyrian was not so modest as the Chaldean, who would impute his power and victories to his Idol,