"How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, who didst rise in the morning? how art thou fallen to the earth, that didst wound the nations? And thou saidst in thy heart: I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, I will sit in the mountain of the covenant, in the sides of the north. I will ascend above the height of the clouds, I will be like the most High. But yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, into the depth of the pit. --Isaias 14: 12-15
On the Vice of Pride by Richard Challoner, 1807
Consider first, that pride is an inordinate love, conceit, or desire of self-excellence; or a delight and complacency in one's own self by occasion of some real or imaginary excellency which we have, or pretend to have, either in virtue, or grace, or knowledge, or in any other goods, or qualities, whether external or internal, considered merely as the means to make us excel, and as such puffing us up with self-esteem, and causing us to prefer ourselves before others, and to despise others. This pride is the mother of all vices, but more especially of ambition, presumption, and vainglory; from which it differs only in this, that ambition aims at excelling in the way of honour and dignity, and in being set above others; presumption seeks to excel in the way of great achievements, attempted upon confidence of one's own strength; vain glory pretends to excellence in the way 0f glory, that is, in the way of being known, praised, and esteemed by others; but pride looks chiefly at herself, and sets up her own proper sell-excellence for her idol, which she worships, loves, esteems and desires above all things, and to which she sacrifices all things else. O deliver us, dear Lord, from this enormous evil, the first-born of Satan, and the original parent both of death and hell.
Consider 2dly, that St. Gregory (L. 28. Mor. c. 4,) distinguishes in pride, four different kinds; or four ways of being guilty of this worst of vices. First, by attributing to one's self, and not to God, the good things we have from Him, either of nature, or of grace. 2dly, By ascribing at least to one's own merits, what we have received from God, and not giving Him the whole glory. 3dly, By conceiting ourselves to have graces, talents, or perfections, which indeed we have not, and being puffed up in ourselves with this imaginary excellence. 4thly, By highly esteeming, and valuing ourselves, for the graces, or good qualities we really have; and applauding ourselves in such a manner with them, as to affect to have them of ourselves alone, and to despise others or envy them the like accomplishments. All these, in their nature, are mortal sins, when fully consented to and are of the worst kind of mortal sins : because of all the seven capital vices, pride is acknowledged by Divines to be the worst, by reason of its extreme opposition to God, in setting itself up, as it were, in his place, and Satan-like, lifting up its head against Him; and affecting a self-excellence, which belongs to God alone. Hence we learn from the Apostle, Rom. i. the proud have often seen delivered up, and abandoned by God to a reprobate sense and suffered to fall even into the most shameful and unnatural lusts, in punishment of their self-conceit. O how enormous then must the vice of pride be in the eyes of God, when the falling into such abominations as these, is the punishment of it! Consider 3dly, that pride is a mortal sin, not only when one directly incurs the guilt of any of those four kinds or ways, mentioned by St. Gregory, by one's own deliberate judgment and will: (at least as often as the matter is of moment:) but also when one incurs the guilt of any of them indirectly, or equivalently; taking such complacency in one's self, or carrying one's self in such a manner to others, as if one judged one's self to have, or desired that others should judge one to have any excellency or perfection of one's self, and not from God. As also when our affection or inclination to our own excellence, or the conceit we have of it, is joined with a great irreverence or injury to God, or a considerable contempt of our neighbour, or detriment to him or again, when through the love or conceit we have of our own excellence, we withdraw ourselves from the subjection we owe to God and his holy law, or to the authority of superiors established by Him. Ah! how common are all these sins? How many ways are poor unhappy mortals daily guilty of this highest of treasons against the Divine Majesty! And how dreadful are the consequences of this guilt, both in time and eternity. Conclude to examine well thy conscience upon this head of pride: for it is a subtle evil, which often imposes upon poor mortals; insomuch that they who are the most guilty of it, oftentimes will not believe themselves to be proud. O take care not to be deceived by this noonday devil! watch and pray continually against it; spare no pains to cast it out of thy soul. If thou thinkest it has no share in thee, thou deceivest thyself; there cannot be a more evident proof of thy being proud, than to imagine thyself to be out of the reach of this vice. Link to a Prayer Against Pride On the Malignity of Pride Consider first, the malignity of pride, inasmuch as it corrupts the very vital of the soul, and leaves nothing sound in it. 'Tis a rottenness at the heart, that spoils the fairest plants that grow on this infected soil. The fruits of the good works of the proud, are like those that are said to grow on the banks of the lake of Sodom, fair to the eye, but rotten within. Their virtues are blasted, and have nothing but an outward appearance; because the root of them is corrupted. God is not with them, truth is not with them, grace is not with them; they have no foundation within them, for any solid good; because they want humility. For God resists the proud, and gives His grace to the humble. Consider 2dly, the malignity of pride from another head, viz. from its filling the soul with all other evils. For this dreadful vice, not content with shutting the gate against grace, and against all good, and even changing those that should be the most virtuous actions into crimes: opens wide the door to all manner of sin and iniquity, by setting all the other passions at work, to serve, by all kind of extravagances, its unbridled appetite after self-excellence. To ratify this predominant passion, covetousness is employed, to procure, right or wrong, those riches, that may furnish the means of excelling; and prodigality, in the expending of them. Anger, hatred, and vengeance, are let loose, against all that thwart or stand in the way of its lawless pretensions. Inferiors are oppressed; they are treated with contempt and scorn; equals are envied, as rivals in honour; the are judged, condemned and slandered; superiors are sligted and disobeyed, &c., not to speak of innumerable other mortal evils, quarrels, murders, rebellions, heresies, blasphemies, and what not, which are frequently the productions of pride, besides all the abominations of lust, and all its fatal offspring, to which the proud are so often delivered up in punishment of their arrogance. Sweet Jesus, deliver us from all these evils, by teaching us to be meek and humble of heart. Consider 3dly, that the malignity of pride is chiefly owing to its opposition to the glory of God, and to His divine truth. God is the Being of all beings; all things else without Him are nothing; all excellence and all glory is His; we have nothing, excepting sin, but what we can have from Him; we know nothing but through Him; we can do nothing without Him. To pretend, therefore, to any excellence as to our own property, or to any glory as due to us, or to appropriate to ourselves the gifts and graces of God, and to be puffed up with them, and to glory in them as our own, is a sacrilegious robbery of that which belongs to God alone; 'tis attempting to seat ourselves in His throne, 'tis claiming a share in His self-excellence, which is no less essential to Him, than His self-existence, independence, and intiuity. For as none but God can be of Himself, so none but God can excel of Himself. For this reason every proud man is an abomination to the Lord. Prov. xvi. 4, because he pretends to rival Him in His glory, and like the arch-rebel Lucifer, to dispute His prerogative, of being alone self-excellent. His pride is a lie, and of the very worst sort of lies, even that which was first framed by the father of lies, in pretending to be like the Most High, and therefore it is most hateful to the eternal truth. Conclude to detest and abhor, and to fly with all thy power from this abominable vice, which is so hateful to God, and so pernicious to all that suffer their souls to be corrupted with it. Give ear to the Scripture, Tob. iv. 13, never suffer pride to reign in thy mind, nor in thy words, for from it all perdition took its beginning. Link to a Prayer Against Pride Remedies Against Pride Consider first, that in order to overcome thy pride, thou must not only be thoroughly sensible of the malignity of this evil in itseif, and or the dreadful consequences of its being suffered to reign in the soul: but must also be convinced, that thou thyself are continually in danger from it; that it is an evil deeply rooted in thy own corrupt nature: an obstinate and subtle enemy, that will never cease to wage war against thee all thy life long; and that is so much the more dangerous to thee, by how much the less it is apprehended by thee: so that the first and most necessary prescription against pride, is to study well, that we may know our corruption in this kind, by the help of a frequent review of our own interior, and of the secret springs that rule and set all our passions to work: that so having rightly discovered the monster, that affects to hide itself in the inmost recesses of the soul, we may declare an eternal war against it, by perpetual watching, praying, and fighting, and by frequent repeated acts both exterior and interior of the virtue of humility. Consider 2dly, that the true knowledge of God, and of ourselves, acquired by the daily exercise of meditation and mental prayer, is the sovereign remedy against all manner of pride. For all our pretensions to excellence, all our groundless imaginations, by which we take ourselves for something, all these fumes of self-conceit which are so apt to fly up, and to turn our heads upon occasion of any advantages, real or imaginary, which we ascribe to ourselves, are all put to flight, when the light of the knowledge of God comes in and takes place in the soul, and shows her that all that is not God, is a mere nothing. All human greatness, and power, all height, and depth, and every thing that is created, dwindles away and quite vanishes when God appears: "heaven and earth flee away from before His face, and no place is found for them,� Apocal. xx. 11, how much less can a poor man glory in His sight? O how can earth and ashes be proud, in the presence of the immense, eternal, infinite Deity? Consider 3dly, that the light of God, which by a diligence in the exercise of mental prayer flows more and more into the soul, not only serves to humble us in His sight, and to quell our pride by the sense it gives us of His infinite greatness and Majesty before whom we are but wretched worms, and less than nothing, but also helps us to that true knowledge of ourselves, which obliges us to vilify and despise ourselves. For here we are made sensible what poor creatures indeed we are : how mean is our extraction; as to the body, from dirt and corruption, as to the soul from nothing: how early we are infected with sin; how full we are kn0w of all kind of miseries, both corporal and spiritual; what a perpetual repugnance we have to good, and what a violent propensity to evil, from our very childhood: how much we are encompassed with darkness, ignorance and error; exposed daily to innumerable dangers: capable of all that is wicked, and incapable of ourselves of any good: certain of death (though we know not when, where, nor how) which, will make over these bodies of ours to worms and corruption, and transmit these souls to judgment; and dreadfully uncertain as to issue of that great trial, and our eternal lot. And shall not all this suffice to cure our pride? Conclude to spare no pains to acquire these two most necessary branches of Christian science, viz., the true knowlede of God, and the true knowledge of yourselves: they are the foundation of true humility, and of all good, and are to be learnt by meditation and prayer. Link to a Prayer Against Pride Other Prescriptions Against Pride Consider first, that in order to overcome your pride, it will also be of good service frequently to reflect how vain and empty, fading and perishable those things generally are, which men are apt to be proud of; such as worldly honours, riches, beauty, fine clothes, &c., which give no real intrinsic value or worth to the possessors; nor serve to make them one whit the better in the sight of God; but on the contrary, if they are proud of them, make them by much the worse; yea, odious and contemptible both to God and man. For every one hates and despises pride in another, how much soever he cherishes it in himself: and such as proudly seek to exalt themselves. are generally humbled, both by God and man. And as to the gifts of grace, or other talents received from God, it is still more criminal to be proud of them, because the more valuable they are in themselves, the greater is the sacrilege in robbing God of the glory of them, by taking pride in them, as if they were our own and not his. O! 'tis humility alone, that is both the guardian and the best ornament of all other virtues; they quickly degenerate and turn into vices when we begin to be proud of them. Consider 2dly, that we may also extract an excellent antid against the poison of pride, from the very consideration of deformity of our pride. For nothing sure can be more humbling to the soul, than to be made rightly sensible of the extravagant toll and madness, as well as the sacrilegious impiety and diabolcal presumption she stands guilty of, by lifting up her head against her good, by arrogance and self-conceit. The consequence of which is, that she is given up by Him, to be possessed at present by the worst of devils; and becomes herself a very devil in His eyes; black, ugly, and odious, like the devil, and condemned to be a victim of hell with him. And can a soul that seriously considers all this, suffer herself to be any longer possessed by pride? Can such an odious monster when brought out of its dark lurking hole, and set before the eyes of the soul, with all the train of woes that attend and follow it, find any more room in her? O 'tis virtue, with regard to mortal sin in general, and to pride in particular, that the deformity and malignity of the guilt of it in the soul, and the eternal punishment of it hereafter, are most humbling considerations. For surely a soul, that is turned away from God by mortal sin: and a soul that is eternally banished from Him, and given up to the worm that never dies, and to the fire that is never extinguished in the dungeons of hell ; can neither of them have any thing to be proud of! Mortal sin and hell, those two most dreadful of all evils leave no room for pride. Consider 3dly, who it is that is the king over all the children of pride? Whose standard do they all join in opposition to the God that made heaven and earth? Alas! they all join with Satan their mortal enemy; they follow him against their God, their Maker, their Redeemenand their Sovereign Good. And what expectations can they have for following him for their king. who is already himself condemned to hell! Ah! no other than endless confusion, perpetual discontent and uneasiness here, and everlasting damnation hereafter. Oh! it was this joining with the king of pride, that has entailed all kind of miseries upon the sons of Adam. To remedy these the Son of God came down from heaven, by the mystery of His incarnation; and humbled Himself even to the Death of the Cross, to oppose the standard of His humanity to the standard of the devil. He calls all men to join His royal standard, by learning of Him to he meek and humble of heart; promising to rescue them that follow Him, from the tyranny and slavery of the wicked one; to give peace and rest to their souls here, and eternal joys hereafter. And shall we balance for one moment, which of the two we shall join, the king of pride, or the king of humility, the tyrant of hell or the God of heaven? See here, my soul, most urgent motives to renounce thy pride, and to embrace humility. The one is suggested by Satan, who is damned for it; the other is taught by word and example, by the Son of God, who by it, has opened heaven for us: the one is the road to hell, the other to heaven. Conclude to renounce the king of pride, with all his pomps, and to shake off this heavy yoke, which never sulfers the soul to rest; and, instead of it, to take up the sweet yoke of Jesus Christ, by meekness and humility, and thou shalt find refreshment here and heaven hereafter. Prayer Against Pride
Lord Jesus Christ, Pattern of humility, who didst empty Thyself of Thy glory, and take upon Thee the form of a servant: root out of us all pride and conceit of heart, that, owning ourselves miserable and guilty sinners, we may willingly bear contempt and reproaches for Thy sake, and, glorying in nothing but Thee, may esteem ourselves lowly in Thy sight. Not unto us, O Lord, but to Thy name be the praise, for Thy loving mercy and for Thy truth's sake. Amen.
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