It's David Aaronovitch this time in today's Times ("If you’re Biggs, you believe that you’re big"). It starts off as a fair point about the way we all, like Biggs, tend to justify ourselves. It then turns to quoting R H Tawney and a rather lame claim that the Puritans were the biggest offenders in this very crime. Aaronovitch doesn't quote any Puritans to back up his point or seem to have much idea abut them in general but they look like a good dog to kick, however, and so he kicks as is the way these days.
In his sermon on The justice of God in the damnation of sinners from Romans 3:9 Jonathan Edwards closes by saying
O! what cause is here for praise! What obligations you are under to bless the Lord who hath dealt bountifully with you, and magnify his holy name! What cause for you to praise God in humility, to walk humbly before him. Ezekiel 16:63. "That thou mayest remember and be confounded, and never open thy mouth any more, because of thy shame, when I am pacified toward thee for all that thou hast done, saith the Lord God!" You shall never open your mouth in boasting, or self-justification; but lie the lower before God for his mercy to you. You have reason, the more abundantly, to open your mouth in God's praises, that they may be continually in your mouth, both here and to all eternity, for his rich, unspeakable, and sovereign mercy to you, whereby he, and he alone, hath made you to differ from others.
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