A dose of humility from William Gurnall:

Is man but frail flesh? Let this humble thee, O man, in all thy excellency; flesh is but one remove from filth and corruption. Thy soul is the salt that keeps thee sweet, or else thou wouldst stink above ground. Is thy beauty thou pridest in? Flesh is grass, but beauty is the vanity of this vanity. This goodliness is like the flower, which lasts not so long as the grass, appears in its month and it is gone; yea, like the beauty of the flower, which fades while the flower stands. How soon will time’s plough make furrows in thy face, yea, one fit of an ague so change thy countenance , as shall make thy doting lovers afraid to look on thee? Is it strength? Alas, it is an arm of flesh, which withers oft in the stretching forth. Ere long thy blood, which is now warm, will freeze in thy veins; thy spring crowned with May-buds will tread on December’s heel; thy marrow dry in thy bones, thy sinews shrink, thy legs bow under the weight of thy body; thy eye-strings crack; thy tongue [be] not able to call for help; yea, thy heart with thy flesh shall fail. And now thou who art such a giant, take a turn if thou canst in thy chamber, yea, raise but thy head from thy pillow if thou art able, or call back thy breath, which is making hast to be gone out of thy nostrils, never to return more; and darest thou glory in that which so soon may be prostrate?
   Is it wisdom? The same grave that covers thy body, shall bury all that—the wisdom of thy flesh I mean—all thy thoughts shall perish, and [thy] goodly plots come to nothing. Indeed, if a Christian, thy thoughts as such shall ascend with thee, not one holy breathing of thy soul be lost. Is it thy blood and birth? Whoever thou art, thou art baseborn till born again; the same blood runs in thy veins with the beggar on the street, Ac. xvii. 26.

—William Gurnall, The Christian in Complete Armour (Banner of Truth Trust, 2002), 125–126.