The Danger of Pride in Renewal

One of the most sickening realizations I have had about my sin nature is how effortlessly it takes credit for the work of God and judges other people. Surely if I am being renewed and awakened to a greater appreciation of God's grace, I would be concerned chiefly with own sins and not the sins of others. And if I have been awakened to any degree, it was was not an achievement but a merciful gift from the Lord. So there is no room for boasting or a critical spirit. Here is a warning from Jonathan Edwards, who saw the renewal movement of the 1740's partly discredited by a spirit of pride:

We must expect that the great enemy of this work will especially try his utmost with us; we had need to watch and pray, for we are but little children; this roaring lion is too strong for us, and this old serpent too subtle for us. Humility and self–diffidence and an entire dependence on our Lord Jesus Christ will be our best defense. Let us therefore maintain the strictest watch against spiritual pride, or being lifted up with extraordinary experiences and comforts, and the high favors of heaven that any of us may have received.
We have need to keep a strict and jealous eye upon our own hearts, lest there should arise self–exalting reflections upon what we have received, and high thoughts of ourselves as being now some of the most eminent of saints and peculiar favorites of heaven, and that the secret of the Lord is especially with us. God saw that the apostle Paul (though probably the most eminent saint that ever lived) was not out of danger of it, no, not when he had just been conversing with God in the third heaven (2 Cor. 12:7).
Pride is the worst viper in the heart; it is the first sin that ever entered into the universe, lies lowest of all in the foundation of the whole building of sin, and is the most secret, deceitful, and unsearchable in its ways of working, of any lusts whatever. It is ready to mix with every thing; and nothing is so hateful to God, contrary to the spirit of the gospel, or of so dangerous consequence; and there is no one sin that does so much let in the devil into the hearts of the saints, and expose them to his delusions. (Jonathan Edwards, The Distinguishing Characteristics of a Work of the Spirit of God)