Your own wills may be crost by every trifle Any man that is greater than you can cross them yea those that are under you can cross them The poorest beggar can rob you or scorn you or raise a slander of you or twenty ways can cross your self-wills A hundred accidents may cross them Your very Beast can cross you and almost any thing in the world can cross you much more can God at any time cross you and cross you certainly he will so that in your own wills there is no rest nor happiness But if you could bring your wills to Gods and take up your full content in this It is the Will of God then what a constant invincible content might you have Then all the world could not disturb you and rob you of your content because they cannot conquer the Will of God Hiswill shall be done and so you should alway have content CHAP. XVI Selfish Passions to be denied 5. ANother part of selfishness to be mortified and denied is selfish Passions The soul is furnished with Passions by God partly for the exciting of the will and other faculties that they do not sluggishly neglect their duties and partly to help them in the execution when they are at work So that they are but the wheels or the sails of the reasonable soul to speed our motion for God and our Salvation and not to be employed for carnal self When Passions and affections are sanctified and used for God they are called such and such particular Graces and the fervour of them is an holy Zeal But when they are used for carnal self they are our vices and the heat of them is but fury or carnal zeal and the height of vice But how rare is it to meet with men that are meek and patient in their own cause and passionate in a holy zeal for God I know many are passionate in disputes and other exercises about Religion and think that it 's purely zeal for God when self is at the bottom of the business and ruleth as well as kindleth the fire when they searce discern it and little know what spirit they are of But pure zeal for God conjoyned with self-denial is exceeding rare How few can say that their Love to God is greater and hotter than their Love to themselves The Desires of men are strong after those things that supply their own necessities and please their own corrupted wills but how cold are they after the honour of God How averse are men from that which hurteth the flesh as to go into a Pest-house or to take deadly poyson or to suffer any pain but few are so averse to the breaking of the Law of God A hard word or a little injury done to themselves will put them into a passion so that their anger is working out in reproach if not in more revenge but God may be abused from day to day and how patiently can they bear it There 's few carnal minds but can more patiently hear a man swear or curse or scorn at Scripture and a holy life than hear him call them Rogue or Knave or Thief or Lyar or any such disgraceful name It seems an intolerable dishonour with selfish persons that are advanced by Pride to be great in their own eyes for a man to give them the lye or to reproach their Parentage or make them seem base but they can hear twenty oaths and reproaches of the truths or ways of God as quietly and patiently as if there were no harm in them Their own enemies whom God commandeth them to love they hate at the heart but the enemies of God and holiness whom David hated with a perfect hatred Psal 139. 21 22. do little or nothing at all offend them It is not thus with self-denying gracious souls When David heard Shimei curle him he commanded his souldiers to let him alone for God had bidden him that is by that afflicting providence on David he had occasioned it and by the withdrawng of his restraint he had let out his malice for a trial to David Thus David could endure a man to go along by him cursing him and reviling him as a Traitor and a man of blood and throwing stones at him and he rebuked Abishai that would have taken off his head 2 Sam. 16. 7 8 9 13. But when the same David speaks of the wicked the froward the slanderer the proud the lyar and the deceitful he resolveth that he will not know them they shall not dwell in his house nor tarry in his sight he hateth them they shall depart from him he will cut them off and early destroy him from the Land and from the city of the Lord Psal 101. So was it with Moses when God was offended by the Idolatry of the Israelites he was so zealous that he threw down the Tables of Stone in which God had written the Law and broke them but when Miriam and Aaron spake against himself he let God alone with the cause and only prayed for them for saith the Text He was very meek above all the men that were on the face of the earth Numb 12. 3. Phinehas his zeal for God did stay the plague and was imputed to him for righteousness when the selfish zeal of Simeon and Levi was called but a cursed anger and brought a curse on them instead of a blessing from their dying Father that they should be divided in Jacob and scattered in Israel and left them the name of Instruments of cruelty Gen. 49. 5 6 7. Take warning then from the word of God use your passions for God that gave them you but when it is meerly the cause of self be dead to passion as if there were no such thing within you If the wrong be done to you think then with your selves alas I am such a silly wretched worm that a wrong done to me is a small matter in comparison of the least that 's done to God it is not great enough for indignation or passion Remember that it's Gods work to right your wrongs and your work to lament and hinder the abuse of God And therefore if men curse you or revile you or slander you if Gods interest in your reputation command you to seek the clearing of it then do it but not for your self but for God but otherwise be as a dead man that hath no eyes to see an injury nor no ears to hear it nor no heart to feel it nor no understanding to perceive it nor no hands to be revenged for it This is to be mortified and dead to self When Passion begins to stir within you ask What 's the matter who is it for and who is it that is wronged If it be God ask counsel of God what he would have you to do and let your passion be well guided and bounded and then it will be acceptable holy zeal but if it be but self that 's wronged remember that you are not your own and therefore
If selfish interest led them not to this and if they were more tender of the Interest of Christ than of their own and of mens souls than of their flesh it would not be thus But the same argument that tempts the sensual to Hell doth tempt such Magistrates to set up Liberty for drawing men to Hell The wicked sell their souls to spare their flesh and let go Heaven to enjoy the Liberty of sinning and run into Hell to scape the trouble of an holy life And such Magistrates sell the peoples souls to spare the flesh of the deceivers and in tenderness and mercy to their bodies they dare not restrain men from seeking their damnation Is faith and holiness propagated by perswasion and not by force Surely then Infidelity Popery and Ungodliness are propagated by perswasion too Again I tell you self-love doth make such Rulers wiser than to grant Commission or Liberty to all that will to tice their souldiers to mutinies or rebellion their wives to Adultery their children to prodigality or their servants to thievery But the love of Christ and mens salvation is not so strong as to satisfie them whether men should be hindred from raising mutinies in his Church and from destroying souls Forsooth they tell us that Christ is sufficient to look to his own cause Very true and they shall one day know it But must he not therefore teach or rule by men Is not Adultery Murder Theft Rebellion against the Cause of Christ and his Laws as well as Popery and Infidelity And must they therefore be let alone by man Christ is sufficient to Teach the world as well as to Govern But doth it follow that men must be no Teachers under him Nothing but selfishness could cause this blindness And because I know that this stream proceeds from the Roman spring and it is their great design to perswade the world that it belongs not to Magistrates to meddle with Religion but only to cherish them that the Pope approveth of and to punish those whom the Pope condemns and that Christ must Govern and judge of matters of Religion himself that is by his pretended Roman Vicechrist I shall only now say this that if Rome were acquainted with self-denial and if the selfish carnal interest of Riches and Rule and worldly greatness had not blinded them they could never have believed themselves that Christ did appoint the Pope of Rome to be his Universal Vicar and that Princes and Magistrates in their own Dominions have not more Power to judge who is to be tolerated or punished by the sword than the Pope of Rome when no Priest or Prelate upon earth as such hath any thing to do with such a judgement no not in the places where they live All that they have to do herein is to judge who is the Heretick or offendor in order to his censure and excommunication But it's Magistrates only that must judge who is the Heretick or effendor in order to corporal punishment or restraint And this I undertake to make good against all the Papists in the world much more that the Roman Tyrant hath no such Power at the Antipodes and in all the Christian Nations on earth Remember in all this that I speak not against a Toleration of Godly tolerable men Episcopal Presbyterian Independent Anabaptist c. that will walk in Charity Peace and Concord ☞ we shall never be well till these are closed But do we not know that Papists have Italy and Spain and Germany and France at hand to help them And that if we grant them such a liberty as shall strengthen them and make way for their power we give away our own liberty and are preparing faggots for our martyrdom and giving away the Gospel that by wonders of mercy hath been till now preserved and I hope shall be preserved in despite of Rome and Hell Nor yet do I plead for any cruelty against a Papist but for a necessary Defence of the interest of Christ and the souls of men and the hopes of our posterity True Humanity abhorreth cruelty Did Magistrates well know their dependence upon God and that they are his officers and must make him their end they would not take their flocks to be their masters though they may take them for their charge nor would they set up a carnal interest of the multitude against the pleasing of God and mens salvation nor would they think so highly of mens conceits and wills as to judge it a matter of so much moment to allow them in Religion to say or do what they list If allowing a mans self in the practice of Known sin is inconsistent with a state of grace and a sign of a miserable slave of Satan I leave it to you to consider what it will prove to allow others even Countries and Nations in Known sin And if Rulers know not that setting up an Universal Vice-christ and worshipping bread though they think there is no bread with Divine worshp and serving God in an unknown tongue with other points of Popery are sin and that opposing and reproaching the holy Scriptures Ordinances and Ministry are sin wo to such Rulers and wo to the Nations that are Ruled by such O what a blessing is a holy self-denying Magistracy to a Nation If one could have told you twenty years ago that you and such as you should be Rulers in this Land how confidently would you have promised an universal encouragement to godliness and a vigorous promoting the cause of Christ and a zealous suppressing of all that is against it Little would you or I have thought that after Professors of godliness were in power so many years should have been spent in destroying Charity and Unity and cherishing almost all that will stand up for the Devil and plead his cause against the Doctrine and Discipline and Worship and Churches and Officers of Jesus Christ And that in their dayes it should have been put to the Question whether the Ministry it self should be taken down And that men in power should write for Liberty for all that will call it self Religion even Popery not excepted nor I think Infidelity or Mahumetism it self and that those that write so should be men in Power My heart would have risen against him as an odious calumniator that should have presumed to tell me that such men as have attempted this would ever have come to such a pass and I should have encountred them with Hazaels question Are they dogs that they should do so vile a thing and exercise such cruelty on souls and seek to bring back the people of God to the Romish vomit and set up the greatest tyranny on earth and all under pretence of a Religious Liberty But alas it is not Magistrates only that are so wanting in self-denial Ministers also are guilty of this crime Or else we should not have been so forward to divisions and so backward to the cure nor would men of this profession for
the interest of their opinions and parties have cherished dissension and fled from concord and have had a hand in the resisting and pulling down Authority and embroiling the Nations in wars and miseries And whence is it but for want of self-denial for our own faults must be confessed that the Ministers of Christ are so much silent in the midst of such heinous miscarriages as the times abound with I know we receive not our Commission as Prophets did by immediate extraordinary inspiration But what of that The Priests that were called by an ordinary way were bound to be plain and faithful in their Office as well as the Prophets And so are we How plainly spoke the Prophets even to Kings and how patiently did they bear indignities and persecutions But now we are grown carnally wise and cautelous for holy wisdom and caution I allow and if duty be like to cost us dear we can think that we are excused from it If Great men would set up Popery in the Land by a Toleration alas how many Ministers think they may be silent for fear lest the contrivers should call them seditious or turbulent or disobedient or should set men to rail at them and call them Lyers and Calumniators or for fear lest they should be persecuted and â—uined in their estates or names If they do but foresee that men in power or honour in the world will charge them with Lies or unchristian dealing for speaking the words of Truth and Soberness against the Introduction of Popery and impiety and that they shall be made as the scorn and off-scouring of all the world and have all manner of evil saying falsly spoken of them for the sake of Christ his Church and truth they presently consult with flesh and blood and think themselves discharged of their duty when God saith Ezek. 33. 6. c. If the watchman see the sword come and blow not the Trumpet aud the people be not warned if the sword come and take any person from among them he is taken away in his iniquity but his blood will I require at the watchmans hand And were we no watchmen yet we have this command Lev. 19. 17. Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thy heart thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour and not suffer sin upon him Yet now many Ministers will be cruelly silent lest they should be charged with malice and hating those whom they are commanded to rebuke The sword of violence I perswade them not to meddle with but were it not for want of self-denial the sword of the spirit would be more faithfully managed against the sins of the greatest enemies of Christ and of the Gospel than it is by most though it should cost us more than scorns and slanders and though we know that bonds and afflictions did abide us And verily I cannot yet understand that the contempt and scorn of the Ministry in England is fed by any thing so much as selfishness Could we be for all mens Opinions and Carnal interests O what experience have I had of this all men for ought I see would be for us Is it a crime to be a Minister Doubtless it 's then a crime to be a Christian And he that rails at us as Ministers to day it 's like will rail at us as Christians to morrow But if such will vouchsafe to come to me before they venture their souls and soberly debate the case I undertake to prove the truth of Christianity The world may see in Clem. Writers exceptions against my Treatise of Infidelity what thin transparent Sophisms and silly Cavils they use against the Christian cause When they have well answered not only that Treatise but Du Plessis Grotius Vives Ficinus Micraelius the ancient apologies of the Christian writers of the Church let them boast then that they have confuted Christianity The Devil hath told me long ago in his secret temptations as much against the Christian Faith as ever I yet read in any of our Apostates But God hath told me of much more that 's for it and enabled me to see the folly of their Reasonings that think the mysteries of the Gospel to be foolishness But if it be not as Ministers and Christiâ—nâ— that we are hated what is it then If because we are ingnorant insufficient negligent or scandalous why do they not by a legal trial cast us out and put those in our places that are more able diligent and godly when we have provok'd them to it and beg'd it of them so often as we have done If it be because we are not Papists it is because we cannot renounce all our senses our Reason the Scripture the Unity Judgment and Tradidion of the far greatest part of the Universal Church If I have not already proved that Poperty fighteth against all these and am not able to make it good against any Jesuit on earth let them go on to number me with Hereticks and let them use me as they do such when I am in their power If we are hated because we are not of the Opinions of those that hate us it seems those Opinions are enemies to Charity and then we have little reason to embrace them And if this be it we are under an unavoidable necessity of being hated For among such diversity of Opinions it is impossible for us to comply with all if we durst be false to the known truth and durst become the servants of men and make every self-conceited Brother the Master of our Faith If we are so reviled because me are against an Universal Liberty of speaking or writing against the truths and wayes of Christ and of labouring in Satans harvest to the dividing of the Churches and the damnation of souls it is then in the up-shot because we are of any Religion and are not despisers of the Gospel and of the Church and of mens salvation and because we believe in Jesus Christ I have lately found by their exclamations and common defamations and threatnings and by the Volumes of reproaches that come forth against me and by the swarms of lyes that have been sent forth against me through the Land that even the present Contrivers of Englands Misery Liberty I would say and of Toleration for Popery and more are themselves unable to bear contradiction from one such an inconsiderable person as my self and they have got it into the mouths of souldiers that my writings are the cause of wars and that till I give over writing they shall not give over fighting though I do all that I am able to do for Peace And if this be so what a case would they bring the Nation into by giving far greater Liberty to all than ever I made use of Unless they still except a Liberty of contradicting themselves they must look for other kind of usage when Libertinism is set up Yea if they will seek the ruine of the Church and Cause of Christ they must look that