destroy the Church and Common-wealth and be a cruel enemy to mankind and to our Country and to rebel against the Powers that are ordained of God and thereby to receive damnation to our selves Rom. 13. 1 2 3. Heb. 13. 17. But yet this I must say that if a worthy person stand in competition with us self-denial requireth us to prefer them before our selves and to refuse honours and dignities when the good of the publick doth not call us to deny our selves more in the accepting them CHAP. LV. Q. Whether it be a denying our Relations Quest 5. WHether Self-denial consist in denying of Natural or Contracted Relations as of Father and Mother to Sons and Daughters of Brothers and Sisters Husband and Wife Master and Servant Prince and People Pastor and Flock Answ You might as wisely imagine that self-denial lieth in hating or denying any of Gods Works even the frame of nature or in denying food and rayment to our bodies or in denying our own lives so as to cut our throats For the same Law of Nature that made me a man and requireth me to preserve my life did make me a son and require me to love and honour my parents And it is in the Decalogue the first Commandment with promise as the Apostle calleth it Ephes 6. 2. It is frequently and expresly commanded in Scripture that children love honour obey their parents and terrible curses are pronounced on the breakers of these Commands Eph. 6. 1. 4. 5. 22 5. Colos 3. 20 21 22. 4. 1. Exod. 21. 17. Levit. 20. 9. Deuteron 21. 18 19. 27. 16. Prov. 30. 17. Mat. 15. 4. 19. 19. And if children were not bound to parents then parents should not be bound to educate children and then they would be exposed to misery and perish One would think that there should never such a Sect have risen up that should be worse than the very brutes who by the instinct of nature love their young ones and their dams But the Spirit foretold us that which is come to pass that in the last and perilous times there should be men that are disobedient to parents without natural affection 2 Tim. 3. 3. And for contracted Relations they are the express institution of God so frequently owned by him in Scripture and the duties of them so frequently commanded that I will not trouble you with the recital of the passages And as for the Adversaries objections they are frivolous The meaning of the Apostles words that we know no man after the flesh I have told you before The words of Christ to his Mother Joh. 2. 4. Woman what have I to do with thee which they alledge are nothing for their wicked cause they being no more but Christ's due Reprehension of his Mothers mistake who would prescribe him the time and manner of doing Miracles and have him do them in a way of ostentation which things did not belong to her but to the Spirit of God and the Lord himself And whereas they alledge that Text Luke 14. 26. that father mother brother sisters c. are to be hated for Christ I answer Even as our own lives are to be hated which are also numbred with them that is They must be all forsaken rather than Christ should be forsaken and therefore loved less than he and but for his sake If therefore this Text require you not at all to cut your own throats or some way kill your selves then it doth not require you to withdraw your due affections from Natural or Contracted Relations I must crave the Readers pardon that I trouble him with confuting such unnatural opinions and desire him to believe that it is not before I am urged to it by the arguments of some deluded souls that are not unlikely to do hurt by them with some CHAP. LVI Q. Or Relieving Strangers before Kindred Quest 6. WHether self-denial require that we should relieve godly strangers before our natural Kindred especially that are ungodly Or that we love them better Answ 1. Where our Natural Kindred are as holy and as needy as others there is a double obligation on us both natural and spiritual to love and relieve them 2. Where they are as Holy as others but less needy there may lie a double obligation on us to love them and yet not to give to them 3. If they be more needy or as needy as others though withal they be ungodly we are not thereby excused from natural affections or charitable relief 4. We must distinguish between children or such kindred as nature casteth upon our care for provision and such kindred as are by nature cast upon others If parents were not obliged to relieve and provide for their own children they would be exposed to misery and man should be more unnatural than brutes So that even when by ungodliness they are less amiable than others yet God hath bound men to provide for them more 5. Natural love and spiritual are much different you may have a stronger Natural Love to an ungodly child than to a Godly stranger but you must have a spiritual Love to that Godly stranger more than to your child And that spiritual Love must be at least as to the Rational and Estimative part much greater than the other Natural Love And yet you may be bound to Give more where you are not bound to Love more For it is not Love only that is the cause of giving but we are Gods Stewards and must dispose of what we have as he prescribeth us and his standing Law of Nature for the preservation of mankind is that parents take care of their children as such 6. The will and service of God being it that should dispose of all that we have we must in all such doubts look to these two things for our direction First to the particular Precepts of the Word and there we find the fore-said duty of parents expressed and withal the duty of relieving all that are needy to our power Secondly to the General Precept and there we find that we must honour God with our substance and lay out all our talents to his service And so the duty lieth plain before us If you have a child that is wicked yet as prents provide him his daily bread and leave him enough for daily bread when you die But more he should not have from me but the rest had I ten thousand pound a year I would lay out that way that my conscience told me may be most serviceable to God For 1. I am not bound to strengthen an enemy of Christ and enable him to do the greater mischief 2. Nor to cast away the mercies of God 3. If the Law required the parents to cause such a Rebellious son to be put to death Deut. 21. 18. then surely to provide him daily bread is now as much as a parent is obliged to And if it be an express Command that he that will not labour shall not eat 2 Thes 3. 10.
to God by sanctification doth with himself devote all that he hath and virtually all that ever he shall have And if he understand himself he will do it actually And hence it is that the Seed of Believers yea of one Believer are said to be Holy Not only or chiefly because they are yours born of your bodies nor meerly from a promise of God that hath no presupposed reason from the subject But because they are the children of one that hath devoted himself and all that he hath to God and if he understand himself doth actually offer devote and dedicate his child to God in the solemn Baptism Ordinance and Covenant And God will sure accept all that upon his own invitation is consecrated and offered to him 5. See that you submit them heartily to the dispose of God So that whatever he do with them for sickness or health for poverty or riches for honour or dishonour for life or death you can patiently bear it and say as Eli It is the Lord let him do as seemeth him good 1 Sam. 3. 18. Murmur not if God afflict and take them away even at once as he did the sons of Job or if he should afflict you in them as he did David in Amnon and Absalom Remember that as the Resignation of Life it self is the point by which Christ under the Gospel doth try mens faith so it was the resignation of an only son which was next to life by which he would try Abraham the Father of the faithful before the Incarnation of Christ If therefore you will be children of Abraham you must walk in the steps of faithful Abraham and remember that your children are not your own and be content that God do with his own as he pleases 6. Make God their portion as much as in you lieth and seek more for a spiritual than temporal felicity for them and acquaint them with their Creator in the days of their youth as believing that those of them that are the Holiest are the Happiest 7. Devote your children to such callings and imployments in which they are likeliest to be most serviceable to God Consider their dispositions and parts and then never ask what kind of life is the most honourable or gainful for them but in what way and course of life they may most serve God and be most useful to his Church And to that let them be devoted 8. Favour them not in sin and suffer them not to dishonour God that they are devoted to Remember Eli's example Gentle reproofs instead of necessary severe correction is called by God A despising him and preferring his sons before him 1 Sam. 2. 29 30. even because his sons made themselves vile and he restrained them not 1 Sam. 3. 13. Take heed as you love your selves or them of taking their parts against God or against correction and excusing the sins by which they do dishonour him 9. Give them not for their carnal advancement in the world that part of your estate which is due to God You owe it all to him and in the disposing of it he hath limited you to begin at home provide so for your children that they may have their daily bread and so much more as they are in likelyhood the fittest stewards to improve for God But if you see the publick state of the Church or Commonweal to stand in need of your assistance and you shall then give almost all to your children to make them rich and great in the world and put off the works of greater moment with some poor inconsiderable alms or Legacy this is to prefer self before the Lord even as it is imagined to survive in your progeny even when natural self can no longer enjoy it It 's a wonder how so many men seeming holy and devoted to God can quiet their consciences in such a palpable sin as this If one of them have two hundred or three hundred pound a year it 's a wonder if he leave an hundred a year of it to any pious or charitable use but if he leave forty or fifty pound to the poor or build some small Almes-house he thinks he hath done well all the rest must go to leave his son in equal dignity and riches in the world as himself But of this I spoke before 10. Lastly be sure that you be very suspicious of self when the case of your children or any dear Relation is before you For self is near you and will stick close and will not easily be thrust out of your Counsels nor â—â—aken off And therefore in your own case and your Childrens case or the case of your near friends you will have much ado to overcome the cunning and strong temptations to Partiality if you were the holiest Saint on earth though overcome them you will in the main if you have true grace But if you are dead professors it 's twenty to one but they will overcome you and you will shew the world that you are selfish hypocrites and more for your Children and Friends than God Let me here give a few instances in this warning 1. How oft have we seen it here and elsewhere that people that make some shew of Religion and are forward to have vice punished and discipline exercised yet when it falls on any children or near relations of their own they are as much against it as they are for it on others yea rise up with passion and bitter reproaches of Officers Ministers or others that are the causes of it As one Hypocrite is tried when he denieth to suffer for Christ himself so others shew themselves Hypocrites sooner by preferring their children yea their sinful children yea the present ease or profit or credit of their children before their duty and the honour of God And they will rather have God provoked sin unpunished and their childrens own salvation hazarded than they will have them justly and regularly chastised yea some of them rise up as malignant enemies against them that do it 2. Again When God hath convinced you of duty if a carnal friend a husband or a parent do but contradict it and perswade you from a known duty or a holy life how commonly do men obey because forsooth they are their friends that do perswade them 3. Moreover When the case falls out that a man cannot follow God and his duty and be true to his soul but he is like to lose his friends how commonly is God denied that friends may not be denied and conscience wounded and duty bawk'd that the favour of friends may not be lost O saith one they are the friends that I live by my livelihood is in their hands I am undone if they cast me off Well! take them and make thy best of them and keep them as long as thou canst if thou canst live better without God than them or canst spare Gods favour better than theirs and they are better friends to thee than Christ is and would be take
of so many thousands as Prosperity hath undone and by so many dreadful Passages of Scripture which shew the danger of it and see that if you prosper in any worldly thing you offer it all to God and Deny your selves and prosper not to the flesh CHAP. XXIX Children and Relations how to be denied 12. ANother selfish interest is in friends and children and other near and dear Relations and this is also to be denied Not that you should imitate those unnatural Hereticks that tell us that Fathers and Mothers and Brethren and Sisters and Husbands Princes Wives and Subjects are all Carnal Relations that must be disowned any further than Justice binds us to a retribution to parents or others that have been at pains or cost upon us No this is worse than heathenish impiety and not only against the fifth Commandment but abundance of the plainest passages through the Scripture To be without natural affection and disobedient to parents is part of the Character of those impious professors of whom Paul prophesied 2 Tim. 3. 2 3. If Christian servants have Heathens to their Masters they must not therefore cast off the yoak but count them worthy of all honour that the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed And if they have believing Masters they must not despise them because they are brethren but the rather do them service because they are faithful This is the doctrine of the Gospel which stablisheth and not dissolveth our Relations and if any teach otherwise he is proud knowing nothing but doating about questions and strifes of words 1 Tim. 6. 1 2 3 4. Believing wives must stay even with unbelieving husbands and win them to Christ by an eminent subjection chastity modesty and piety 1 Pet. 3. 1 2 3 4 6. 1 Cor. 7. 13 14. And the like may be said of other relations God calls us not as Popish votaries conceive to renounce and separate from our natural or other near relations on pretence of being devoted to him The words of Paul 2 Cor. 5. 16. are abused by them It 's true we must know no man after the flesh no not Christ himself that is as esteeming them principally for carnal excellencies as personage greatness birth c. or to carnal advantages and ends or preferring the body and common relations before the inward spiritual worth and spiritual relations And thus we must not know either parents or children or husbands or wives after the flesh nor should a Christian know or do any thing after the flesh as a Carnal man but yet as we still continue our Relation to Christ as his Disciples and Servants and Members and Redeemed ones for all that we know him not after the flesh so must we continue our Relations to others and be faithful in the duties of those Relations and this after the Spirit and for God So that by this you may see that it is our Relations carnally considered that are the fleshly interest which we must not know that is As they are look'd upon as any part of that self or of the Interest of that self which would be its own End and God and which is opposite to God or not subordinate to him To look upon your children more as yours than as God's is a carnal selfish thought To love them inordinately and more because they are your own than because they are Gods and to love your own interest in your children more than Gods interest in them is a selfish regarding them after the flesh Grace doth not destroy nature nor natural Relations or affections but it sanctifieth them all to God and carrieth us above it and destroyeth it as glorious intuition destroyeth gracious knowing in part that is by perfecting it Before Sanctification we know esteem regard and love our parents children husbands wives meerly as thus related to us and in these Carnal respects and rise no higher and if we had converst with Christ himself and eat and drank in his presence and loved him accordingly it would have been but by a selfish carnal knowledge esteem and love But now we are sanctified as God is exalted and self denied and annihilated as opposed or separated from God so are all things that belong to self And therefore if we had loved parents or Christ himself but with such a carnal selfish love before yet now we love them with higher love that carrieth self and all to God And thus even self is so destroyed as opposite to God and separate from him as thereby to be exalted as united and subservient to him And so is the love of friends Relations or Christ himself if we had loved him as a natural Kinsman or brother as some did that yet believed not in him it 's destroyed but by an exalting perfecting destruction Just so far as self is dead so far Carnal knowledge and self-interest in friends is dead and their dearness to us for that interest and self and they are all advanced and dedicated unto God And thus it is that the Apostle would be understood and thus it is that self must be denied in your Relations but because much duty consisteth herein I shall moreover tell you the several parts of it in a few Directions which shall mostly extend to other Relations but principally to parents because they are aptest to exceed 1. See that it be God more than your selves that you love in your Children and other Relations And to that End see what of God is in them as they are his creatures as devoted to him as any way gifted by him for his service and as sanctified if they are such He that loveth any creature for it self and doth not principally love God in them loveth them but carnally 2. See therefore that you value and love those most that have most of God in them and the best of his endowments Love a crooked deformed child that is Godly better than the most comely or beautiful or witty that is ungodly When Parents have a humorous unreasonable love to one child above the rest without desert or to a worse before a better this is but a carnal selfish Love 3. Love none excessively but with a moderate love such as shall allow God and holiness the preheminence so that when you have the most love for your Relations you may have more for God at least in the Estimation Resolution Adhesion of your souls to him if not in the passionate part of Love 4. See that you subject them to the Government of Christ Labour to win all other relations to him and devote your children to him betimes that they may be his as soon as yours Whiles they have no wills of their own to use they are to choose with your wills that is you are to make choice for them And therefore if you unfeignedly Dedicate them to God you have small reason to doubt of his acceptance This all parents do virtually that are Godly For he that is himself devoted
affections It is Gods highest honour to be highliest esteemed and dearliest beloved as being the most perfect and transcendent Good And Proud men in this world aspire to his Prerogative and much affect to be beloved of all and fain they would sit near mens hearts and be the darlings of the world This is a fine but dangerous sin and I doubt many that are guilty of it never well considered that it is a sin and so great a sin as indeed it is Deny your selves in this It is God that must be Loved of all and not you You must be content to be hated of all men for his name sake that he may be beloved Mens hearts were not made to be your throne but Gods Your work is to Love and not ambitiously to seek for love So far as your interest in mens affections doth conduce to Gods honour and service and their good desire it and spare not But see that these be really your ends But for your selves take heed of desiring or seeking for mens Love They are apt enough to have inordinate affections to the creature without your temptations To Love God in you and Love you for God is their duty which you may provoke them to in season But seek not for any nearer interest in them nor for such a love as terminateth in your selves Nature is exceeding ambitious of being beloved but steal not Gods due You are to be sutors and sollicitors for him to win the hearts of as many as you can and not to speak for your selves in his stead Thankfully accept of mens Ordinate Love to you if you have it but if they deny it for you or for the sake of Christ and turn it into hatred do you deny your selves herein and remember that it 's no more than you were forewarned of and no more than your Lord and his worthiest servants have endured What a Pattern is Paul that tells his converts he seeks not theirs but them as parents lay up for the children and not children for the parents and would gladly spend and be spent for them though the more he love the less he were beloved 2 Cor. 12. 14 15. See that you Love God and them and that is your duty do that and you need not take care for the Love of men to you Their Love is none of your felicity and therefore their hatred depriveth you not of your felicity for that lieth only in the Love of God Here therefore self must be denied CHAP. XLIII The Reputation of Riches to be denied 3 ANother part of the Honour which self must be denied in is The Reputation of your Riches For wealth is one thing that men are proud of Some desire to be esteemed richer than they are and therefore go in the best apparel they can get that they may not be thought to be persons of the lowest poorest sort And some that are Rich do glory in their Riches and think they are much more to be honoured than the poor But alas if they had well read and considered what Christ hath said of the danger of the rich particularly in Luke 12. 16. 18. 8. 14. Mat. 13. 22. Mark 10. 23. and what James saith to them James 5. 1 2. c. they would see that Riches is not a thing to be Proud of Not many great and noble are called God hath chosen the poor of this world Rich in faith to be heirs of the Kingdom The talents for which we must give such an account at the bar of Christ should be rather the matter of our fear and trembling than of our Pride That which makes our passage to heaven to be as the Camels through a needle's eye I think should not much lift us up All the Riches of the world do make you never the better thought of with God or any wise man Nor will they cause you to live a moneth the longer or quiet your Consciences or save you from death or the wrath of God The only worth of Riches is that you are better furnished than others to do God some good service by relieving the poor and helping the Church and furthering many such good works And for the sake of these good ends you must patiently bear a state of Riches yea and thankfully receive them if they are given you by God though the care and labour in a faithful distribution of them and the danger of abusing them and the reckoning to be made for them are so great as may deter a wise man from a greedy seeking them or glorying in them CHAP. XLIV Comeliness and Beauty to be denied 4. ANother part of the Honour that self must be denied in is The Reputation of your personal comeliness or beauty For such fools and children sin hath made folks that many much set by the Reputation of these And hence is most commonly the abuse of Apparel Every proud person is desirous of that which will make them seem the handsomest or beautifullest persons unto others and make it their care to set forth themselves to the eyes of beholders What they indeed are we can see as well in the meanest attire but what they would be thought to be we may best see in this But of this I spoke before yea some think that they are not Proud of their comeliness yet cannot endure to be esteemed ill-favoured or uncomely and so shew that Pride which they would deny I confess these are commonly but the temptations of women and procacious youth But one would think it should be easie for a few sober thoughts to cut their combs and let them see how little cause they have to be proud of beauty or comeliness of the flesh Alas what is that body that you are proud of Filth and corruption covered with a cleaner skin than some of your neighbours Ah but the skin is thin and if that be all you have to glory in it is as frail as contemptible There 's many a pretty flower in the common field that 's trodden down by the feet of beasts that have a gloss and hue incomparably beyond your beauty I asked you before what beauty you will have to glory of when you have dwelt but a few moneths in the grave or if the small Pox or Leprosie should clothe you with another coloured skin or if a Cancer should but seize upon your face and turn it into such an ugly shape as makes men tremble to behold it or when wrinkled age hath made you as another person or when death hath deprived you of that soul which was your beauty and laid you out as a prey and sacrifice to corruption Ah that ever such a skin full of dirt such a bag of filth should yet be proud that 's carried about by a living soul and by it kept a little while from falling down as a sensless clod and turning into a stinking corpse They are short-sighted and short-witted as well as graceless that cannot look so far before them
withall unsanctified hearts are ordinarily transported with this odious vice A strong wit and a voluble tongue and learning to furnish it with matter are notable servants to Pride of heart where that spiritual illumination and holiness is wanting that should abase the Proud and turn mens Parts a better way To all that are apt to be tainted with this odious vice I would recommend these following considerations 1. Consider what a dangerous sign it is of a graceless hypocritical heart where Pride of Gifts doth much prevail It is as inseparable from a child of God to be humble and little in his own esteem as from a new-born Child to be really lesser than men at age No more sincerity than humility in any 2. Consider what cause of deep humiliation you carry about you in every duty Besides all the wants and loathsom corruptions of your souls which follow you wherever you go the very sins of your duties one would think should humble you Oh to have such low conceptions such dull apprehensions such heartless unreverent poor expressions of such a God such a Christ such a glory and such holy truth should make us ashamed to open our Lips before the Lord and wonder that he doth not tread us into hell instead of regarding us or our services and that fire doth not come forth from his jealousie and consume us It should make us so far from glorying in our performances that it should drive us to Christ in every duty to take him with us to shelter us from the flames of holy jealousie so that we should not dare to go any further than he goes before us and stands between us and the wrath of God nor to speak a word but in his name nor to expect any welcome but on his account Shall a wretch be Proud of that performance whose failings deserve everlasting torments Must you be beholden to Christ to save you from the Hell that the sins of your performances deserve and yet dare you be proud of them Let a Papist run that desperate path that rails at us for saying that our best duties are mix'd with sin and that this sin deserves the wrath of God Let them refuse a Physician that think not themselves sick and let them tell Christ they will not be beholden to him for a pardon for the sins of their prayers and other duties but for shame let not us be guilty of this who profess to be better acquainted with our infirmities 3. Consider also that you have to do with so Holy and Glorious a God that to be Proud before Him and that in and of our very service of him is a sin whose greatness surpasseth our apprehensions Had you to do with a man like your selves you might better lift up your selves against him There is nothing comparatively in the presence of the greatest Prince to humble and abase you But to be Proud before the God of heaven and that in and of our lamentably weak addresses to him O what an horridly impious unreasonable thing is this O man if thy eyes were opened to see a little a very little of the glory of that blessed God thou speakest to how flat wouldst thou fall down how wouldst thou fear and tremble and cry out as the Prophet Isa 6. 5. Wo is me for I am undone because I am a man of unclean lips and dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips for mine eyes have seen the King the Lord of hosts Or as Job 40. 4. Behold I am vile what shall I answer thee I will lay my hand upon my mouth And Chap. 42. 5 6. I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear but now mine eye seeth thee wherefore I abhor my self and repent in dust and ashes One glimpse of Gods Majesty would take down thy self-exalting thoughts and humble thee with a witness 4. Consider the examples of the holiest of Gods servants The example of Job and Isaiah I have now mentioned Moses himself did think himself unmeet to speak in Gods message Exod. 4. 10. He said unto the Lord I am not eloquent neither heretofore nor since thou hast spoken to thy servant but I am of slow speech and of a slow tongue And ver 13. He said O my Lord send I pray thee by the hand of him whom thou wilt send When God sent Jer. 1. 6. he said Ah Lord God behold I cannot speak for I am a child And Paul cries out Who is sufficient for these things 2 Cor. 2. 16. So that it hath been the course of the most Seraphical Prophets and holy Apostles to have low thoughts of their own abilities for duty And yet have you enough to be Proud of 5. And consider that the Nature of the holy employment that you are upon one would think should be enough to humble you It is a confessing of sin unworthiness and guilt and will you be Proud of this It is a confessing that you deserve everlasting torment And will you be Proud of such a confession as this The Lord be merciful to us and save us from this unreasonable vice who would think that it should be thus with a man in his wits To confess that he deserveth Hell-fire And to be Proud of that Confession your Petitions are all humbling if they be according to the word you are beggars for your lives for pardon of many and hainous sins and should come as with the rope about your necks you beg for deliverance from eternal misery and should you be proud of such requests should beggars be Proud yea such needy miserable beggars and be proud of their very begging Nay your very thanksgiving it self is humbling For what do you give thanks for but for salvation from these odious sins and the damnation which you have deserved And shall a thief be proud that he is pardoned and taken from the gallows Pride is contrary to the very Nature and meaning of all those holy duties that you are Proud of 6. Yea the Gifts themselves that you are Proud of should humble you For 1. They are from God and not your selves 1 Cor. 4. 7. For who maketh thee to differ and what hast thou that thou didst not receive Now if thou didst receive it why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received it 2. You received them not for your selves but for God and therefore have no reason your selves to be lifted up by them 3. All Gifts are for labour and duty and must be once accounted for and therefore should keep you in humility and fear To be Proud of Gods Gifts is to be Proud of that which is given you to destroy Pride in your selves and others For this is the End of them 7. And it is a sign that you want exceeding much of that which you are Proud of You are Proud of Knowledge when as if it were not for want of Knowledge of that which should humble you you would not be so Proud You are Proud
exhorted them Stand back This one fellow came in to sojourn and he will needs be a Judge now will we deal worse with thee than with them what say they can he not preach and let me alone hath he none to rebuke before the Congregation but me And thus will every ungodly person reject the Word as they are selfish and self must be let alone in all But why must you be let alone will you be ever the safer or better for that will God let you alone if we should let you alone No he will not be frightened from dealing with you as you are whatever his word hath said against you he will certainly make good though you should never more be told of it by Ministers You have not silenced your Judge when you have silenced his Messengers He will handle you in another manner than Ministers do O how easie is it to hear a Preacher threatning the everlasting wrath in comparison of hearing the sentence of the Judge and feeling the execution If we should yield to your desires and let you alone God would neither let you nor us alone you would but go the quietlier to hell and your blood will be required also at our hands Ezek. 33. 6 7 8 9. and then what would become both of us and you O were it not for the Powerful resistance of this selfishness what work would every Sermon make that we preach to you O what abundance would be converted at a Sermon for what should hinder it I should make no doubt of perswading you all to close with the Lord upon his reasonable terms and to become a holy and heavenly people and presently to forsake your former sin even this hour Nay some ordinances there are that selfishness hath almost shut out of the Church as most of the exercise of the antient Discipline in open and personal admonitions and publick confessions and lamentation of sin with rejection of the impenitent and the Absolution of the penitent Besides most of that private address to Pastors for their advice in case of falls and spiritual decays or weaknesses and difficulties that meet them in doctrine or duty Self will not suffer men to stoop to most of these What will they be brought to open confessions and lamentations of sin and to follow the guidance and perswasions of a Priest no all the Priests in England shall not make such fools of them so wise are these selfish men for a little while But how long will this hold and how long will madness go for wisdom when they are dying then they will send for the Minister and confess and when some of them come to the Gallows they will confess And every one of them shall confess at last whether they will or no and God will indite their confession for them and open their shame to all the world in another manner than Ministers required them to open it But then Confession will do nothing for Remission and the preventing of execution as now it might have done So also the duty of brotherly reproof and admonition of offendors is almost quite cast out by selfishness and especially the patient and thankful receiving of it And those ordinances that are continued are very much frustrated by the opposition of selfishness It is a very hard task that Scripture and good books and preachers have to do when we speak every word to enemies of the Doctrine which we preach and we can do them no good but by their own consent And who will consent to that which he is an enemy to Our work is to subdue their Flesh and Carnal wills to Christ and this flesh is so dear to them that it is themselves so that they take all that Doctrine to be against them which should save them And we have as many Enemies as unconverted hearers in our Assemblies No wonder therefore if they carp and quarrel and strive when the self-denying humbly submit and obey Self-denial openeth the heart to Christ and giveth the Ordinances leave to work It taketh down all opposition and contradiction so that though the soul may stay to search the Scripture and see whether the things that are taught be so yet it searcheth with a childlike charitableness and willingness to learn and know and obey It hath no mind to quarrel with God how easily will a self-denying man submit to those duties which another man abhors How easily will he be perswaded to forgive a wrong to part with his right for a greater good to others to let go a gainful Trade that is unlawful or any sinful way of thriving How easily is he brought to ask forgiveness of those that he hath wronged to make a publick confession of his sins if the greatness of them or his duty to God or the good of others do require it to make restitution of all that he hath gotten wrongfully to bear a plain and sharp reproof to part with his own for the relief of the poor to lay out his estate to the best advantage of the Cause and Church of God and the common good to let go any unlawful vanity any excess in meat and drink or sport or sleep or any vanity in apparel or other work of Pride How easily can he bear all rebukes reproaches and neglects and undervaluing ingratitude from others But what ado shall we have with carnal unsanctified wretches to perswade them to all or any of this From them a Preacher hath such a work to pull their beloved profitable sins they seem profitable to them till the reckoning comes as a man hath to pull the prey from the jaws of a hungry Wolf or meat from the mouth of a greedy Dog But when we require the self-denying to do the same thing it is but as to bid a child obey his Father whom he loveth and honoureth The doing of these duties and forsaking these sins is to an ungodly man as the parting with a right hand or a right eye or the skin from his back or the flesh from his bones as we see by the rarity and the unsuccessfulness of the plainest reasons and great Authority of God himself and the few works of Piety charity or self-denyal that are done by such at any great cost But to the self-denying it is but as the casting away a handful of earth or casting off an upper garment for the doing of their work CHAP. LXVIII Enemy of all Society Relations and Common good 6. MOreover this selfishness is the enemy to all Societies and Relations and consequently to the common good And it is not only indirectly and consequentially but directly that it strikes at the very foundation of all For the manifesting of this consider in what respects this selfishness is at enmity with Societies 1. The End of Societies is essential to them and this End is the Common good of the Society and therefore a Republick hath its name from hence because it is constituted and to be administred for the