earth or from a carrion in a ditch so will our glorified immortal bodies differ from this mortal corruptible flesh If a skilful workman can turn a little earth and ashes into such curious transparent glasses as we daily see and if a little seed that bears no shew of such a thing can produce the more beautiful flowers of the earth and if a little acorn can bring forth the greatest Oak why should we once doubt whether the seed of everlasting life and glory which is now in the blessed souls with Christ can by him communicate a perfection to the flesh that is dissolved into its elements There 's no true beauty but that which is there received from the face of God And if a glympse made Moses face to shine what glory will Gods glory communicate to us when we have the fullest endless intuition of it There only is the strength and there 's the riches and there 's the honour and there 's the pleasure and here are but the shadows and dreams and names and images of these precious things And the perfection of the soul that 's now imperfect will be such as cannot now be known The very nature and manner of Intellection Memory Volition and Affections will be unconceivably altered and elevated even as the soul it self will be and much more because of the change on the corruptible body which in these acts it now makes use of But of these things I have spoke so much in the Saints Rest that I shall say no more of them now but this that in a Believer that expects this blessed change and knows that he shall never till then be perfect there is much unreasonableness in the inordinate unwillingness and fears of death 12. You know that fears and unwillingness can do no good but much increase your suffering and make your death a double death If it be bitter naturally make it not more bitter wilfully I speak this of a violent death for Christ as well as of a natural death For as the one cannot be avoided if we would so the other cannot be avoided when Christ calleth us to it without the loss of our Salvation and therefore it may be called Necessary as well as the other Necessary suffering and death is enough without thâ— addition of unnecessary fears 13. Nay were it but to put an end to the inordinate fears of death even death it self should be the less fearful to us These very fears are troublesome to many an upright soul and should we not desire to be past them As a woman with Child is in fear of the pain danger of her travel but joyful when it 's over so is the true believer himself too oft afraid of the departing hour but death puts an end to all those fears Is it the pain that you fear Why how soon will it be over Is it the strangeness of your souls to God and the place that you are passing to This also will be quickly over and one moment will give you such full acquaintance with the blessed God and the Celestial inhabitants and the world in which you are to live that you will find your self no stranger there but be more joyfully familiar and content than ever you were in the bosom of your dearest friend The Infant in the Womb is a stranger to this lighter open world and all the inhabitants of it and yet it is nor best stay there You can fail for commodity to a Country that you never saw and why cannot you pass with peace and joy to a God a Christ a Heaven that you never saw But yet you are not wholly a stranger there Is it not that God that you have loved and that hath first loved you Have you not been brought into the world by him and lived by him and been preserved and provided for by him and do you not know him Is it not your Father and he that hath given you his Son and his Spirit have you not found an inclination towards him desires after him and some taste of his love and communion with him and yet are you wholly unacquainted with him Know ye not him whom you have loved above all in whom you have trusted and whom you have daily served in the world Who have you lived to but him for whom else have you laid out your time and labour and yet do you not know him And know you not that Christ that hath purposely come down into flesh that you might know him and that hath shewed himself to you in a holy life and bitter death and in abundant precious Gospel mercies and in Sacramental representations that so he might entertain a familiarity with you and infinite distance might not leave you too strange to God Know you not that Spirit that hath made so many a motion to your soul that hath sanctified you and formed the image of God upon you and hath dwelt in you so long and made your hearts his very work-house where he hath been daily doing somewhat for God It is not possible that you should be utterly strange to him that you Live to and Live from and Live in and not know him by whom you know your selves and all things nor see that Light by which you see whatever you see O but you say you never saw him and have no distinct apprehension of his essence Answ What! Would you make a Creature of him that can be limited comprehended or seen with fleshly mortal eyes Take heed of such imaginations It is the understanding that must see him You know that he is most Wise and Good and Great and that he is the Creator and Sustainer and Ruler of the world and that he is your Reconciled Father in Christ and is this no knowledg of him And then the Heaven that you are to go to is it that you are an Heir of where you have laid up your treasure and where your hearts and conversation hath so long been and yet do you not know it You have had many a thought of it and bestowed many a days labour for it and yet do you not know it O but you never saw it for all this Answ It is a spiritual blessedness that flesh and blood can neither enjoy nor see But by the eye of the mind you have often seen at least some glimpse of it You know that it is the present intuition and full fruition of God himself and your glorified Redeemer with his blessed Angels and Saints in perfect Love and Joy and Praise And if you know this you are not altogether strangers to heaven And for the Saints and heavenly Inhabitants you are not wholly strangers to them Some of them you have known in the flesh and others of them you have known in the spirit You are fellow-Citizens with the Saints and of the houshold of God and therefore cannot be utterly unacquainted with them But me thinks the stranger you are to God and to Heaven and to the Saints
state of the world and of the Church through the world doth scarce know how to order his affections or compose his prayers even in those greatest petitions about the honour Kingdom will of God They cannot grieve with the Church in grief nor mourn with it when it mourns so that it is a great duty of a Christian to labour to understand by History the former and present state of the Church And it is a great mark of a gracious soul that longs to hear of the prosperity of the Saints and free progress of the Gospel and a mark of a graceless person that careth not for these things But when History is not used to acquaint us with the matters of God or to surnish us with useful knowledge but to please a ranging carnal mind then it is but sinful sensuality or vanity Many persons have no such delight to read the useful History of Church-affairs as they have to read the curiously penned though less useful History of other matters Though I know that the History of the whole world is very serviceable to the knowledge of Divine things yet they that use it to holy ends will make choice accordingly and be no more in it than may suit with those ends It is the most humane with the most light ridiculous passages that are most pleasing to vain unsanctified wits but the godly delight in it so far as it shews them something of God and leadeth them to him In the very reading of Scripture a carnal reader may be much pleased with the History that hath no savour in the Doctrine but is weary to read it and yet I must add this caution by the way If we find a carnal kind of delight in Scripture-history or any other that is profitable we must not therefore cast off the History but seek after the cure of our disease that we may spiritually take pleasure in all for God and he may be the beginning end the life the All of our studies and delights And though our carnal delight in News and History be a sin in us yet God doth sometime make it an occasion of Good by leading us to that holy truth which after may be the means of our sanctification though at first we received it but as a Novelty And so the carnal pleasure that many have in hearing News and sitting with folks that will talk of other mens matters or things that concern them not is nothing but a sinful pleasing of the fancy and loss of time and neglect of greater matters which call for all our time and care It was the voice of the Athenians Act. 17. 21. for all the Athenians and strangers that were there spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing yea novelty of Doctrine and Religion and Teachers is a snare and bait to carnal fancies which many are taken by that are forsaken of God having first forsaken him and proved false to the truth received CHAP. XXXII Unnecessary Knowledge and Deligh therein 15. ANother part of Carnal Pleasure which self must be denied in is A desire after unnecessary Knowledge and Delight therein This is the common sin of man but not of all alike Even they that can live without the Knowledge of the saving Principles of Religion do yet itch to know unprofitable things and many a foolish question they will be asking about matters unrevealed or that concern them not when they overlook that which their salvation lieth on but the learneder sort and especially more prying wits and those that are bred up among disputes are the pronest to this sin and though it be an odious vice yet it so befooleth many that they reckon it confidently among their vertues God cannot be known too much nor can any man be too much in love with the true knowledge of God in Jesus Christ without this knowledge the mind is not good nor can the heart be sanctified or the man be saved Nor can any man know too much of the will and word of God nor yet of his works in which he revealeth himself to the world But the Carnal knowledge which is to be denied is of another nature than the sanctified knowledge of believers I shall shew you the difference in certain particular respects 1. This desire to know which is in the unsanctified is partly from meer nature and partly from a distempered fantasie which is like a crorupt enraged appetite that chooseth that which is unwholsom and yet is over-greedy after it But the desire after knowledge in the sanctified is kindled by the love of God and the love of those holy and heavenly things which they are inquiring after It is not the Love of God that sets ungodly men upon their studies but a common and carnal desire to know and this appears in the end which is next 2. This carnal knowledge is but to feed and furnish and please a carnal fancy because it is some adding to our understandings and because it is naturally pleasant to know and because it brings in some novelty and variety and because it makes us seem wiser than other men and furnisheth us with matter of discourse and ostentation and rids the mind of some troublesom doubts therefore even the worst have a mind to know But this is the knowledge that must be denied that which must be valued and sought after is To know God that we may love and reverence and trust and admire and honour him and enjoy him To know Christ that we may have more Communion with him To know the word and works of God that in them we may know his nature and his will and knowing his will may serve him and please him These must be the ends of Christian knowledge There is nothing in the world that God hath revealed but in its place we may be willing to know so that we stick not in the creature or sense of the words or common verities but use every thing as a book or looking-glass we love not a book so much for the letters as for the matter which they contain we love not a Glass for it self so much as for its use to shew us the face which we would see in it so if we go to the creatures but as a book in which we may read the mind of God and see his nature and as a glass in which his glory doth shine forth our study and knowledge will be sanctified and divine And thus as Paul would know nothing but Christ Crucified so every Christian should be able to say that he would know nothing but God in Christ for though we know a thousand matters and that of the lowest nature in themselves yet as long as we study them not for themselves but for God it is not them that we know so much as God in them and so all is but the knowing of God even as in our duty though the works may be many and
salvation or of the want of a necessary Love to our selves For the higher containeth the lower and perfection containeth those degrees that are found in the imperfect This neglect of our selves through the Love of God is consequentially the most provident securing of our selves This carelesness is the wisest care This ignorance of good and evil for our selves while we know the Lord and know our duty is the wisest way to prevent the evil To be something in our selves is to be Nothing But if we be Nothing in our selves and God be All to us in him we shall be something Be not wanting to God and I am sure you cannot be wanting to your selves He will Reward if you 'l Obey I have shewed you hitherto the Nature and Necessity of Self-denial O that I could next shew you the Nations the Churches that are such indeed as I have described But when I look into the world when I look into the Churches of all sorts and consider men of all degrees my soul is even amazed and melted into grief to think how far the forwardest professors are swerved from their holy Rule and pattern O grievous case how rare are self-denying men Nothing in the world doth more assure me that the number that shall be saved are very few When nothing is more evident in Scripture than that none but the self-denying shall be saved and nothing more evident in the world than that self-denying men are very few Would God but excuse men in this one point and take up with preaching and praying and numbring our selves with the strictest party then I should hope that many comparatively would be saved Would he give men leave to seek themselves in a Religious way and to be zealous only from a selfish principle and would he but abate men this self-denial and the superlative Love of God I should hope true godliness were not rare But if self-denial be the mark the nature of a Saint and this as effected by the Love of God then alas how thin are they in the world and how weak is grace even in those few It is the daily grief of my soul to observe how the world is captivated to it SELF and what sway this odious sin doth bear among the forwardest professors of Religion and how blind men are that will not see it and that it hath so far prevailed that few men lament it or strive against it or will bear the most suitable remedy Alas when we have prevailed with careless souls to mind their salvation to read and pray and hold communion with the godly and seem well qualified Christians how few are brought to self-denial and how strong is Self still in those few What a multitude that seem of the highest form in zeal and opinions and duties delude themselves with a selfish kind of Religiousness And it grieveth my soul to think how little the most excellent means prevail even with Professors themselves against this sin What abundance of labour seemeth to be lost that we bestow against i When I have preached over all these following Sermons against it though grace hath made them effectual with some yet selfishness still too much bears sway in many that heard them O what a rooted sin is this How powerful and obstinate Men that seem diligently to hear and like the Sermon and write it and repeat it when they come home and commend â—â— do yet continue selfish And they that walk evenly and charitably among us in all appearance as long as they are smoothly dealt with when once they are but toucht and crost in their self-interest do presently shew that there is that within them which we or they before perceived not It was doubtless from too much experience of the selfishness even of Professors of Religion and of the successfulness of temptations in this kind that Satan did tell God so boldly that Job would sin if he were but touched in his self-interest Job 1. 9 10 11. 2. 4 5. Doth Job saith he fear God for nothing hast not thou made an hedge about him and about his house and about all that he hath on every side Thou hast blessed the work of his hand and his substance is increased in the Land But put forth thy hand now and touch all that he hath and he will curse thee to thy face As if he should have said Glory not of Job or any of thy servants It is not thee but themselves that they seek They serve thee but for their own commodity It is Self and not God that ruleth them and that they do all this for Seem but to be their enemy and touch their self-interest and cross them in their commodity that they may serve thee for nothing and then see who will serve thee This was the boast of Satan against the Saints of the most high which hypocrites that encouraged him hereto would have fulfilled and which God doth glory in confuting and therefore he gives the Devil leave to try Job in this point and putteth all that he had into his power ver 12. And when Satan by this succeeded noâ— he yet boasteth that if he might but touch him more nearly in his self-interest he doubted not to prevail c. 2. 4 5. Skin for skin yea all that a man hath will he give for his life Put but forth thy hand now and touch his bone and his flesh and he will curse thee to thy face This confidence had Satan even against such a servant of the Lord That there was none like him in the earth a perfect and upright man that feared God and eschewed evil c. 1. 8. And though the power of grace in Job did shame the boasts of Satan yet how frequently doth he prevail with men that seem Religious How truly may he say of many among us Now they seem godly but let the times turn and godliness undo them in the world and then see whether they will be godly Now they seem faithful to their Pastors and Brethren but give them a sufficient reward and see whether they will not play the Judas Now they seem peaceable humble men but touch them in their self-interest cross them in their commodity or reputation by an injury yea or by justice or necessary reproof and then see what they will prove O that the Devil could not truly boast of thousands that by a few foul words or by crossing their self-willedness he can make them speak evil of their neighbours and fill them with malice and bitterness against their truest friends Oh where are the men that maintain their Love and Meekness and Concord any longer than they are pleased and their wills and interests are complyed with or not much contradicted Besides what I have more largely spoken of this master common sin in the following Discourse take notice here of a few of the discoveries of it 1. Observe but the striving that there is for Command and Dignity and Riches and this even among Professors
them yea or that would not step out of their way for it and wound their Consciences and hazard all their hopes of Heaven for it if they found themselves in a likelyhood of obtaining it because where self doth raign at home it would raign also over all others Nothing more pleaseth the Carnal mind than to have his will and to have all men do what he would have them and to see all at his beck and each man seeking to know his Pleasure ready to receive his word for Law This is the reign of self But sanctification teaching men self-denyal doth make them look fist at the Doing of Gods will and would have all the world obedient to that and for their own wills they resign them absolutely to Gods and would not have men obey them but in a due subordination to the Lord. As they affect no Dominion or Government but for God so they desire not men to obey their wills any further than it is necessary to the obedience of Gods will to which they are serviceable and conform The self-denying sanctified man hath as careful an eye up and down the world for Gods interest as the self-seeker hath for his own And as eagerly doth he long to hear of the setting up of the Name and Kingdom and Will or Laws of God in the world as the ambitious man longs for the setting up of his own And it as much rejoyceth the holy self-denying man to hear that Gods Laws are set up and obeyed and that the world doth stoop to Jesus Christ as it would rejoyce the Carnal selfish wretch to be the Lord and Master of all himself and his will become the Law of the world An Holy self-denying man would be far gladder to hear that Africa America and the rest of the unbelieving part of the world were Converted to Christ by the power of the Gospel and that the Heathens were his inheritance and the Kingdoms of the world become the Kingdoms of Christ than if he had Conquered all these himself and were become the King or Emperour of the world For as self is the chief interest of an unsanctified man so Christ and the will of God is the chief Interest of the sanctified for the hath destroyed the contradictory Interest of self and renounced it and hath taken God for his End and Christ for the Way and consequently for his highest Interest so that he hath now no business in the world but Gods business he hath no honour to regard but Gods honour he hath none to exalt but the King of Kings he knows no gain but the pleasing of God he knows no content or pleasure but Gods pleasure for the life that he now lives in the flesh he lives by faith of the Son of God that hath loved him and given himself for him and thereby hath drawn him out of himself to the Fountain and End of Love and so it is not he that lives but Christ liveth in him Gal. 2. 20. 10. Lastly it is the high Prerogative of God to have the honour and Power and Glory ascribed to him and be praised as the author of all Good to the world and his Glory he will not give to another Man and all things are Created and preserved and ordered for his Glory Nor shall man have any Glory but in the Glorifying of his Lord when we fell short of Glorifying the Lord we also fell short of the Glory which we expected by him But when sin turned man from God to himself he became regardless of the honour of God and his mind was bent on his own Honour so that he would have every knee bow to himself and every eye observe him and every mind think highly of him and every tongue to praise and magnifie him It doth him good at the heart to have vertue and wisdom and greatness ascribed to him and an excellency in all and to have all the good that is done ascribed to him and to be taken to be as the Sun in the firmament that all must eye and none can live without and to be esteemed the benefactor of all When he hears that men extol him and speak nothing of him but well and great things and when he sees them all observe and reverence him and take him as an Oracle for wisdom or as an Angel of God O how this pleaseth his unsanctified selfish mind Now he hath his End even that which he would have and verily saith Christ they have their reward But when Sanctification hath taught men to deny themselves they see then that they are vile and miserable sinners and loath themselves for all their abominations and are base in their own eyes and humble themselves before the Lord and abhor themselves in dust and ashes and say To us belongeth shame and confusion of face Not unto us O Lord not unto us but to thy Name give the glory Psal 115. 1. Dan. 9. 7 8. The holy self-denying soul desireth no glory and honour but what may conduce to the glory and honour of his Lord His heart riseth against base flattering worldlings that would rob God and give the honour to him nor can they do him a greater displeasure than to ascribe that to him belongeth only to God or to bring to him or any Creature his Makers due If God be honoured he takes himself as honoured if he be never so low If God be dishonoured he is troubled and his own honour will not make him reparation As he liveth himself to the glory of God and doth all that he doth in the world to that end so would he have others do so too And if God be most honoured by his disgrace and shame he can submit And thus I have shewed you the true Nature both of selfishness and of self-denyal But observe that I describe it as it is in it self but yet there is too much selfishness in the best which may hinder the fulness of these effects But self-denyal is predominant in all the sanctified though it be not perfect CHAP. II. Reasons of the Necessity of Self-denyal to salvation III. ANd now you have seen the Description of self-denyal and I hope if you have studyed it you know what it is that is required I shall next shew you some of the Reasons of its Necessity and prove it to you beyond dispute that it is no indifferent thing nor the high attainment of some few of the Saints but a thing that all must have that will be saved being of the very essence of holiness it self so that it is as possible to live without life as to be Holy without self-denyal and as possible to be saved whether God will or no as to be saved without self-denyal in a predominant degree And if any of you thing strange that salvation should be laid on so high a duty and that no man can be a true Disciple that denyeth not himself even to the forsaking of his Life and all when God requireth it
one sin were but rooted out of the hears of the Ministers themselves that are the Preachers of self-denial it would make so sudden and wonderful a change in the Church as would be the glory of our Profession the Joy of the godly and the admiration of all O happy and honourable Magistrates at Court and Country if self were but throughly conquered and denyed O happy and Reverend Ministry the pillars of Religion the honour of the Church if it were not for the shameful prevalency of self O happy Churches happy Cities Corporations Societies and Countrys were it not for self But alas this is it that saddeth our hearts and makes us look for more and more sad tidings concerning the affairs of the Church from all parts of the world or frustrates our hopes when we look for better For we know on the one side that without self-denial there will never be true Reformation or Unity neither sin nor division will ever be overcome and on the other side we see that selfishness is so natural and common and obstinate that so many men as are born into the world so many enemies are there to Holiness and Peace till grace â—â— all change them and that all endeavours perswasions convictions do little prevail against this deadly rooted sin so that men will preach against it and yet most shamefully live in it and after all rebukes chastisements and heavy judgements of God the Church is still bleeding and Princes Pastors and People are self-conceited self-willed and self-seekers still Alas for the cause and Church of Christ Must we give it up to the lusts of self Must we sit down and look on its miserable torn condition with lamentation and despair and shall we deliver down this despair to our Posterity Were not our hope only in the Omnipotent God it must be so When we look at men at Magistrates or Ministers we see no hope What higher professions can be made by those in succeeding Ages than have now been made And yet what negligence of Magistrates and what contentiousness of Ministers destroy all hopes So that we look at the Restauration of the Church as at the Resurrection that must be done by Omnipotency God must raise up another Generation of more self-denying prudent zealous Magistrates and of more self-studying peaceable Humble Zealous Industristous Ministers before the Healing work be done The selfish spirit that prevaileth now in the most is neither fit to be the Matter or Instrument of the Reformed Peaceable state which we expect While the enemies are destroying us by secret fraud and open force we stand at a distance and unite not against them yea we are calling each other Heretick and Deceivers and teaching them how to revile us and putting such words into their mouth against us as may help our people to despise us and reject us and warrant them from our own mouths or pens to rail at us and forsake us One part of us being Hereticks or Deceivers by the testimony of the other part and the other part by the testimony of too many of them Dear Brethren if selfishness shall not now be left when we are in the sight of the havock it hath made and stand in the field among those that it hath slain and see the Church of God so horribly abused by it when then shall it be forsaken I here intreat every man that loveth his present or everlasting Peace and the Peace of the Church or Commonwealth that he will resolve upon a deadly enmity with this selfishness in himself and others And that you will suspect it and watch against it in every work you have to do Are you upon any imployment spiritual or secular Presently enquire when you set upon it Is there no self-interest and selfish disposition lurking here How far is my own worldly fleshly ends or prosperity concerned in it And if you discover that self is any way concerned in it I beseech you suspect it and follow self with an exceeding watchful eye and when you have done your best it is ten to one but it will over-reach you O look to it that you be not ensnared before you are aware Take heed of it especially you that are great and honourable and have so much self-interest to tempt you in the world How hardly will you escape When all other enemies are conquered you have yet self the greatest enemy to overcome Take heed of it you that have any rising thriving project little know you on what a precipice you stand Take heed of it you that are in deep and pinching wants lest self make them seem more grievous than they are and provoke you to venture upon sin for your relief Take heed all you that have raging appetites or passions or lustful inclinations and remember your enemy is now discovered and you have him to deal with before your face and therefore see that you be resolute and vigilant Take heed all you that have Learning Parts or fame and honour or any thing that self hath to glory in and to abuse lest the noblest gifts should by this deadly principle be turned into a plague to the Church and to your souls Suspect self in the choice of your parties and opinions Suspect it in your publick labours yea and in your private duties and greatest diligence in Religious Works lest when your eyes are open'd at last it should appear that you preached or prayed or professed or wrote or lived for self and not for God I do but transcribe the counsel to you that God is daily giving in to my own soul as I feel exceeding great use of it to my self so I am sure there is to others and wo to me and you if we take it not and be not found among the self-denying Doubtless God will put you to the tryal and find you frequent use for this grace Let me take the boldness to tell you from my own though alas too small experience that as it is meer selfishness that is the perplexer and disquieter of the mind without which nothing that befalls us could discompose it so it is God only that quiets it and gives it rest And I bless the Lord I can truly say that I have found that content in loving and closing with the will of God and endeavouring to know no interest but his to disquiet or quiet me which I never could find in any other way When God is enough for us and his will is in our eyes the will of a Father infinitely good it may satisfie the soul in the darkest condition when we understand not the particular meaning of his providence nor what he is doing with us yet still we may be sure that he is doing us good And therefore a child may not only submit to the will of God because it cannot be resisted as enemies must be forced to do but he may Rest in that will as the Center of his desires and the very felicity and Heaven of