that use it not for the fashion of this world passeth away 1 Cor. 7. 29 30 31. And when the soul of the worldly fool is required of him then whose shall all their Dignities and Honours and Riches be In the mean time God judgeth not by outward appearance as man judgeth nor honoureth any for being honoured of men Solus honor merito qui datur ille datur These Truths well known to you I thought meet here to set before your eyes not knowing whether I shall any more converse with you in the flesh and also to desire you seriously to read over these popular Sermons perswaded to the Press by the importunity of some faithful Brethren that love a mean Discourse on so necessary a subject Watch and pray that you enter not into temptation I rest Your Friend Richard Baxter Sept 12. 1659. THE PRFFACE Readers I Here present to your serious consideration a Subject of such Necessity and Consequence that the Peace and safety of Churches Nations Families and souls do lie upon it The Eternal God was the Beginning and the End the Interest the attractive the confidence the desire the delight the All of man in his upright uncorrupted State Though the Creator planted in mans Nature the principle of Natural Self-love as the spring of his endeavours for Self-preservation and a notable part of the engine by which he governeth the world yet were the parts subservient to the Whole and the whole to God And Self-love did subserve the Love of the Universe and of God and man desired his own Preservation for these higher Ends. When sia stept in it broke this order and taking advantage from the natural innocent principle of self-Self-love it turned man from the Love of God and much abated his Love to his neighbour and the publick good and turned him to Himself by an inordinate self-self-love which terminateth in himself and principally in his carnal-Carnal-self instead of God and the Common good so that Self is become All to Corrupted nature as God was All to Nature in its integrity Selfishness is the souls Idolatry and Adultery the sum of its Original and increased Pravity the Beginning and End the life and strength of actual sin even as the Love of God is the Rectitude and Fidelity of the soul and the sum of all our special Grace and the Heart of the new Creature and the life and strength of actual holiness Selfishness in one word expresseth all our Aversion Positively as the want of the Love of God expresseth it Privatively and all our sin is summarily in these two Even as all our Holiness is summarily in the Love of God and in self-denial It is the work of the Holy Ghost by sanctifying grace to bring off the soul again from Self to God Self-denial therefore is half the essence of Sanctification No man hath any more Holiness than he hath Self-denial And therefore the Law which the Sanctifying Spirit writeth on the heart doth set up God in the first Table and our neighbour in the second against the usurpation and encroachment of this Self It saith nothing of Love or Duty to our selves as such expresly In seeking the Honour and Pleasing of God and the Good of our neighbour we shall most certainly find our own Felicity which nature teacheth us to desire So that all the Law is Fulfilled in Love which includeth Self-denial as Light includeth the expulsion of darkness oâ— rather as Loyalty includeth a Cessation of Rebellion and a rejection of the Leaders of it and as conjugal fidelity includeth the rejection of Harlots The very meaning of the first Commandment is Thou shalt Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart c. which is the sum of the first Table and the Commandment that animateth all the rest The very meaning of the last Commandment is Thou shalt Love thy neighbour as thy self which is the summary of the second Table and in General forbiddeth all particular injuries to others not enumerated in the fore-going precepts and secondarily animateth the four antecedent precepts The fifth Commandment looking to both Tables and conjoyning them commandeth us to Honour our Superiours in Authority both as they are the Officers of God and so paticipatively Divine and as they are the Heads of humane Societies and our subjection necessary to Common good so that self-denial is principally required in the first Commandment that is The denying of self as opposite to God and his Interest And self-denial is required in the Last Commandment that is The denying of self as it is an enemy to our neighbours Right and welfare and would draw from him unto our selves Self-love and self-seeking as opposite to our neighbours good is the thing forbidden in that Commandment and Charity or Loving our neighbour as our selves and desiring his Welfare as our own is the thing commanded Self-denial is required in the fifth Commandment in a double respect according to the double respect of the Commandment 1. In respect to God whose Governing Authority is exercised by Governours their Power being a beam of his Majesty the fifth Commandment requireth us to deny our selves by due subjection and by honouring our Superiours that is to deny our own aspiring desires and our refractory minds and disobedient self-willedness and to take heed that we suffer not within us any proud or rebellious dispositions or thoughts that would lift us up above our Rulers or exempt us from subjection to them 2. In respect to humane Societies for whose Good Authority and Government is appointed the fifth Commandment obligeth us to deny our Private interest and in all competitions to prefer the publick good and maketh a promise of temporal peace and welfare in a special manner to those that in obedience to this Law do prefer the Honour of Government and the Publick Peace and welfare before their Own Thus Charity as opposed to selfishness and including self-denial is the very sum and fulfilling of the Law And selfishness is the radical comprehensive sin containing uncharitableness which breaks it all And as the Law so also the Redeemer in his Example and his Doctrine doth teach us and that more plainly and urgently this lesson of self-denial The life of Christ is the pattern which the Church must labour to imitate And Love and self-denial were the summary of his life Though yet he had no sinful self to deny but only natural self He denyed himself in avoiding sin but we must deny our selves in returning from it He loved not his Life in comparison of his love to his Father and to his Church He appeared without desirable form or comeliness He was despised and rejected of men a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief he bore our griefs and carryed our sorrows and was esteemed stricken smitten of God and afflicted he was wounded for our transgressions he was bruised for our iniquities the chastisement of our peace was laid upon him the Lord laid upon him the iniquity of
a servant or child reproach his Master or Parent or call them all to naught and they think not fit to put up that nor indeed is it but let them swear by the name of God or break his Laws and they can patiently bear with it and a cold rebuke like Eli's will serve turn They can get them into field or shop to work together but they cannot get them before and after to prayer together And why is all this Why one is for Self and the other is for God One is for the body and the other is for the soul So that you see what Self can do and how commonly it is the master of Families Towns and Countries because it is the master in mens souls God must be loved above all and our neighbour as our selves But if God were allowed but so much love as a very neighbour should have it would not be all so ill with the selfish world as now it is But because I have been so long on this first discovery of the power of Self and the scarcity of Self-denyal I will be shorter in the rest that follow CHAP. V. The power of Selfishness upon mens opinions in Religion 2. ANother instance Discovering the Reign of selfishness in the world is The great Power that it hath to form mens Opinions and Conceptions in Religion Though the understanding naturally be inclined to Truth yet a selfish by as upon the soul especially on the will doth commonly delude it and make the vilest error seem to be Truth to it and the most useful Truth to seem an error The Will hath much command over the Understanding and when selfishness is become the very habit the byas the nature of the will you may easily conjecture how it will pervert the understanding But what need we more than experience to satisfie us Do you not see that where self is but deeply engaged the judgement is bribed or overmastered and carried from the Truth So that as the eye that looks through a coloured glass doth see all things as if they were of the same colour as the glass So the understanding that is mastered by a selfish inclination thinks every thing is truth that savoureth his self-interest And here I shall offer you some more particular instances 1 We all see that almost all the world is of that Religion or Opinion which hath the countenance of the Government that they live under and the persons that have greatest power on their reputation or at least which is consistent with their safety if not rising and prosperity in the world The Turks are commonly Mahometans the subjects of Rome and Spain and Austria c. are generally Papists those in Denmark Sweden Saxony c. are generally Lutherans those of Scotland England Helvetia c. are commonly Calvinists as they are called I know the power of education is great and hearing evidence only on one side may byas a well meaning man But Papists and Protestants as to the learned part have the Books of the contrary-minded at hand And therefore that Opinions should run in a stream and whole Countreys almost be of a party must needs be much from the power of selfishness because they are swayed by them that have the power of their reputation and estates and liberties in the world 2. Moreover when a man is by custome grown self-conceited or by the power of Pride is wise in his own eyes how hard a matter do we find it to convince such men by the clearest evidence They will not see when they can hardly wink so close as to keep out the light It is their opinion and therefore shall be so and they will hold it because it is their own 3. Especially if it be an Opinion of a mans own invention which is doubly his own both as he is the contriver and possessor how close will he stick to it too commonly beyond the evidence of truth because that self hath so greâ—â—â—n interest in it 4. Yea if a man be but deeply engaged for it either by laborious Disputes or confident owning it or any way so as that his credit lyeth on it how tenacious will he be of it because of the powerful interest of Self 5. And if it be but an Opinion that seems to befriend any former Opinion that we have much engaged for how much doth selfishness usually appear in our inordinate propensity to it 6. Also if we live in dayes of persecution how easily do we receive those Opinions that would keep us from prison and fire Or if any suffering lye upon it we commonly take that side to be right that is safest to the flesh except when self would be advanced by the occasion of sufferings And in prosperity if there be any controversie arise which our gain is concerned in how easily believe we the thriving opinion If any Oath Engagement or Duty be imposed on us by those that have Power to do us harm the generality are for it be it what it will In all these cases it is commonly Carnal Self that is the Judge And how far Self commands in such cases you may see by these discoveries following 1. In studying the case mens thoughts run almost all one way They study what to say for their own opinions and how to answer all that is against them but they study but very little what may be saâ—d on the other side They sit at their studies with a byassed will inclining or commanding their understanding what to do even to prove that to be true which they would have â—o be true whether it be so or not 2. And hence it is that the weakest Arguments on their own side do seem sufficient if not invincible and they stand wondering at the blindness of all those men that cannot see the force of them But no Arguments seem to have any weight that are brought against them And all this is from the power of self 3. Yea sometimes when they are silenced and know not what to say for their opinions nor how to answer the Arguments for the contrary yet they can say We are of this mind and we will be of this mind And why but because it is espoused to them and their own 4. And hence it is that if a man be but an admirer of us or of our own opinion in other things we are readier to receive an opinion from him than from another 5. And hence it is that Disputations do so sâ—ldome change mens minds because they take it to be a dishonour to be changed by another unless it be a person of great renown we envy to an Opposite the glory of altering our understandings But if we may have the doing of it our selves by the power of our own understandings and studies we will sometimes yield to change our minds He is a stranger to the ungodly world that seeth not how much self-interest doth to master their understandings and turn their hearts from the holy
How shall he cloath you with his righteousness while self keeps on your own defiled rotten rags Down therefore with self that Christ may be exalted Away with your own conceited righteousness that he may be your righteousness down with your Selfish foolish wisdom that the supposed foolishness of God may be your wisdom Level this mountain which Satan hath built up in enmity against the holy mountain of the Lord. 5. Moreover Self must be denyed as it is the great resister of the Holy Ghost The sanctifying spirit hath no greater enemy at least except the Devil himself One half of the work of sanctification is to destroy this Carnal self And therefore no wonder if hence it find the chief resistance Not an holy motion can be made to the soul but self is against it No work hath the spirit to do upon us but self is ready to gainsay it and contradict it and work against it when ever therefore this mortal Principle is contending against the spirit of God dishonouring holiness disswading you from duty perswading you to sin down with it and deny it as you would be true to the spirit and your selves 6. Moreover self must be denyed as it traiterously complyeth with the enemies of Christ and your own salvation when it takes part with Satan and pleads for sin and saith as wicked men say and entreth a conspiracy with all that would undo you and all this under pretence of your own good When ever it speaks for sin you may be sure it speaks against God and you and therefore it 's reason you should deny it Self also must be denied when it riseth up against the supposed tediousness or difficulty of duty when it grudgeth at an holy life saith What a stir is here what a weary life is this what do I get by serving God Now self is playing the traitor against God and you and therefore deny it 7. Moreover when self doth rise up against sufferings and make you believe that they are intolerable and that it is unreasonable for a man to forsake all that he hath for fear of a sinful word or deed when we sin every day when we have done our best it 's time now to stop the mouth of self for it plays the Devils game against God and you and would perswade you to prefer a short uncertain miserable life before eternal life and to give up your self to wilful sin because God beareth with the sins of mens infirmity It 's reason that you should deny so unreasonable an enemy to God you 8. Moreover self must be denyed when it stands up against the Ordinances of God When it pleadeth against the arguments of the word and findeth fault with the Law that it should obey and quarrelleth with prayer and all holy duties and would make all instituted means uneffectual for your saving good it 's time now that you deny it 9. When self doth rise up against the Officers of Christ and would make you believe your teachers fools and you are wise that they are beside the truth and you are in the right or that they speak against you out of malice or singularity or some such distemper and so would deprive you of the saving benefit of their Doctrine and Office it 's time now to deny self if you know but what belongeth to your peace And though I grant that you must not follow a Teacher into a certain sin and error yet when it is not God but self that riseth up against your Teachers and possesseth you with a spirit of bitterness disobedience contradiction and malignity this self must be denyed 10. Lastly as self is against the good of our neighbour or humane Societies it must be denyed For we must love our Neighbour as our selves that is both self and neighbour must be loved in a due subordination to God as means to his Glory and in this notion of a means the Love should be equal though there is also a Natural Love in order to self-preservation put into us by the Creator which our Love to every Neighbour is not to equal in degree yet our love to Societies should exceed it and our Love to a Neighbour should come so near it that we should diligere proximum proxima delictione love him as a second self and so study his welfare as to promote it to our power and not to covet or draw from him for our selves nor do him any wrong This is the sense of the tenth Commandement and sum of the second Table CHAP. XIII 1. Selfish Dispositions must be denyed and 1. self-Self-love HAving seen in what respects and upon what accounts it is that self must be denyed I am next to tell you the particulars of that selfish interest that must be denyed and the parts that are contained in this needful work And here you must remember what saving faith is that seeing how self opposeth it you may know wherein it must be denyed Saving faith is such a Belief in Christ for Reconciliation with God and the everlasting fruition of him in Glory as makes us for sake all the things of this world and give up our selves to the conduct of the word and spirit for the obtaining of it When a man can strip himself of all the pleasures and profits and honours of this world first in his estimation and love and resolution and then in the actual forsaking of them at the Call of God because of the firm belief and hope that he hath of the fruition of God in Glory as purchased and promised by Jesus Christ this is a Christian a Disciple of Christ a true believer and none but this And as I have told you as God in Unity and Father Son and Holy Ghost in Trinity is the Object of our saving faith so Carnal Self in unity and Pleasure Profits and Honours in trinity must be renounced and denied by all true Christians as being that which we turn from when we turn to God So that in brief to deny your selves doth generally consist in denying all your own Dispositions and Interests whatsoever as they are against God the Father Son or Spirit or stand not in a due subserviency to him And this Interest which you must deny consisteth in your Pleasures Profits and Honour Of these therefore I shall speak distinctly though but briefly I. You must begin at the denial and mortification of your Corrupt and selfish Disposition or else you can never well deny your selfish interest It is not enough to keep under this selfishness by denying it somewhat that it would have but the selfish Inclination or Nature it self must be so far mortified and destroyed that it shall not reign as formerly it did For this which we call selfishness is not your very Persons nor any spiritual or right natural desire of your owngood But it is the inordinate adhering of the soul to your selves by departing from God to whom you should adhere and so a carrying over Gods
such useless members forseiting their very sustenance then surely he that is such or worse speeds fair if you leave him food and raiment 4. And the great command of doing all to Gods Glory and serving him with our substance will not be obeyed if you leave your Riches and Estates in the hands of such persons meerly because they are your Children No doubt but that is a selfish and unconscionable course and the thing that sets up the ungodly to disturb the Church Lord it over the world while parents furnish them with Riches to do the Devil eminent service with Object But who knows but God may convert them Answ You cannot guide your actions by things unknown You have no promise of their conversion nor much probability when they have frustrated all your Counsels and means of their good education and grace is supernatural and therefore you must proceed upon grounds that are known And for remoter Kindred if they may be as serviceable to God with what I give them as others nature teacheth me to prefer them before others but otherwise Grace teacheth me both to love a godly stranger better than ungodly kindred and to lay out all that I have as may be most serviceable to God CHAP. LVII Q. How we must love our Neighbours as our selves Quest 7. HOw is it that Self-denial requireth us to love our neighbour as our selves Is it with the same degree of Love Answ I answered this on the by before Briefly 1. The chief part of the precept is Negative thus q. d. Set not up thy self against the welfare of thy neighbour Draw not from him or covet not that which is his to thy self and confine not thy love and care of thyself 2. And it comprehendeth this positive and that as to the kind of Love we should love both our selves and neighbours as means to God and for the interest of God and in that respect there is an equality we must appretiative or estimatively love a better and more serviceable man that hath more of Gods Spirit in him above our selves and an equal person equally with our selves with this Rational Love which intendeth all for God 3. But Natural Love which is put into a man for self-preservation will be stronger to self than to another and alloweth us caeteris paribus to prefer and first preserve and provide for our selves And in this regard our neighbour must be loved but as a second self or next our selves 4. But this Natural Love in the exercise of it at least in imperate acts is to be subservient to our Rational spiritual Love and to be over-mastered by it And therefore it is that as Reason teacheth an Heathen to prefer his Country before his life though the instinct of Nature incline us more to life so faith teacheth a Christian much more to prefer Gods honour and the Gospel Church Common-wealth and his neighbours good when it more conduceth to these ends than his own before himself his liberty or life CHAP. LVIII Q. Is Self-revenge and Penance self-denial Quest 8. WHether self-denial require us after sin to use vindictive penance or punishment of the flesh by fasting watching going barefoot lying hard wearing hair-cloth or to do this ordinarily as some of the Papists Monks and Fryars do Answ The easiness of this case may allow a brief decision 1. The Body must be so far afflicted as is needful to humble it and subdue it to the spirit and tame its Rebellion and fit it for the service of God 2. The exercise of a holy revenge on our selves may be a lower end subservient to this 3. It must also be so far humbled as is necessary to express Repentance to the Church when Absolution is expected upon publick Repentance 4. As also to concur with the soul in secret or open humiliation But 1. He that shall think that whippings or sackcloth or going bare-foot or other self-punishing are of themselves good works and meritorious with God or satisfie his Justice or are a state of perfection doth offer God a hainous sin under the name and conceit of a good work 2. And he that shall by such self-afflicting unfit his Body for the service of God yea that doth not cherish it so far as is necessary to fit it for duty is guilty of self-murder and defrauding God of his service and abusing his creature and depriving others of the help we owe them so that iâ— one word the Body must be so used as may best fit it for Gods service And to think that self-afflicting is a good work meerly as it is penalty or suffering to the body or that we may go further herein is to think 1. That we should use our Body worse than our beast for we will no further afflict him than is necessary to tame him or serve our selves by him and not to disable him for service 2. And it will teach men to kill themselves for that is a greater penalty to the body than whipping or fasting 3. And it is an offering God a sacrifice of cruelty and Robbery which we commit against himself and man But I must needs add that though some Fryars and Melancholy people are apt to go too far in this and pine their bodies or misuse them with conceits of merit and satisfaction yet almost all the common people run into the contrary extream and pamper and please their flesh to the displeasing of God and the ruine of their souls And I know but few that have need to be restrained from afflicting or taking down the flesh too much CHAP. LIX Q. Is self-denial to be without Passion Quest 9. WHether self-denial consist in the laying by of all Passions and bringing the soul to an impassionate serenity Answ The Stoicks and some Behmenists think so But so doth not God or any well informed man For 1. God would not have made the Affections in vain It is not the Passions but the disorder of them that is sinful or the fruit of sin 2. We are commanded to exercise all the Affections or Passions for God and on other sutable objects We must Love God with all the heart and soul and might which is not without affection or passion We must Love his servants his Church his Word his wayes We must fear him above them that can kill us we must hunger and thirst after his Righteousness and pant after him as the Hart doth after the Water-brooks We must be angry and sin not A zeal for God is the life of our Graces we must always be zealous in a good matter fervent in Spirit serving the Lord. We must hate evil and sorrow for it when we are guilty and grieve under the sense of our miscarriages and Gods displeasure And all these expresly commanded in the Word are holy Affections or Passions of the soul 3. Yea it is the Work of the Holy Ghost to sanctifie all these Passions that they may be used for God and they are called by
They had rather live a sinful life if they durst and they had rather be excused from Religious duties except that little outward part which custom and their credit engage them to perform They are but like the caged birds that though they may sing in a Sun-shine day had rather be at liberty in the woâ—ds They love not a life of perfect holiness though they are forced to submit to some kind oâ— Religiousness for fear of being damned If they had their freest choice they had rather live in the Love of the creature than in the love of God and in the pleasures of the fleâ—h than in the holy course that pleaseth God The third state is the state of Love and none but this is a state of true Self-denial and of Justification and Salvation When we reach to this we are sincere we have then the Spirit of Adoption disposing us to go to God as to a Father But this Love is not in the same degree in all the sanctified Three degrees of it we may distinctly observe 1. Oft-times in the beginning of a true Conversion though the seed of Love is cast into the soul and the Convert had rather enjoy God than the world and had rather live in perfect holiness than in any sin yet Fear is so active that he scarce observeth the workings of the Love of God within him He is so taken up with the sense of sin and misery that he hath little sense of love to God and perhaps may doubt whether he hath any or none 2. When these Fears begin a little to abate and the soul hath attained somewhat of the sense of Gods Love to it self it Loveth him more observably and hath some leisure to think of the riches of his grace and of his Infinite excellencies and attractive goodness and not only to Love him because he Loveth us and hath been Merciful to us but also because he is Goodness it self and we were made to Love him But yet in this middle degree of Love the soul is much more frequently and sensibly exercised in minding it self than God and in studying its own preservation than the honour an interest of the Lord. In this state it is that Christians are almost all upon the inquiry after marks of Grace in themselves and asking How shall I know that I have this or that grace and that I perform this or that duty in sincerity and that I am reconciled to God and shall be saved Which are needful questions but should not be more insisted on than questions about our duty and the Interest of Christ In this state though a Christian hath the Love of God yet having much of his ancient Fears and self-Self-love and the Love of God being yet too weak he is much more in studying his Safety than his Duty and asketh oftner How may I be sure that I am a true believer than What is the duty of a true believer There is yet too much of Self in his Religion 3. In the third degree of Love to God the soul is ordinarily and observably carryed quite above it self to God and mindeth more the Will and Interest of God than its own Consolation or Salvation Not that we must at any time lay by the care of our Salvation as if it were a thing that did not belong to us or that we should separate the ordinate Love of our selves from the Love of God or set his Glory and our Salvation in an opposition But the Love of God in this Degree is sensibly predominant and we refer even our own Salvation to his Interest and Will In this Degree a Christian is grown more deeply sensible he is not his own but his that made him and redeemed him and that his principal study must not be for himself but for God and that his own interest is in it self an inconsiderable thing in comparison of the interest of the Lord and that Rewarding us with Consolation is Gods part and loving and serving him is ours assisted by his grace and that the diligent study and practice of our duty and the lively exercise of Love to God is the surest way to our Consolation In our first corrupt estate we are careless of our souls and are taken up with earthly cares In our estate of Preparation we are careful for our souls but meerly from the principle of Self-love In our first Degree of the state of saving grace we have the Love of God in us but it 's little observed by reason of the passionate fears and cares of our own salvation that most take us up In our second degree of holy Love we look more sensibly after God for himself but so that we are yet most sensibly minding the Interest of our own souls and enquiring after assurance of salvation In our third Degree of saving grace we still continue the care of our salvation and an ordinate self-love but we are sensible that the Happiness of Many even of Church and Common-wealth and the Glory of God and the accomplishment of his Will is incomparably more excellent and desirable than our own felicity And therefore we set our selves to please the Lord and study what is acceptable to him and how we may do him all the service that possibly we can being confident that he will look to our felicity while we look to our duty and that we cannot be miserable while we are wholly his and devoted to his service We are now more in the exercise of Grace when before we were more in trying whether we have it Before we were wont to say O that I were sure that I love God in sincerity Now we are more in these desires O that I could know and love him more and serve him better that I knew more of his holy will and could more fully accomplish it and O that I were more serviceable to him and O that I could see the full prosperity of his Church and the glory of his Kingdom This high degree of the Love of God doth cause us to take our selves as Nothing and God as All and as before conversion we were careless of our souls through ignorance presumption or security and after conversion were careful of our souls through the power of convincing awakening grace so now we have somewhat above our souls much more our bodies to mind and care for so that though still we must examine and observe our selves and that for our selves yet more for God than for our selves When we are mindful of God he will not be unmindful of us When it is our care to please him the rest of our care we may cast on him who hath promised to care for us Even when we suffer according to his will we may commit the keeping of our souls to him in well doing as to a faithful Creator 1 Pet. 4. 19 And it is not possible in this more excellent way 1 Cor. 12. 31 to be guilty of a careless neglect of our
man but a woman that had been a sinner When she held him by the feet Love did begin low in humility but it tended higher and ended higher Christ hath told us that where much is forgiven there will be much love For there 's most of the fruits of God's love and least of self and most to abase self It is not possible that love to Christ should dwell or work in any but the humble that feel at the heart that they are unworthy of love and worthy of everlasting wrath The Proud and Self conceited cannot love him for they cannot be much taken with Christ's love to them except as the Pharisee in a way of self-flattery But the poor soul that was lost will heartily love him that sought and found him and he that was dead will love when he finds himself alive and he that was condemned both by God and conscience will surely love the Lord that ransomed him And it is the apprehensions that men have of themselves that much causeth all this difference The self-abhorring self-judgeing self-denying sinner is melted with the love of God in Christ because it is to such a worthless sinful wretch What Lord saith he is the blood of Christ the pardon of sin the spirit of grace the priviledges of a child and everlasting glory for such an unworthy wretch as I that have so long offended thee and so much neglected thee and lived such a life as I have done and am such an empty unprofitable worm O what a wonder of mercy is this But the full soul loaths the honey-comb The self-conceited unhumbled sinner looks as mindlesly at Christ as a healthful man at the Physitian or an innocent man at a pardon And that good that is in the Proud and Self-conceited doth seldom do much good to others much less to themselves As such do but serve themselves so ordinarily God doth not bless their endeavours but as they are perverted they are the likest to pervert others and propagate their self-conceitedness Two words from an humble self-denying man doth oftentimes more good than a Sermon from the self-conceited I admonish you therefore in the name of God that you take heed of this part of selfishness and mortifie it It will else keep out God and almost all that is good If you are proud and self-conceited you will hear a Minister rather to cavil with him than to be edified and when any thing from God doth cross your foolish wisdom you will but slight it or make a jest at it And if any truth of God do strike at the heart of your selfish interest you will but fret at it and secretly hate it and perhaps as the Devils open souldiers publickly reproach it and as the Jews did against Stephen Act. 7. even gnash the teeth at the Preacher or as they did by Paul Act. 22. 22. They gave him audience to that word even that word that made against themselves and then lift up their voices and said Away with such a fellow from the earth for it is not fit that he should live This entertainment we still meet with from our hearers when self hath brought them the next step to hell O Sirs suspect your own understandings Think not of them beyond the proportion of your attainments Nor beyond your experience and the helps and time and opportunities which you have had for knowledge nor beyond the measure of your diligence for the improving of these For these are God's ordinary way of giving in a ripeness in knowledge Read and study Heb. 5. 12 14. 1 Tim. 3. 6. Set not up your own conceits too boldly against those of longer standing and diligence in holy studies much less against your Teachers and much less against a multitude of Ministers and much less against all the Church of God and least of all against God himself as speaking to you by the holy Scriptures O take warning by the swarms of heresies and scandals that have been caused by self-conceitedness and pride Object If you may think your self wiser than me and others without self-conceitedness why may not I think my self wiser than you and such others without self-conceitedness Answ I may not do it in the cases before-mentioned I may not think my self to be what I am not nor exalt my self above them that are wiser than I nor against my Guides or the Church of God Object But it is but your conceit that you are wise enough to be a Teacher or wiser than others and why may not I as well conceit it Answ No man on his own Conceits must become a Teacher but the judicious of that Calling must Call them and judge of their abilities And conceits are as the ground of them is The true understanding of the grace that we have received is a duty and fitteth us for thankfulness but the false conceit that we have what we have not is a dangerous delusion For he that thinketh he is something when he is nothing deceiveth himself Gal. 6. 3. What if a blind man should argue as you do with one that sees and say You say that you see so far off and why may not I say so too would you not answer him I know that which I say to be true and so do not you And what if he still go on and say you think that I am blind and I think that you are blind and why may not I be believed as well as you would this kind of talk prove the man to have his eye-sight or should it make me question wheâ—â—er I have mine He that seeth knoweth that he seeth whoever question it and if another make doubt of it let men that have eyes in their head be Judges but not the blind But I confess spiritual blindness hath this disadvantage that whereas I can easily make any other blind man know that he is blind and therefore be willing to be led or help'd here the more blind men are most commonly they are the more confident that they see and scornfully say as the Pharisees to Christ John 9. 40. Are we blind also For Pride will not let them know their ignorance The same light that cureth ignorance must reveal it Especially when men are born blind and never knew the saving illumination of the Saints they will not believe that there is any other light than they have seen But I have been somewhat long on this part I pass now to the next CHAP. XV. Self-will be denied 4. THe fourth part of selfishness to be mortified is self-will And this is the fruit of self-conceit and also a natural corruption of the soul And a most deep rooted obstinate vice it is Every wicked man is a self-willed man against God and all that speak for God And till self be mortified in the will there is no saving grace in that will Quest But what will is it that is to be called a self-will Answ Not that which is from God and for God but all the
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
his soul And now Sirs I must let go this subject as to you that have heard it preacht for we must not be always on one thing but I am exceedingly afraid lest I have lost my labour with most of you and shall leave you as selfish as I found you because sad experience tells me that it is so natural and obstinate an enemy that I have discovered and that you have now to set your selves against I have done my work but self hath not done but is still at work in you I cannot now go home with every one of you but self will go home with you I cannot be at hand with every one of you when the next temptation comes but self will be at hand to draw you to entertain it When you are next tempted to error to pride to lust to contention with your brethren by words or real injuries what will you do then and how will you stand against this enemy If God be not your Interest and the dearest to your souls and you see not with his light and will not by his Will and self-denial be not become as it were your nature you will never stand after all this that I have said but self will be your undoing for ever If you have not somewhat within you as selfishness is within you to be always at hand as it is and ready and constant and powerful to overcome it it will be your ruine after all the warnings that have been given you And this preserving Principle must be the Spirit of God by causing you to Deny your selves Believe in Christ and Love God above all I say again that you may think on it and live upon it The sum of all your Religion or saving grace is in these three Faith Self-denial and the Love of God Departing from carnal-Carnal-self Returning home to God by Love and this by faith in the Redeemer is the true Christianity and the Life that leadeth to everlasting life FINIS A DIALOGUE OF Self-denial Flesh Spirit Flesh WHat become Nothing ne're perswade me to it God made me Something and I 'le not undo it Spirit Thy Something is not thine but his that gave it Resign it to him if thou mean to save it Flesh God gave me Life and shall I choose to die Before my time or pine in miserie Spirit God is thy Life If then thou fearest death Let him be all thy soul thy pulse and breath Flesh What! must I hate my self when as my brother Must love me d I may not hate another Spirit Loath what is loathsom Love God in the rest He truly love's himself that love 's God best Flesh Doth God our ease and pleasure to us grudge Or doth Religion make a man a drudge Spirit That is thy Poyson which thou callest Pleasure And that thy drudgery which thou count'st thy treasure lFesh Who can eudure to be thus mewed up And under Laws for every bit and cup Spirit Gods Cage is better than the Wilderness When Winter comes Liberty brings distress Flesh Pleasure 's mans Happiness The Will 's not free To choose our misery This cannot be Spirit God is mans End with him are highest joyes Sensual pleasures are but dreams and toyes Should sin seem sweet Is Satan turn'd thy friend Will not thy sweet prove bitter in the end Hast thou found sweeter pleasures than Gods Love Is a fools laughter like the joyes above Beauty surpasseth all deceitful paints What 's empty mirth to the delights of Saints God would not have thee have less joy but more And therefore shew's thee the eternal store Flesh Who can love baseness poverty and want And under pining sickness be content Spirit He that hath laid his treasure up above And plac'd his portion only in Gods love That waits for Glory when his life is done This man will be content with God alone Flesh What good will sorrow do us Is not mirth Fitter to warm a cold heart here on earth Troubles will come whether we will or no I 'le never banish pleasure and choose wo. Spirit Then choose not sin touch not forbidden things Taste not the sweet that endless sorrow brings If thou love pleasure take in God thy fill Look not for lasting joyes in doing ill Flesh Affliction 's bitter life will soon be done Pleasure shall be my part ere all be gone Spirit Prosperity is barren all men say The soyl is best where there 's the deepest way Life is for work and not to spend in play Now sow thy seed labour while it is day The Huntsman seeks his game in barren plains Dirty land answers best the Plowmans pains Passengers care not so the way be fair Husbandmen would have the best ground and air First think what 's safe and fruitful There 's no pleasure Like the beholding of thy chiefest treasure Flesh Nature made me a man and gave me sonse Changing of Nature is a vain pretense It taught me to love women honour ease And every thing that doth my senses please Spirit Nature hath made thee Rational and Reason Must rule the sense in ends degrees and season Reason's the Rider sense is but the Horse Which then is fittest to direct thy course Give up the reins and thou becom'st a beast Thy fall at death will sadly end thy feast Flesh Religion is a dull and heavy thing Whereas a merry cup will make me sing Love's entertainments warm both heart and brain And wind my fancy to the highest strain Spirit Cupid hath stuck a feather in thy cap And lull'd thee dead asleep on Venus's lap Thy brains are tipled with some wantons eyes Thy Reason is become Lust's sacrifice Playing a game at Folly thou hast lost Thy wit and soul and winnest to thy cost Thy soul now in a filthy channel lies While fancy seems to sore above the skies Beauty will soon be stinking loathsome earth Sickness and death mar all the wantons mirth It is not all the pleasure thou canst find Will contervail the sting that 's left behind Blind brutish souls that cannot love their God! And yet can dote on a defiled clod Flesh Why should I think of what will be to morrow An ounce of mirth is worth a pound of sorrow Spirit But where 's that mirth when sorrows overtake thee Will it then hold when life and God forsake thee Forgetting Death or Hell will not prevent it Now lose thy day thou 'lt then too late repent it Flesh Must I be pain'd and wronged and not feel As if my heart were made of flint or steel Spirit Dost thou delight to feel thy hurt and smart Would not an Antidote preserve thy heart Impatience is but Self-tormenting folly Patience is cordial easie sweet and holy Is not that better which turns grief to peace Than that which doth thy misery encrease Flesh When sport and wine and beauty do invite Who is it whom such baits will not incite Spirit He that perceives the look and sees the end Whither it is that
us all He was oppressed and afflicted yet he opened not his mouth he is brought as a Lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before her sheerers is dumb so he opened not his mouth He was taken from prison and from judgement he was cut off out of the land of the living for the transgression of his people was he stricken It pleased the Lord to bruise him he put him to grief Isa 53. What was his whole life but the exercise of Love and self-denial He denyed himself in Love to his Father obeying him to the death and pleasing him in all things He denyed himself in Love to mankind in bearing our transgressions and redeeâ—ing us from the curse by being made a curse for us Gal. 3. 13. He made himself of no reputation and tock upon him the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of men and being found in fashion as a man he humbled himself and became obedient unto death even the death of the Cross Phil. 2. 6 7 8. And this he did to teach us by his example to deny our selves to be like minded having the same love being of one accord of one mind that nothing be done through strife or vain-glory but in lowliness of mind that each esteem others better than themselves Looking not every man after his own matters but every man also after the things of others and thus the same mind should be in us that was in Christ Jesus Phil. 2. 3 4. 5. He denyed himself also in obedient submission to Governours He was subject to Joseph and Mary Luke 2. 51. He paid tribute to Caesar and wrought a Miracle for money rather than it should be unpaid Matth. 17. 24 25 26. He disowned a personal worldly Kingdom Joh. 18. 36. when the people would have made him a King he avoided it Joh. 6. 15. as being not a Receiver but a giver of Kingdoms He would not so much as once play the part of a Judge or divider of inheritances teaching men that they must be justly made such before they do the work of Magistrates Luke 12. 14. And his Spirit in his Apostles teacheth us the same Doctrine Rom. 13. 1 Pet. 2. 13 14 15 16 17. Eph. 6. 1 5. And they seconded his example by their own that we might be followers of them as they were of Christ What else was the life of holy Paul and the rest of the Apostles but a constant exercise of Love and Self-denial Labouring and travelling night and day enduring the basest usage from the world and undergoing indignities and manifold sufferings from unthankful men that they might please the Lord and edifie and save the souls of men and living in poverty that they might help the world to the everlasting riches In a word as Love is the fulfilling of the whole Law as to the positive part so is selfishness the evil that stands in contrariety thereto even self-conceitedness self-willedness self-love and self-seeking and thus far self-denial is the sum of our obedience as to the terminus à quo and Christ hath peremptorily determined in his Gospel that If any man will come after him he must deny himself and take up his Cross and follow him and that whosoever will put in a reserve but for the saving of his Life shall lose it and whosoever will lose his life for his sake shall find it Matth. 16. 24 25. And that he that doth not follow him bearing his Cross and that forsaketh not all he hath for him cannot be his Disciple Luke 14. 27 33. According to the nature of these holy rules examples is the nature of theworkings of the Spirit of Christ upon the soul He usually beginneth in shewing manhis sin and misery his utter insufficiency to help himself his alienation from God and enmity to him his blindness and deadness his emptiness and nothingness and then he brings him from himself to Christ and sheweth him his fulness and sufficiency and by Christ he cometh to the Father and God doth receive his own again It is one half of the work of Sanctification to cast ourSelves from our Understandings our Wills our Affections and our Conversations to subdue self-conceitedness self-willedness self-self-love and self-seeking to mortifie our carnal wisdom and our Pride and our concupiscence and our earthly members And the other and chiefest part consisteth in setting up God where self did rule that his Wisdom may be our Guide his Will our Law his Goodness the chiefest object of our Love and his service the work business of our lives The Spirit doth convince us that we are not our Own and have no power at all to dispose of our selves or any thing we have but under God as he commands us It convinceth us that God is our Owner and absolute Lord and that as we are wholly his so we must be wholly devoted to him and prefer his interest before our own and have no interest of our own but what is his as derived from him and subservient to him Fear doth begin this work of self-denial but it 's Love that brings us up to sincerity The first state of corrupted man is a state of selfishness and servitude to his own Concupiscence where pride and sensuality bear rule and have no more resistance than now and then some frightening uneffectual check When God is calling men out of this corrupted selfish state he usually or oft at least doth cast them into a state of Fear awakening them to see their lost condition and terrifying them by the Belief of his Threatnings and the sense of his indignation and making use of their Self-love to cause them to fly from the wrath to come and to cry out to the messengers of Christ What shall we do to be saved Some by these Fears are but troubled and restrained a little while and quickly overcoming them settle again in their selfish sensual senseless state some have the beginnings of holy Love conjunct with Fear of whom more anon And some do from this principle of Self-love alone betake themselves to a kind of Religious course and forsake the practise of those grosser sins that bred their Fears and fall upon the practise of Religious duties and also with some kind of faith do trust on the satisfaction and merits of Christ that by this means they may get some hopes that they shall escape the everlasting misery which they fear All this Religion that is animated by Fear alone without the Love of God and Holiness is but preparatory to a state of grace and if men rest here it is but a state of Hypocrisie or self-deceiving religiousness For it is still the old Principle of selfishness that reigns Till Love hath brought man up to God he hath no higher end than Himself The true mark by which these slavish professors and hypocrites may discern themselves is this They do the Good which they would not do and the evil which they do not they would do
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
according as their self-interest commandeth them more than according to the Interest of Christ Let a man be never so eminent in holiness and never so useful and serviceable in the Church and one that hath proved faithful in the greatest tryals if he do but oppose a selfish man and be thought by him to be against him he hateth him at the heart or hath as base contemptuous thoughts of him as malice can suggest He can as easily nullifie all his graces and multiply his smallest infirmities into a swarm of crimes by a censorious mind and a slanderous tongue as if vertue and vice received their form and denominations from the respect of mens minds and waies to him and all men were so far good or evil as they please him or displease him and he expects that others should esteem men such as he is pleased to describe or call them Let all the Countrey be the witnesses of a mans upright and holy life yea let the multitude of the ungodly themselves be convinced of it so far as that their consciences are forced to bear witness of him as Herod did of John Mark 6. 20. that he was a just man and an holy yet can the selfish hypocrite that is against him blot out his uprightness with a word and make him to be Proud or False or Covetous or what his malice please yea make him an Hypocrite as he is indeed himself No man can be good in their eyes that is against them or if he be acknowledged honest in the main it is mixt with exceptions and charges enough to make him seem vile while they confess him honest and if they acknowledge him a man they will withal describe him to be so plaguy or leprous that he shall be thought not fit for humane converse Such a man is an honest man say they but he is a peevish humorous self-conceited fellow And why so Because he is against some opinion or interest of theirs He is proud because he presumeth to dissent from them or reprehend them He raileth every time he openeth their errours or telleth them of their mis-doings He is a Lyar if he do but contradict them and discover their sins though it be with words of truth and soberness In a word no person no speeches or writings no actions can be just that are against a selfish man In differences at Law his cause is good because it is his and his adversaries is alwaies bad because it is against him In publick differences the side that he is on that is for him is alwaies right let it be never so wrong in the eyes of all impartial men The cause is good that he is for which is alway that which seems for him though it be undoubted Treason and perfidious Rebellion accompanied with perjury murder and oppression And the cause must be alwaies bad that is against him and they are the Traytors and Rebels and Oppressors that resist him His own murders are honourable Victories and other mens Victories are cruel and barbarous murders All is naught that is against themselves They are Affected to men according to their self-interest they judge of them and their actions according as they do Affect them they speak of them and deal by them according to this corrupted judgement But as for any that they imagine do Love and Honour them they can Love them and speak tenderly of them be they what they will A little grace or vertue in them seemeth much And their parts seem excellent that indeed are mean If they drop into Perjury Fornication Treason or such like scandalous sins they have alwayes a mantle of Love to cover them or if they blame them a little they are easily reconciled and quickly receive them to their former honour If they have any thing like Grace it 's easily believed to be Grace indeed if they be but on their side If they have nothing like Grace they can Love them for their good natures but indeed it is for themselves When this self-self-love describeth any person when it writeth Histories or Controversies about any cause or person that they are concerned in how little credit do they deserve Whence is it else that we have such contrary descriptions of Persons and Actions in the writings of the several Parties as we find How holy and temperate and exceedingly industrious a man was Calvin if the whole multitude of sober godly men that knew him may be credited or if we may believe his most constant intimate acquaintance or if we may judge by his judicious pious numerous writings And yet if the Papists may be believed contrary to the witness of a Popish City where he was bred he was a stigmatized Sodomite he was a glutton that eat but once a day and that sparingly he was an idle fleshly man that preached usually every day and wrote so many excellent Volumes and he dyed blaspheming and calling on the Devil that is in longing and praying for his remove to Christ crying daily How long lord how long and how comes all this inhumane forgery about Why one lying Pelagian Apostate Bolsecke wrote it whom Calvin had shamed for his errours and a peevish Lutheran Schlusselburgius hath related part of it from him and this is sufficient warrant for the Papists ordinarily to perswade their followers it is true and with seared Consciences to publish it in their writings though Massonius and some other of the soberer sort among themselves do â—â—ame them for the forgery So do they by Luther Beza and many more Among our selves here how certainly and commonly is it known to all impartial men acquainted with them that the persons nick-named Puritans in England have been for the most part a people fearing God and studying an holy life and of an upright conversation so that the impartial did bear them witness that in the scorners mouth a Puritan was one that was Integervitae scelerisque purus and this was the reason of their suffered-scorn and that the name was the Devils common engine in this Land to shame people from reading and hearing Sermons and praying and avoiding the common sins and seriously seeking their salvation A Puritan was one that Believeth unfeignedly that God is and that he is a Rewarder of them that diligently seek him Heb. 12. 6. that strives to enter in at the strait gate and lives as men that believe that Heaven is worth their labour and that Gods Kingdom and its Righteousness should be first sought Mat. 6. 33. And yet if Fitz Simon and other Jesuits and Bishop Bancroft Dr. P. Heylin Mr. Tho. Pierce and other such among us are to be believed what an abominable odious sort of people are they and especially the Presbyterians who are the greatest part of them what intolerable hypocritical bloody men And what 's the reason of these accusations Much is pretended but the sum of all is that they were in some things against the Opinions or Interests of the persons that abuse
that is but gainful be it never so unjust and will not believe but it is lawful because it is profitable for they suppose that gain is godliness 1 Tim. 6. 5. Hence it is that so many families will be so far Religious as will stand with their commodity but no further Yea that so many Ministers have the wit to prove that most Duties are to them no Duties when they will cost them much labour or dishonour in the world or bring them under sufferings from men And hence it is that so many Carnal Polititians do in their Laws and Counsels alwaies prefer the interest of their bodies before Gods interest and mens souls Yea some are so far forsaken by common reason and void of the Love of God and his Church as to maintain that Magistrates in their Laws and Judgments must let matters of Religion alone as if that self even carnal self were all their Interest and all their God and as if they were of the Prophane Opinion Every man for himself and God for us all or as if they would look to their own cause and bid God look to his From the Power of this selfishness it is that so many ☞ Princes and States turn persecutors and stick not to silence banish and some of the bloodier sort to kill the Ministers of Christ when they do but think that they stand cross to their carnal interests And if you will plead the Interest of Christ and souls against theirs and tell them that the banishment imprisonment silencing or death of such or such a servant of the Lord will be injurious to many souls and therefore if they were guilty of death in some cases they should reprieve them as they do women with child till Christ be formed in the precious souls that they travail in birth with so their Lives be not more hurtful by any contrary mischief which death only can restrain which is not to be supposed of sober men yet all this seems nothing to a selfish Persecutor that regards not Christs interest in comparison of his own ☞ Self is the great Tyrant and Persecutor of the Church 10. Observe also how few they be that satisfie their souls in Gods Approbation though they are mis-judged and vilified by the world and how few that rejoyce at the prosperity of the Gospel though themselves be in Adversity most men must needs have the Hypocrites reward Matth. 6. 2. even some commendation from men and too few are fully pleased with his eye that seeth in seret and will reward them openly Matth. 6. 4 6. And hence it is that injurious censures and hard words do go so near them and they make so great a matter of them Those times do seem best to selfish men which are most for them If they prosper and their party prosper though most of the Church should be a loser by it they will think that it is a blessed time But if the Church prosper and not they but any suffering befall them they take on as if the Church did stand or fall with them Self-interest is their measure by which they judge of times and things 11. Observe also how eagerly men are set to have their Own wills take place in publick businesses and to have their own opinions to be the Rule for Church and Common-wealth and then judge by this of their self-denial Were not self predominant there would not be such striving who should Rule and whose will should be the Law but men would think that others were as likely to Rule with Prudence and Honesty as they How eager is the Papist to have his way by an Universal Monarch How eager are others for one Ecclesiastical National Head How eager are the Popular party for their way as if the welfare of all did lie in their several modes of Government And so confidently do the Libertines speak for theirs that they begin now to make motions that our Parliament-men shall be hanged or beheaded as Traitors if any should make a motion in a free Parliament against the General Liberty which they desire Wonderful that men should ever grow to such an over-weening of themselves and over-valuing their own understandings as to obtrude so palpable and odious a wickedness upon Parliaments so confidently and to take them for Traitors that will not be Traitors or grosly disobedient against the Lord Self-denial would cure these peremptory demands and teach men to be more suspicious of their own understandings 12. Lastly Observe but how difficult a thing it is to keep Peace as in families and neighbourhoods so in Churches and Common-wealths and judge by this of mens self-denial Husbands and Wives brothers and sisters masters and servants live at variance and all through the conflicts that arise between their contrary self-interests If a beast do but trespass on a neighbours grounds if they be but assessed for the State or poor above their expectations if in any way of trading their commodity be crost you shall quickly see where self bears Rule This makes it so difficult a work to keep the Churches from Divisions Few men are sensible of the Universal Interest because they are captivated to their own And therefore it is that men fear not to make parties and divisions in the Church and will tear it in pieces to satisfie their interest or selfish zeal Hence it is that Parties are so much multiplied and keep up the buckler against others because that selfishness makes all Partial Hence it is that people fall off from their Pastors or else fall out with them when they are crost in their opinions reproved for their sins or called to consess or make restitution and perhaps that they may sacrilegiously desraud the Church of Tithes or other payments that are due Hence it is also that members so oft fall out with one another for foul words or differences of judgement or some point or other of self-interest Nay sometimes about their very seats in the place of Worship while every man is for himself the Ministers can hardly keep them in Charity and Peace And is any of this agreeable to our holy Rule and Pattern No man can think so that hath read the Gospel but he that is so blinded by selfishness as not to understand what makes against it And here besides what is largelier spoken after let me tell of a few of the evils of this sin and the contrary benefits of self-denial 1. The Power of selfishness keeps men strangers to themselves They know not their Original nor Actual sins with any kindly humbling knowledge The very nature of Original sin doth consist in these two things Privatively in the want of our Original Love or Propensity to God as God I mean the Privation of the Root or Habit or Inclination to Love God for himself as the Beginning or End of us and all things and the absolute Lord and infinite simple inestimable Good And Positively in the inordinate Propensity or Inclination to our selves as
for our selves and not as duly subordinate to God The soul having unfaithfully and rebelliously withdrawn it self from God in point of Love and subjection it become its own Idol and looks no higher than it self and Loveth God and all things but for it self and principally for its carnal pleasure And the Propensity to this with the Privation of the souls Inclination to God is Original sin the Disposition suited to the actual sin that caused it which was a retiring from God to self He that feeleth not this evil in himself hath no true knowledge of Original sin And it 's the want of the sense of this great evil and so the want of being acquainted with their hearts that causeth so many to turn Pelagians and to deny the being of Orignal sin 2. Both selfishness and the want of a true discerning of it doth breed and feed abundance of errours and teach men to corrupt the whole body of Practical Divinity and to subvert many Articles of faith which stand in their way How comes the world to be all in a flame about the Universal Reign of the Pope of Rome but from the dominion of selfishness Whence is it that the Nations of the earth have been so troubled for Patriarchs Metropolitans and Diocesans that must do their work by others and for many things that at best can pretend to be but humane indifferent changeable forms but from the prevalency of Self Whence is it that mens consciences have been ensnared and the Churches troubled by so many Ceremonies of mens invention and the Church must rather lose her faithfullest Pastors than they be permitted to worship God as Peter and Paul did Hath not selfishness and Pride done this It is self that hath taught some to plead too much for their own sufficiency and to deny the need of special Grace And so far hath it prevailed with some of late as to lead them Doctrinally to deny that God is the Ultimate End of man and to be Loved for himself and above our selves and all things but only they say he is our finis cujus vel rei to be loved amore concupiscentiae In a word it is this woful principle that hath corrupted Doctrine Discipline and Worship in so many of the Churches 3. We shall never have Peace in Church or Common-wealth while selfishness bears sway Every mans Interest will be preferred before the publick Interest and rise against it as oft which will be oft as they seem inconsistent This is the Vice that informeth Tyranny whether it be Monarchy Aristocracy or Democracy when selfish interest is preferred before the Common Interest This makes our people think themselves too wise or too good to learn or to be guided by their Pastors and every man of this strain seems wise enough to lead off a party of the Church into a mutiny against the Pastors and the rest This makes the labours of Reconcilers unsuccessful while selfishness engageth so many wits and tongues and pens and parties against the most necessary equal terms and endeavours of such as would Reconcile Were it not for these selfish men how soon would all our rents be healed how soon would all our wars be ended and all our heart-burnings and malicious oppositions be turned into charitable consultations for an holy peace If once men were carryed above themselves they would meet in God the Center of Unity 4. It is for want of self denial that we undergo so many disappointments and suffer so much disquietment and vexation Were our wills more entirely subjected to the will of God so that his will were preferred before our own we should Rest in his will and have no contradictory desires to be disappointed and no mâ—tâ—er left for self-vexation Had we no disease we should feel no pain and it is our self-will rebelling against the will of God that is our disease Self-denial removeth all the venom from our hearts Persecution and poverty and sickness may touch our fleâ—h but the heart is fortified so far as we have his Grace O how happily doth it quiet and calm the mind when things befall us that would even distract a selfish man O happy man where God is All and Self is Nothing There Duty and Love and Joy are all and trouble and distress is nothing These are not our matters now Partly because we are above them and partly because they belong not to our care but to his Povidence Let us do our Duty and adhere to him and let him dispose of us as he sees meet Who would much fear a Tyrant or any other enemy that saw God and Glory which faith can see Did we see the glorious Throne of Christ we should be so far from trembling at the bar of Persecutors that we should scarce so much regard them as to answer them the infinite Glory would so potently divert our minds As we scarce hearken to our childreâ—s impertinent babblings when we are taken up with great Affairs so if a Tyrant talk to us of â—â—â—â—ging or imprisonment we should scarce hearkeâ— to such trivial impertinencies were we so far above our selves as Faith and Love should advance the soul I have further shewed you in the following Treatise how self-denial disableth all Temptations how it conduceth to all eminent works of Charity but especially to the secret works of the sincere It is of absolute necessity to salvation It is thething that hypocrites are condemned for want of It is the wisdom of the soul as being the only way to our own security And it is the holiness and justice of the soul as it is conjunct with the Love of God in that it restoreth to God his own The excellency of Grace is manifested in self-denial To do or suffer such little things as self is not much against is nothing But to be Nothing in our selves and God to be our All and to close with our first and blessed End this is the nature of Sanctification Alas poor England and more than England even all the Christian world into what confusion and misery hath selfishness plunged thee Into how many pieces art thou broken because that every hypocrite hath a self to be his principle and end and forsakes the true Universal End How vain are our words to Rulers to Souldiers to Rich and Poor while we call upon them to Deny themselves And must we lose our labour and must the Nation lose its peace and hopes Is there no remedy but selfishness must undo all If so be it known to you the principal loss shall be your own ☞ and in seeking your safety liberty wealth and glory you shall lose them all and fall into misery slavery and disdain Deny your selves or save your selves if you can God is not engaged to take care of you or preserve you if you will be your own and will be reserving or saving your selves from him ☞ And though you may seem to prosper in self-seeking waies they will end yea shortly end
of self-denyal 2. As God was mans ultimate End in his state of innocency so accordingly man was appointed to use all Creatures in order to God for his Pleasure and Glory So that it was the work of man to do his Makers will and he was to use nothing but with this intention But when man was faln from God to himself he afterwards used all things for himself even his carnal self and all that he possessed was become the provision and fuel of his lusts and so the whole creation which he was capable of using was abused by him to this low and selfish end as if all things had been made but for his delight and will But when man is brought to Deny himself he is brought to restore the Creatures to their former use and not to sacrifice them to his fleshly mind so that all that he hath and useth in the world is used to another end so far as he denyeth himself than formerly it was even for God and not himâ—elf 3. In the state of Innocency though man had naturally an aversness from death and bodily pains as being natural evils and had a desire of the welfare even of the flesh it self yet as his body was subject to his soul and his senses to his Reason so his bodily ease and welfare was to be esteemed and desired and sought but in a due subordination to his spiritual welfare and especially to his Makers Will So that though he was to value his Life yet he was much more to value his everlasting life and the pleasure and Glory of his Lord. But now when man is faln from God to Himself his Life and earthly felicity is the sweetest and the dearest thing to him that is So that he preferreth it before the Pleasing of God and everlasting life And therefore he seeketh it more and holdeth it faster as long as he can and parteth with it more unwillingly As Innocent Nature had an appetite to the objects of sense but corrupted nature hath an enraged greedy rebellious and inordinate appetite to them so Innocent nature had a love to this natural earthly life and the comforts of it but corrupted Nature hath such an inordinate love to them as that all things else are made but subordinate to them and swallowed up in this gulf even God himself is so far loved as he befriendeth these our carnal ends and furthereth our earthly prosperity and life But when men are brought to Deny themselves they are in their measures restored to their first esteem of Life and all the prosperity and earthly comforts of life Now they have learned so to love them as to love God better and so to value them as to prefer everlasting life before them and so to hold them and seek their preservation as to resign them to the will of God and to lay them down when we cannot hold them with his Love and to choose death in order to life everlasting before that life which would deprive us of it And this is the principal instance of self-denyal which Christ giveth us here in the Text as it is recited by all the three Evangelists that recite these words He that saveth his life shall lose it c. And what shall it profit a man to win all the world and lose his soul By these instances it appears that by self-denyal Christ doth mean a setting so light by all the world and by our own lives and consequently our carnal Content in these as to be willing and Resolved to part with them all rather than with him and everlasting life even as Abraham was bound to love his Son Isaac but yet so to prefer the Love and Will of God as to be able to sacrifice his Son at Gods Command And the Lord Jesus himself was the liveliest Pattern to us of his Self-denyal that ever the world saw Indeed his whole life was a continued practice of it And it hath oft convinced me that it is a special part of our Sanctification when I have considered how abundantly the Lord hath exercised himself in it for our example For as it is desperate to think with the Socinians that he did it only for our Example so it is also a desperate Error of others to think that it was only for satisfaction to God and not at all for our Example Many do give up themselves to Flesh-pleasing upon a misconceit that Christ did therefore deny his flesh to purchase them a liberty to please theirs As in his Fasting and Temptations and his sufferings by the reproach and ingratitude of men and the outward Poverty and Meanness of his condition the Lord was pleased to deny himself so especially in his last Passion and death As I have shewed elsewhere he loved his natural life and peace and therefore in manifestation of that he prayeth Father if it be thy Will let this Cup pass from me But yet when it came to the comparative practical Act he proceeded to choose his Fathers Will with death rather than life without it and therefore saith Not my Will that is my simple love of life but thy Will be done In which very words he manifesteth another will of his own besides that which he consenteth shall not be done and sheweth that he preferred the pleasing of his Father in the Redemption of the world before his own life And thus in their measure he causeth all his Members to do so that life and all the comforts of life are not so dear to them as the love of God and everlasting life 4. When God had created man he was presently the Owner of him and man understood this that he was God's and not his own And he was not to claim a Propriety in himself nor to be affected to himself as his own nor to live as his own but as His that made him But when he fell from God he arrogated practically though notionally he may deny it a propriety in himself and useth himself accordingly And when Christ bringeth men to deny themselves they cease to be their own in their conceits any more Then they resign themselves wholly to God as being wholly his They know they are his both by the right of Creation and of Redemption And therefore are to be disposed of by him and to glorifie him in body and spirit which are his 1 Cor. 6. 19 20. Rom. 14. 9. To be thus heartily devoted to God as his own is the form of Sanctification and to live as God's own is the truly Holy life 5. As man in Innocency did know that he was not his own so he knew that nothing that he had was his own but that he was the Steward of his Creator for whom he was to use them and to whom he was accountable But when he was fallen from God to himself though he had lost the Right of a Servant yet be graspeth at the Creature as if he had the Right of a Lord He now takes his Goods his
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
I shall shew you that Reason that should easily satisfie you Reas 1. Till a man Deny himself he denyeth God and doth not indeed believe in him and love him and take him to be his God And I hope you will grant that no man can be saved that believes not in God nor Loveth him nor takes him for his God He that will deny God and yet think to be saved must think to be saved in despight of God The first Article of our faith and of our Baptismal Christian Covenant is to Believe in God the Father and take him for our God and give up our selves to be his people But this no man can do without self-denyal For by all that I have said in the description of it you may see that selfishness is most contrary to God and would rob him of all his high Prerogatives and God should be no God if the selfish sinner had his will and he doth not heartily consent that he shall be God to him I have formerly told you that self is the God of wicked men or the worlds great Idol And that the inordinate Love of Pleasure Profits and Honour in Trinity is all but this self love in Unity and that in the Malignant Trinity of Gods enemies the flesh is the first and foundation the world the second and the Devil the third Every man is an Idolater so far as he is selfish God is not a bare name He that takes away his Essence or Attributes and Prerogatives and yet thinks he believeth in him because he leaveth him his name and Titles doth as bad as they that set up an Image and worship that instead of God or that worship the Sun or Moon as Gods because they somewhat represent his Glory for sure a bare Name hath as little substance as an Image much less can you say it hath more than the Sun Now selfish ungodly men do all of them rob God and give his honour and prerogatives to themselves and put him off with empty Titles They call him their God but will not have him for their End their Portion and Felicity nor give him the strongest Love of their hearts They will not take him as their Absolute Owner and devote themselves and all they have to him and stand with a willing mind to his Dispose They will not take him for their Soveraign and be Ruled by him nor deny themselves for him nor seek his honour and interest above their own They call him their Father but deny him his honour and their Master but give him not his fear Mal. 1. 6. They depend not on his hand and live not by his Law and to his Glory and therefore they do not take him for their God And can you expect that God should save those that deny him and would dethrone him that is his very enemies Reas 2. Yea more than so God will not save those that make themselves their own Gods when they have rejected him But all these unsanctified selfish men do make themselves their own Gods for in all the ten particulars before mentioned they take to themselves the Prerogatives of God 1. They would be their own End and looâ—… further 2. They use all Creatures but as means to 〈…〉 End yea God himself is esteemed but for themselves 3. They Love their present Life and Prosperity better than God 4. They would be their own and live as their own and not as those that are none of their own 5. They would have the Creatures to be their 〈…〉 them as their Own and not as God's ◠〈…〉 â—â—st care for themselves and shift for themselves â—…t themselves wholly upon God 7. They would dispose of themselves and their own conditions and of all things else 8. They would Rule themselves and be from under the Laws and Government of God 9. They would be the Rulers of all others and have all men do their wills 10. And they would be honoured and admired by all and have the praise ascribed to them And if all this be not to set up themselves as Gods or Idols in the world I know not what is Certainly God is so far from having a thought of saving such vile Idolaters in this Condition that they are the principal objects of his high displeasure and the fairest Marks for his Justice to shoot at and he is engaged to pull them down and tread them into hell should God stand by and see a company of rebellious sinners sit down in his Throne or usurp his Soveraignty and Divine Prerogatives and let them alone yea and advance them to his Glory No he hath resolved that he that humbleth himself shall be exalted and he that exalted himself shall be brought low And what higher self-exaltation can there be than to make ourselves as gods to our selves And therefore who should be brought lower than such Reas 3. No man can be a Christian that takes not Christ for his Lord and Saviour But no man without this self-denyal can take Christ for his Lord and Saviour and therefore no man without self-denyal can be a Christian and so be saved He that makes himself his End cannot make Christ as Christ his way for Christ is the way to the Father and not to Carnalself Nay the business that Christ came upon into the world was to pull down and subdue this self Moreover whoever taketh Christ for his Saviour must know from what it is that he must save him and that is principally from self And no man can take Christ for his Saviour that renounceth not self-confidence and is not willing to be saved from the Idolatry of self-exaltation No man can take Christ for his Master or Teacher that comes not into his school as a little child renouncing the guidance of Carnal-self and sensible of his need of an heavenly Teacher No man can take Christ for his King and Lord and give up himself to him as his own and as his Subject that hath not learned to deny that self that claims propriety and soveraignty in his stead There is no Antichrist nor false Christ that ever was in the world that doth more truly oppose Christ and resist him in all the parts of his office than Carnal self It is this that will not stoop to his Righteousness or to his Guidance and to his teaching and holy Government Self is the false Christ or Saviour of the world as well as the false God And therefore there can be no salvation where self is not denyed and taken down Reas 4. He that believeth not in the Holy Ghost and taketh him not for his Sanctifier cannot be a true Christian or be saved But no man without this self-denyal believeth in the Holy Ghost and taketh him for his Sanctifier And therefore without this Self-denyal no man can be a true Christian or be saved The very nature of sanctification consisteth in the turning a man from himself to God in destroying selfishness and devoting the soul to God
and possess no interest but him and in him and to have nothing that we esteem or love or care for in comparison of him knowing that for him we were made redeemed preserved and sanctified and therefore desiring to be wholly and only his and to have no credit no goods no life no self but what is his for his service at his will and at his Disposal and Government and provision this is the true self-denyal which the spirit of God worketh in a prevailing though not a perfect measure in every gracious believing soul But alas Sirs how strange is this in the world and how weak and low in the souls where it is found And what matter of Lamentation would a survey of the world or of our selves present us with Is not SELF the great Idol which the whole world of unsanctified men doth worship Who is it that ruleth the children of disobedience but carnal self For what is all the stir and stirrings the tumults and contentions of the world but for self This ruleth Kingdoms and this is it that raiseth wars and what is it except the works of Holiness but self is the author of Look unto the Thrones and Kingdoms of the earth and conjecture how many self hath advanced and placed there and how feâ— have stayed till God enthroned them and gave them the Crown and Scepter with his approbation Among all the Nobles and great ones of the earth that abound in riches how few are there that were not set a work by self and ruled by it in the getting or keeping or using their riches dignities and honours Look on the great Revenews of the Nation and of the world and consider whether God or self have the more of it One man hath many thousands a year and another hath many hundreds and how much of this is devoted to God and how much to carnal self And the poor that have but little would think us injurious to them if we should call to them for any thing for God who have not enough for themselves when indeed God must have all and self must have nothing but what it hath by way of return from God again and that for God and not for self but as subservient unto him Alas of many hundred thousand pounds a year which the inhabitants of a Country possess among them how little hath God that should have all and how much hath self that should have nothing O dreadful reckoning when these Accounts must be all cast up Judge by the use of all whether self have not yet Dominion of all If men throw out to God his tenth which is none of their own or if they cast him now and then some inconsiderable alms when in his member he is fain to beg for it first they think they have done fair though self devour all the rest Is it more think you for God or self that our Courts of Law are filled with so many Suits and Lawyers have so much employment Is it more think you for God or self that Merchants compass Sea and Land for commodity Who is it that the Souldier fights for is it for God or self Who is it that the Tradesman deals for that the Plowman labours for that the Traveller goes for is it more for God or self Who is it that the most of mens thoughts are spent for and the most of their words are spoken for and the most of their rents and wealth laid out for and the most of their precious time imployed for is it for God or self Consider of it whether it be not self that finally and morally rules the world What else do most live for or look after And is not the common Piety Religion and Charity of the world a meer sending God some scraps of the leavings of carnal self If the flesh be full or have enough then God shall have the cruâ—â— that fall from its Table or at most so much as it card â—are but till the flesh have done and be satisfied Gâ—â— Gâ—â—st stay even for these scarps and crums and if theâ—… but say I want it my self or have use for it my self they think it a sufficient answer to all demands One may see by the irregularity of the motions of the world the confusions and crossings and mutabilities and contradictions the doing and undoing again the differences and fierce contendings that it is not God but self that is the End and Principle of the motions Nay most men are so dead to God and alive only to themselves that they know not what we mean when we tell them and plainly tell them what it is to live to God and what it is to serve him in all their affairs and to eat and drink and do all things for his glory but they ask in their hearts as Pharaoh Who is the Lord that I should serve him And when they read these passages about self-denyal and about referring all to God they will not understand them for they are unacquainted with God and know no other God indeed but self though in name they do Nay it were well if self were kept out of the Church and out of the Ministers of the Gospel that must teach the world to deny themselves that it did not with too many choose their habitations and give them their call and limit them in their labours and direct them in the manner and measure It were well if some Ministers did not study for self and preach and dispute for self and live for self when they materially preach against self and teach men self-denyal And then for our People alas it rules their families it manageth their business it drives on their trades it comes to Church with them and fights within them against the word and perverteth their judgement and will let them relish nothing and receive nothing but what is consistent with selfish interest in a word it makes men ungodly it keeps thâ—m ungodly and it is their very ungodliness it self O we it not for carnal self how easily might we deal withâ—â—â—â—rts of sinners but this is it that overcometh us CHAP. IV. The Prevalency of Selfishness in all Relations BEside all the generals already mentioned it will not be amiss to give you some particular Instances of the power of selfishness and the rareness of self-denyal in the world that you may see what cause of lamentation is before us 1. How ready and speedy how effectual and diligent how constant and unwearied are they in the service of self and how slow and backward how remiss and negligent how unconstant and tired are they in the works that are meerly for God and their salvation Do I need to prove it to you You may as well call for proof whether there are men in the world I were best for instance begin next home Many Ministers think it a drudgery and a toil that God requireth at their hands to confer with every family in their Parishes and instruct them privately in
doctrine of Christ and how much it doth to make them like or dislike their teachers or any point or practice in Religion And he is a stranger even among Divines themselves that seeth not the sway that self doth bear in their judgements and disputes and course of life and the choice of their party or society to which they joyn themselves CHAP. VI. Mens great aversness to costly or troublesome duties 3. ANother discovering instance of the rarity of self-denyal is this The great aversness of men to any costly or troublesome or self-denying duty how necessary soever how plainly soever revealed in the Scripture and how generally soever acknowledged by the Church As if self had a Negative voice in the making of Laws for the Government of the world and none must be binding without its consent I shall come down to some more particular instances 1. The great duty of charitable relieving our brethren in necessity to the utmost of our power is commonly made almost nothing of in the world And men cheat their souls by thinking they are passed from death to life because they love the brethren with such a cold and barren love as will neither lay down estate for them nor venture life for them but think they are sure Christians because they can say as the believers that James mentioneth Depart in peace be you warmed and filled but give them not that which is necessary thereto James 2. 16. Though it be told them plainly by Christ himself that it is not a fruitless uneffectual love but that which causeth them to feed and cloath and visit the Saints that must stand them instead at judgement Matth. 25. and the Apostle asketh them How the love of God can dwell in that man that seeth his brother have need and shutteth up the bowels of his compassion from him 1 John 3. 17. Yet do men think that by dropping now and then a penny they have discharged all this great duty And when they see many wayes by which they might promote the Gospel and help the Church and serve God with their estates yet self will not let them see the meaning of the plainest Scriptures that do require it 2. When men should practise the great duty of forgiving injuries trespasses and debts and of loving our enemies and blessing them that curse us and praying for them that hate and persecute us how stubbornly doth selfishness resist these duties What abundance of words may you use in vain with most men to perswade them to any of this work No they must have their right and that which is their own though it be to the undoing of their brother Passion and revenge even boil within them and the thoughts of an injury stick in their minds and if they do take on them dissemblingly to forgive it yet they cannot forget it nor heartily love a brother that displeaseth them much less an enemy And all this is from the dominion of self and shews that it prevaileth above God in the soul and therefore shews a graceless heart 3. When the Ministers of the Gospel themselves should be painful in their great and necessary work and should watch over all the flock Acts 20. 28. warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom that they may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus Col. 1. 28. condescending to men of the lowest sort and teaching them in season and out of season what reasonings and shifts will self bring in to resist so great and excellent a duty and prove it no duty and that God will give them leave to spare their pains and all because of the Powerful interest of self 4. And let the same Ministers have a disordered flock that hath scandalous members especially if they be great ones or many and how rarely will they do their duty to them in plain reproof and in case of impenitency and continuance in sin by Publick Admonition and Rejection what shiftings and cavillings will they find against this displeasing work of Discipline even when they will reproach a man themselves whose Opinion is against Discipline and when they have preacht and written and disputed so much for it and almost all parties are agreed of the necessity of it in the substance yet when it comes to practice it cannot be done without procuring mens hatred and opposition and laying us open to much incommodity and therefore self doth perswade us to forbear and whether God or self have the more servants even yet in a reformed Ministry I leave you to judge as your observation of the congregations through the Land shall direct you But were it not for self I should undertake to do more for discipline and personal Instruction with most Ministers by one Argument than I have done by a volume and you might see an unanimous concurrence in the work and consequently a great alteration in the Churches 5. And whence is it but from selfishness that plain and close Application in our Sermons is taken to be an injury to those that think themselves concerned in it If a Minister will speak alike to all and take heed of medling with their sores they will patiently hear him but if he make them know that he meaneth them in particular and deal closely with them about their miserable state or against any special disgraceful sin they fall a railing at him and reproaching him behind his back and perhaps they will say They 'le hear him no more O saith the selfish ungodly wretch I know he meant me to day had he no body but me to speak against As if a sick man should be angry with the Physitian for giving directions and medicines to him in particular and say Had he no body to give Physick to but me Were there not sick men enough in the Town besides me When Christ told the Despisers of the Gospel of the certain and dreadful destruction that was near them Mat. 21. 41 44 45. its said that When the chief Priests and Pharisees had heard his Parables they perceived that he spake of them A hainous business and therefore they sought to lay hands on him but that they durst not do it for fear of the multitude 6. Nay let a Minister preach but any such doctrine as seems consequentially to be against Self and to conclude hardly of them and they are ready to say as Ahab of Micaiah I hate him for he prophesieth not good of me but evil 1 Kings 22. 8. Let us but tell them how few will be saved what holiness and striving and diligence is necessary though we have the express word of God for it Heb. 12. 14. Mat. 7. 13 14. Luke 13. 24. 2 Pet. 1. 10. yet because they think that it makes against their carnal peace they cannot abide it Plain truth is unwelcome to them because it is rough and grates upon the quick and tells them of that which is troublesome to know Though they must know their sin and danger and misery or
else they can never scape it yet they had rather venture on Hell than hear the danger And as a sortish Patient they love that Physitian better that will tell them there is no danger and let them dye than he that will tell them your discase is dangerous you must bleed or vomit or purge or you will dye O what a wrong they take it to be told thus If a Minister tell one of them that hath the death marks of ungodliness in the face of his Conversation Neighbour I must deal plainly with you your state is sad you are unsanctified and unjustified and in the slavery of the Devil and will be lost for ever if you dye before you are converted and made a new creature and therefore turn presently as you love your soul its ten to one but he should have a reproachful answer instead of thanks and obedience And all this shews that self bears the rule I will give one instance from the Gospel that will tell you plainly the power of self In Luke 4. 20. c. you read of an excellent Sermon preached by Jesus Christ himself so that all did wonder at his gracious words yet few were converted by it but they fell on cavilling against him because of his supposed Parentage and Breeding Whereupon Christ telleth them that Elias and Elisha though most excellent Prophets were sent but for the sake of a few and therefore it was no wonder if of all that multitude it was but a few that should be converted and saved by him This very doctrine so netled these wretches that the Text saith ver 28 29. that all they in the Synagogue when they heard these things were filled with wrath and rose up and thrust him out of the City and led him to the brow of the hill whereon their City was built that they might cast him down headlong See what entertainment such doctrine had even from Christ himself As if they should have said what are we all unconverted and ungodly shall none be saved but a few such as you Self was not able to bear this doctrine they would have had his life for it 7. Again let but a Minister or private Christian deal closely with ungodly men or Hypocrites about their particular sins by private reproof and see whether Self be not Lord and King in them O how scurvily they will look at you and their hearts do presently rise against you with displeasure and they meet you with distaste and passion and plead for their sins or at least excuse or extenuate them or bethink themselves what they may hit you in the teeth with of your own Or if malice it self can fasten nothing on you they let fly at professors or those that they think are of your mind and way in a word they shew you that they take it not well that you meddle with them and let not their sin alone and look to your selves for all that God hath expresly commanded us 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 And Heb. 3. 13. Exhort one another daily while it is called to day lest any be hardned by the deceitfulness of sin So Mat. 18. 15 16. Try but plain dealing with your neighbours one twelve moneth with as much prudence and love and lenity as will stand with faithfulness and when you have done I dare leave it to your selves to judge whether God or self have the more servants in the world and whether self-denyal and Sanctification be not very rare 8. Yet further you see it is the duty of Christians to admonish and faithfully reprove one another but because most men take it ill and plain dealing will displease and lose a friend how few even of professors will be brought to perform it yea of those that expect a Minister should reject the offendor when it cannot be done till after admonition and impenitency thereupon No this is a troublesome duty and self will not give them leave to do it 9. Moreover You know that Church-Government and Discipline is an undoubted Ordinance of Christ which the Church hath owned in every age though in the execution some have been negligent and some injurious and that open scandalous sins must have open confession and repentance that the ill effects may be hindered or healed and the Church see that the person is capable of their communion and that the absolution may be open and well grounded And yet let any man except the truly penitent and godly be called after a scandal to such a necessary confession and how hardly are they brought to it What cavilling shall you have against the duty They will not believe that it is their duty not they And why so is it because it is not plainly required by God No but because it tends they think to their disgrace and self is against it and when you have shewed them such reasons for it that they cannot answer yet the sum is they will not believe it or if they believe it they will not do it What! will they make themselves the laughing stock and talk of the Countrey No they will never do it and it is an injury they think for God or man to put them upon it God commands and self forbids God bids them yield lest they perish in impenitency self bids them not to yield lest they shame themselves before men God perswadeth and self disswadeth and which is it that most commonly prevails Though to avoid the shame of excommunication self also will some time make them yield Did but the Magistrate by a penalty of ten or twenty pound upon refusers perswade them to this not one of a hundred would then refuse but when God urgeth them with the threatning of Hell the wages of impenitency they make little or nothing of it as if they could escape it by not believing it or some way or other could deal well enough with him Judge by the performance of this one duty Whether God or Self have more Disciples 10. Lastly let me instance in one duty more Suppose a deceitful Tradesman or oppressing Land-lord or any one that gets unlawfully from another is told from the word of God that it is his duty to make Restitution either to the person or to his posterity or to God by the poor if neither can be done and to give back all that ever he thus unjustly came by though he have been possessed of it without disgrace never so long See what entertainment this doctrine will have with the most Self will not lose the prey that it hath got hold off till death shall wring it out of its jaws and Hell make them wish they had never medled with it or else had penitently and voluntarily restored it O what abundance of objections hath self against it and no answer will satisfie from God or man Of a thousand unjust getters how many do restore
upon the affairs of Nations and the wars of Princes and their confederacies and see who it is that rules in all how little will you see save here and there but carnal self It is self that makes the cause and manageth it It is self that maketh Wars and Peace Come down into our Courts of Justice and whose voice is loudest at the bar but selfs and who is it commonly else that brings in the Verdict at least who is it else that made and followeth on the quarrel How many causes hath self at an Assize for one that God hath Come lower into the Country and who is it that plows and sows who is it that keeeps House or Shop but self I mean what else but carnal self is the Principle what else but carnal self is the End what else but the will of self is the Rule and what else but selfish commodity or pleasure or honour are the matter or some provision that is made for these and consequently what else but self-respect is the form For the End informeth the means as means and therefore all that is done for self is self-service and self-seeking In a word as God is all in all to the sanctified so self is as all in all to the ungodly And alas how great a number are all these 3. Consider that it is a sin that is nearer us objectively than any other sin And the nearer the more dangerous Alas that a man should turn his own substance into poison feed upon it to his own destruction If you have drunk poyson you may cast it up again or nature may do much to work it out but if your own blood and humours and spirits be turned into venom that should nourish and preserve your life what then shall expell this venom and deliver you 4. Moreover it is the most obstinate disease in the world No duty harder except the Love of God than self-denial O how many wounds will self carry away and yet keep life and heal them all How commonly do we convince some carnal Gentlemen that One thing is needful and that its a better part than Earth and honour and sensuality that must be chosen or else they are undone and that the more they have the more they must forsake and the more self-denial is required to their salvation and that all their lands and wealth and honours and all their wit and parts and interest must be at the service of their Maker and Redeemer and that when they have all in the world that they can get that all must become Nothing and God must become all their treasure must become the dross and dung and Christ must become their treasure or they are lost I say how oft do we convince men of all estates of these important evident truths And yet this self is still alive and keeps the garrison of the heart and all that we can have from most of them is as the rich man Luk. 18. 23 24. to be very sorrowful that they cannot have heaven at easier rates and that Christ will not be a servant unto Self or they cannot have two Masters They go away sorrowful but away they go because they are rich which makes Christ say upon this observation How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the Kingdom of God But when the Disciples were troubled at his observation he lets them know that it is Self and not Riches that is indeed the deadly enemy It is the selfish that trust in Riches and love and use them for themselves and deny not themselves and devote not all to God that will be kept out of Heaven by them Or in Christs own words Luk. 12. It is he that layeth up treasure for Himself and is not rich towards God Conquer self and Conquer all 5. Moreover self is the most constant malady the sin that doth most constantly attend us Many actual sins may be laid by and we may for the time be free from them But selfishness is at the heart and lives with us continually It parteth not from us sleeping or waking It goes to the worship of God with us it will not stay behind in the holiest ordinance It will not forbear intermixing it self in the purest duties but will defile them all So that above all sins in the world it s this that must have the strictest constantest watch or else we shall never have any peace for it 6. Yea this self doth lamentably survive even in the sanctified soul among the special graces of the Spirit and lamentably distempereth the hearts and lives of too many of the godly themselves Not that any godly man is selfish in a predominant sense or that self is higher or more powerful in his heart than God for that 's a contradiction such a man cannot be a godly man without Conversion But yet the very remnants of conquered Self what a smoak do they make in our Assemblies and what noisom scent in the lives of many godly men what a stir have we sometimes with those that we hope are godly before we can get them to an impartial judgment to lament their own fowl words or other miscarriages and to humble themselves or freely to forgive another that hath wronged them especially to confess disgraceful sins in any self-denying manner How close stick they to their own conceits how lamentably do they improve them to the contempt of Ministers trouble and division of the Church How wise are they in their own eyes and how hardly yield they to any advice that crosseth Self How hardly are they brought to any dear and costly duty How much do they indulge their appetites and passions and how cheap a Religion do many think to come to heaven with we can scarce please some of them they are so selfish either because we cross them in their opinions or in their wayes or because we allow them not so much special countenance and respect as self would have or deny them somewhat which self desires If they have any use for us if we leave not more publick or greater work which god hath set us on and allow them not that part in our time or labours or other helps which God and Conscience will not allow them they are offended take it ill that self is not preferred before God and the publick service Their selves are so dear to themselves that they think we should neglect all to serve them Let the most useful Minister live in a place that hath the plague or other contagious mortal sickness and most that are visited will take it ill if the Minister come not to them though they know that his life is hazarded by it and that his loss to the whole Church is more to be regarded than the content or benefit of particular persons and it is not the pleasing of them nor their benefit by him then that will countervail the Churches loss of him What is this but too much preferring self I
say were it not that these step in and cross self and hinder its designs you might fore-see in self-interest the changes that are made in humane affairs Consect 3 And so Potent and common is the Dominion of self that it may warrant an honest moderate incredulity and jealousie of almost all men in cases where the interest of self is much concerned Let him be never so ingenuous let his parts and profession be never so promising let his former engagements to you be never so great let him be your own Brother yet be not too confident of him if his carnal self be concerned or engaged against you For you shall see by experience as long as you live that self will still bear Dominion in the most Consect 4. Above all every wise and godly man should herein maintain the greatest Jealousie of his own heart Keep the heart above all keepings and keep out self above all sins whatever Take heed of selfishness as ever you would be Christians and live as Christians and have the Peace of Christians And to that end be alwayes suspicious of every cause opinion controversie or practice where self is much concerned The very names of SELF and OWN should sound in a watchful Christians ears as very terrible wakening words that are next to the names of Sin and Satan and at least carry in them much cause of suspition And this hath led me up to the next Use of the Point CHAP. XI Use 2. To try our self-denial the sincerity of the least degree Use 2. Of Exhortation BEloved hearers I have now before me as great a sin and danger to deter you from even selfishness and its effects and as great a Duty to offer to your entertainment even self-denial as any save one that I am acquainnted with in the world The raising up the soul to God is indeed the greatest work But the mortifying of the flesh and the Denying of self is surely the next to it being a real part of the change You hear Ministers tell you of the odiousness and danger and sad effects of sin but of all the sins that ever you heard of there is scarce any more odious and dangerous than this and yet I doubt there are many that never were much troubled at it nor sensible of its malignity My principal request therefore to you is that as ever you would prove Christians indeed and be saved from sin and damnation that follows it take heed of this deadly sin of selfishness and be sure you be possessed with true self-denial and if you have it see that you use and live upon it And for your help herein I shall 1. Tell you how your self-denial must be tried and 2. How it must be exercised and 3. I shall give you some further Reasons to perswade you to it and 4. Some Directions for the procuring and strengthening it 1. The trial of your self-denial may be performed by the help of the Signs that have been given you before In the ten particulars mentioned in the beginning you may see what is selfishness and what is self-denial But for your further satisfaction I shall only tell you in a few words how the least measure of true self-denial may be known And in one word that is thus Wherever the Interest of Carnal self is stronger and more predominant habitually than the Interest of God of Christ of everlasting life there is no true self-denial or saving grace But where Gods Interest is the strongest there self-denial is sincere If you further ask me How this may be known Briefly thus 1. What is it that you Live for what is that Good which your mind is principally set to obtain and what is that End which you principally design and endeavour to obtain and which you set your heart on and lay out your hopes upon Is it the Pleasing and glorifying of God and the everlasting fruition of him Or is it the Pleasing of your fleshly mind in the fruition of any inferiour thing Know this and you may know whether Self or God have the greatest interest in you For that is your God which you Love most and Please best and would do most for 2. Which d◠you set most by the means of your Salvation and of the Glory of God or the Means of providing for Self and Flesh Do you set more by Christ and Holiness which are the way to God or by Riches Honour and Pleasures which gratifie the flesh Know this and you may know whether you have true Self-denial 3. If you are truly self-denying you are ordinarily Ruled by God and his word and spirit and not by Carnal Self Which is the Rule and Master of your lives whose Word and Will is it ordinarily that prevails When God draws and self draws which do you follow in the tenor of your life Know this and you may know whether you have true Self-denial 4. If you have true Self-denial the drift of your lives is carried on in a successful opposition to carnal Self so that you not only refuse to be ruled by it and love it as your God but you fight against it and tread it down as your enemy So that you go armed against Self in the course of your lives and are striving against Self in every duty and as others think it then goes best with them when Self is highest and pleased best so you will know that it then goeth best with you when Self is lowest and most effectually subdued 5. If you have true Self-denial there is nothing in this world so dear to you but on deliberation you would leave it for God He that hath any thing which he loveth so well that he cannot spare it for God is a selfish and unsanctified wretch And therefore God hath still put men to it in the trial of their sincerity to part with that which was dearest to the flesh Abraham must be tried by parting with his only Son And Christ makes it his standing rule He that forsaketh not all that he hath cannot be my Disciple Luke 14. 33. Yet it is true that flesh and blood may make much resistance in a gracious heart and many a striving thought there may be before with Abraham we can part with à Son or before we can part with wealth or life But yet on deliberation self-denial will prevail and there is nothing so dear to a gracious soul which he cannot spare at the will of God and the hope of everlasting life If with Peter we should flinch in a temptation we should return with Peter in weeping bitterly and give Christ those lives that in a temptation we denied him For Habitually God is dearest to the soul 6. In a word true self-denial is procured by the Knowledge and Love of God advancing him in the soul to the debasing of self The illuminated soul is so much taken with the Glory and Goodness of the Lord that it carrieth him out of himself to God and as
interest and honour to your selves Holiness is an Inclination and Dedication to God by which two we are said to be separated to him And wickedness is an Inclination and Addictedness or Devotedness to our selves above God or as separated from God And this Inclination Disposition or Separation of man to Himself instead of God is it that I call self or selfishness and this self must it self be first destroyed as to the predominant degree And therefore let us First observe wherein this selfish Disposition doth consist which must be destroyed and then Secondly wherein the selfish Interest doth consist that must be denied And first the selfish Disposition consisteth in these several parts that follow 1. The principal part of it consisteth in an inordinate Self-love This is a corruption so deep in the heart of man that it may be called his very Natural Inclination which therefore lieth at the bottom below all his Actual sins whatsoever and must be changed into a New Nature which principally consists in the Love of God This is Original sin it self even in the heart of it This speaks what man by Nature is even an inordinate self-lover And as he is so he will act In this all other vice in the world is virtually contained even as all grace is in the Love of God which made the Schoolmen say that Love is the Form of all Grace not as they are this or that Grace in particular not of Faith as Faith nor of Hope as Hope but of Faith Hope c. as vital or gracious acts because the respect to the End is essential to the means as a means and therefore the respect to God as the End is Essential to Faith Hope c. as a means to him and therefore that Grace of Love which is terminated on the End must have an essential participation concurrence or influence on those that are directly terminated on the Way or Means and must convey somewhat of its very essence to them and so far as they partake of that essence of Love so far are they indeed those special Graces which carry the soul to God its End And in this sence we may allow the distinction between Fides Spes c. formata charitate which is true Christian Faith and Hope and Fides Spes c. informis which is but an opinion and dream And so it is in the body of sin When self-self-love doth reign it is the Heart of wickedness And though every sin hath its own specifick nature yet all are virtually in self-self-love and are so far mortal or prove men graceless as they are informed by the essential Communication of self-self-love For self being the End informeth all the means as they respect it I say the more to you of this because indeed it is a weighty truth for the right understanding of the true nature of Grace and sin and I doubt many are in the dark for want of understanding considering it A man that feareth and Loveth God and an unsanctified man may be both overtaken with the same sin perhaps a gross one as Noahs and Davids and Peters was and yet this may be a mortal sin in the ungodly I mean such as proves him in a state of death and yet not so in the gracious person The wicked will deride this in their ignorance as if we made God partial but it 's no such matter The Papists cannot endure it but suppose Peter David and Noah were quite without the Love of God and so were again unsanctified men but this is their error It was not from the Power of reigning self-love and the Habitual absence of the Love of God that these men or any Saints did sin but from a particular act of mortified self-love by a surprize upon the neglect of the actual exercise of the Love of God But all the sins of unsanctified men or at least their common sins are from the Habitual reign of self-love and the Habitual absence of the Love of God And therefore the sins of the Saints are as the Schoolmen speak of the graces of the ungodly unformed they be not Mortal sins in the sense aforesaid because they be not naturalized informed animated by the malignity and venom of the Mortal End and Principle which is Habitual reigning self-love But those of the wicked are sins informed by this inordinate self-love as an habitual reigning sin and therefore being animated by its malignity are mortal Yet say not that this makes God partial and not to hate the same sin in one as he doth in another For two things must be taken in 1. Where the heart is sanctified such sins are strangers perhaps one Godly man of ten or twenty may be guilty of one of them as Noah was of drunkenness once in all his life since his conversion For it will not stand with grace to live in them For such as a mans Love and Inclination and nature is such will be the drift of his Life And would not you have God make a difference between those that sin once and those that live in it 2. Besides will not any honest man make a great difference of the same acts according as they come from different hearts you will not take a passionate word from a Father Husband or Wife so ill as the same word from a malicious enemy If an unthrifty Son should spend you twenty shillings wastfully you will not prosecute him as you would do a thief or an enemy that takes it from you violently Wilful murder and casual man-slaughter have not the same punishment by the Law of the Land If you will make such a difference your selves of the same words or deeds as they come from different meanings and affections quarrel not with God for doing that which you confess is just and necessary to be done 1. The Faculty where this Disposition is principally seated is the Will which in man is the Heart of Morality whether Good or Evil. And the Principal Act is an Inordinate Adhesion of man to himself and Complacency in himself And this is the inordinate self-self-love that must be first mortified 2. The next faculty that self hath corrupted is the Understanding and here we first meet with the sin of self-esteem which is the second part of selfishness to be mortified It is not more natural for man to be sinful vile and miserable than to think himself vertuous worthy and honourable All men naturally over-value themselves and would have all others also over-value them This is the sin of Pride But of this I must speak by it self CHAP. XIV Self-conceitedness must be denied 3. THe next part of selfishness to be mortified is in the same faculty and it is called self-conceitedness And it consisteth of two parts the first is a Disposition to selfish opinions or conceits that are properly our own and the second is to think better of those conceits than they do deserve Naturally men are prone to spin themselves a web of
let out that dangerous venomous wind that puffs you up And if you should have any Knowledge of the most precious truths as long as you are thus proud and self-conceited it will not be savoury and effectual on your hearts Humility feedeth and Pride starveth every Grace The Spirit of God will not dwell with the proud He will beat you out of your selves unless you drive him away from you Some seeming raptures and comforts the self-conceited have which are but the deluding flatteries of self and the encouragements that Satan giveth to his servants For Satan will needs be a comforter for a while as the Holy Ghost is to the Saints and his followers also have their joys But it is the humble soul that hath the solid comforts From the dust of Humiliation we have the clearest sight of Glory and consequently the sweetest tasts of it As high as the rain comes from it is the lowest valleys that receive it most and retain it Faith it self will not prosper in the proud and self-conceited To such the Gospel will be foolishness or an offence It is only the humble that savingly close with its mysteries Humility cherisheth the fear of God and makes us say How shall we do this evil or neglect this duty But Self-conceitedness and Pride is blind and bold and destroyeth in mens apprehensions the difference between things sacred and common the holy and the unclean It disposeth them to such an unreverent boldness with holy things as usually ends in a prophane contempt so that such can at last despise holy Ordinances which they should live upon Repentance and this Pride are deadly foes To be Penitent and Proud is to be Hot and Cold alive and dead Though Christ love not to find you in the dust of earthly-mindedness yet he loves to find you in the dust of humility The Publican that hanged down the head did â—it the way better to the sight of God than the self-conceited Pharisee The most self-denying humiliation is the nearest way to heaven and the most self-exalting Pride is the surest and nearest way to hell I had rather sit with Mary washing and wiping the feet of Christ than ask as the Mother of James and John to sit at Christ's right hand and left hand in his Kingdom Mary was in a manner thanked for the Love of her humility and they were in a manner denied the request that so little savoured of self-denial Our Lord doth not use to thank people for their service and yet he did that which was next to it to this humble self-denying penitent woman He doth not use to deny his own Disciples an heavenly request and yet he did that which was next to a denial when self brought him the petition He that hath taught us not to press to the highest room lest with shame we hear Sit lower doth hereby tell us what we must expect from himself And he that hath bid us sit down at the lower end that we may hear Friend sit up higher doth express his purpose for humble self-denying souls I had rather from the dust hear his Come up higher than from self-exaltation to hear Come down lower O you that are proud self-conceited wretches did you but know what good it doth an humble soul to feel Christ take him up from the dust you would soon fall down that you might tast their comforts in his lifting up O what a blessed feeling it is to feel ones self in the arms of Christ Our common compassion that makes us run to take up one that falls before us is a spark of that compassion in Christ who meddles with him that walks before us but a man that falls down in a swoon we are all ready to lay hands on O happy fall that makes us feel the arms of Christ Though the fall into sin be never the better that occasioneth it yet the fall into Humiliation is the better that prepareth for it He that in his agony had an Angel to minister to him will not leave the self-denying humble soul without his Angel or some way of relief that is sutable to the necessity Christ himself will not communicate himself to the proud and self-conceited He is wisdom but not to them that are wise in their own eyes already He is Righteousness but not to them that Justifie themselves He is Sanctification but not to those that never found their own uncleanness He is Redemption but to none but those that feel themselves condemned He hath the white raiment and the treasures of grace and glory but it 's only those that penitently feel that they are poor and miserable and blind and naked Truly Sirs though I have no mind to trouble the well-grounded peace or comfort of any of your Souls yet I would advise you if you have never so good thoughts of your selves suspect lest it should be the fruit of self-conceiteduess And if you should have never so much peace and joy look well whether it come from God or self-conceit And if it come not in against self it 's ten to one but it comes from self If your Peace and Comfort be not won from Christ in a way of self-denial and as the spoils of the flesh you have it not in the ordinary way of God Did you come to your Joy and Peace by humility and self-denial and patience and mortification and by becoming little Children and the servants of all and by learning of Christ to be meek and lowly If not take heed lest you nourish a changeling an Imp of Hell and a selfish brat instead of the fruit of the Spirit the peace and joy of the Holy Ghost If you feel no great matter at home to trouble you you are too Righteous to be Justified by Christ If you groan not under your ignorance and unbelief you are too wise to be Christ's Disciples If you mourn not under the load and pain of sin you are too well to be Christ's Patients If you are readier to justifie and excuse your selves than to condemn your selves and had rather hear your selves praised than reproved admonished or instructed and like Diotrephes love to have the preheminence you are too high for Christ to take any acquaintance with you and too full of self to have any room for his Love and Spirit and heavenly Consolations He that gave us the Parable of the importunate widdow Luke 18. 2 3. would have us understand that bare necessity is not enough to fit us for relief for then the worst of men should be the fittest but it must be Necessity so felt as to humble us and drive us to importunity with God The Prodigal was miserable when he was denied the husks but he never felt his Fathers embracements till he came to himself by denying himself and returning to his Father And this the self-conceited will not be perswaded to The first that must touch Christ after his Resurrection is not a King nor a Lord no nor a
sometime all is comprehended in the term world and selfishness in the word flesh the world being that harlot with which the flesh commits adultery So 1 Joh. 2. 15 16. Love not the world nor the things that are in the world If any man Love the world the Love of the Father is not in him For all that is in the world the Lust of the flesh the Lust of the eyes and the Pride of Life is not of the Father but is of the world and the world passeth away and the Lust thereof but he that doth th will of God abideth for ever To these three heads therefore we shall reduce all that we have to say of this matter I. The selfish fleshy Pleasure that must be denied consisteth in these particulars following which I shall but briefly touch because they are so many 1. One Principal part of Sensuality or Self-interest consisteth in meats and drinks to please the Appetite So far as these are taken to fit us for Gods service and used to his Glory so far they are sanctified as before was said but when they are meerly to please the appetite they are offered to an enemy and are the fuel of lust Do you see any thing that your Appetite desireth whether meats or drinks whether for quality or quantity Take it not touch it not meerly upon that account but enquire whether it tend to the strengthning and fitting your bodies or minds for the service of God and if so take it if not let alone If your appetite had rather have Wine than Beer or strong Beer than small take it not meerly upon that account If your appetite would fain have one cup more when nature hath as much as is profitable deny that appetite If your appetite would fain be tasting of any thing that is not for your health deny that appetite If it would fain have one bit more when you have as much before as is wholesom or useful to you deny that appetite Or else you are guilty of flesh pleasing and plain Gluttony Quest But is it not lawful at a feast to taste of another dish or eat another bit when I think that nature needs no more what perplexities then will you cast men into to know just how many morsels they may eat Answ It is gluttony and no beter to take the creatures of God in vain and sacrifice them to a devouring throat which should be used only for his service That which is a mans ultimate end is his God What would you have plainer than express words of Scripture that tell you that whether you eat or drink it must be all to the glory of God 1 Cor. 10. 31. and that the fleshly do make their bellies their Gods Phil. 3. 18. And therefore when you have taken as much as suiteth with your end the service and glory of God you must not take more for another end the pleasing of your fleshly desires But for the scruples that you mention about the just proportion we need not be disquieted with them For God hath given us sufficient means to direct us to know what is for our good and what is superfluous and it is our duty in an even and constant way to use our Reason and keep as near the due proportion as we can and when we know that this is our desire and endeavour it were a sin against God to trouble our selves with continual or causless scruples or fears lest we do exceed or miss the rule For what can we do more than go according to the best skill we have and if for want of skill we should a little mistake it is pardoned with the rest of our daily infirmities and to trouble and distract our selves with causeless fears would more unfit us for Gods service than some degree of mistake in the proportion would do and so would be as great a sin as that which we feared And therefore our way is quietly and comfortably without distracting fears or scruples to do our best and use our prudence with self-denial and remember that we have to do with a Father that knows the flesh is weak when the spirit is willing But yet wilfully to cast away one cup or one morsel on the pleasing of our appetites when it no way fits us for the service of God and will do us no other good this is not self-denial but sensuality Quest But nature knows best what 's good for it self and therefore that which it desireth is to be judged best A Beast liveth as healthfully as a man that obeyeth his appetite only Is it not lawful to take either meat or drink on this account that the Appetite is pleased with it Answ 1. Some Beasts would presently kill themselves in pleasing their appetites if man that is Rational did not rule restrain and moderate them A Swine will burst himself with whey in half an hour A Beast in new after-grass will surfeit if he be suffered No Beast knows poyson from food but would soon perish by it in obeying his appetite 2. And yet as a Bâ—â—st hath no Reason so he is better provided to live without Reason than man is His appetite is not so corrupted by sin as ours is Original sin hath depraved and enraged our appetites And if man had not more use for his reason than a Beast even in ordering his natural actions God would not have given him reason to rule his appetite and commanded him to use it herein And who knows not that if a man did follow his appetite alone as Beasts do he were like to murder himself the next day or week or at least in a very little space The appetite would presently carry us to that for quality or quantity or both that would cast us into mortal diseases and soon make an end of us And in those diseases the pleasing it usually would be certain death And indeed this is a beastly doctrine that man that hath reason to rule his sensual inclinations should lay it by and please his appetite without it like a brute what more do all Gluttons Drunkards and Whoremongers but follow ther fleshly desires And if the desires of the flesh might be followed who would not be such as they in some measure That which is no sin in a Beast is a hainous sin in a man because man hath reason to rule his appetite and a Beast hath none and therefore is not capable of sin And for the body it 's certain that most of the diseases in the world are bred and fed by the pleasing of the appetite and I think that there 's few that are laid in their graves but this was the cause of it though the ignorant know it not and the sensual are loth to believe it And for the question whether we may not take any meat or drink purposely to please the appetite I answer yes as a means to fit us for duty but not as your chief end 1. Sometimes especially in weak bodies the
deluded souls that they do amiss but they say What harm is there in cards or dice or hunting or bowling or such like rerceations How shall we live without recreation Answ But is there no harm in needless flesh-pleasing and in the loss of precious time to men that are ready to step into eternity O that ever men should make such a question Sppose your recreations were the lawfullest in the world in their own nature Can there be a greater villany than to set your hearts on them and make a God of them and cast away pretious hours on them in using them needlesly Recreations are your physick or your sauce therefore must not become your food nor made a meal of They are only as whetting to the mower which must never be used but when there 's need To spend half the day in needless whetting deserves no wages O did you know but what your work and time and what 's before you you would be better husbands and then you might so contrive your business as to lose no time in recreation For either your calling puts you on the labour of the mind as Students or of the body as labouring men If study be your calling you need no exercise of recreation but for your bodies for variety of studies is the best or sufficient for the mind And two hours walking is bodily recreation enough in a day for almost any student that is in a capacity to labour And if you be labouring men or your calling lie in bodily motion then you need no recreation for your bodies besides your Callings but only for your mind And if you love God and his Word what better Recreation for your minds can you devise than thinking of the Love of God in Christ and meditating on the Law of God Psal 1. 2. and calling upon him and rejoycing in his praises and the Communion of his Saints Is not a day in his Courts better than a thousand any where else The Spirit of God by David said so Psal 84. 10. But alas it is this unmortified flesh and tyrannizing sensuality that blindeth you that you cannot see the truth or else all this would be as plain to you as the high way CHAP. XXIV Vain Company to he denied 7. ANother sensual vice to be denied is A love to vain ungodly Company This is a sin that I think none but utterly graceless men are much carried away with For the Godly are all taught of God to love one another 1 Thes 4. 9. and to delight in the Saints as the most excellent on Earth Psal 16. 2 3. and to take pleasure in their communion and to look on the ungodly with a differencing belief as fore-seeing their everlasting misery if they return not so that it is the ungodly that I have now to speak to Some fall in love with the company of good fellows as they call them and some love the company of harlots some of gamesters and most of merry pleasant companions and men that are of their own disposition and the love of such company ticeth them to the frequent committing of the sin They would not go to gaming but for company They would not go to the Alehouse but for company and when they are there perhaps they will swear and drink and mock at godliness for company But are you willing also to go to hell for company Is the company of those sinners better than the company of God and his favour were it not better to be that while with him in prayer or about his work If you love a tipling fellow better than God speak out and say so plainly and never dissemble any more nor say that you love God above all or that you are Christians Have you more delight in the Company of them that would entice to sin than in the Company of the godly that would draw you from it This is a most certain mark that yet you are the children of the Devil and in a state of damnation It is not possible for a sanctified child of God to do so See the description of the man that shall be saved in Psal 15. vers 4. In his eyes a vile person is contemned but he honoureth them that fear the Lord Birds of a feather will flock together The company which you love shews what courses you love and what you are You delight in the company of those that Christ will judge as his enemies and how then will he judge of you You delight most in the company of those notorious fools that know not the plainest and needfullest things in all the world that know not that God is better than the world and holiness than sin and know not the way of their own salvation If you are content to have the company of the ungodly for ever you may take it here But if you would not dwell in hell with them do not go on in sin with them O when you shall see those very men arrested by death and haled at the bar of God and cast into damnation then you will have no mind of their company Then O that you could but say that you were none of them Like a man that is enticed by thieves to joyn with them but when the hue and cry overtakes them and they are apprehended how glad would he be then to be from among them I tell you sinners if grace recover you you shall wish in the sorrow of your hearts that you had never seen the faces of those men that enticed you to evil but if grace do not recover you you shall wish ten thousand times in Hell that you had never seen their faces but then your wishes will be in vain In the name of God bethink your selves whether your companions can bear you out at last and save you from the wrath of God and warrant your Salvation Nay whether they can save themselves Alas you know they cannot God saith If you live after the flesh ye shall die Rom. 8. 13. and if these men say as the Devil to Eve you shall not die are they able think you to make it good What can they overcome the God of heaven O Sirs away as you love your souls from such mad and miserable company as this CHAP. XXV Pleasing Accommodations Buildings Gardens Horses c. 8. ANother sensual delight to be denied is Pleasing accommodations in Buildings Rooms Walks Gardens Grounds Cattle and such like It 's lawful to be thus accommodated and lawful to desire and use such accommodations with such cautions as I gave before about recreations 1. If you do not with Ahab desire to be accommodated by that which is another mans coveting your neighbours possessions or unlawfully procuring it 2. If you be not at too much cost upon such things expending that upon them that should be laid out on greater and better things 3. But especially if you desire such accommodations for right ends sincerely referring all to Gods honour and desiring them
not principally to please your own fancy and carnal mind but for the enabling you the better and more chearfully to serve God Nothing but God may be loved for it self When the Pleasing of the flesh and fancy is the utmost thing we look at in any of our desires they are wicked and idolatrous Our houses therefore must be fitted to Necessary uses and not to inordinate delights Our Gardens Orchards Walks and such like must be first suited to Necessity and then to so much Delight as is useful to us for the promoting of our holiness but not to any useless tempting Delight But worldlings and sensual persons will not be tied to these Christian Rules Alas it 's the furthest matter from their minds to make Heaven the End of all their earthly possessions and accommodations They may hypocritically talk of God and of serving him by their estates but really it is the pleasing of a fleshly mind that is the thing which they intend They have more delight in their houses and gardens and lands and cattle than in God and the hopes of life everlasting They desire fair houses that they may be thought to be no mean persons in the world and that they may please their humours that run after creatures for felicity and content I would desire such men to consider these things 1. All these are but the baits of Satan to delight you and entangle your desires and find you work in seeking after them while you neglect far greater matters Can you have while to look so much after superfluities and delights in the world when you have Necessaries yet to look after for your souls Have you not greater things to mind than these which these occasion you to neglect 2. Do you really find that they conduce to your main end even to make you more holy or more serviceable to God Nay do not your own Consciences tell you that they hinder you and cross those ends And yet will go against your experience 3. If you are humble conscionable Christians you feel cause enough already to lament that your love to God and delight in him is no more And yet are you preparing snares for your souls to steal away that little remnant of your affections which you seemed to reserve for God 4. If you have any spark of Grace in you you know that the flesh and the world are your dangerous enemies and you know that the way that the world doth undo men is by ticing them to over-value it over-love it that those that love it most are deepest in a state of condemnation and the less men love it the less they are hurt or endangered by it And do you not know that you are liker to over-love a sumptuous house with gardens orchards and such accommodations than a mean habitation Why should you be such enemies to your own salvation as to make temptations for your selves Have you not temptations enough already Do you deal with those you have so well and overcome them so easily and so constantly as that you have reason to desire more If Christ your General send you upon a hotter service you may go on with courage and expect his help But if you will so glory in your own strength as to run into the hotter battle and call for more and stronger enemies it 's easie to conjecture how you will come off If you are Christians know your selves you know that in the meanest state you are too prone to over-love the world and that under all Gods medicinal afflictions you cannot be so weaned from it as you ought Are you not daily constrained to groan and complain to God under the burden of too much Love of the world and too much delight in worldly things If this be not your case I see not how you can have any sincerity of saving grace And if it be your case will you be so sottiâ—â— and hypocritical as to complain daily to God of your sin in the mean time to love and cherish it to groan under your disease and wilfully eat and drink that which you know doth increase it What will you think of a man that will pray to God to save him from uncleanness and yet will dwell no where but in a Brothel-house What do you better that must needs have the world in the loveliest garb and must needs have house and grounds and all things in that plight as are fittest to entice the heart and then will complain to God that you over-love the world and love him too little To your shame you may speak it when you do it so willfully and cherish the sin which you thus complain of If God call you into a state of fulness and temptations watch the more narrowly over your affections and your practices and use no more of the creatures for your self if you have ten thousand pound a year than if you had but an hundred but do not seek and long for temptations With not for danger unless you were better able to pass through it 4. Remember when your fancies desire such things not only that it is an enemy that desireth them and to please your enemy is not safe for you but also that it 's the way that most have perished by to have the world before them in too pleasing and lovely a condition Remember Nebuchadnezzar's case Dan. 4. 30. that for glorying in his pompous buildings was turned as a mad man among the Beasts Remember the rich mans sad example Luke 12. 20. 16. and think whether it be safe to imitate them If men must perish for loving the creature more than God methinks you should long most for that condition in which the creature appeareth least lovely or is least likely to steal your love from God and in which you may love him and enjoy him most 5. And bethink you how unsuitable it is to your condition to desire sumptuous buildings and enticing accommodations to your flesh Have you not taken God for your portion and Heaven for your home and are you not strangers and pilgrims here and is not God and everlasting glory sufficient for you You profess all this if you profess to be Christians and if you be not you should not profess that you are And what do you begin to repent of your choice must you yet turn to the pomp and vanity of the world again and will you quit your hopes of God and glory Ah poor souls what little need have you of such great matters on earth you have but a little to do with them and but a little while to stay with them and will not a mean habitation and shorter accommodations serve you for so short a time Stay but a while and your souls shall have house-room enough in heaven or hell and a narrow grave of seven foot long will serve your bodies till the resurrection And cannot you make shift with an ordinary habitation and with small common things till then
Heresies and Church-divisions as any Sensualist hath in his way And hence it is that a zeal for selfish opinions is easily got and easily maintained when zeal for the saving truths of God is hardly kindled and hardly kept alive Yea multitudes in the world do make the very truth to be the matter of their carnal interest in it while they some way get a seeming peculiar interest and promote it but as an opinion of their own or of their party and use it for selfish carnal ends And hence it is that many that are called Orthodox can easily get and keep a burning zeal for their Orthodox opinions when Practical Christians do find it a very hard matter to be zealous for the same truths in a Practical way Many ungodly men will be hot in Disputing for the truth and crying down all that are against it and perhaps so far exceed their bounds that the godly dare not follow them And the reason is clear Whether it be Truth or Error that a man holds if he hold it but as a conceit of his Own or as the opinion of his party or to be noted in the world as one that hath found out more truth than others or any way make it but the matter of his selfish interest nature and corruption will furnish him with a zeal for it It 's easie to go where sin and Satan drives and to be zelous where zeal hath so small resistance and to swim down the stream of corrupted nature But it is not so easie to be zealous in the practical saving entertainment of the truth and exercising that faith and love to God and holy obedience which truth is sent to work in us A schismatical or Opinionative use of truth it self is but an using it for self against the God of truth and it is no more wonder to see men zealous in this than to see men forward and hot in any evil We cannot tell how to quench or restrain this selfish carnal kind of zeal But when men should use the truth for God and their salvation against Satan and sin and self then it 's hard to make them zealous They are like green wood or wet fuel on the fire that will not burn without much blowing and soon goeth out when it seemed to be kindled if once you leave it to it self Paul spoke not non-sense when he said For ye are yet Carnal for whereas there is among you envying and strife and divisions are ye not carnal and walk as men For while one saith I am of Paul and another I am of Apollo are ye not Carnal 1 Cor. 3. 3 4 5. How secretly soever it may lurk there is doubtless much of self and flesh in Heresies and unjust Divisions I know that most of them little perceive it James and John in their zeal which would have called for fire from heaven did not know what spirit they were of But God would not have spoke it if it were not true Rom. 16. 17. Now I beseech you brethren mark them which cause Divisions and offences contrary to the Doctrine which ye have learned and avoid them For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ but their own belly and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple Though they little believe that that there is any such wickedness in them as this yet the Spirit of God that is the searcher of hearts is acquainted with it and assureth us that both at the bottom and the End Church-dividing courses have a carnal selfish nature It is some secret interest of self though scarce discerned that kindleth the zeal and carrieth on the work It is not God that is served by the divisions of his Church Many Sects now among us do put a face of Truth and Zeal upon their cause But self is the more dangerously powerful with them by how much the less suspected or observed The Papists under the pretence of the Churches Union are the great dividers of the Christian world unchurching the far greatest part of the Church and separating from all that be not Subjects of the Pope of Rome And do you think it is self and flesh that is the Principle and Life and End of this their Schism were it not for the upholding of this usurped power and worldly immunities and greatness of the Clergy it is morally impossible that so many men of reason and learning could concur in such a schism and in so many gross conceits as go along with it It is not the Pope that they are principally united in For the far greatest part of them it it too evident that it is selfish and fleshly interest that is their Center to which the Pope is but a means Hence it is that many of their Jesuits and Fryars are carried abroad the world with such a fire of zeal to promote their cause that they will compass sea and land for it and day and night are busie at the work to plot and contrive and insinuate and deceive and think no cost or pains too great For a selfish sinful zeal and diligence hath so many friends and so little hindrance that it 's easily maintained but so is not the healing peaceable practical and holy zeal of true believers Well! Consider what I say to you from the Word of the Lord There is a selfish dividing Zeal in Religion which must be denied as well as whoredom or drunkenness If you ask me how it 's known Briefly now I shallonly tell you this much of it 1. That it is usually for either an Error or a particular Truth against the interest and advantage of the body of unquestionable Christian verities They can let Religion suffer by it so their opinion do but thrive 2. It is usually for an Opinion by reason of some special endearment or interest of their own in it 3. They cry up that opinion with a zeal and diligence much exceeding that which they bestow upon other opinions of equal weight and lay a greater stress upon it than any shew of reason will allow them 4. They usually are zealous for a party and division against the Unity of the Catholick Church 5. Their Zeal is most commonly turned against the faithful Pastors of the Church For it 's hard to keep in with schism and with faithful Pastors too And if the Ministers will not own their sin and error they will disown the Ministers The Anabaptists and other Sects of late would never have been so much against Christ's Ministers if the Ministers had not been against their way 6. Their course doth in the conclusion bring down Religion and hinder the thriving of the Gospel and of Godliness Mark what is the issue of most of those ways that these men are so hot for Doth it go better or worse with the Church and cause of Christ in general where they are than it did before Is Religion in more strength and beauty and life and honour or doth real
remember that Heathens themselves have chosen death First in case of some extream torment or other misery which they had no other hope to prevent or end But this was but a choosing a speedier or easier Death before a more grievous death though remote or before a death that had so great a misery for its fore-runner or at least before such a life as is a continual death And so the conquered Heathens would frequently kill themselves to prevent a more dishonourable cruel death from the hand of the Conqueror And so many a one in uncurable misery wiâ—â—eth rather to die than endure it partly because that the suffering is so great as to overcome all the comforts of life For I yield that some degrees of misery with life are more terrible to nature than death and partly because that they know they must die at last however Secondly in a desire of fame that they may leave behind them an honourable name when they are dead But this is not to desire death but life Fain they would live for ever and because they know that it cannot be obtained on earth they had rather die some honourable death a little sooner that their names may live when they are dead than to die ignominiously shortly after Thirdly And some have chosen to die for the publick good of their Country But as it 's very uncertain whether the desire of a living Name were not their greater motive so it was but a choosing a present death for their Country before a latter unavoidable death without any such advantage In all these cases a natural man may venture on death that knows he cannot scape it long but must shortly die whether he will or no. But if they could avoid it there 's very few would submit to death but believers and none but in one of these cases 1. To end or avoid some extream intolerable uncurable misery 2. To deliver their Country or friends 3. And whether any would do it upon their ungrounded hopes of better things in the life to come I leave to consideration But if it be taken for granted that a natural man may love 1. The comforts of life above it self 2. And the good of his Country or the world or his children above his life 3. Or some carnal felicity falsly conceited to be had in another life yet it is certain that none but a sanctified believer can Love God better than his Life or can prefer those spiritual heavenly joys which consist in the holy Love and Fruition of God before his life And therefore he that for these can deny his Life is indeed a Christian and none but be Though it be an ungrateful word to the ears of some I must say it again and none but he For this is the very point in which Christ for instance doth put our self-denial to the trial He that will save his life shall lose it Whether you Love an immortal holy life with God or this earthly fleshly life better is the great question on which it will be resolved whether you are Christians or Infidels at the heart and whether you are heirs of heaven or hell Some Love to God may be in the unsanctified but not a love to him above their lives and in some cases they may submit to death but not for the Love of God But both these set together that is a submitting to Death for the Love of God or a Loving of God above this life is the most infallible proof of your sincerity I confess flesh and blood must needs think this is a very hard saying and though they might consent to acknowledge it a Duty and a Reasonable thing to die for Christ and a note of excellency and a commendable qualification of some few extrordinary Saints yet it goeth very hardly down with them that it should be the lowest measure of saving grace that the weakest Christian must have it that will be saved For say they What can the strongest do more than die for Christ But to this I answer 1. There is no rom for objections against so plain a Word of God It is the wisdom of God and not our Reason that disposeth of the Crown of life and therefore it is his Wisdom and not our Reason must determine by what we shall attain it And if God say plainly that If any man come to Christ and hate not his own life that is love it not so much less than Christ that for his sake he can use it as a hated thing is used he cannot be his Disciple Luke 14. 26. it is too late for the vote of man or all the clamour of foolish reason to recal this resolution The word of God will stand when they have talk'd against it never so long we may destroy our selves by dashing against it but we cannot destroy or frustrate it 2. And whereas men ask What can the strongest do more than die for Christ I answer Abundance more They can die for him with far greater Love and Zeal and Readiness and Joy than the weak can do and so bring much more honour to him by their death Though there be no higher way of outward expressing our Love to Christ than by dying for him yet the inward work of Love may be in very different degrees in persons that use the same expression of it Some may come to the stake with a little Love comparatively and some with fervent hot affections Some have much ado to yield to die and some die so chearfully that they rejoyce in the opportunity of honouring God and passing to him Yea and in the Expressions there is much difference in the manner Some give up themselves with so much readiness as works more on the standers by than their meer patience or the death it self And some are drawn so hardly to it as drowneth much of the honour and fruit of their martyrdom Of this read Mr. Pinks Serm. on Luke 14. 26. Obj. But Nature is of God and Nature teacheth us to Love and save our Lives and is it like that the God of Nature will command and teach us to cast them away and so contradict his own Law of Nature Answ 1. As Nature teacheth you to love your lives so God doth not forbid you But 2. Is it Natural to man to be Reasonable as well as to be sensitive and animate To have a reasonable soul as to have a temporal life 3. And doth not Reason tell us by the light of Nature that God should be loved better than our Lives If it did not yet by the help of supernatural light even Reason clearly tells us this And it is no contradiction for God to bid you Love your lives but love him better And he that bids you seek the preservation of your lives doth plainly except that you resign them to his dispose and that you seek not to save them from him when he commandeth you to lay them down So that it is not simply
and wasteth comfort and grieveth the spirit of Adoption by which you are sealed to the day of Redemption and by which you have your peace and comforts If by such sin your souls are clouded and estranged from God be diligent in seeking for healing and reconciliation and rest not till your peace be made with God For while you think of him as displeased you will be afraid of coming to him and this will double the fears of Death Direct 3. Deny your selves first in the carnal and worldly comforts of this life or else you are unlikely to deny your selves in the matter of Life it self Disuse your selves from unnecessary pleasures of the flesh And learn to endure dishonour contempt and reproach from the world and sickness and poverty when it 's inflicted on you by the hand of God Till you can deny your ease and profit and appetite and honour and all the delight of this present world you are never likely to deny your lives sincerely To deny your lives doth contain the denying of all these and more and therefore you must learn the lesser if you would do the greater These are the parts of life as it were and it 's easier thus to overcome it in its parts than in the whole when particular Souldiers are destroyed the Army is the weaker And the use of suffering the Afflictions of this life will make you hardy and make death seem a smaller matter For when you thus Die Daily you will the more easily die once Besides Death is half disarmed when the Pleasures Interests of the flesh are first denied For the leaving of fleshly contents and pleasures is much of the reason of mens unwillingness to die And therefore when these are denied before-hand the Reasons of your unwillingness are taken away If you pull down the Nest the Birds will be gone Men that are loth to leave their Country would willingly be gone if their houses were fired or they were turned out of doors and their friends and goods were all sent away This is it that makes men so unwilling to die because they practise not Mortification in their health but contrarily study to live as Pleasingly as may be to the flesh and think it part of their Christian Liberty thus making Christ a carnal Saviour as the Jews conceive of their expected Messiah and taking up with a carnal false salvation not purchased by Christ but given by Satan in the name of Christ and assumed by themselves They make it their business to have buildings and lands and meats and drinks and honours and all things as pleasing as may be to the flesh and then they complain that they are unwilling to die and I easily believe him it is no wonder They make it the work of their lives to feather their nests and make Provision for the flesh and then complain that they are loth to leave those nests that they have been feathering so long and loth to scatter all the heap and treasure which they have been gathering And did you think that gathering it was the way to make you willing to leave it Men load themselves with the lumber and baggage of the world and then complain that they cannot travel on their journey but had rather sit down They fall a building them habitations in their way when they should have none but Inns or Tents and when they have bestowed all their time and cost and charges on them they complain of their hearts for being loth to leave them Such mad doings as these are not the way to be willing to die To provide for self and flesh in your Life-time is not the way to Deny your Lives Sirs the way is this if you will learn it and stick not at the cost and trouble Self must be here stript naked of all its carnal comforts so that it shall have nothing left o fly to or trust upon nor nothing lest tâ—at it can take delight in then it will away If you would drive ouâ—â—n ill Tenant you will cast out all their goods and leave them nothing but the bare walls and not so much as a bed to lie on and uncover the house over their heads and then they will be gone So if you cast out all your sensual commodities and delights that when the flesh looks about it shall see nothing but the bare walls and cannot find a resting place then death will be less grievous and less unwelcome Or rather indeed even the flesh and self must be mortified and in the sense in which it must be denied it must have no being or life that is as it is withdrawn from its subordination to God And then there will be nothing to rise up against your submission to Death Though nature as nature will keep you from Loving death as death yet were but self-denial perfect there would be nothing to keep you from submitting to it and desiring to pass through it to immortality O that you would but try such a self-denying life and you would certainly die an easie comfortable Death Direct 4. Suffer not unworthy thoughts of God to abide in your soul Think not of his Infinite Love and Goodness with doubtfulness or diminution You will never be willing to come to God while you think of him as cruel or as a despiser of his creatures or unwilling to do Good But when once you think of him as the surest greatest Good and your fastest friend and the most lovely object that can be conceived of and these thoughts are deep and wrought into the very nature of your soul then you will be ready more chearfully to die No man can love the presence of a tyrant or an enemy or of him that is so far above him that there is no communion with him to be had If you entertain such blasphemous thoughts of God you are unlikely ever to desire his presence See you think as honourably and magnificently of the Goodness and Love of God as you do of his Knowledge or his Power and as you would abhor any extenuating conceptions of the one so do of the other And then the Loveliness and glory of his face will draw out your desires and make you long to be with God Direct 5. And by such means as this aforesaid Labour to bring up your souls to live in the Love of God It is love that is the Divine and heavenly nature in us and therefore must needs incline us heaven-wards The nature of love is to long after communion with him that we love The more Love the more of God in the soul and the more desire after God This is the grace that must live for ever and therefore bendeth towards the place of its perfection It 's want of Love to God that maketh most of us so contented to be from him Strengthen and exercise all other graces as far as in you lieth but above all live in the exercise of this enjoying heavenly grace Direct 6. Consider of all
the burdens that are here upon you which should make you long to be with God One would think the feeling of them should force you to consideration and weariness of them and make the thoughts of rest to be sweet to you Have you yet not sin enough and sorrow and fear and trouble enough Or must God lay a greater load on you to make you desire to be disburdened Every hour you spend and every creature you have to do with afford you some occasion of renewing your desires to depart from these and be with Christ Direct 7. Observe and magnifie that of God which is here revealed to you in his word and works Study him and admire him in Scripture study and admire him in the frame of nature And when you look towards Sun or Moon or Sea or Land and perceive how little it is that you know and how desirable it is to know them perfectly think then of that estate where you shall know them all in God himself who is more than all Study and admire him in the course of Providences study and admire him in the person of Christ in the frame of his holy life in the work of Redemption in the holy frame of his Laws and Covenants study and admire him in his Saints and the frame of his holy Image on their souls This life of studying and admiring God and dwelling upon him with all our souls will exceedingly dispose us to be willing to come to him and to submit to death Direct 8. Live also in the daily exercise of holy Joy and Praise to God which is the heavenly Employment For if you use your selves to this heavenly life it will much incline you to desire to be there Exercise fear and godly sorrow and care in their places but especially after Faith and Love be sure to live in holy Joy and Praise Be much in the consideration of all that Riches of grace in Christ communicated and to be communicated to you And be much in Thanks to God for his mercies and chearing and comforting your soul in the Lord your God And thus the Joy of Grace will much dispose you to the Joys of glory the Peace which the Kingdom of God consisteth in will incline you to the peace of the everlasting Kingdom and the chearful Praising of God on Earth in Psalms or other ways of Praise will prepare and dispose you to the heavenly Praises And therefore Christians exceedingly wrong their souls and hinder themselves from a willingness to be with God in spending all their days in drooping or doubting or worldly dulness and laying by so much the Joy of the Saints and the Praises of God Direct 9. Dwell on the believing fore-thoughts of the everlasting glory which you must possess Think what it is that others are enjoying while you are here and what you must be and possess and do for ever Daily think of the Certainty Perfection and Perperuity of your Blessedness What a life it will be to see the blessed God in his Glory and taste of the fulness of his love and to see the glorified Son of God and with a perfected soul and body to be perfectly taken up in the Love and Joy and Praises of the Lord among all his holy Saints and Angels in the heavenly Jerusalem You must by the exercise of Faith and Love in holy Meditation and Prayer even dwell in the Spirit and converse in Heaven while your bodies are on earth if you would entertain the news of death as beseems a Christian But of this at large elsewhere Direct 10. Lastly if you would be willing to submit to death resign up your own understandings and wills to the wisdom and the will of God and Know not good and evil for your carnal selves but wholly trust your lives and souls to the Wisdom and Love of your dearest Lord. Must you be carking and caring for your selves when you have an Infinite God engaged to care for you O saith self I am not able to bear the terrors and pangs of death O saith Faith My Lord is easily able to support me and it is his undertaken work to do it My work is but to Please him and it 's his work to take care of me in life and death and therefore though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death yet will I fear no evil O saith Self I am utterly a stranger to another world I know not what I shall see nor what I shall be nor whither I shall go the next minute after death None come from the dead to satisfie us of these things O but saith Faith My blessed Father and Redeemer is not a stranger to the place that I must go to He knows it though I do not He knows what I shall be and do and whither I shall go and all is in his power And seeing it belongs not to me but to him to dispose of me and give me the promised reward it is meet that I rest in his understanding And it is better for me that his Infinite Wisdom dispose of my departing soul than my shallow insufficient knowledge I may much more acquiesce in his knowledge than my own O but saith self I fear it may prove a change of darkness and confusion to my soul what will become of me I cannot tell O but saith Faith I am sure I am in the hands of Love and such Love as is Omnipotent and engaged for my good and how can it then go ill with me If I had my own will I should not fear And how much less should I fear when I am at the will of God even of most Wise Almighty Love There is no true Centre for the soul to Rest in but the Will of God It is our business to Obey and Please his Will as dutiful Children and to commit our selves contentedly to his Will for the absolute disposal of us It is not possible that the Will of an Heavenly Father should be against his Children whose desire and sincere endeavour hath been to Obey and Please his Will And therefore learn this as your great and necessary Lesson with Joyful Confidence to Commit your selves and your departing souls to your Fathers Will as knowing that your Death is but the execution of that Will which is engaged to cause all things to work together for your good Rom. 8. 28. And say with Paul I suffer but am not ashamed for I know whom I have believed and I am perswaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed to him against that day 2 Tim. 1. 12. 1 Tim. 4. 10. Therefore we labour and suffer because we trust in the living God who is the Saviour of all men especially of those that believe say therefore as Job Though he kill me yet will I trust in him Or rather as Christ Father into thy hands I commend my Spirit Luke 23. 46. If the hands and Will of the Father was the Rock and
and have you sought first to get in a fitter man what can they for shame say to it If they say No they proclaim themselves notorious self-seekers For it 's very seldom that an humble man is allowed to judge himself the fittest 4. And he that seeketh Dignities for God and not for himself will use them for God and not for himself For the Intention will command the use He will deny himself in his superiority as well as if he were in the lowest place and will contrive how he may most serve and honour God and this will be easily seen in his endeavours whether it be God or self that he serves and liveth to And now I advise all that love their souls to take heed of this aspiring act of selfishness If you will needs seek your selves and be your own Exalters you must trust to your selves and be your own defenders And then you will find that the lowest condition in the hand of God is more safe and comfortable than the highest in your own hand If God should lift you up to the top of the highest mountains you may expect either a calm or his protection in the storm and to be as safe as those below but if you lift up your selves and Satan carry you to the pinacle of the Temple take heed lest you thence cast down your selves by his temptations that did lift you up Dignities and Honours are not indeed the things that they seem to be to carnal eyes that see not the inside but judge by the outward glittering shew There is most holy Duty and work to be done where is the greatest dignity And certainly the life of greatest work labour is not the life of greatest ease or carnal pleasure especially when it is the work of God that you must do a work which all the world is against and which Satan and all his power will resist and which must meet with enmity and abundance of enmity when ever you set about it Though you are Commanders yet you are Souldiers and you that are Leaders have the hottest standing and must expect the sharpest conflicts Do you think of your Dignities and Offices as places of meer superiority and honour and accommodation to your carnal selves then are you Carnal men and enter upon you know not what and make your selves Traitors and Enemies to God whom he is engaged to bring down and be avenged on at last you debase the sacred coin which bears the stamp and name of God Magistracy is holy and the Image of God and you basely turn it into the Image of the flesh and blot out Gods name from it and stamp upon it the name of self and traiterously make it your own which was eminently his Believe it whoever you are if you seek for places of Rule and Dignity with carnal selfish expectations you must either use them accordingly when you have them which is the readiest way to damnation in the world or else you must find your expectations crost and mifs of all your carnal Ends and find that the greatest toil and burden which you expected should have been your chief content God hath annexed the Honour and outward greatness partly to encourage you to so hard a work lest the burden should be too heavy and partly to enable you to perform it and give you some advantages against opposition But though the cloathing of Authority and Rule be splendid the substance thus covered is extraordinary Labour and duty and suffering It is Honourable but it 's an honourable burden and an honourable painful difficult work So that if men understood what Office and Authority is in Church or Common-wealth and look'd after the substance as well as the ornaments the work as well as the Honour and Greatness it would be an eminent piece of self-denial for a man to submit to the call of God to be a Prince a Judge a Justice or but a Constable and men would as hardly be drawn to take the Office as they are now to do the work of the Office in faithfulness and with courage and zeal for God and that is almost as hard as an offendor is drawn to the stocks Offices and high places are not intended to accommodate the flesh nor are they things to be ambitiously desired and sought for by such as understand the Ends and use of them but they are such laborious hazardous ways of serving God which a wise man knows must cost him more than the honour will repay and which a Good man will not run away from when God calleth him thereto but will so far Deny himself as to submit to them but not thrust himself into them as the Proud and selfish do It is a work of Patience to a Godly man to be thus exalted but it is a work of Pride and self-seeking in others Deny your selves so far as to submit to Government dignity bear it patiently if it be cast upon you as being an excellent opportunity of serving God But wiâ—â— not for it because of the Honour and advantages to the flesh much less contend for it or set your hearts on it He that seeketh an Office or Honour for himself must have another heart before he will use it for God It 's better with Saul to hide our selves from honour than with Absalom to contrive and seek it but best of all with David to stay till God call us and then obey CHAP. XLII The Love and good Word of others denied 2. ANother part of selfish Interest to be Denied is the Love and good Will and Word of others This is a thing that may and must be desired to good ends but not for carnal self When Paul look'd at Gods honour and the good of souls he became all things to all men that he might by all means save some and this he did not for self but for the Gospels sake and yet for himself in subordination to God that he might be partaker of it with them He would give no offence to Jew or Gentile or the Church of God but pleased all men in all things that tended to their good not seeking his own profit but the profit of many that they may be saved 1 Cor. 10. 32 33. And he hath left it as the duty of the strongest Christians not to please themselves but every one to please his neighbour for his good to edification But when Paul look'd at himself and his esteem among men then he saith With me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you or of mans judgment 1 Cor. 4. 3. And Gal. 1. 10. Do I seek to please men For if I yet pleased men I should not be the Servant of Christ Good natures are loth to provoke others to displeasure and Grace moveth us to Please men for the saving of their souls But it 's Pride and Self-seeking to desire to set up our selves in mens esteem and to endear our selves for our selves into their
the names of the several graces of the Spirit And it is not Passion but disordered Passion that must be denied CHAP. LX. How far must we deny our own Reason Quest 10. HOw far must we deny our own Reason Answ 1. We must not be unreasonable nor live unreasonably nor believe unreasonably nor love or choose or let out any affection unreasonably We are commanded to be ready to give a reason of our hopes It is our Rational faculty that proveth us men and is essential to us And without it we can neither understand the things of God or man For how should we understand without an understanding But yet Reason must thus far be denied 1. We must not think highlier of our Reason than it deserves either in it self or as compared to others 2. We must not satisfie its curiosity in prying into unrevealed things 3. Nor must we satisfie or suffer its presumption in judging our Brethren or censuring mens hearts or ways uncharitably 4. Nor must we endure it to rise up against the Word or ways of God or contradict or quarrel with Divine Revelations though we cannot see the particular Evidence or Reason of each Truth nor reconcile them together in our apprehensions Though we may not take any thing to be the Word of God without Reason yet when he have Reason to it take to be his Word we must believe and submit to all that is in it without any more Reson for our belief For the formal Reason of our belief is because God is true that did reveal this Word And we have the greatest Reason in the world to believe all that he revealeth CHAP. LXI Q. Must we be content with affiictions permitted sin c. Quest 11. IF Self-denial require us to Content our souls in the Will of God then whether must we be content with his afflictions or permission of sin or the Churches sufferings and 1. How will this stand with our due sense of Gods displcasure and chastisements 2. And with our praying against them 3. And our use of means for their removal Answ 1. The Will of God is one thing and the Hurt which he willeth us is another and the Good En for which he willeth it is a third The afflicting Will of God is good and must be Loved as good and the End and Benefit of Chastisement is good and must be loved But the hurt as hurt must not be loved It is not Gods Will that we must resist or seek to change nor yet is it the End or Benefit of the Chastisement but only the hurt which our folly hath made a sutable means And we may not seek to remove this hurt till the effect be procured or on terms that may consist with the End of it And this is not against the Will of God that when the good is attained the Affliction be removed 2. And you must distinguish between his Pleased and Displeased Will his complacency and acceptance and his Displacency and Rejecting Will. Every act of Gods Will must be approved and loved as Good in God but it is not every one that we may Rest and Rejoyce in as Good to us and as our felicity We must be grieved for Gods Displeasure and yet Love even that holy will that is displeased with us and we must be sensible of Gods judgments and yet Love the Will that doth inflict them But it is only the Love of God and Pleasure of his Will to us that can be the Rest and felicity of our souls 3. Some acts of Gods Will are about the Means and have a tendency to a further end and some are about the End it self His Commanding Will we must Love and obey his forbidding Will must have the same affections his threatning Will we must love and fear his Rewarding Will we must Love and Rejoyce in His full Accepting Will that is his Love and Complacency in us we must Rest and Delight our souls in for ever And thus we must comply with the Will of God CHAP. LXII Q. May God be finally Loved as our Felicity and Portion Quest 12. YOu tell us that we must seek our selves but as Means to God How then may we make our salvation our End or desire the fruition of God when fruition is for our selves of somewhat that may make us happy Doth he not desire God as a Means for himself as the End that desireth him as his Portion Treasure Refuge and Felicity Answ There are such abundance of abstruse Philosophical Controversies de anima fine that stand here in the way that I must only decide this briefly and imperfectly for vulgar capacities Schoolmen and other Philosophers are not so much as agreed what a final Cause is But this much briefly may give some degree of satisfaction to the Moderate 1. No fleshly Profits Pleasures or Honours must be made our End This we are agreed on 2. The Ultimate End of all the Saints is an End that is sutable to the Nature of Love and that is perfectly to love God and Please him and serve him and to be perfectly beloved of him and behold his glory So that it is not an End of self-love or Love of Concupiscence or for our Commodity only but it is the End of the Love of Friendship Now all Love of friendship doth take in both the party Loving and the party beloved into the End For the End is a perfect Union of both according to their capacities And it being Intentio amantis the End of Love both God and our selves must be comprehended in it as the parties to be united and so it is both for him and for our selves 3. But yet though both parties as united be comprized in the End it is not equally but with great inequality For 1. God being Infinite Goodness it self must appreciative in estimation and affection be preferred exceedingly before our selves so that in desiring this blessed Union we must more desire it to Please and Praise him and give him his due for which he Created Redeemed and Glorified us than to be our selves happy in him 2. And God being not a meer friend but our Absolute Lord of Infinite Power and Glory it must be more in our Intention to bring to him eternally than to receive from him though both must be comprized For Receiving is for our selves further than we intend it for Returns but Returning is for God Not to add to his blessedness but to Please his Will and give him his own For he made all things for himself And so that in union with him we may give him his own in fullest love and Praise and service and thus please him must be the higest part of our Intention about our own felicity in enjoying him So that you may see that self-denial teacheth no man to ask Whether he could be content to be damned for Christ For this is contrary to our propounded End in the whole For a damned man hath no union of Love with God and
giveth him not his own in Love or Praises Object What say you then by the wishes of Moses and Paul Answ 1. The saying of Moses is very plain Exod. 32. 32. He doth not desire that his soul might be made a ransom for Israel but that if God would not pardon them but destroy them and cast them off he would blot out Moses name from his Book that is from among the number of the living so that his saying is no other than such as Elias or Jonas was What good will my life do me if I live to see thy people cast off and all thy wonders for them buryed therefore either let them live in thy sight or kill me with them This is the plain meaning of Moses request And for Pauls the difficulty is somewhat greater 1. Some think that Paul meaneth Rom. 9. 3. that he once wished himself to be no Christan in the days of his ignorance and all through his Zeal for the Jewith Nation But this is improbable 2. Some think that he meaneth only I could wish to be given up to death for them as the accursed under the Law 3. Some think he meaneth only I could wish my self yet unconverted to Christ so they were converted 4. Some think the meaning is I could wish my self cast out of the Church and given up to Satan for any bodily suffering 5. Some say it is only to have his salvation deferred 6. And some that it is damnation for a time But 7. The plain meaning seemeth to be this so great is my Love to my Countrymen the Jews that if it were offered to my choice whether they or I without them should enjoy Christ I would yield to be cast out of his sight for ever rather than they should where mark 1. That it is not a wish that it were so for he knew that this was no means to promote their salvation but it 's a discovery of his affection that would with or choose this if it were a means to that End 2. And it is not the sin of not Loving Christ that he would choose but only the misery of being deprived of his blessed presence 3. And the Reasons of this his choice are these two conjunct 1. Because the souls of so many thousands is in impartial Reason more to be valed than the soul of one 2. And principally because by the conversion and salvation of a whole Nation God may be more honored and served than by one And note farther 1. That this is not set as a mark for every Christian to try the truth of his Love by 2. But yet no doubt but it is a duty and degree of Grace that every one should aim at For 1. We see among Heathens that nature it self teacheth them that a man should lay down his life for his Country because a Country is better than a man And proportionably Reason tells us that the salvation of a Country being a greater good than of any one it should be more preferred And Self-love goeth against plain Reason when it contradicteth this What mans Reason doth not tell him that it were better he should die than the world should be destroyed or the Sun turned into darkness yea or that one Church or Country perish And so of salvation 2. And it is agreeable to the nature of Love to desire that most that most Pleaseth him whom we Love and therefore to desire rather that God may have multitudes than one and be served and Praised by them So much about the Matter of self-denial III. I Have finished the two first things which I promised you under the use of Exhortation viz. the trial of your self-denial and the particulars in which it consisteth and must be exercised and there I have shewed you 1. In what respect self must be denied 2. What that selfishness is that must be denied as to the inward Disposition and 3. What is that objective self-interest that must be denied which consisteth in so many Particulars that I cannot undertake to enumerate all but I have mentioned twenty Particulars under the general head of Pleasure and ten under the general Head of Honour and have referred you to another Treatise for that which consisteth in worldly profits And now I come to the third part of my work which is to shew you a little more fully the Greatness of the sin of selfishness and give you thence such moving reasons as may conduce to the cure of it which are these that follow CHAP. LXIII Motives 1. Selfishness the grand Idolatry of the world 1. SElfishness is the grand Idolatry of the world and self the worlds Idol as I have told you before It usurpeth the Place of God himself in mens Judgements wills affections and endeavours It was the work of the ten Discoveries in the Beginning of the Book to demonstrate this and therefore I shall say but little more But self-denial destroyeth the worlds great Idol and giveth God his own again The selfish lean most to their own understandings but the self-denying trust the Wisdom of God The selfish are careful principally for themselves and their own felicity even a terrene and carnal kind of felicity But the self-denying are principally careful how they may Please and Honour God and promote the welfare of his Church and in this way attain the spiritual everlasting felicity of the Saints The selfish must have their own humors pleased and their own wills accomplished and their own desires granted But the self-denying do slay their own carnal wills desires and conceits and lay them dead at the feet of Christ that his will alone may be exalted The selfish would have all men love them admire them and commend them But the self-denying would have all men to Love Admire and Glorifie the Lord above himself and all the world The selfish can bear with Gods enemies but not with their Own and they can suffer men to wrong Cod and sin against him more patiently than they can suffer them to wrong themselves But it is contrary with the self-denying A wrong to God and his Church seemeth far greater to them than a wrong against themselves In a word the selfish intend themselves and live to themselves and the self-denying intend God and live to him in the course of their lives And therefore when the selfish are troubled about many things the self-denying are minding the One thing Necessary And when the selfish are seeking to know what is good or evil to their flesh the self-denying are seeking to Please the Lord and desire to know nothing but him in Christ crucified and they could part with all the knowledge of the creatures as useful to themselves if they could but know more of God in Christ The selfish would be in his own hands at his own dispose and government and the self-denying would be in the hands of God and at his dispose and Government And doubtless the very state of mans Apostacy did lie in
turning from Cod to self and to the creature for self so that he now studyeth and useth and loveth the Creature but for himself And so he would have himself and all as far out of the hands of God in his own as possibly he can I gave you my thoughts in the beginning that this was the meaning of mans knowing Good and Evil by the Fall And since I wrote that I meet with the same Exposition in Damascene do Orthodox fid li. 11. c. 11. p. mihi 113. part of whose words I shall here translate In the midst of Paradise God planted the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge And the Tree of Knowledge was for the tryal and proof and the exercise of mans obedience and disobedience And therefore it is called the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil Or because it gave man a power to Know his Own nature which indeed to the perfect is good but to the infirm is evil and to them that are yet prone to concupiscence as strong meats to the weak and those that need milk For the Lord that created us would not have us careful and troubled about many things nor to become Contrivers and Providers for our own lives into which it was that Adam fell For when he had eaten he knew that he was naked and made hmself an apron of fig-leaves to cover his nakedness But before both Adam and Eve were naked and not ashamed And God would have had us insensible of or not to suffer by such things For this is but an insensibility or impassibility But we had One work only to do without vexation and care which is the work of Angels unweariedly and continually to praise our Creator and to delight in the contemplation of him and to cast all our care on him as he taught us by the Prophet David saying Cast thy care on the Lord and he shall nourish thee aud the Lord taught his own Disciples in the Gospel Take no care what you shall eat nor wherewith you shall be cloathed and again Seek first the Kingdom of God and his Righteousness and these things shall be added to you and to Martha Martha thou art careful and troubled about many things but one thing is needful Mary hath chosen best part which shall not be taken from her that is to sit at his feet and hear his word and this is the tree of Life So far Damascene who you see driveth at the same sense though it be not clearly and fully exprest by him And as man by his Fall desired to know what was good and evil for himself that is to his own Nature for his daily provision and safety that he might be able to choose for himself and not trust himself wholly on the Provision of God so accordingly God in judgment hath given him over to himself according to his desire of which more anon And accordingly our Restauration from this lapsed state consisteth in retiring from our selves to God and giving up to him again those minds those thoughts those wills those affections that have been all this while detained from him and mis-imployed by self Down then with this Idol and set up God Did you make your selves or redeem your selves or do you sustain your selves or are you sufficient for your selves Let him that doth all this for you be acknowledged to have the only Title to you And consider what an odious crime it i for such worms to exalt themselves as Gods and so deny the Lord to be their God CHAP. LXIV Enemy to all Morality Faith Prayer Obedience 2. MOreover this Self is the Enemy as of God himself so also of all the frame of Morality Of Every Article of your Belief and Every Petition in the Lords Prayer and of every one of the ten Commandments and of the whole Word of God 1. For your Belief it advanceth your own Reason against it as to the Truth of it so that you cannot discern these things of God because they are spiritually discerned It shutteth up your understandings against the Meaning of it so that when you know the Grammatical sense of the words you know not haâ— the meaning yet for all that The words are written to signifie the spiritual apprehensions and affections which the holy inditers had of the matter signified by them And till you come by the help of those words to have the same impress upon your souls the same apprehensions and affections which the inditers had and intended to express by them you have not the perfect understanding of the Scriptures And therefore while you are wholly without their spiritual Apprehensions and Affections you do not so much as sincerely or truly understand them however you may be able to speak as good Grammarians and true Expositors in the explaining of them to others And also selfishness in the Will doth make you disrelish the Doctrine which you should believe because that being Practical either the Doctrine or its consequence or the Practice that it puts you on is against your carnal self and interest 2. And for Prayer I might easily shew you that self contradicteth all the parts of it You should first Pray that the Name of God may be Hallowed making his Glory the End of your desires But self must be its Own End and seek the Honour of its Own Name and less regardeth the Hallowing of Gods You must pray that the Kingdom of God may come But this Kingdom treadeth down self as an enemy and therefore no marvel if self be unwilling of it Would you be deposed and subjected to a spiritual government and do nothing nor have nothing but at the pleasure of Christ The Reign of self is contrary to his reign You must pray that the Will of God may be done But self hath a Will that is contrary to Gods Will and every carnal man would be a Lawgiver to himself and unto others and had rather have his Own will done than Gods Oâ— else whence come all the sins of your lives which are nothing but the doing of your own wills and the not doing the Will of God! You must pray each day for your daily bread as children that live not on their own provision but on their Fathers love and bounty and have their address to him for all they want desiring but such supplies as are necessary or useful to them for his service But self desireth more than daily bread desireth not so much to strengthen you for Gods service as to delight and gratifie the flesh and had rather have its stock in its own possession than daily to fetch it as you use it from God You must pray daily for the forgiveness of your sins as people that are grieved for them and weary of them and hate them and are sensible of the want and worth of pardon and of the abundant Grace of Christ that purchased it and the preciousness of the Gospel-promises that conveigh it and of your own
Unworthiness by reason of this sin But self is not easily so far abased as to be heavy-laden and sick of sin nor is it easily drawn to value Grace or feel how much you are unworthy of it or need it nor easily driven to renounce all sufficiency and conceits of a Righteousness of your own and wholly to go out of your selves to Christ for life Self cannot spare sin for it is its darling and play-fellow its food its recreation and its life You must daily pray to be saved from temptation and delivered from Evil even the Evil of sin as well as of punishment But self doth Love the sin and therefore cannot long to be delivered from it and therefore Loveth the temptation that leadeth to it indeed is a continual tempter to it self Would the Covetous worldling be delivered from his worldliness Would the Ambitious Proud person be delivered from his Pride or Honours or the sensual person from his sensual delights No they do not Love the Preacher or people that are against them in these ways nor the holy self-denial that is contrary to them nor the Scripture that condemneth them nor indeed the Lord himself that forbids them and is the author of all these Laws and holy ways which they abhor So that you see how self is an enemy to every Petition in the Lords Prayer 3. And it is a violation of all the ten Commandments The first and second it is most directly against and is the very thing forbidden in them and all the rest it is against consequentially and is the virtual breach of them as disposing and drawing the soul thereunto The two Tables have two Great Commands which are the sum of the whole Law and all the other Commandments are consequents or particulars from these The sum of the first Table is Thou shalt Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart or above all This is the first Commandment Thou shalt have none other Gods before me which is put first as being the Fundamental Law commanding subjection it self to the soveraign Power of God which necessarily goes before all actual obedience to particular precepts But self is directly against this and sets up man as a God to himself And all the unsanctified Love themselves better than God and therefore cannot Love him above all And therefore neither second third or fourth command can be sincerely kept by such For when self is set up and God denied in stead of the right worshipping of God they are worshipping themselves or suiting God worship to the conceit and will of self Instead of the Reverent use of his name they are setting up their own names and will venture on the grossest abuse of Gods name rather than self shall suffer or be crossed And instead of hallowing the Lords day they devote both that and every day to themselves The sum of the second Table is Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self and this is the meaning of the tenth Commandment which forbiddeth us to covet any thing from him to our selves that is that we set not up self and its interest against our neighbour and his good and be not like a bruised or inflamed part of the body that draweth the blood or humors to it self or like a Wen or other Tumor that is sucking from the body for its own nutrition so that it is but plainly this Be not selfish or drawing or desiring any thing to thy self which is not thy due but belongeth to another but let Love run by even proportions between thy neighbour and thy self in order to God and the publick good And this Commandment brings up the rear that it may summarily comprehend and gather up all other particulars that be not instanced in in the foregoing Commandments Now selfishness being the very sin that is here forbidden I need to say no more to tell you that self is the breaker of this Law Next to this summary concluding Precept the greatest in the second Table if not one of the first is the fifth Commandment which requireth the preservation of Relations and Societies and the duties of those Relations especially of inferiors to superiors for the Honour of God and the Common good And this is set before the rest because the publick good is preferred to the personal good of any and Magistrates and Superiors being Gods Officers and for the Publick good are to be prefered before the subjects But what an enemy selfishness is to this Commandment I intend anon to shew you distinctly and therefore now pass it by And for the following Commandments who ever murdered another but out of some inordinate respect to himself either to remove that other 〈…〉 of his selfish Ends or to be revenged on â—…riving self of profit or honour or somâ—… it would have had or in some way or other â—…in your Own Ends by anothers blood And what is it but the satisfaction of your Own â—â—â—thy lusts that causeth Adultery and all uncleanness And what is it but the furnishing and providing for self that provoketh any man to Rob another And what is it but some selfish End that causeth any man to pervert Justice or slander or bear false witness against his neighbour so that nothing is more plain than that selfishness is all sin and villany against God and man comprized in one word And therefore you need not ask me which Commandment it is that doth forbid it For it is forbidden in every one of the ten Commandments The first condemneth self as it is the Idol set up and Loved trusted and served before God the second condemneth it as the Enemy of his worship and the third condemneth it as the Prophaner of his Name and the fourth as the Prophaner of his Hallowed time The second Table in the tenth Commandment condemneth self as it is the Tumor and gulf that is contrary to the Love of our neighbour and would draw all to it self The fifth Commandment condemneth it as the Enemy of Authority and Society the sixth as the Enemy to our Neighbours life the seventh eighth and ninth condemn it as the enemy to our neighbours chastity Estates and Cause or Name So that if you see any mischief done in Persons Families Towns Countrys Courts Armies or any where in the world you need not send out Hue and Cry to find out and apprehend the actor It is selfishness that is the Author of all If the poor be oppressed by the rich and their lives made almost like the life of a labouring Ox or Horse till the Cry of the oppressed reach to heaven who is it that doth all this but self The Landlords and rich men must Rule and be served by them I warrant you they would not do thus by themselves If the poor be discontented and murmur at their condition and steal from others who is it that is the cause of this but self If another were in poverty they would not murmur nor steal for him It is selfishness
that blemisheth Judges and Justices and Officers with the stains of partiality avarice and injustice It is this that disturbeth the peace of Nations that will not let Princes Rule for God and consequently overthrows their Thrones that will not let subjects Obey them in the Lord but le ts in wars and miseries upon them that sets the Nations together by the ears and so continueth them yea it is self that will not let neighbours live together in Peace that provoketh people to disobey their Teachers and Teachers to be man-pleasers and neglect the people that will not let Masters and Servants Parents and Children Husband and Wife live peaceably and lovingly one with other It is the common make-bate and troubler of the world Nay it is self that causeth most of the new Opinions and practises in Religion that sets up Popery and most other Sects and causeth the Pastors to contend for superiority to the troubling of the Church after all the plain prohibitions of Christ In a word selfishness is the grand enemy of God and man the Disease of Depraved lapsed nature the very heart of Original sin and the old man the root of all the Iniquity in the world the breach of every Commandment of the Law the enemy of every Article of Faith and every Petition in the Lords Prayer and by that time we have added the rest of its deformity you will see whether it be not the very Image of the Devil as the Love of God and our neighbour which is its contrary is the image of God But now on the contrary side Self-denial complyeth with all Divine Revelations and disposeth the soul to all holy Requests and to the observation of every Command of God It humbly stoopeth to the mysteries of Faith which others proudly quarrel with in the dark It makes a man say O what am I that I should set my wit against the Lord and make my Reason the Touch-stone of his truth and think to Comprehend his judgements that are incomprehensible It causeth a man to sit as a little child at the feet of Christ to learn his will and say Speak Lord for thy servant heareth It silenceth the carpings of an unsatisfied understanding and limiteth the enquiries of a busie prying presumptuous wit and subdueth the contradictions of flesh and blood It casteth off that Pride and self-conceitedness that hindreth others from believing In Prayer it bringeth an emptied soul that is not stopped up against the grace and blessings of God It layeth us low in a receiving posture It emptieth us of our selves that we may be filled with God It hath nothing to say against any one of those Requests which Christ hath put into our mouths but subscribeth to them all It is the highest ambition the greatest desire of a self-denying soul that Gods Name may be hallowed and honoured whatever become of his own Name or honour and that the Kingdom of God may flourish in which he desireth to be a subject and that the will of God may be done and the will of himself and all the world conformed and subjected to it And so of the rest of the Petitions Self-denial is half the life of Prayer And it is a dutiful observer of all the Commandments It giveth up our Love to God as his Own and consequently worshippeth him in Love and Reverenceth his name and observeth his time and indeed is wholly devoted to him And it giveth our neighbour that part of our Love which belongeth to him and therefore will not dishonour superiors or encroach upon the possessions of others or injure them for his own ends And indeed what should draw a self-denying man to sin were he but perfect in self-denial when the poise is taken off the wheels all stand still Self-denial doth frustrate Temptations and leave them little to work upon What should move a self-denying man to be Proud or covetous or injurious to others no man doth evil but it seemeth good and for some good that he imagineth it will do him And this seeming good is to carnal self And therefore a self-denying man hath taken off the byass of sin and turned out the deceiver and when Satan comes he hath little in him to make advantage of O how easily may you take sin out of the hands of the self-denying and make them cast it away with lamentation when other men will hold it as fast as their lives O try this speedy way of Mortification Would you but destroy this Original breeding sin you would destroy all All the sins of your lives are the fruits of your selfishness kill them at the heart and root if you would go the nearest way to work What abundance of sin doth self-denial kill at once Indeed it is the sum of mortification And therefore be sure that you deny your selves CHAP. LXV Contrary to the State of Holiness and Happiness 3. MOreover Selfishness is contrary to the State of Holiness and Happiness contrary to every grace and contrary to the life of Glory For it is the use of all grace to recover the soul from selfishness to God that God may be Loved and self-Self-love may be overcome that God may be trusted and pleased and his service may be our care and business when before our care was to Please our selves And the very felicity of the soul consisteth in a closing and communion with God The soul that will be happy must be conscious of self-insufficiency and must go out of it self and seek after life in God It must forsake it self and apply it self to him Men lose their labour till they deny themselves by going to a broken empty cistern and forsaking the fountain of living waters The nearer men are to God and the more fully they are conformed to him and close with him and know him and love him the happyer they are Glory it self is but the nearest and fullest intuition and fruition of God And he that hath most of him here in his soul and in the creatures providences and ordinances is the happiest man on Earth and likest to the glorified And there is no approach to God but by departing from carnal self I know self-seeking men do think of finding more peace and comfort in that way but they are alway deceived of their hopes It is self-denial that is the way to peace and comfort While we rest on our selves or are taken up with anxious caring for our selves we are but tost up and down as on a tempestuous sea and are seeking Rest but never find it but when we retire from our selves to God we are presently at the harbour and find that Peace which before we sought in vain I confess in the too-little experience that I have my self of the way of peace and quiet to the soul I must needs say there is none to this There is none but this Never can I step out but self meets with somewhat that is vexatious and displeasing to it This business goes cross
and that business is troublesome this person is troublesome and that person is abusive and injurious One is false and treacherous or slanderous and another is imprudent and weak and burdensome what between the baits of prosperity and the troubles of affliction the perverseness of adversaries and the weakness of friends and the changes that all States and persons are liable to the multitudes that would be pleased and the labour and the cost that it will stand us in to please them and the multitudes that will be displeased when we have done our best and the murmurings reproaches and false accusations that we shall be sure of from the displeased and which is worst of all the burdensome weaknesses and corruptions of our own souls and the sins of our lives and the daily vexation that our dark and shattered condition doth occasion to our selves I say between all these disquieting perplexities enough to rack and tear in pieces the heart of man I have no way but to shut up the eyes of sense and forget all self-interest and withdraw from the creature as if there were no self or creature for it in the world and to retire into God and satisfie my soul with his Goodness and All-sufficiency and faithfulness and immutability And in him is nothing to disquiet or discontent unless you will call his enmity to our own diseases and unhappiness a discontenting thing And this is not my own experience alone but all that know what Christian Peace and Comfort is do know that they lose it and are torn in pieces while they are caring and contriving for themselves and that Retiring into God and casting all their care on him and satisfying themselves with him alone though all the creatures should turn against them is the way to their content and quietness of mind The Example of David is exceeding observable 1 Sam. 30. 6. When besides the distressed estate that he was before in the City where he left his family and the families of his followers was taken and burnt down and their wives and children carried away all gone so that David and the people that were with him lift up their voice and wept untill they had no more power to weep and to make up his calamity the Souldiers that were with him talkt of stoning him because of the loss of their wives and children in this desolate condition saith the Text but David encouraged or comforted himself in the Lord his God And it is good for us sometime to have nothing in this world left us that will afford us comfort that we may be driven to God for it Till the house be as on fire over our heads and we are as it were fired out of every room of it we will hardly be gone and betake our selves to God our only Rest Try it Christians when you will and you shall find it true that selfish contents do but tice you to straggle away from your true comfort and when you have done all it is in returning unto God that you must find the comfort which you lost by seeking it abroad It is only in the God of Peace that your souls will find peace and therefore away from self and creatures and retire into God CHAP. LXVI Self-seeking is self-losing self-denying our safety 4. MOreover consider that self-seeking is self-destroying and self-denial is the only way to our safety We were well when we were in the hands of God and had no need to care for our selves But we were lost as soon as we left him and turned to our selves If God care for you infinite Wisdom cares for you whom no enemy is able to over-wit or circumvent who can foresee all your dangers and is acquainted with all the ways of your enemies and with all that is necessary to your preservation But if you be at your own care you are at the care of fools and short-witted people that are not acquainted with the depths of Satan the subtilties of men nor the way of your escape but may easily be over-reached to your undoing If you are in your own hands you are in the hands of bad men that though they have self-self-love yet are so blinded by impiety that they will live like self haters And this experience fully manifesteth in that all sinners are self-destroyers No enemy could do so much against us as the best of us doth against himself Did a man hate himself as bad as the Devil hateth him he could shew it by no worse a way than sin nor do himself a greater mischief than by neglecting God and the life to come and undoing his own soul as the ungodly do Should you sit down of purpose to study how to do all the hurt to your selves that you can and to play the part of your deadliest enemies I know not what you could do more than is ordinary with ungodly men to do except to go a little further in the same way Nothing but sin could alienate you from God or make you liable to his heavy wrath and this no man else could make you guilty of if you did not voluntarily choose to be evil If you could ask any man that is this day in Hell or that will ever be there what brought him thither and who it was long of that he came to such a miserable end he must needs tell you it was himself If you come to any in earthly misery and ask them who brought this upon them If they speak truly they must say it was themselves And this will be a great aggravation of their misery and the fewel that will feed the unquenchable fire to think that all this was their own doing and that they had not been deprived of the heavenly Glory but for their own refusal or neglect It will fill the soul with an everlasting indignation against it self to consider that it hath cast it self wilfully into such misery that when Satan could not and men could not and God would not if he had not done it himself he should be so witless and graceless as to be the chooser of sin the refuser of holiness and his own undoer So that the experience of all the world telleth you how unsafe man is in his own hands the experience of those in Hell may tell us whither it is that self would lead us if we follow its conduct Whither did self lead Adam when he hearkened to it but to sin and death what work hath it made over all the earth Do we not see a whole world of people not one excepted wounded and slain and brought into so low and sad a state and all this by themselves and yet shall we go on in selfishness still Of all the enemies you have in the world pray God to save you from your selves scape your selves and you scape all You will never miscarry by any other hands The Devil and wicked men will do their worst but without you they can do nothing Never will you come
Commonweal or the good of all Now selfishness is contrary to this common good which is the End of all Societies Every selfish person is his Own End and cares not to hinder the common good if he do but think it will promote his own And how is that Family Church or Commonwealth like to prosper where most alas most indeed have an End of their own that is set up against the End and being of the Society For though the real good of particular persons is usually comprehended in the common good yet that is but in subserviency to the publick good and is not observed usually by these persons who principally look at themselves And it commonly falls out that the publick welfare cannot be obtained but by such self-denial of the Members which these men will not submit to though they incur a greater hurt by their selfishness Little do they think of the common good it is their own matters that they regard and mind So it go well with them let Church and Commonwealth do what it will They can bear any ones trouble or losses save their own They are every man as a Church as a Commonwealth as a world to themselves If they be well all is well with them If they prosper they think it 's a good world what ever others undergo If they be poor or sick or under any other suffering it is all one to them as if calamity had covered the earth and if they see that they must die they take it as if it were the dissolution of the world unless as they leave either name or posterity behind them in which a shadow of them may survive And therefore they use to say when I am gone all the world is gone with me 2. Moreover selfishness is contrary to that Disposition and spirit that every Member of a Society should be possessed with The publick good will not be attained without a Publick spirit to which a Private spirit is contrary Men must be disposed to the work that they must be imployed in The work of every Member of a Society is such as Mordecai is approved for Esther 10. 3. seeking the wealth of his people and speaking peace to all his seed Every true Member of the Church must have such a spirit as Nehemiah that in the midst of his own prosperity and honours is cast down in fasting tears and Prayers when he heareth of the affliction reproach and ruines of Jerusalem and saith Why should not my countenance be sad when the City the place of my fathers sepulchres lieth waste Neh. 1. 3. 2. 3 4. And as the captivated Jews Psal 137. that lay by all their mirth and musick and sit down and weep at the remembrance of Zion A private selfish disposition is quite contrary to this and is busie about his own matters and principally looketh to his own ends and interests what ever come of the Church and falls under the reproof that Baruch had from God Jer. 45. 4 5. Behold that which I have built will I break down and that which I have planted I will pluck up even this whole Land and seekest thou great things for thy self seek them not This Private disposition makes men so foolish as to lose themselves by seeking themselves looking to their own goods or cabbins when the ship is sinking in which they are and to their own rooms when the House is all on fire But a Publick Spirit saith If I forget thee O Jerusalem let my right hand forget her cunning If I do not remember thee let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief Joy Psal 137. 5 6. His love is to the Church as the Spouse of Christ and as to the body of which he is himself a member and his Prayers and endeavours are for its prosperity and peace Psal 122. 6 7 8 9. Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem they shall prosper that love thee Peace be within thy walls and prosperity within thy Palaces For my Brethren and companions sake I will now say Peace be within thee because of the house of the Lord our God I will seek thy good The body of Christ is all animated by one spirit that it might aim at one end and it is so tempered by God that there should be no Schism in it but that the members should have the same care one for another that if one member suffer all the members should suffer with it or if one member be honoured all should rejoyce with it 1 Cor. 12. 13 24 25 26 27. There is no serving Publick ends with a Private selfish spirit 3. Moreover sefishness is an Enemy to the Laws of Societies whether it be the Laws of God or man For it would have them all bended to their private interest and fitted to their selfish disposition And therefore for the immutable Laws of God which they cannot change they corrupt them by misinterpretations expounding them according to the dictates of the flesh and putting such a sence on all as self can bear with And what they cannot misinterpret they murmur at and disobey And for the Laws of men where selfish persons are the makers of them you shall perceive by the warping of them who they were made for Hence it is that Princes and Parliaments have lookt at the Laws and Church and Ministers of Christ with an eye of Jealousie as if they had been some enemies that they stood in danger of and all for fear lest the personal selfish fleshly interest of Noblemen and Gentlemen and others should be incroacht upon by the Laws and Government of Christ And hence it is that so much endeavours and hopes of a Reformation have been so long frustrated and even among wise and Pious Law-makers there hath been so much pains to keep Ministers from doing their duty in Governing the Churches and laying such restrictions on them that Pastors might be no Pastors that is no Guides and Overseers of the Church in the worship of God And when good Laws are made they have as many enemies as selfish men If the Law were not hated the execution of it would not be hated so much 4. Also selfishness is an enemy to the very being of Magistracy and to all publick Officers and their work For the very End of the Magistracy is the Publick benefit as I said before of the end of a Commonwealth and therefore this selfishness is contrary to this end and such men will not value a Magistrate as a publick Officer but only as one that is able to help them or to hurt them which is but to fear him as a potent enemy and not to love or honour him as a Ruler They look at Magistrates as at Tyrants that are too strong for them and as a Cur will crouch to a Mastiff Dog so they will crouch to them to save themselves and this is their love and honour and obedience even such as Hobbs hath taught them
your lungs to breathe your stomach to turn your meat to nourishment and that nourishment into blood and spirits and strength Is it God or you Who is it that causeth the Sun to rise upon you in the morning to light you to your labours and to set upon you at night that the Curtains of darkness may be drawn about you and you may quietly repose your selves to rest Who giveth you strength to labour in the day and refeâ—â—eth you with sleep at night and provideth all the creatures for your assistance Is it you or God O Sirs me thinks such silly worms that cannot live a minute of themselves and cannot fetch a breath of themselves should easily see that they should not live to themselves but to him from whom and by whom they live Direct 7. If you would live in self-denial be sure that you keep the mastery of your senses and do not let them be ungoverned but shut them up when reason doth require it It is your Appetite and senses that feed this carnal selfish vice but reason and faith are both against it Whenever you consult with sense you may know what brutish advice you may expect Ask not therefore what is delightful nor what is for your carnal ease and peace but what is necessary to please the Lord and for your everlasting peace And if the tempter tell you This is the easier and the broader way tell him that it is not the honester nor the safer way And the question is not which is the fairest way but which is the way to Heaven It 's better go the hardest way to glory than the smoothest to damnation If you cannot keep under your sensitive appetite and subdue the eager desires of the flesh and learn to want as well as to abound to be empty as well as to be full you will never attain to self-denial Direct 8. To promote your self-denial me thinks it should be effectual to understand the great advantage that you have by the Communion and Society which you enter into when you deny your selves Though a Prince or Lord would be loth to enter into a Colledge or Monastery where there 's no Propriety and yet withal no care or want yet a poor labouring man or a beggar would be glad of such a life So you that cannot live of your selves me thinks should be glad of such a Community 1. Consider that the Lord Jesus is the Head of the Society who hath undertaken to make provision for the whole and is engaged for their security and to save them harmless and all the Riches of his grace and love belong to that Society and will be yours which is more than all that you can part with of your own yea more than all the treasures of the world It is therefore the noblest and richest Society in the world that you shall live in communion with if you will deny your selves 2. And the Saints that are the Members of that Society are the Brethren of Christ and the Heirs of Heaven And all these are your Brethren endeared in special love to you engaged to assist you by prayers and counsel and pains and purse and every way that you can so that well might Christ say that he that forsaketh any thing for him shall receive even an hundred fold in this life and in the world to come eternal life For this one sorry self that you forsake and it 's poor accommodations you have God for your Father and Christ for your Head and the Holy Ghost for your Sanctifier and Comforter and the Sripture for your guide and Saints for your Brethren Companions and Assistants engaged to you in truer and dearer love than your unsanctified friends that cast you off for the sake of Christ And had you rather be toiling and caring for your selves than let go self and enter into so blessed a Community where you may cast all your care away upon God who hath promised to care for you and may feed your selves in the daily delightful fore-thoughts of life eternal Direct 9. And me thinks it should much promote your self-denial to study well the self-denying example of Christ and his eminent servants that have troden in his steps Christ had no sinful self to deny nor any corrupted flesh to mortifie or subdue And yet he had a self-denial in which we must imitate him Rom. 15. 3. For even Christ pleased not himself but as it is written The reproaches of them that reproached thee are faln upon me We are told therefóre by Christs example that it is not only the pleasing of self as corrupted by sin but also a pleasing of natural self in things where God may lay a restraint on it or put it to the tryal that we must avoid and in which we must deny our selves Even as Adam was to have denyed his natural appetite before sin had corrupted it and Christ had an innocent natural will of which yet he saith Not my will but thine be done His whole life was a wonderful example of self-denial He lived in a low estaâ—â— and denyed himself of the Glory and Riches of the world and became poor though he were Lord of all that by his poverty we might be made rich 2 Cor. 8. 9. He lived under the reproach of sinners of sinners that he created of sinners whom he dyed for He would wear no Crown but a Crown of Thorns He would wear no Robes but the Robes of their reproach He yielded his cheeks to be smitten and his face to be spit upon by the vilest sinners whom he could with a word have turned into Hell And at last he gave himself for us on the Cross in suffering a reproachful cursed death Heb. 7. 27. Tit. 2. 14. Eph. 5. 2. 2. 25. Gal. 1. 4. And can you read such an example of self-denial given you by the Lord of glory and not be transformed into the image of it I think the study of a self-denying Christ is one of the most excellent helps to self-denial Take it from the Apostle himself Phil. 2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8. Fulfil ye my joy that ye be like-minded having the same love being of one accord of one mind let nothing be done through strife or vain-glory but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves Look not every man on his own things but every man also on the things of others Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus who being in the form of God thought it no robbery to be equal with God but made himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of men and being found in fashion as a man he humbled himself and became obedient unto death even the death of the Cross Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him Look therefore unto Jesus the Author and Finisher of our faith who for the joy that was set before him endured the
Cross despising the shame and is set down at the right hand of the Throne of God Consider him that endured such contradictions of sinners against himself lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds Heb. 12. 2 3 4. Direct 10. But the greatest help to self-denial is To retire from the Creature into God and live in the love of him and employ the soul continually upon him Men will not be frightned from self love It must be another more powerful Love that must draw them from it And that can be none but the Love of God When you have soundly discerned a surer friend than self a wiser a better an abler Governour and Defender and one that much more deserveth all your Love and Care then you will turn away from self and never till then See therefore that you espouse no Interest but God's and then you wil have nothing to call you from him Let love so close you with him and unite you to him that you may know no Happiness but his Love and Glory and see with no other Light than his and know no will but the will of God nor meddle with any work which for matter and end you cannot call the work of God Then you have indeed denyed your selves when you are nothing have nothing and do nothing but as from God and by him and for him Own not any self but in and for God and then you may love and seek it freely or this is to be called a loving and seeking of God and not of self Own not any Knowledge but that which is from the Light of God by his word works Spirit and Ordinances and which leadeth you to God in Holiness and Peace and guideth you in his service and then you need not condemn your selves of self-conceitedness or a selfish understanding Know not any will in your selves but that which is caused by the will of God and directed by it and intended to sulfil it So that you maybe able to say of every desire of your soul I desiâ—e this because that God would have me desire it and I am resolved to follow his will in the seeking of it and the end of my desire is that I may please him and his will may be done and then you may say you have conquered self-will O see then that you be more with God and study his Mind and Will his Excellency Sufficiency and Love and remember that you are a dependent being that are nothing but in and by him and therefore should know no interest but him and his interest nor possess any thing but for him nor know any will or way but his will and way and so let his be yours and yours be his by a holy resignation conformity and subserviency unto his and this is the true rectitude and holiness of man this is a finding our selves by losing our selves and the only saving and exalting of our selves by denying our selves Nothing but the Light of God will master self-conceitedness and nothing but the love of God will overcome self-love and nothing but an union and closure with the will of God will overcome self-will and nothing but an espousing and intending God and his interest will cause a true denial of carnal self-interest and nothing but a seeking of God conversing as with him and living to him will cure the soul of self-seeking and an ungodly and unprofitable living to our selves One other Direction I should add which is to be always jealous and suspicious of self but this will fall in the Conclusion The Conclusion I Have now finished what I had to say to you on this great and needful subject And I have stayed the longer on it that I might occasion your own thoughts to be the longer on it For it is not a few hasty running thoughts that will make any great impression on the soul And now Christian friends whoever you are that hear or read these words I earnestly intreat you in the name of God that you will set your hearts to the deep consideration of the nature and odiousness of this sin of selfishness and of the nature and necessity of self-denial You will never effectually hate and resist the sin which you think lightly of and is not in any great discredit with you nor will you fly from it with fear and care and vigilancy till you apprehend the dangerousness of it I have not only told you but proved it to you that this is one of the most odious and dangerous sins in the world even the sum of all iniquity that containeth a thousand sins in the bowels of it This is it that generateth all other vices and fills the world with swarms of mischief It is this selfishness that corrupteth all estates and distracteth all Societies and disturbeth all affairs Never look further for the cause of our calamities It is self that causeth the miscarriages and negligence of the Princes Governours and â—…istrates of the world while they look all at their â—…nterest and little at the things of Jesus Christ or at least prefer themselves before him It is self that causeth the disobedience of subjects while they judge themselves capable of censuring their Rulers for matters that are beyond their reach and grudge at all necessary burdens for the common good because they are a little pinched by them It is self that hath kindled the miserable Wars that are laying waste so many Countrys and that makes such woful havock in the World It is self that hath so lamentably abused Religion and introduced so many fantastical self-conceits under the name of high Scholastical subtilties and that hath let in so many errors in Doctrine and Worship and defiled Gods Ordinances and corrupted and almost extinguished the Discipline of Christ in the Church It is self that hath caused the Leaders of the Assemblies that should be exemplary in Unity and Holiness and Industry to be some of them idle and negligent and some of them carnal and vicious and so many of them in discord and fierce opposition of one another So that every man that is grown up to a high degree of wisdom in his own eyes and such Degrees are soon attained is presently venting his own conceits and perhaps publishing them to the world and seeking out an Adversary to shew his Manhood upon and reviling all that are not of his Opinion as if there were no difficulty in the matter but he is Learned and Wise and they are are all unlearned and ignorant he is Orthodox and they are Hereticks or what his Pride and self-conceitedness is pleased to call them It is this selfishness that makes even Godly Ministers the Dividers of the Church the reproach of their Holy Calling the occasion of the increase of triumph of the Adversaries and the causes of no small part of all our unreformedness distractions and calamity and the refusers and resisters of the Remedies that are tendred for Healing and Reformation I dare boldly say if this