rest 1. That will that is not fetched from God and moved by his will as the lesser wheels in a clock are moved by the first wheel and by the pâ—â—â—â— is no better than self-will A will that is not dependent on Gods will is an Idol usurping the prerogative of God for it is proper to him to be dependent upon none and to have a will that is not ruled by a Superior will Little do the most know how great a sin this is to be self-willed You have a will to something or other continually and it is your will that ruleth the rest of your faculties and actions but what is it that ruleth your will whence do you fetch the rise and reason of your desires Is it from Gods will or is it not You pray to God Thy will be done and do your own wills answer these prayers or are they hypocritical dissembling words If indeed it be Gods will that you would have fulfilled then will the knowledge of that will of God determine your own wills As a servant dependeth on his Masters will for all the work that he is to do and doth not what he will himself but what his Master will have him do and as a Scholar dependeth on his Masters will and learneth only such books and lessons as he sets him so must we depend on the will of God and know what is his will before we give way to any will of our own The reason why you choose any trade or calling or course of life should be the will of God If you are in Poverty and desire to be richer and that to please your own wills and not that you think that it would be any more pleasing to God this is self-willedness If you desire any change in your condition if you undertake any thing in the world know why you do this whether it be principally because you think it is the will of God or because it is your own will I tell you again you should not have one wish or desire in your souls till you can prove or find that God would have it so and if your own wills be made the absolue rulers of your ways you make Gods of your selves and God will deal with you accordingly 2. Yea if you do think the will of God is according to your will and you are moved the more to it on that account yet if your own wills do lead and make the first choice and Gods will be brought in but to follow and incourage yours this is still Self-willedness and Self-idolizing This is the common trick of the ungodly They first give way to their own self-will and then they will go to Scripture for somewhat to bear them out and will needs believe that God's is agreeable to theirs that so they may go on with peace of Conscience They go for counsel to God as Balaam did not sincerely to know the will of God with a resolution to obey it but with a desire that God would conform his will to theirs I tell you if the matter be never so much commanded in the Scriptures and never so agreeable to the will of God yet if you desire and do it from your selves and not for this reason because it is the will of God and do not let Gods will lead your own but let your own will lead and Gods will follow this is no better than self-willedness were the matter never so good in it self 3. If the end that moveth your will be not the service and glory of God but only your own Interest this is but self-will God giveth you leave to look to your selves as his servants in a due subserviency to him But if you will principally look at your own interest and make light of Gods and fetch the reason of your will and desires from your own ends and commodity rather than his Glory this is an ungodly selfish-will And yet alas how many are there that know not any better frame of will than this If they were truly to give an account of the principal reason and motive of every desire of their hearts why they would have this or why they would do that must they not confess it is for themselves because it serveth their own ends or interests and because it pleaseth their own wills and not because it furnisheth them better to serve and please the will of God If you ask men in their buying and selling and marrying and trading and dealing with men why it is that they do this or that can they truly say I do it because I think in this way I can do God the best service and the Church or Commonwealth most good and this is my chief reason Alas I fear they are too few that have any higher principal end and motive than self Self-will is the spring of their whole Conversations that sets them upon all they do Nay doubtless in the very duties of Religion in praying hearing reading and the like they are but serving self while they take on them to serve God and their holiest devotions is but such a serving of God as flatterers will serve their Prince or Landlord meerly that he may do them a good turn and may serve their Ends and be serviceable to them or else as some Indians serve the Devil for fear of him lest he should do them a mischief The will that is moved chiefly by self-interest is a self-will 4. And much more is it self-willedness when men contradict the Will of God when Scripture saith One thing and they another when they disrelish Gods Laws and dislike the work that he sets them on when they have a Will to that which God forbids and would fain be doing with unlawful things yea and it doth not satisfie their corrupt desires to see that the express will of God is against them this is self-will in a high degree 5. So also when mens wills are to that which is against the honour and interest of God which would hinder this Gospel and the saving mens souls and is displeasing to him this is self-willedness in a high degree And thus you see what it is to be self-willed And now do but consider whether this part of self be commonly denied in the world Among the millions of desires that are in mens hearts how few of them are kindled by the commands of God or moved by his Interest and Glory How commonly are the word and ways of God distastful to the world How ill do men like the disposals of his providence And what a striving is there in their wills against him And were it not that God is above them and unconquerable and they know that striving will not help them you should have most of the world in open war against the God of Heaven I speak no more than I am able to prove The Dominion of self is so great in the wills of all that are unsanctified that their wills are utterly against the Will of God and
against Nature to consent to die but when it is for him that is the Lord and end of life it is agreeable to Nature that is though it be against our natural inclination as we are Animate and Sensitive yet is it agreeable to our true nature as reasonable And therefore lay all together it is to be said to be agreeable to Nature simply in such a case because it is agreeable to the Principal part in nature which should be predominant It is agreeable to nature also that Reason should dispose of the inferiour powers of the soul Object But when you have said all that you can as long as you plead against my nature I cannot consent to what you say words are but wind To perswade me to consent to die is as much as to perswade me not to feel when I am hurt or to be hungry or thirsty or sleepy which are not in my power because these things are Natural Answ 1. Though hunger and thirst and other natural and sensitive appetites or passions be not in your power yet a consent of the will to deny these is in your power As natural as it is to hunger and thirst your superiour faculty of Reason can prevail with you to suffer hunger and thirst in a Siege or sickness when the suffering of it will save your life You will be ruled by your Physician to forbear not only many a dish but many a meal which your appetite desireth And your Reason can perswade you to suffer the opening of a vein and the drawing out of your own blood yea or the cutting off a member when it is to save your life for all that feeling and self-love is natural to you And you are not acquainted with the nature of Friendship if you would not suffer much for a friend nor with humane affections if you would not suffer much for parents or children or your Country so that your will is free though your sense be not free nor your natural appetite Though you cannot choose but feel when you are hurt you might consent to that feeling for a greater good 2. And according to the tenour of this Objection you may as wisely and honestly plead for most of the wickedness of the world and say It is natural to me to lust and therefore I may play the Adulterer and fulfil it It is natural to me to desire meat and drink and therefore I may eat and drink as long as I desire it It is natural to me to seek to hurt those that I am much angry with or hate and therefore I may beat or kill them If you must deny the Passions and sensitive appetite and the inferiour faculties of nature in one thing why not in another These lower powers were made to be ruled by reason as beasts are made to be ruled by men and more And therfore seeing this Argument from Nature is but from the bruitish part of Nature it is but a brutish Argument And if yet you say that for all these words Death is so great an enemy to you that you cannot choose it I answer that is because your reason is not illuminated and elevated by faith to see the Necessity of choosing it and to see those higher and better things which by this means you may obtain Had you that heavenly life of faith and love which the spirit worketh in the Saints it would carry you above this present life and take you up with higher matters and shew you that and so shew it you as should procure your own consent to die But because this is the great point that Christ doth purposely here try our self-denial by and a point of such great necessity to be look'd after I shall stay a little longer on it while I give you first some Reasons to move you and 2. Some Directions to assist you to get a self-denying submission to Death when Christ requireth it The many lamentable defects in grace which the inordinate fear of death doth intimate I have already opened in the fourth part of the Saints Rest and therefore may not now repeat them but shall add some few Considerations more CHAP. XXXVIII Twenty Reasons for denying Life 1. COnsider that Our Lives are not our Own but God that doth require them is the Absolute Lord of them More truly than you are owner of any thing that you have in the world is he the Owner of your lives and you And therefore both in Reason and Justice we should be content that he dispose of his own If he may notfreely dispose of you your lives you may as well deny him the dispose of any thing and so deny him to be God for he hath the same right to you as to any thing else and the same power over you And therefore if you consent that he shall be God for which he needs not your consent you must consent that he be the Owner and Disposer of all and of you as well as all things else Otherwise he is not God 2. You can be content that the lives of others yea that all the world be at Gods dispose In reason you cannot wish it should be otherwise You are content that the lives of Emperors and Kings that are greater than you should be at his Dispose And is there not the same Reason that he dispose of your life as of theirs Are you better than they or more your own or hath the world more need of you than them or rather is it not unreasonable selfishness that makes so unreasonable a difference with you If Reason might serve the case is plain 3. You are contented that far greater matters than your lives should be at Gods dispose The Sun in its course the frame of nature Heaven and Earth and all therein are at his dispose and would you wish it otherwise Days and Nights and Summer and Winter and times and seasons are at his dispose and you dare not murmur that all the year is not Summer or day-light and that there is any Night or Winter The Angels of Heaven are at his dispose to do his will and are content to be used on earth for your service and they desire not to be from under his dispose And should you desire it or rather desire that his will may be done on earth as it is in Heaven If you would not have the Crowns and Kingdoms of the world at his Dispose and Heaven and Earth are at his Dispose you would not have him to be God But if you would have these greatest things at his dispose what are you then that your lives should be excepted 4. Whom would you have to be the Disposer of mens Lives but God Is any other fit for the undertaking No other can give life but he And no other can preserve and continue it but he If your life had been in any creatures hand you had been dead long ago For no creature is able to uphold it self much less another also Is
it and if I should not taste it why should I touch it or be medling with it and if I may not meddle with it why should I look upon it or hearken to them that would entice me to it so that the Denying of your senses and your Appetite is the sure and easie way to prevent those dreadful gripes that else may follow 3. Moreover if you deny not your sensitive appetites you will never be acquainted with heavenly delights The soul cannot move two contrary ways at once towards earth and towards heaven When you gaze upon this world and feed your appetites with fleshly delights you have no heart nor mind to the delights above It is the soul that retires from creatures and sensual objects that is free for God and ready to entertain the motions of Grace Not that I would have you turn Hermits and Monks and forsake the company of men all worldly business No it is an higher and nobler course that I propound to you even in the midst of the world to live as without the world as if there were nothing before you for sensuality to seed upon To live so fully to God in the world that you may see God in all the creatures and converse with him in those same objects by which the sensual are turned from him and to live in the greatest fulness of all things as if there were nothing but penury to your flesh and seeing God in all and using all for God and denying self where you have opportunity to please it this is the most noble life on earth But if you find that you cannot attain to this and that you cannot deny your selves the delights of earth unless you withdraw from the sight of the objects do so and spare not so far as may consist with your serviceableness to God and humane Society But still you shall find that whether earthly delights are present or absent your minds must retire from that which doth allure and gratifie the flesh if ever you would enjoy Communion with God and taste of the delights of an heavenly conversation 4. And by pleasing your senses you will increase their vitious inordinate desires The more you gratifie them the more they 'l crave you feed your disease by yielding to such desires but never think to quiet it by contenting it The more the flesh hath the more it would have The only way to abate the rage of sensual desires is to deny them and use them constantly to that denial The safest food and raiment is that which best strengthneth and furnisheth us for Gods service with the least content and pleasure to our sensual appetites and desires And the same I must say of house and lands and labours and friends and all the Creatures that 's the best state of life in which God is served and pleased best with the least content and pleasure to the flesh Carnal delights and spiritual are so contrary the one so drossie and sordid and the other so sublime and pure that they will not well consist together but the delights of the flesh do corrupt or weaken the spiritual delights 5. Lastly Consider what a base unmanly thing it is for a man to be a slave to his sensitive appetite As truly as the horse was made to be ruled by the rider and all the bruits to be under man so was the appetite all the senses made to be ruled by reason no sense should be pleased till Reason do consent a beast hath no rule for his eating drinking but his appetite and therefore mans reason is to moderate him But a man hath a better guide than appetite or sense to follow you should not eat a bit or drink a drop meerly because the appetite would have it but Reason must be advised with and God must give advice to Reason A Swine that will drink whey till he burst his belly is blameless because he knew not the danger and had not Reason to restrain him But a man that hath Reason and yet will eat and drink and sleep and use the Creatures meerly to please the appetite of his flesh is utterly unexcusable What must the light of Reason be put out or put under the cover of sensual concupiscence must a nature that is kin to Angels be enslaved to that which is kin to beasts Unworthy is he of the honour or glory of a Saint that casteth away the honour of his manhood and makes himself a very beast What else doth that wretch that when he seeth a dish before him that he loves doth never ask whether it be wholesom or unwholesom bute eats it as an Horse doth his provender meerly because his appetite would have it Yea perhaps though he know or be told that it is unwholesom yet as long as it pleases his taste he cares not And what else doth that wretch that when he sees the cup must needs be tasting he loves it and that 's reason enough with him What a base unmanly thing is it much more unchristian to be a Slave to a fleâ—â—ly appetite Would one of these Gentlemen-gluttons Drunkards or Whoremongers or any of our voluptuous Epicures that must needs have that they love be contented to become a servant to a Beast would you take a Dog or a Swine for your Master and serve them and obey them and do what your brutish Master would have you why what 's the matter that many of our worshipful and honourable Beasts do not see that they do as bad What is your own fleshly sensual Appetite any better than that of a Beast A Dog hath as good a scent as you and a Swine hath as good a taste or sight as you and also as strong a lust as you What great difference is there betwixt the serving your own flesh and anothers your own brutish part or any other brute that lives about you Wonderful if the favour of God be nothing with you and if damnation be nothing with you that yet you are insensible of your honour in the world and that you that cannot put up a disgraceful word or blow can yet put up at your own hands such a bestial indignity as the subjecting of a Rational immortal soul to that bruitish flesh which was made to be its servant CHAP. XIX Self-interest And 1. Pleasure And 1. Of the Taste to be denied 2. I Have told you what the selfish Disposition is that must be mortified and denied and now I must tell you what is the selfish Interest that must be denied Having described self-denial from the Faculties I must now describe it by its Objects The selfish Interest consisteth in this Trinity of Objects Pleasure Profit and Honour not spiritual but carnal not heavenly but worldly Pleasure Profit and Honour sometime all these are comprehended in the word Pleasure alone and then it is taken more comprehensively and not only for sensual Pleasure called voluptuousness as it is here in this distribution And
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-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