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
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
the man in Joh. 9. 25. One thing I know that whereas I was blind now I see It 's no self-conceitedness for a man that is brought from the blind distracted state of sin into the light of the sanctified to know that he is wiser than he was before and that he was formerly besides himself but now is come to his understanding again Nor is it any self-conceitedness for the meanest Christian to know that a wicked man is more foolish than he or for a Minister or any man that God hath caused to excel in knowledge to hold fast the truth he knows and to see and modestly oppose the errors of another and to know that in that he is wiser than they God doth not require that we shall turn to every mans opinion and reel up and down from sect to sect and be of the opinion of every party that we come among and all for fear of thinking our selves wiser than they David knew he had more Understanding than his Teachers Psal 119. 98 99. and true believers fear not to say We know that we are of God and the whole world lieth in wickedness 1 Joh. 5. 19. 3. 19. 2. 3. And Paul would not forbear the reproving of Peter for fear of being thought to be self-conceited Gal. 2. some men are so desperately self-conceited that they take every man to be self-conceited that is not of their conceits But when self is mens instructor and chooseth their Text and furnisheth them with matter and nothing is savoury but what is either suited to the common interest of self or which it hath not a special interest in when men are absolutely wise in their own eyes and comparatively wiser than those that know much more than they when self-interest serves instead of evidence to the receiving retaining or contending for a point when men think they know that which indeed they do not know and observe the little which they do know more than an hundred fold more that they are ignorant of doubtless here 's self-conceitedness with a witness and they that will not see it in a lower degree methinks should see it in such a case as this He that will not believe that a man is drunk when he reels and stammereth may know it when he lieth spewing in the streets Well Sirs I beseech you see that self in the understanding be mortified and pulled down It 's the throne of God the Lanthorn of holy truth the temple of the Spirit and shall self Rule there The understanding is it that guideth the soul and all the actions of your lives and if self rule there what a Ruler will you have and what a case will heart and life be in If your eye be dark your Light be dark how great will be your darkness and if it be selfish it is certainly so far dark O believe the Holy Ghost Prov. 26. 12. Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit there is more hope of a fool than of him For a meer fool that is ignorant only for want of teaching hath no such prejudice against the truth as the self-conceited have Nor is it so hard to make him know that he is ignorant nor yet to make him willing to Learn He that knoweth himself to be blind is willing to be led Moreover the self-conceited have much to unlearn before they can be fit to receive the truth in a saving maner O how many thousands are undone by self-conceitedness It is this that keeps out Knowledge and every Grace and consequently all true peace and comfort and this it is that defendeth and cherisheth all sin Let us shew men the plainest word of God for duty and against sin and shew them the clearest reasons and yet self-conceitedness bolts the door against all Yea so wonderfully doth this sin prevail that the ignorant silly people that know almost nothing are as proudly self-conceited as if they were the wisest men They that will not learn and cannot give an account of their knowledge in the very Catechism or Principles of Christian Religion nor cannot pray nor scarce speak a word of sense about the matters of Salvation but excuse themselves that they are no Scholars yet these very people will proudly resist their Teachers though they were the wisest and learned'st men in the Land Let us but cross their conceits of Doctrine or Practice in Religion about their own title to Church-priviledges or fitness for them and they are confident and furious against their Ministers as if we were as ignorant as they and they were the wisest men in the world so that pride and self-conceitedness makes people mad or deal like mad men We cannot humble men for sin nor reclaim them from it till they know the sin and the danger of it and self-conceitedness will not let them know it no nor let them come to us to be taught but they are wise enough already and if we tell them of the sin and danger they are wiser than to believe the Word of God or us They will tell us to our faces they will never believe such and such things which we shew them in the Scripture O the precious light that shineth round about you all and would make you wise if self-conceitedness did not keep it out by making you seem wise already 1 Cor. 3. 18. These men that thus deceive themselves by seeming wise to themselves must become fools in their own eyes if ever they will be truly wise and confess themselves as Paul himself did that they were foolish and deceived when they served their lusts and pleasures Tit. 3. 3. This Pride and Self-conceitedness is like the barm in the drink that seems to fill up the vessel but indeed works it all over This is the Knowledge that puffeth up 1 Cor. 13. like the pot that by boiling seemeth to be filled that was half empty before but it 's empty in the bottom and presently boils over and is emptier than before So is it with the self-conceited that have a superficial knowledge while they are empty at the bottom and by the heat of pride that little they have boileth over to their loss It is the humble that God reveals his secrets to and the hungry that he filleth with good things and the full that he sendeth empty away He will have no Disciples that come not to his School as little Children teachable and tractable not thinking themselves too old or too wise or too good to be taught If you would see the mysteries of the Gospel savingly you must even creep to Christ on your knees and cry Lord be merciful to me a sinner He will not lift up your minds and hearts to heaven till you think your selves unworthy to lift up your very eyes to heaven because you have sinned against heaven And if you were even lifted to heaven should you there but be lifted up with pride or self-conceitedness you should soon have a â—rick in the flesh to
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
be most odious to you it is Dishonour and not Error or Schism that you are against Had you rather part with Truth and Religion or with the name Reputation of them If you set so much by self and so little by Truth as to let go Truth for fear of being thought to let it go for shame do not take on you to be Lovers of Truth but of your selves nor haters of Error but of Dishonour And consider further that you may lose the Reputation of being Orthodox and Catholick and of the right Religion without losing any of the favour of God nay it may be a suffering for his sake that may advance you in his favour and assure you of the Reward of Martyrs For saith Christ Mat. 5. 11 12. Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you and shall say all manner of evil against you falsly for my sake Rejoyce and be exceeding glad for great is your Reward in heaven for so persecuted they the Prophets that were before you So that you see the thing that you so abhor is matter of exceeding joy Even to be falsly counted an Heretick or Erroneous for the sake of Christ and Truth we are blessed when we are falsly reviled as Erroneous and have all these evil sayings against us But to be such indeed is to be accursed Though the name of Heresie will stand with the special Love of God yet Heresie it self he utterly abhors And whether do you think it is better to part with truth and the Favour of God with it or with the name and Reputation of Truth while we keep both Truth and the favour of God Deny your selves then even as to the Reputation of Faith and Orthodoxness For you will certainly deny the Faith if you cannot deny the name of it to preserve it CHAP. XLIX Reputation of Godliness and Honesty how far 9. ANother piece of Honour that self must be denied in is The Reputation of Godliness and Honesty Concerning both the former and this I must say by way of caution that the Reputation both of Faith and Godliness is a great Mercy and not to be despised nor prodigally cast away by our own negligence or miscarriages nor unthankfully to be received But yet 1. It is not to be desired for it self but for God that it may help and advantage us to serve him or as it is a Mercy that brings the report of his love 2. And the greater the Mercy is the greater is our temptation when it would deprive us of a far greater mercy than it self I have oft thought it was a very high passage for an Heathen to say as Seneca did that No man doth shew a higher esteem of goodness than he that can let go the Name or Reputation of being a good man rather than let go his goodness it self The world is so much unacquainted with goodness that they know it not when they see it but call it by those odious names that least agree with it Their Judgements follow their Natures dispositions and interests And therefore they cannot take that to be good which is contrary to these A feather-bed is no better to a swine than a mire-lake A banquet is not so good to a Cow as a green pasture As the person is himself so do all things seem good or evil to him The Toad or Snake hath no such odious apprehensions of it self as men have And hence it is that to ungodly men the best men and best actions seem to be the worst And hence also it is that in all Ages Godliness haâ—h been matter of reproach and the best have been laden with the he aviest calumnies David had enemies that laid to his charge the things that he never thought of And it seems by the strain of Shimei in his railing that they took him to be but a Traitor because King Saul was against him and to be a bloody man because he had been engaged in the wars 2 Sam. 16. 7 8. Come out come out thou bloody man and thou man of Belial the Lord hath returned upon thee all the blood of the house of Saul in whose stead thou hast raigned See what a wicked person David was esteemed by such fellows as this And yet he so far denied himself here as that he would not hear of revenge upon the railer but makes it as a tryal sent from God And two special reasons moved him to bear it One was the remembrance of that sin against God and his Servant Uriah which he knew God was now chastising him for And therefore being under the rod of the Lord he durst not think of revenge upon the instrument and being sensible that he had brought all this upon himself he durst not let fly too much at others The other was that God had raised up by permissive providence the Son of his bowels against him and therefore he thought it an unseemly thing to be much offended with a stranger for less And such Reasons as these have we also to perswade us to Patience and Self-denial in the like Case The Lord Jesus himself who had no sin at all escaped not these censures of malicious men He was esteemed a friend or Companion of Publicans and Sinners yea a gluttonous person and a wine bibber yea a deceiver yea a conjurer that did his works by the help of the Devil Mat. 11. 19. Luk 7. 34. Mat. 27. 63. Job 7. 12. Mat. 12. 27. What usage the holy Apostles themselves had and how they behaved themselves under all you may conjecture by that one passage to mention no more 1 Cor. 4. 9 10 11 12 13. For I think God hath set forth us the Apostles last as it were men appointed to death For we are made a spectacle to the world and to Angels and to men we are fools for Christs sake but ye are wise in Christ we are weak but ye are strong ye are honourable but we are despised Even to this present hour we both hunger and thirst and are naked and are buffeted and have no certain dwelling place and labour working with our own hands being reviled we bless being persecuted we suffer it being defamed we intreat we are made as the filth of the world and the off-scouring of all things to this day The like usage had the Christians after the Apostles days They were slandered by the Pagans as if they sacrificed and eat their own children and putting out the lights had commonly been unclean together after their holy exercises And when they cast them to the Lions to be devoured and many wayes tormented them it was as ungodly men for preaching against the Heathen Gods and refusing to offer sacrifice to them And therefore the rabble was wont thus to cry for Judgement against them Tollite impios Tollite impios Away with the ungodly Christians The wicked multitude that were drowned in filthiness and ungodliness did think themselves Religious men and the Christians to be ungodly
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