the more you should desire to be there where there is no strangeness This is not the time or place of most intimate acquaintance If you would be acquainted you should draw nearer and not draw back It 's death that must open you the door into that presence where strangeness will be no more And if it be the doubts of your interest in Christ and life that makes you shrink and loth to die Consider that to refuse to die for Christ is the way above all to increase those doubts but to give up your lives for him or chearfully to surrender your souls to him at his call is the readiest surest way in the world to prove you at present in a state of grace besides that you will be hastened into a state of glory where you shall be quickly and fully past all doubts of your state of former grace In a word as all the fears and sorrows of this life will then be at an end so with the rest will our fears of death And therefore death should be the more welcome because it is the end as of all other troubles so of these disturbing fears 14. Consider also what a multitude have trod this bloody way before you Almost all that ever were born have died and are now in the world that you are passing to You are not the first that entred at this narrow gate The dearest Saints of God have died If Abraham Moses Joshua David Peter and Paul could not escape the stroak of death what are you that you should murmur to follow such and so many that have gone before you You need not fear being solitary in heaven There are millions and millions more of Saints than there are on earth Many that you knew and millions more that will then be as dear to you as if you had known them Is it not better be among innocent souls than a defiled guilty world Is it not better be where no sin entreth and never a hâ—st or passion comes than to live as among Wild beasts with furious unreasonable sinners Is it not better be where Light is perfect and all your doubts are fully resolved than in darkness and perplexity and among an ignorant blind generation that are enemies to the light which you desire Is it not better be where is nothing but the perfect love of the Infinite God in perfect Saints and blessed Angels than to live among perverse ungodly men that make you almost weary of your lives If it be a delight to us to read the writings of the illuminated Saints of God and we think them such Jewels and Ornaments in our Libraries what a pleasure would it be to converse with them that wrote these Books and that in their celestial perfection where they have attained a thousand times more light than before they had and where all the doubts are resolved which their books could not resolve O blessed Society in comparison of that we now converse with 15. Nay more lest the bloody way of death should seem too strange and terrible to us the Lord Jesus our Head hath trod that path and that of purpose to conquer death by taking away the sting and principal cause of terrors and making that a passage to felicity that was a passage to everlasting misery So that ever since Christ hath gone this way there is no such danger in it to his followers Where the Captain of our salvation goeth his Souldiers may boldly follow him For asmuch as the children were partakers of flesh and blood he also himself likewise took part with them that he might destroy by death him that had the power of death that is the Devil and might deliver them that through fear of death were all their life time subject to bondage Heb. 2. 14 15. He hath cleared our way and taken out of it the forest thorns and hath prepared us an habitation with himself And shall we fear to go the way that Christ hath gone and purposely gone to clear it for us 16. Moreover Consider that the Celestial inhabitants have purposely made themselves familiar with us in this lower world that they might acquaint us with themselves and lead us upto their blessed habitation and fit us for it No man of common reason can doubt but that those more capacious glorious parts of the Universe are stored with inhabitants answerable to their glory when we see every corner of the lower world to be replenished with inhabitants And Scripture and some experience tells us that those Angels of God are conversant here about us men They bear us up in their hands that we dash not our foot against a stone they pitch their tents and encamp about us as an appointed guard for our security It is their very office for what are they but ministring spirits sent forth to minister for them that shall be heirs of salvation Heb. 1. 14. They converse with us though we see them not and are about us night and day They are among us in our holy assemblies observing our behaviour before the Lord 1 Cor. 11. 10. and they are witnesses of our good and evil Eccles 5. 6. From them as the Servants of God was the Law received Acts 7. 53. Gal. 3. 19. Heb. 2. 2. They read our books and study with us the Mysteries of the Gospel 1 Pet. 1. 12. And as near as they are to God they are glad to make the Church their book in which to read his manifold wisdom and know it by beholding it in us as in a glass Ephes 3. 10. The Nations have their Angels The Churches have their Angels and the particular Saints also have their Angels Dan. 10. 13 20 21 Rev. 1. 20. Acts 12. 15. Mat. 18. 10. They are not strangers with us but have charge of us to keep us in all our ways Psal 91. 10 11 12. They rejoyce in our conversion Luke 15. 10. They are part of the heavenly Society that we are already listed in Heb. 12. 22. They ascend and descend as ordinary passengers between heaven and earth Gen. 28. 12. They are round about us and we live as in their Camp Psal 34. 7. Before them we must be confessed or denied Luke 12. 8 9. They convoy our departed souls to Christ Luke 16. 22. They shall attend Christ at his second coming as they prcolaimed his first and attended him on earth Matth. 25. 31. Mar. 8. 38. They shall be his Heralds to call up the dead to judgement Mat. 13. 39 49. 24. 31. And at last we shall be their companions and equal to them Luke 20. 36. So that you see we have the same Society invisible which we shall have in heaven Yea and sometime when God is pleased they manifest their presence by visible or audible apparitions And shall we fear to remove into the presence of these blessed spirits that now attend us and are still about us and the instruments of so much of our good Yea the Lord Jesus Christ came
kept safe and sound and man had not been lost nor his estate thus shattered and overthrown And therefore the returning self-denying convert is brought to an utter distrust of himself and resolved hereafter to trust himself upon nothing below All-sufficiency and Infinite Love He is so offended with himself for his former self-destruction and for undoing himself so foolishly that he calls himself to account and into judgement for it and condemneth himself as a Traytor to God and a Murderer of himself and will no more be in the hands of so treacherous a delinquent But as the eyes of a servant are on the hand of his Master so are his eyes on God for all supplies And this is the part of the work of the spirit of Adoption who teacheth us to cry Abba Father and as Children not to be very careful for our selves but to run to our Father in all our wants and tell him what we stand in need of and beg relief and to be careful for nothing but in every thing by prayer with supplication and thanksgiving to make knownour requests to God Phil. 4. 6. And this acquiescence of the soul in the love of God is it that keepeth our hearts and minds in that Peace of God which passeth understanding vers 7. so that the more self-denyal the less is a man dependant on himself or troubled with the cares of his own preservation and the more doth he cast himself on God and is careful to please him that is his true Preserver and then quietech and resteth his mind in his All-sufficiency and infinite wisdom and love and so is a meer dependant upon God 7. Moreover It is the Prerogative of God as absolute Owner of us to be the sole Disposer of man and of all the other Creatures and to choose them their condition and give them their several Talents and determine of the events of all their affairs as pleaseth himself And innocent man was contented with this order and well pleased that God should be the absolute Disposer of him and all But when man turned from God to self he presently desired to be the Disposer of himself and not of himself only but of all the Creatures within his reach How fain would selfish corrupted man be the chooser of his own condition His will is against the will of God and he usually disliketh Gods disposal If he had the matter in his own hands almost nothing should be as it is but so cross would they be to God that all thing would be turned upside down If it were at their will there 's scarce a poor man but would be Rich and scarce a Rich man but would be richer The Servant would be master The Tenant would be a Landlord The Husbandman and Tradesman would be a Gentleman the Labourer would live an easier life His house should be better his cloathing should be better his fare should be better his Provision should be greater his credit or honour with men should be more the Gentleman would be a Knight and the Knight a Lord and the Lord would be a King and the King would be more Absolute and have a larger Dominion Nay every man would be a King and learn the doctrine of the Jews and many of this age among us to expect that the world should be ruled by them and they should reign as Lords and Princes in the earth If it were with selfish men as they would have it there 's scarce a man that would be what he is nor dwell where he doth nor live at the rates that now he liveth at The weak would be always strong and the sick would be well and always well and the old would be young again and never taste the infirmities of age and if they might live as long as they would I think there 's few of the unsanctified that would ever die nor look after Heaven as long as they could live on earth O what a brave life should I have thinks the selfish unsanctified wretch if I were but wholly at my own Disposal and might be what I would be and have what I would have What would men give for such a life as this Had they but their own wills they would think themselves the happiest men on earth that is if they could be delivered from the will of God and be from under his disposal and get the reins into their own hands Nay this is not all but the selfish person would be the disposer of all the world within his reach as well as of himself He would have Kingdoms at his dispose and all things carried according to his Will He would have all his neighbours have a dependance upon him Very bountiful he would be if he were the Lord of all For he would be the great Benefactor of the world and have all men beholden to him and depend upon him If he see things that little concern him he hath a will of his own that would fain have the Disposal of them If he hear of the affairs of other Nations some will he hath of his own which he would have fulfilled in them at least so far as any of his own interest may be involved in the business But when Sanctification hath brought men to self-denyal then they discern and lament this folly They see what silly giddy worms they are to be Disposers of themselves or of the world They see that they have neither wisdom nor goodness nor power sufficient for so great a work They then perceive that it were better make an Ideot the Pilot of a Ship or an Infant to be their Physitian when they are sick or the Disposer of their estates than to commit themselves and the world to their dispose They see how foolishly they have endeavoured or desired to rob God of his prerogative And therefore they return from themselves to him and give up all by free consent to his sole Disposal that so he may do with his own as he list He finds that he hath work enough to do of his own and is become too unfit for that and therefore he dare no more undertake the work of God for which he is infinitely unfit He finds that the more he hath his own will the worse it goes with him and therefore he will give up himself to God and stand to his will If he feels that Providence doth cross his flesh and that he hath Poverty when the flesh would have riches and slame when that carnal self would have honour and labour when the flesh would have ease and sickness when the flesh would have health he would not for all that have the work taken out of the hand of God but truly saith Not my will but thine be done and believeth that Gods disposal is the best and that his Father knows well enough what he doth And if it were put to his choice whether God or he should be the Disposer of his estate and honour and Life he had rather it
quiet the mind when it cannot abate the pain of the body and must use to submit to a lesser evil to avoid a greater or to obtain a greater good than it depriveth us of Paul and Silas could sing with their bodies sore and their feet in the stocks To be joyful in tribulation should be no strange matter to a Saint much more with a patient submission to undergo it We may not thrust our selves into the fire nor choose suffering without a call but we must suffer rather than sin and choose the wounds and hurts of the body before the wounds and losses of the soul But because flesh and blood will draw back and make too great a matter of sufferings I shall briefly give you ten Considerations that may perswade you herein to deny your selves and in two cases I desire you to make use of them First in case you have no way to escape suffering but by sinning then deny your selves and choose to suffer Secondly in case of Gods afflictions which unavoidably lie upon you then deny your selves by a quiet and patient submission And for both consider 1. That is the best condition for us in which we may be most serviceable to God And if we suffer for Righteousness we may serve God as well in such suffering as in a prosperous state Or if God himself afflict us we may serve him in our affliction Our patience then is the service that we are called to The sufferings of the Saints have done very much to the promoting of the Gospel and building of the Church Men will see that there is somewhat worth the suffering for in the Christian Religion and see that Heaven is taken by believers for a certain thing when they can let go earth for it They will be moved to enquire what it is that moves you to such constancy and patience And why should we not be willing of that condition in which we do our Master the best service what ever the doing of it shall cost us The commodity of our end is the chiefest commodity 2. That is the best condition for us in which we may have most of God But certainly we may have as much and usually more of God in suffering especially for his cause than we can have in prosperity especially when we sin to escape these sufferings Is it bodily ease or God that you set most by It will be seen by your choice If you prefer your ease before him you must expect to have no better than you choose If you prefer him before your ease and prosperity you must be gladder of God with adversity and pain than of prosperity and ease without him A beast hath health and ease as well as you and yet you will not think him as happy If you are tormented or lose your health for Christ you lose nothing but what a Turk or Infidel hath yea but what a beast hath as well as you But you may have that of God by the advantage of your suffering that none but Saints have And God's presence can make a suffering state as sweet as a prosperous And he hath given you ground in his promises to expect it Isa 43. 1 2 3. When thou passest through the fire I will be with thee 1 Cor. 10. 13. There hath no temptation taken you but what is common to man but God is faithful who will not suffer you to be tempted above that your able but will with the temptation also make a way to escape that you may be able to bear it 1 Pet. 4. 14. If ye be reproached for the name of Christ happy are ye for the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you On their part he is evil spoken of but on your part he is glorified ver 16. If any man suffer as a Christian let him not be ashamed but let him glorifie God on this behalf What is the Scripture fuller of than comforting promises to the sufferers for Christ To fly from such sufferings then is but to fly from the presence of God and our own consolations 3. At least these sufferings further our sanctification and make us better And is not that our best condition that makes us best Common experience as well as Scripture may satisfie us that a suffering state doth very much further humiliation and mortification and bring men to a deeper sense of sin help all the truths of God to work and make them more sensible and serious than in prosperity Then we do not only hear but feel that sin is evil and that the world is vain and that the threatnings of God are true Why Christian if thou didst but know that thou shouldst have more of the spirit and its graces and less of sin in a suffering estate than in ease and plenty wouldst thou not even choose it and be glad of it Is not sin worse than suffering to thee and holiness better than ease and peace Alas what senseless careless persons should we be if it were not for the help of suffering Grace useth to work by means and this is the common means 4. Consider that pain and suffering we shall have whether for Christ or not The worst men undergo almost as much by ordinary sicknesses and losses and crosses as the Martyrs do that suffer for Christ sin will bring suffering and it 's better have that which is sanctified by the interest of Christ than that which is not 5. And a Christian that hath so much ado to curb and rule the flesh in prosperity me thinks should the more patiently bear adversity because God sets in by it and helps him to subdue the flesh and tame the body and bring it in subjection And as it is but this burdensome flesh that suffereth which hath been the cause of so much suffering to our minds so our warfare against this flesh which we mannage through the course of our lives goes on more prosperously in the time of its sufferings than in prosperity A weakned enemy is easilier conquered Do not therefore too much take part with the suffering flesh but self-denyingly justifie the proceedings of the Lord. 6. And consider that the pains and suffering will be but short It is but a little while and you shall feel no more than if you had felt nothing And that which shortly will not be is next to that which is not As it makes all the pleasures and glory of the world to be a dream and next to nothing because it 's but a while and they are gone and never return again So it makes our sufferings next to nothing that they are passing away and almost over And then all tears will be wiped from your eyes and pain will be forgotten or remembred only to encrease your joy When you are past the brunt and safe with Christ you will never repent of your sufferings on earth nor will it trouble you then to think of the shame or sickness or pain and torment that here you were put
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
communication and secondarily in the Body But contrarily sin made its entrance first by the Body and hath its Root and Seat first in order of nature in the body it is so communicated to the soul Thus sin comes in at the back-door even at the wrong end and by the baser part But Grace comes in the right way by the Nobler part sin hath its Root in the viler part but Christ hath his seat first in the better part And yet I must add 1. That sin is not ripe till it reach the will though it enter by the flesh and senses it is not formed nor to be called sin till it reach the will and as there it is scituated but yet the thing it self is first in and by the flesh 2. And the will is truly the seat of Original sin it self as well as the sensitive part but not the first Root of the corruption Though sin be Worst in the Rational part because the corruption of the best is the worst yet it is not first there But Holiness is first also in the soul and so communicated to the body And so also Glory it self will be And therefore take notice of the wise and gracious providence of God that taketh the soul to heaven before-hand that it may be first Glorified and so may be fit to communicate glory to the body And so as the Natural Soul dignified the Natural Body and the Sanctified Soul did Sanctifie the body so the Glorified Soul by reunion with the body shall communicate its Nature to the body at the Resurrection and so it will be made spiritual immortal and incorruptible by the soul and soul and body are made such by Christ So that by this time you may see that there is more Reason for the Resurrection for all the body is turned to earth than there is Reason that a Candle that 's gone out should be lighted again by another or than there is Reason that I should put on my cloaths in the morning which I put off at night It 's true those cloaths have no power to put on themselves nor is there any natural necessitating cause of it but yet there is a Free cause in me that will infallibly if I live and be able produce it For nature disposeth me to abhor nakedness and desire my cloaths and therefore in the morning I will put them on And so nature teacheth the separated soul to desire a reunion with its body and therefore when the Resurrection morning comes it will gladly take the word from Christ and give that vital touch to the body that shall revive it and so put on its ancient garment but wonderfully changed from fleshly to spiritual from dishonourable into glorious And now I hope you see that you may put off these cloths with patience and submission and that it is no wrong to the flesh it self to be put off but tendeth to its highest advancement at the last Though the first cause of sin and the nest of sin shall be so broken first that it shall first be seen what sin hath done before it be seen what Grace will do and the fruit of our own wayes must first be tasted before we shall fully feed and live upon the blessed fruit of the grace of Christ 11. Moreover as there is a Resurrection for the body it self and that to a more perfect estate than it can here attain so the whole nature shall be perfected beyond our present comprehension This life was not intended to be the place of our perfection but the preparation for it As the fruit is far from ripeness in the first appearance or the flower while it is but in the husk or bud or the Oak when it is but an acorn or any plant when it is but in the seed no more is the very nature of man on earth As the Infant is not perfect in the Womb nor the Chicken in the shell no more are our natures perfect in this world Methinks for the sake of the body it self much more of the soul if we are believers we should submit contentedly to death While you are here you know that creatures will fail you enemies will hate you friends will grieve you neighbours will wrong you Satan will tempt you and molest you the world is changeable and will deceive you all your comforts are mixed with discomforts the body carrieth about with it calamities enough of its own to weary it What daily pains must it be at for the sustentation of its self in its present state and yet what grief and sorrow must it undergo Every member hath either its disease or a disposition thereto What abundance of passages can pain and sickness find to enter at and how many rooms that are ready to receive them As every member hath its use so every one is capable of sorrow and the sorrow of one is at least as much communicated to the whole as the usefulness is The pain of the simplest member even of a tooth can make the whole body a weary of it self What is the daily condition of our flesh but weakness and suffering with care and labour to prevent much worse which yet we know cannot long be avoided The sorrow of many a mans life hath made him wish he had never been born and why then should he not wish as much to die which doth ten thousand fold more for him if he be a Christian than to be unborn would have done Not a Relation so comfortable but hath its discomforts Not a friend so suitable but hath some discordancy nor any so amiable and sweet but hath somewhat loathsome troublesome and bitter Not a place so pleasant and commodious but hath its unfitness discommodities Not a Society so good and regular but hath its corruptions and irregularities And should we be so loth to leave whether naturally or violently such a life as this When the fruit is ripe should it not be gathered When the corn is ripe would you have it grow there and not be cut When the spirit hath hatched us for heaven should we be so loth to leave the shell or nest When we are begotten again to the hopes of immortality should we be so desirous to stay in the womb O Sirs it is another kind of life that we shall have with God They are purer comforts that stay for us above But if you will not have the Grapes to be gathered and prest how can you expect to have the Wine Me thinks our fleâ—h should have enough e're this time of sickness and pain and want and crosses and should be content to lie down in hope of the day when these shall be no more Little would an unbeliever think what a Body God will make of this that now is corruptible flesh and blood It shall then be loathsome and troublesome no more It shall be hungry or thirsty or weary or cold or pained no more As the stars of heaven do differ from a clod of
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
store of Christians among us If Christ would have left out but this one point of self-denyal from his Laws and conditions of salvation what abundance of Disciples would he have had in the world and how many millions might have come to Heaven that now must be shut out It is this point that hindereth all sorts of Heathens and Infidels from being Christians The Jews will believe in no Christ but one that will restore their Temple and outward glory and make them great and Rulers of the world and therefore they will not be the servants of that Christ that calleth them to the contempt of all these things and of life it self for the hopes of an invisible Kingdom The Mahometans had rather believe in Mahomet that giveth them leave to please their lust than in Christ that calleth them to mortification and self-denyal and tells them of nothing but suffering and patience duty and diligence till they come into another world The Idolatrous Heathens abhor Christianity when they hear how much they must do and suffer and all for a reward in the life to come It s an informing instance that Pet. Maffaeus gives us in his Indian History of the first King of Congo that was baptized He quickly received the Articles of faith and the form of Worship and the outside and cheaper part of Religion and so did many of his Nobles and followers But when he was called to confession and understood that he must leave his gluttony and drunkenness and whoredom and oppression and inordinate pleasures he would be a Christian no more his Nobles perswading him that the forsaking of all this mirth and pleasure and delights of the flesh and taking up so strict a life was too dear a price to pay for the hopes of a life to come and it was better keep the pleasure they had and put another life to the venture And thus Christianity had been quickly banished that Kingdom again if it had not taken deeper rooting in his Son and Heir Alphonsus and made him venture his Crown and Life for the sake of Christ And thus is it at the heart with the most even of Baptized persons and those that take themselves to be Christians Because it is the Religion of the Country and they are taught that there is no salvation without it they will be Baptized and be called Christians and say their Prayers and come to Church and say they believe in God the Father Son and Holy Ghost and they will go as far with you in Religion as they can without denying themselves but for the rest which is the life and truth of Christianity they will not understand it or believe that it is of such necessity God forbid say they that none should be Christians and saved but those that thus deny themselves and take up their cross and forsake all they have and accept not Life it self from Christ They say they believe in Christ and yet they say God forbid his word should be true or God forbid we should believe Christ that hath spoken this in the Gospel See what kind of Christians multitudes are Every man and woman on earth that take themselves for true Christians and yet do not deny themselves even life and all for the sake of Christ and the hope of everlasting glory are meer self-deceivers and no true Christians at all He that will save his life saith Christ shall lose it that is He that in his coming to Christ and Covenanting with him will put in an exception for the saving of his Life and will forsake all for Christ if he be put to it except Life it self this man is no true Disciple of Christ and shall be so far from saving his life that he shall lose both Heaven and Life and all and the Justice of God shall take from him that Life which he durst not resign to the will of mercy and he shall lose that for nothing which he would not lose for Christ and Heaven It is impossible for that man to be Christs Disciple that loveth his life better than Christ and the hopes of Life everlasting Mat. 10. 37 38. Luk. 14. 25 26 33. Some Self-denyal there may be in the unsanctified Many of them would leave a little pleasure or profit rather than be damned and many had rather suffer a little than venture upon eternal sufferings But I beseech you remember that this is the lowest degree of Self-denyal that is saving to set more by Christ and the hopes of glory than by all this world and life it self and to be habitually resolved to forsake life and all rather than to forsake him No less than this is proper self-denyal or will prove you Christians and in a state of life This was the tryal that Christ put one to that had thought to have been his Disciple Luke 18. 21. Yet lackest thou one thing sell all that thou hast and distribute to the poor and thou shalt have treasure in Heaven and come and follow me Not that every man must actually sell all but every man must set more by Heaven than all and therefore part with all when Christ would have him and he that is not thus resolved let him go never so far in all other things doth yet lack one thing and such a one thing as he shall never be saved without For the meaning of the text is that Christ would try by this command whether he set more by any thing than him and whether he set more by Heaven or Earth and so would have us all to judge of our selves by the same evidence within though he put not all on the same way of discovering it Many a man can deny self the superfluities of pleasure and as this rich man did can avoid enormous crimes and say of whoredom and theft and drunkenness and oppression and gross deceit All these have I avoided from my youth Education may moderate some selfish desires and natural temper may further that moderation and custom and good company and holy precepts may yet do more and wit may teach men to do or suffer somewhat rather than to run on the wrath of God and therefore many thousands may deny self the pleasure of some inordinate lust or of some recreation or excess in meat or drink and yet be far from denying life and all and so from the true self-denyal of a Christian Nay a man may deny self for self in many particulars and so may please self more than he denyeth it Many a civil ingenuous Gentleman and other persons will forbear the disgraceful sins of Drunkenness filthy speaking Whoredom Incivility notorious Prophaneness even because they are disgraceful and therefore are against the Interest of self so much as self can possibly spare a carnal heart may be brought to part with But still self is alive and predominant within them still it is the Ruling end and Principle But to go out of self to God and resign up our selves to him
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
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
12. The words of a wise mans mouth are gracious but the lips of a fool will swallow up himself Eccles 10. 14. A fool is full of words And therefore Solomon opposeth the tongue of the just and the heart of the wicked Prov. 10. 20. The tongue of the just is as choice silver the heart of the wickd is little worth See Pro. 17. 27 28. Psal 37. 30 31. The mouth of the righteous speaketh wisdom and his tongue talketh of judgement and whence is this The Law of his God is in his heart none of his steps shall slide It is a sign that a man hath little feeling of the greatness of his own sin of the greatness of Gods Love in Christ of the greatness of the joy that is set before him of the greatness of duty that lyeth on him when he can spend so much of his time in talking of meer vanity You cannot get a dying man or a man that 's taken up with any great important business to jest and prate with you of idle matters It 's only alienated idle minds that can give way to a course of idle words nay it is a sign that Conscience is not so tender as it ought to be when men can knowingly go on in a course of sin Doth not Conscience ask you what you are doing and whether this discourse do tend to edification and the cherishing of grace What Consciences have you that look no better after your tongues but will let them wander so long after vanity before they call them to account Do you remember Gods presence and withall his holiness and jealousie Can you talk so idly and God stand by and hear every word and put down all How can you be so contemptuously fearless of his presence 2. The tongue of man is a noble member called our glory Psal 30. 12. 57. 8. given us for the Praise of our great Creator and for other high and noble ends And should it be abased and abused to idleness and vanity You will not take the cloaths that adorn your bodies to cloath a Maukin or sweep the Oven or wipe your dishes with and why should you use your tongues to filth or base unprofitable things that are given you for the noblest uses in the world even the honour of God the edifying of your brethren the reproof of sin and your own salvation 3. Consider what abundance of great and needful employment you have for your tongues and then tell me whether you should spare them to idleness and vanity O what work hath that little member to perform what matters have you to mind and talk of what transcendent subjects what matter of highest excellency and greatest necessity you have a life of sin to look back upon and lament you have many a sin to confess to others you need much help against temptations and for the strengthning and exercise of your graces what need to make sure of your title to salvation and to prepare for death and to get ready the graces that you must use in you last necessities and yet have you words to spare for vanity What abundance of poor souls about you are ignorant hard-hearted sensual covetous empty of grace in a state of death and need all that ever you can do for their recovery and all too little and yet can you find in your heart to talk with them of vain unprofitable things Alas Sirs most of the persons about you are within a step of death and going to the bar of God and want nothing but one stroak of death to make them past help and send them to damnation And can you find in your hearts to talk idly with such men O cruel unmerciful people that regard no more your neighbours miseries If you came to them at the point of death or if their houses were on fire would you sit down and tell them an old tale or talk of the weather or this trifle or that what an absurdity would this be and insensibility of your brethrens case And will you do so in a case ten thousand fold greater Can you find in your heart to stand jesting prating with a poor unregenerate man that is within a step of Hell Have you not more need to call to him to look about him in time and to remember eternity and to turn and live If you see but the nakedness of the poor or the sores of a Cripple it should move you to compassion And will not mens ignorance and ungodliness move you Their miseries cry aloud to you for pity though themselves are silent O help to save us from sin and hell as you have the hearts of men and yet will you stop your ears and fall a prating and jesting with them you rob them of the means that God hath commanded you to use for their recovery God hath commanded that the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another Col. 3. 16. yea that you daily exhort one another while it is called to day lest any be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin Heb. 3. 13. Nay you have the great mysteries of the Gospel to discourse of with the Godly the glorious things of everlasting life to make mention of to one another yea you have the high praises of God to advance in the world and all his blessed attributes to magnifie and all his glorious works to praise all the experiences of your own souls to lay open his many great mercies towards you to admire and thankfully contess And yet have you leasure for idle talk For number of objects you have God and all his works in heaven and earth that are revealed to talk of you have all his providences all his judgments all his mercies and all his word And is not this field large enough for your tongue to walk in but you must seek out more work in vanity it self For Greatness you have the greatest things in all the world to mind and talk of For necessity you have the matters of your own and other mens salvation to discourse of For excellency you have God and his Image and works and ways and heaven it self to talk of For delightfulness you have the sweetest objects in the world even goodness it self salvation the way to it to be the matter of your discourse And lest one thing should weary you you have a world of variety to employ your speeches on even God and all his works and word and ways before-mentioned And is it not a shame to talk of vanity yea to go seek for recreation in vanity while all these stand by and offer themselves to the subjects of your wise and fruitful and delightfullest discourse Consider whether this be wise or equal dealing 4. Moreover a course of idle talk is a thief that robs us of our precious time And he that knows what God is or what duty is or what his soul is or what everlasting joy or
to God by sanctification doth with himself devote all that he hath and virtually all that ever he shall have And if he understand himself he will do it actually And hence it is that the Seed of Believers yea of one Believer are said to be Holy Not only or chiefly because they are yours born of your bodies nor meerly from a promise of God that hath no presupposed reason from the subject But because they are the children of one that hath devoted himself and all that he hath to God and if he understand himself doth actually offer devote and dedicate his child to God in the solemn Baptism Ordinance and Covenant And God will sure accept all that upon his own invitation is consecrated and offered to him 5. See that you submit them heartily to the dispose of God So that whatever he do with them for sickness or health for poverty or riches for honour or dishonour for life or death you can patiently bear it and say as Eli It is the Lord let him do as seemeth him good 1 Sam. 3. 18. Murmur not if God afflict and take them away even at once as he did the sons of Job or if he should afflict you in them as he did David in Amnon and Absalom Remember that as the Resignation of Life it self is the point by which Christ under the Gospel doth try mens faith so it was the resignation of an only son which was next to life by which he would try Abraham the Father of the faithful before the Incarnation of Christ If therefore you will be children of Abraham you must walk in the steps of faithful Abraham and remember that your children are not your own and be content that God do with his own as he pleases 6. Make God their portion as much as in you lieth and seek more for a spiritual than temporal felicity for them and acquaint them with their Creator in the days of their youth as believing that those of them that are the Holiest are the Happiest 7. Devote your children to such callings and imployments in which they are likeliest to be most serviceable to God Consider their dispositions and parts and then never ask what kind of life is the most honourable or gainful for them but in what way and course of life they may most serve God and be most useful to his Church And to that let them be devoted 8. Favour them not in sin and suffer them not to dishonour God that they are devoted to Remember Eli's example Gentle reproofs instead of necessary severe correction is called by God A despising him and preferring his sons before him 1 Sam. 2. 29 30. even because his sons made themselves vile and he restrained them not 1 Sam. 3. 13. Take heed as you love your selves or them of taking their parts against God or against correction and excusing the sins by which they do dishonour him 9. Give them not for their carnal advancement in the world that part of your estate which is due to God You owe it all to him and in the disposing of it he hath limited you to begin at home provide so for your children that they may have their daily bread and so much more as they are in likelyhood the fittest stewards to improve for God But if you see the publick state of the Church or Commonweal to stand in need of your assistance and you shall then give almost all to your children to make them rich and great in the world and put off the works of greater moment with some poor inconsiderable alms or Legacy this is to prefer self before the Lord even as it is imagined to survive in your progeny even when natural self can no longer enjoy it It 's a wonder how so many men seeming holy and devoted to God can quiet their consciences in such a palpable sin as this If one of them have two hundred or three hundred pound a year it 's a wonder if he leave an hundred a year of it to any pious or charitable use but if he leave forty or fifty pound to the poor or build some small Almes-house he thinks he hath done well all the rest must go to leave his son in equal dignity and riches in the world as himself But of this I spoke before 10. Lastly be sure that you be very suspicious of self when the case of your children or any dear Relation is before you For self is near you and will stick close and will not easily be thrust out of your Counsels nor â—â—aken off And therefore in your own case and your Childrens case or the case of your near friends you will have much ado to overcome the cunning and strong temptations to Partiality if you were the holiest Saint on earth though overcome them you will in the main if you have true grace But if you are dead professors it 's twenty to one but they will overcome you and you will shew the world that you are selfish hypocrites and more for your Children and Friends than God Let me here give a few instances in this warning 1. How oft have we seen it here and elsewhere that people that make some shew of Religion and are forward to have vice punished and discipline exercised yet when it falls on any children or near relations of their own they are as much against it as they are for it on others yea rise up with passion and bitter reproaches of Officers Ministers or others that are the causes of it As one Hypocrite is tried when he denieth to suffer for Christ himself so others shew themselves Hypocrites sooner by preferring their children yea their sinful children yea the present ease or profit or credit of their children before their duty and the honour of God And they will rather have God provoked sin unpunished and their childrens own salvation hazarded than they will have them justly and regularly chastised yea some of them rise up as malignant enemies against them that do it 2. Again When God hath convinced you of duty if a carnal friend a husband or a parent do but contradict it and perswade you from a known duty or a holy life how commonly do men obey because forsooth they are their friends that do perswade them 3. Moreover When the case falls out that a man cannot follow God and his duty and be true to his soul but he is like to lose his friends how commonly is God denied that friends may not be denied and conscience wounded and duty bawk'd that the favour of friends may not be lost O saith one they are the friends that I live by my livelihood is in their hands I am undone if they cast me off Well! take them and make thy best of them and keep them as long as thou canst if thou canst live better without God than them or canst spare Gods favour better than theirs and they are better friends to thee than Christ is and would be take
any Creature wise enough to order the world and the affairs thereof Is any Creature powerful enough to dispose of the world and all things in it Is any Creature good enough to do it without the communication of its imperfection which would disorder destroy all I know you make no doubt of any of these things No Creature is fit to be God and therefore none is fit to undertake the work of God And therefore it must be God or none that must have the Disposal of your lives and you But I know what it is that self would have You would have the Disposal of your own lives or else have God to dispose of them as you would have him which comes all to one But how unreasonable is this Would you alone have the Disposal of your own lives or would you have all men else in the world also to have the Disposal of theirs If all should have this Priviledge what a miserable Priviledge would it prove No man then would die and then either you must forbear marriage or what would you do with your posterity when there were no room on earth And then you could not punish a Malefactor with death And what a world would it be if all men were Disposers of themselves when there would be as many different ends and minds as men every man would be for himself and an enemy to others and the world would run every man on his own head and a madder confusion than can be imagined would seize on all If you would have every man have the dispose of his own life you would have as many Gods as Men and so have no God and you would have as many Kings or Rulers as men and so have no Ruler and you would have the world to be no world when God were to them as no God And if you would not have it thus with all what reason have you to desire it for your self What are you more than all the world that you should be exempted from the common state of mortals and be at your own disposal more than they and be instead of God unto your selves 5. You think it neither cruelty or injustice that the lives of bruits should be much at your dispose Your poor fellow-creatures must die when you require it Birds and Beasts and Fishes even multitudes of them must die to feed you yea often for your delight to make you a Feast when you have no necessity The most harmless sheep you will not spare The most laborious Ox the most beautiful Bird must give up their lives to satisfie your pleasure And is not God ten thousand thousand times even infinitely more above you than you are above your fellow-creatures Is one creature fitter to kill another and afterwards devour it and becomes its grave than God to dispose of the Lives of all 6. Where could you wish your Lives to be better than in the hand of the most wise gracious God If you may rest content or have confidence in any it is in him You neednot doubt of his Goodness for he is goodness and Love it self And therefore though you see not the world to come that you are passing to yet as long as you know that you are in the hands of Love it self what cause have you of disquiet or distrust And that you know that he is wise as well as Good and Almighty as well as Wise and therefore as he meaneth you no harm if you are his children so he will not mistake nor fail in the performance You need not fear lest your happiness should miscarry for want of skill in him that is Omniscient or for want of will in him that is your Father or for want of Power in him that is Omnipotent You may far better trust God with your lives than your selves For you have not wisdom enough to know what is best for you nor skill to accomplish it nor Power to go through with it Nay you love not you selves so well as God doth love you Did you but believe this you would better trust him You can trust your selves in a narrow Ship upon â—he wide and raging Seas when you never saw the Country that you are gâ—ing to and all because you believe that the voyage is for your commodity and that you have a skilful Pilot. And cannot you commend your souls into the hand of God to convey you through death to the invisible glory as confidently as you dare commit your lives to the conduct of a man and to a tottering Ship in a hazardous Ocean You can trust your lives on the skill of a Physician And cannot you trust them on the will of God If you had your choice whether your lives should be at your own dispose or Gods you should far rather choose that God might dispose of them than your selves As it is better for an Infant to be guided and disposed of by the Parents than by it self A Good King will not kill his own Subjects needlesly And a natural Father or Mother will not not needlesly kill their own Children yea a very brute will tenderly cherish their young And do you think that God who is infinitely good will causelesly orinjuriously take your lives or that he doth not mean you good even in your death Object But how can I think it for my good to die and to have my nature dissolved Answ Paul did desire to depart or be dissolved and to be with Christ as best of all Phil. 1. 23. And did not he know what was for his good as well as you He was willing rather to be absent from the body and present with the Lord than at home in the body and absent from the Lord and therefore groaned earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with his house which is from heaven that mortality might be swallowed up of life 2 Cor. 5. 1 2 4 6 8. When the Hen hath sate to hatch her young ones they must leave the shell as good for nothing and must come into a world which they never saw before And what of that Should they murmur at the breaking of tâ—â—â—r former habitation or fear the passagâ— inâ—â— so 〈◊〉 â—â— wide so strange a place in 〈…〉 â—f 〈…〉 which they were in before No more 〈…〉 the breaking of these bodies and 〈…〉 the 〈…〉 of flesh and passing under the conduct of Angels into the presence of our Lord. God is but hatching us here by his spirit that he may bring us out into the light of glory And should we grudge at this 7. And what if God call you to sacrifice your lives to him as he called Abraham to sacrifice his Son What if he call you to come to him by a persecutors hand or at least to be willing of your natural death He calls you but to give up a life which you cannot keep and to do that willingly which else you must do whether you will or not Willing or unwilling die you must
reason and drawn you to excess in meats and drinks for matter or manner for quality or quantity or both Many a groan those sins have cost you and many a smarting day they have caused you and a sad uncomfortable life you have had by reason of them in comparison of what you might have had And this flesh hath been the Mother or the Nurse of all You were engaged by your Baptismal Covenant to fight against it when you entred into the Church and if you are Christians this combate hath been your daily work and much of the business of your lives And yet are you loth to have the victory see your enemy under feet Do you fight against it as for the life of your souls yet are you afraid lest death should hurt it or break it down Have you fought your selves friends with it that you are so tender of it when you are the greatest friends to it it will be the most dangerous enemy to you And do not think that it is only sin and not the body that is the flesh that is called your enemy in Scripture For though it be not the body as such or as obedient to the soul yet is it the Body as inclining to creatures from which the sinful soul cannot restrain it it is the body as having an inordinate sensitive appetite and imagination and so distempered as that it rebels against the Spirit and casteth off the rule of Reason and would not be curbed of its desires but have the rule of all it self Was it not the very flesh it self that Paul saith he fought against and kept under and brought into subjection lest he should be a cast a-way 1 Cor. 9. 26 27. Why should sin be called Flesh and Body but that it is the Body of Flesh that is the principal-seat of those sins that are so called If ye live after the flesh ye shall die but if ye through the Spirit do mortifie the deeds of the Body ye shall live Rom. 8. 13. If ye sow to the flesh of the flesh ye shall reap corruption Gal. 6. 8. That which is first in Being is first in sin But it is the Flesh or Embryo endued with sense that is first in being Be not therefore too tender of that which corruption hath made your prison and your enemy Many a time you have been put to resist it and watch and strive against it and when you have been at the best it hath been hindring you to be better and when the spirit was willing the flesh was weak And quickly hath it caused your cooling declension Many a blessed hours communion between God your souls that flesh hath deprived you of And therfore though still you must love it yet you should the less grieve or be troubled at its sufferings seeing they are but the fruits of its sin and a holy contentedness shold possess your minds that God should thus castigatorily revenge his own quarrel yours upon it 10. But yet consider that were you never so tender of the body it self yet faith and reason should perswade you to be content For God is but preparing even for its felicity His undoing it but to make it up again As in the new birth he broke your hearts and false hopes that he might heal your hearts and give you sounder hopes instead of them so at death he breaketh your flesh and worldly hopes not to undo you and leave it in corruption but to raise it again another manner of body than now it is and give it a part in the blessedness which you hoped for If in good sadness you believe the Resurrection what cause is there for so much fear of death You can be content that your Roses die and your sweetest Flowers fall and perish and the green and beauteous complexion of the earth be turned into a bleak and withered hue because you expect a kind of Resurrection in the Spring You can boldly lie down at night to sleep though sleep be a kind of death to the body and more to the soul and all because you shall rise again in the morning And if every nights sleep or one at least were a gentle death if you were sure to rise again the next morning you would make no great matter of it Were it as common to men to die every night and rise again in the morning as it is to sleep every night and rise in the morning death would not seem such a dreadful thing Those poor men that have the falling-sickness do once in a day or in a few days lie as dead men and have as much pain as many that die And yet because they use to be up and well again in a little time they can go merrily about their business the rest of the day and little fear their approaching fall How much more should the belief of a Resurrection unto life confirm us against the fears of death And why should we not as quietly commit our bodies to the dust when we have the promise of the God of heaven that the Earth shall deliver up her dead and that this body that is sown in corruption shall be raisedin incorruption It is sown in dishonour it is raised in glory it is sown in weakness it is raised in power it is sown a natural body it is raised a spiritual body So great and wonderful the change will be as now is unconceivable we have now a drossie lâ—mp of flesh an aggravation of the Elements to a seed of life which out of them forms it self a body by the Divine influx Like the Silk-worm which in the Winter is but a seed which in the Summer doth move attract that matter from which it gets a larger body by a kind of Resurrection But it is another manner of body I will not say of flesh which at the Resurrection we shall have Not flesh and blood nor a natural body but of a nature so spiritual sublime and pure that it shall be indeed a spiritual body And think not that this is a contradiction and that spirituality and corporeity are inconsistent For There is a Natural Body and there is a Spiritual body The root of the fleshly Natural body was the first man Adam who was made a living soul to be the Root of living souls The root of the spiritual Body is Christ who being a quickning Spirit doth quicken all his members by his Spirit which Spirit of Grace is the seed of Glory as from an holy and gracious Saviour we receive an holy and gracious nature so from a Glorified Saviour we shall receive a glorious nature we are now changed from glory to Glory in the beginning as by the spirit of the Lord But it is another kind of Glory that this doth tend to Howbeit that is not first which is spiritual but the natural and afterwards the spiritual The first man was of the Earth Earthy The second man is the Lord from heaven
That if God deny you even that honour which in the lawfullest manner you desire that you submit to his pleasure and take it patiently and in these two respects you must here deny your selves Above all others these sorts of persons following are in danger of this odious Pride in desiring for themselves an extended and surviving Name 1. Princes and Souldiers that have the management of the great affairs of the world Fain would they be Renowned to Posterity And hence are their aspiring ambitious designs For this are their Wars and Conquests that they may be famous when they are dead as well as while they live And thus they make their Noble Conquests to be but Murders of the vilest sort and worse than any Cut-throats and Robbers by the high way while they intend them but for themselves and their own vain-glory and better might they seek honour by whoredom drunkenness or theft which are far smaller sins Whereas if their wars had been undertaken for God and managed according to his Will they had made them truly honourable and renowned And from this odious Pride it is that Absaloms Pillars must be erected and Monuments must be built to perpetuate their names and tell the world what need they have of means to keep alive their memories and how destitute they are of nobler means when Marbles and Monuments must be the great preservers of their fame Yea it were well if this Pride and selfishness did not corrupt the noblest of their works and turn them into deadly sins if they did not build their Hospitals Colledges or Churches and endow them with Revenues to perpetuate their own Names rather than to do good Though the works themselves are so good and so rare that I would not cast any dishonour upon them seeing all that can be said is too little to provoke men to do the like yet am I bound in duty to tell them that if self should be the End instead of God and Pride the cause instead of charity Hell would be the Reward instead of Heaven so great a matter it is to have an honest heart and right intentions in the most excellent and noble works In so much that a poor man that hath a heart to build a Colledge or an Hospital if he had but means shall be Rewarded by God as if he had done it if God were the End and Charity the Principle when a rich man that doth the work it self shall have but a poor and temporary reward if self be the End and Pride the Principle 2. Another sort that are specially in danger of this sin are all Rich men who would be the great in the world and perpetuate their names and memory in their houses lands and posterity and therefore they would purchase Towns and Lordships that their Houses may be famous when they are gone For it seems a kind of life to them if their Greatness do but live in their posterity Psal 49. 11 12. Their inward thought is that their houses shall continue for ever and their dwelling places to all generations they call their lands after their own names This their way is their folly yet their posterity approve their sayings Hence also is that ostentation of Escucheons and Arms and of Ancient Gentility or Nobility and much more such proud and selfish vanity 3. Another sort that are in danger of this sin are Divines and Learned men in all Professions who make their Writings but a means to perpetuate their own Names to Posterity Temptations to this sin may be offered to the best and too much entertainment they may have with our natures because of the remnants of selfishness and Pride But yet they do not prevail with the sanctified so far as to aim more at their own honour than at Gods The Labours that in themselves are excellent and a blessing to the Church are lost to him that was the Author of them if self be the End and Pride the fountain And exceeding great need have the godliest men to watch their hearts in this particular for they are very deceitsul and selfishness will too often interpose where nothing but God and publick good is discerned And now because that the sin is very great and dangerous I shall here annex a few Considerations which by opening the evil of it may help you to abhor it 1. These Proud desires of a great and surviving Name do shew that you lamentably overlook the true eternal honour of the Saints Must you have Honour choose that which lieth in the esteem of God Must you be great and glorious why you may be so and God would have you be so if you will but know where Greatness and Glory is to be had even in that blessedness that Christ hath purchased Must you have your greatness and honour perpeuated why you may have that which will never have an end And when God hath set before you such an endless glory are you looking after a Name among mortal men to leave behind you on the Earth Do you think to be saved indeed or not If you do what need have you of the smoak of mans applause when you are with God what unworthythoughts have you of heaven if you think when you are there you shall have need of mens good thoughts or words on earth But it 's a dangerous sign that you are indeed unbelievers and lay not up your treasure in heaven when you are so careful to perpetuate your names and shaddows here with men The true reliâ—h of Heavenly honour would put you out of love with this 2. And do you not plainly see in your own desires the vanity of all these Earthly things when you are put at last to take up with such a shaddow such a Nothing as is a surviving name Is this all that the world can do for you And do you not see here the wonderous deceitfulness of the world and the foolishness of unsanctified men that they will dâ—â—s stick to the world for very nothing when they know that they shall have no more from it they are contriving for a name when they are dead Wonderful blindness that experience and the approach and thoughts of death should no more open your eyes surely if this be all that the world will do for you at the last you should even renounce it and use it accordingly at the first 3. You cannot but know that when you are dead and gone the Honour of the world is none of yours nor can it do you any good any further than it relateth to your eternal blessedness and your honour is serviceable to the honor of God What good will it do you to be magnified by men when you neither know nor feel it what the better is a Tree or House if men commend it And for your souls if they be with God they will be far above the praise of men 4. Nay as such a design is a dangerous sign of your Damnation so I beseech you think what
comfort it will be to your soul in Hell to be extolled and well spoken of on earth Will you cast away your souls to leave a Name of renown behind you And how unsutable will such Honor be to your condition surely if you be there acquainted with it you must needs be more tormented both to remember that you were seeking the fame of the world instead of the eternal glory and to consider what a miserable wretch it is that men are praising and magnifying on earth Ah then you will think with your selves Little do the poor inhabitants of the earth know what I am suffering while they are extolling me Is the applause of mortals sutable to a poor tormented soul Alas that at one and the same time men should be extolling me and Devils tormenting me How little ease do all their acclamations afford this poor distressed soul How honorable are the names of Alexander the Great Caesar Aristotle here on earth but alas what cause have we to fear that they are lamenting their misery while we are speaking of their glory 5. And the sin is much the greater because it is not a mis-chosen means but a mistaken end that your souls have fastened on For it seems your very hearts are set upon your Honours and deeply and desperately set upon them when you dare contrive the continuation of them when you are dead Were it not a matter exceeding dear to you undoubtedly you durst not lay such a design for it 6. And consider whether there be not a Love of the deadly sin of Pride and a final impenitency implyed in this ambition of a surviving name For you â—â—a design that is supposed to be executed after death And as if you desired an eternity of wickedness because your Pride it self can live no where but with your self you would have it leave those tokens behind it by which the world may know that you are Proud and the effects of it you would have perpetuated on earth And had not the world enough of your Pride while you were alive and had not you enough of it Is this your Repentance that you would leave the Monuments of your Pride unto Posterity as if you were afraid there would be no surviving witness against you to condemn you This is a certain transcendency of sin The common wicked ones would fain die the death of the Righteous and wish their last end were like to his But these men would have their Pride to live for ever and when they themselves are in another world they would have the demonstrations of their iniquity survive them 7. And I beseech you consider what a fearful thing it is to die in contrived beloved sin when men have none but a death-bed Repentance we have much cause to fear lest it be but fear that is the life of their Repentance But when they have not this much but are desirous to leave the Monuments of their vice to all Generations from whence then shall we fetch our hopes of their forgiveness And O what a power hath Pride in that soul where the thoughts of Death it self will give no stop to it but still they are desirous that Pride may over-live them One would think that the serious thoughts of a grave much more of our passage into another world should level all such thoughts of a surviving honour even in an unsanctified soul But I much fear lest it be infidelity it self that is the root of all and that men do not soundly believe an everlasting life with â—…d which makes them desire to have somewhat like 〈…〉 Immortality here on earth 8. And consider what a silly immortality you desire The honour can be no greater than the persons are that honour you nor no longer And it is but poor mortals that will magnifie your Names and what can they add to you and it will be but a very little while for it is not long that the world is to continue 9. And consider what a wickedness is here commonly included Proud men desire to be thought better than they are and spoken of accordingly They limit not mens estimation to the truth of their deserts Otherwise if the best and greatest of you all were thought no better or greater than you are alas how far would men be from admiring you what would you be thought but worms and sinners and such as after all your glory cannot forbid a crawling worm to feed upon your face or heart and such as deserve no less than hell and have many a secret sin that the world was unacquainted with But it is not a true but false Esteem that the Proud desire They care not how great or how good or how wise and learned the world and succeeding ages think them And thus they desire to cheat mens understandings and to leave a false History of themselves on earth and to have all men believe and report untruths to magnifie men whose souls it 's much to be doubted are in hell or if they be not must needs abhor such doings And thus every Proud and selfish man would be a false Historian and cheater of the world 10. Yea which is yet the worst of all they would continue sacrilegiously to rob the Lord of his honour even when they are dead It is an undue honour which is stoln from God which they so much seek for For were it but such as is a useful means to his honour he would not be offended with them And when the Saints say Not unto us Lord but unto thy name give the glory these sinners are not content to rob God of his honour as long as they live but they would do it even after death If we had not certainly known the truth of it we should have thought it an incredible thing that ever any man should come to that impiety pride and madness as to desire to be worshipped as a God when he was dead Much more that the most of the world should be so far distracted as to do it And yet so it hath been and so it is in too great a measure And truly the wicked or Proud disposition that is predominant in the hearts of all the unsanctified doth take up no snorter where it hath but hopes of success to actuate it Not a man of them but would be honoured as Gods when they are dead Though I know those of them that feel not this much in themselves will hardly believe it Consider what an hainous injury this is to God and to the souls of men that you should leave your Names as Idols to the world to entice so many thousand men to sin and to be a standing enemy to the honour of God by encroaching on his right and turning the eye of mens observation and admiration from him to you 11. Consider also how that by these desires of earthly honour to your selves and making this the End of your endeavours you corrupt abundance of excellent works materially considered and
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-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
find in a holy walking with God Yea they will deny themselves everlasting life and the favour of God and cast themselves into endless misery and all this for a thing that is ten thousand times worse than nothing or for a very sensual brutish Pleasure And yet these men cannot deny themselves in life or liberty in gain or honour no nor in the filthiest lusts for the sake of Christ and their own salvation Even when they may know that they most deny themselves when they will not deny themselves They deny themselves eternal glory because they will not deny themselves in temporal vanity Heaven and earth will witness against such sottish and unrighteous dealing as this if true Conversion do not prevent it Hath God hath Christ hath your own salvation deserved no better at your hands than this O miserable souls All things can be easily denied save sin and Carnal self and these cannot be denied God can be denied Christ and Scripture and Heaven it self can be denied for flesh and sin and flesh and sin cannot be denied for God and for eternal Glory Do you think that this will look like wise or righteous dealing when you stand in judgement Ask now any stander by that is impartial whether God or the flesh should be denied Whether Heaven or Earth should be denied seeing one of them you must deny And if any impartial man will be now against you what think you will God be who is not only impartial but wronged by you and a hater of your unrighteous dealing CHAP. LXXII To be left to self is the sorest plague 10. LAstly remember that to be given over to our selves is the heaviest plague on this side Hell And therefore he that delighteth not to be miserable should not desire to be selfish To be given over to the Love of your selves is to turn from the Love of the blessed God to the Love of a filthy sinner and so to forfeit Gods love to you To be given over to care for your selves is to forfeit the fatherly care of God and to be at the care of a silly insufficient improvident sinner To be given over to your own Conceits or Wisdom is to be forsaken of the Sun and left in darkness and spend the rest of your days in a Dungeon the beginning of the endless utter darkness To be given over to your own wills is to be at the choice and disposal of a fool and of an enemy and to be in such hands as will certainly undo you and to be cast out of the hands of God To be given over to seek your selves is to lose your selves and God and your salvation To be given over to live as your own is to forfeit the Protection of God without which you cannot be kept an hour out of hell To be given over to the defending of your selves and delivering your selves in danger of soul and body is even to be exposed to certain and perpetual perdition To be given over to be ruled by your selves is to be relinquished as Rebels and exposed to the tyranny of sin and Satan So that in all things it is most certain that you are never well but in the hands of God and never so ill as when you are most in your own hands In Paradise innocent man was wholly at the Government of God and when by casting off his Government he had forfeited the benefit of it the most of the world became even brutish And when God had owned the Government of Israel above other Nations and kept the choice of the Soveraign under him in his own hands at last the foolish people in imitation of the Nations must needs have a King and extort the Nomination out of the hands of special extraordinary Providence that they might have more of it in their own and this was an increase of their misery Woe to that man that ever he was born that is finally given over to himself For this is a sign that God hath forsaken them and they stand at the brink of eternal death O think of this you that are self-conceited and self-willed and self-lovers and self-seekers and know not how to deny your selves Must self be so regarded and tenderly used Take heed you may have enough of self with everlasting vengeance if God once give you over to your selves and say of you as of them Psal 81. 11 12. But my people would not hearken unto my voice and Israel would none of them So I gave them up to their own hearts lust and they walked in their own Counsel So much for the Aggravations CHAP. LXXIII Ten Directions to get self-denial IV. I Come now to the last part of my task which is to tell you what course you should take to procure self-denial For though it be the gift of God yet there are certain means appointed us for the attainment of it and God useth to give it men in the use of his means and by those means must it be confirmed and continued Direction 1. Set faith a work upon the promises of God and upon everlasting life For the Flesh will not be taken off these lower things till you have found out better and such as will be sure to save you harmless The most covetous man would let go silver if he may have gold instead of it Set faith a pleading the case with the flesh and urge your own hearts with the Certainty the Nearness the Glory the Eternity of the Kingdom which by self-denial you may attain and if they will not yield to such a change as this they are unreasonable unbelieving hearts Direct 2. Never be deluded to forget the vanity the brevity and the emptiness and insufficiency of all these earthly things which self so adhereth to as to neglect the promised life of blessedness Acquaint your own hearts what a nothing it is that they make so much of and follow so greedily and hold so fast shew them in the Sanctuary the glass of the word of God which will tell them what will be the end of all and where all their worldly prosperity will leave them Ask your hearts Can I keep these things for ever or not If not Is it not better let them go for something than for nothing and to part with them as a child at the command of my heavenly father than to part with them as a thief doth with his prize at the Gallows Is it not better let them go to ease me and to secure my eternal peace than let them go to wound me and torment me And while I keep them what will they do for me that I should buy them at so dear a rate O how dear must I pay for my ease and honour and gluttony and drunkenness and sensual delights if I part not with them when God commandeth How cheap is a holy blessed life in comparison of this which I must pay so dear for Direct 3. To promote your self-denial Consider frequeâ—tly and seriously who
fleshly Pleasures tend He that by faith hath seen both Heav'n and Hell And what sin costeth at the last can tell He that hath try'd and tasted Better things And felt that love from which all pleasure springs They that still watch and for Christs coming wait Can turn away from or despise the bait Flesh Must I be made the foot-ball of disdain And call'd a precise fool or Puritane Spirit Remember him that did despise the shame And for thy sake bore undeserved blame Thy journey 's of small moment if thou stay Because dogs bark or stones lie in the way If life lay on it wouldst thou turn again For the winds blowing or a little rain Is this thy greatest love to thy dear Lord That canst not for his sake bear a foul word Wilt thou not bear for him a scorners breath That underwent for thee a cursed death Is not Heav'n worth the bearing of a flout Then blame not Justice when it shuts thee out Will these deriders stand to what they say And own their words at the great dreadful day Then they 'd be glad when wrath shall overtake them To eat their wrrds and say they never spake them Flesh How Forsake all Ne're mention it more to me I 'le be of no Religion to undo me Spirit Is it not thine more in thy Fathers hand Than when it is laid out at sins command And is that sav'd that 's spent upon thy lust Or which must be a prey to thieves or rust And wouldst thou have thy riches in thy way Where thou art passing on and canst not stay And is that lost that 's sent to Heav'n before Hadst thou not rather have thy friends and store Where thou may dwell for ever in the light Of that long glorious day that fears no night Flesh But who can willingly submit to Death Which will bereave us of our life and breath That laies our flesh to rot in loathsome graves Where brains and eyes were leaves but ugly caves Spirit So nature breaks and casts away the shell Where the now beauteous singing bird did dwell The secundine that once the infant cloath'd After the birth is cast away and loath'd Thus Roses drop their sweet leaves under-foot But the Spring shews that life was in the root Souls are the Roots of Bodies Christ the Head Is Root of both and will revive the dead Our Sun still shineth when with us it's night When he returns we shall shine in his light Souls that behold and praise God with the Just Mourn not because their bodies are but dust Graves are but beds where flesh till morning sleep's Or Chests where God a while our garments keep 's Our folly thinks he spoils them in the keeping Which causeth our excessive fears and Weeping But God that doth our rising day foresee Pittie 's not rotting flesh so much as we The birth of Nature was deform'd by sin The birth of Grace did our repair begin The birth of Glory at the Resurrection Finisheth all and brings both to persection Why should not fruit when it is mellow fall Why would we linger here when God doth call Flesh The things and persons in this world I see But after death I know not what will be Spirit Know'st thou not that which God himself hath spoken Thou hast his promise which was never broken Reason proclaims that noble heav'n-born souls Are made for higher things than worms and moles God hath not made such faculties in vain Nor made his service a deluding pain But faith resolves all doubts and hears the Lord Telling us plainly by his Holy Word That uncloath'd souls shall with their Saviour dwell Triumphing over sin and death and hell And by the power of Almighty Love Stars shall arise from graves to shine above There we shall see the Glorious face of God His blessed presence shall be our abode The face that banisheth all doubts and fears Shuts out all sins and dryeth up all tears That face which darkeneth the Suns bright rayes Shall shine us into everlasting joyes Where Saints and Angels shall make up one Chore To praise the Great Jehovah evermore Flesh Reason not with me against sight and sense I doubt all this is but a vain pretence Words against nature are not worth a rush One bird in hand is worth two in the bush If God will give me Heav'n at last I 'le take it But for my Pleasure here I 'le not forsake it Spirit And wilt thou keep it bruitsh flesh how long Wilt thou not shortly sing another song When Conscience is awakened keep thy mirth When Sickness and Death comes hold fast this earth Live if thou canst when God saith come away Try whether all thy friends can cause thy stay Wilt thou tell death and God thou wilt not die And wilt thou the consuming fire defie Art thou not sure to let go what thou hast And doth not Reason bid thee then forecast And value the least hope of endless joyes Before known vanities and dying toyes And can the Lord that is most just and wise Found all mans duty in deceit and lies GET thee behind me Satan thou dost savour The things of flesh and not his dearest favour Who is my Life and Light and Love and All And so shall be whatever shall befall It is not thou but I that must discern And must Resolve It 's I that hold the stern Be silent Flesh speak not against my God Or else hee 'l teach thee better by the rod. I am resolved thou shalt live and die A servant or a conquered enemy LOrd charge not on me what this rebel sayes That alwaies was against me and thy wayes Now stop its mouth by Grace that shortly must Through just but gainful death be stopt with dust The thoughts and words of Flesh are none of mine Let Flesh say what it will I will be thine Whatever this rebellious Flesh shall prate Let me but serve the Lord at any rate Use me on earth as seemeth good to thee So I in Heav'n thy Glorious face may see Take down my Pride let me dwell at thy feet The humble are for earth and heav'n most meet Renouncing Flesh I Vow my self to thee With all the Talents thou hast lent to me Let me not stick at honour wealth or blood Let all my dayes be spent in doing good Let me not trifle out more precious hours But serve thee now with all my strength and powers If Flesh would tempt me to deny my hand Lord these are the Resolves to which I stand Richard Baxter October 29. 1659. The laâ—e Lord Chief Justice Oliver St. John See my Reasons of the Christ â—â—â—g since written I may with Tertullian call all our enemies to search their Court Records and â—ce how many of us have been cast out or silenced for any immorality but for obeying Conscience against the interest or wills of some who think that Conscience should give place to their Commands Read the two or three last Chapters in Dr. Holden's Analâ—fidei Read Mr. Stubbs and Mr. Rogers books against me and the souldiers openly thâ—â— calumaiâ—â—ed me and thâ—e in eâ— my death as the said Authors â—eâ—red them to call me to a trâ—al even for speaking and writing against their casting dow the Government of the Land â—â—ing 〈◊〉 themselves and aâ—â—â—pting at once to Vo e out all the â—arâ—â—h 〈◊〉 I know that it hardneâ—h thousands in impenitency to say that Others have done worse and Is the matter mended with you And will it also eâ—se men in heâ—l to think that some others suffer more The Quuakers and other Self-esteemers are reverthemore reconcil'd to us now we have been eleven years turned out of all So common it is for selfish meâ— to make their gain sayers as odious as they can devise that I conâ—eâ—s I wondred that I me with no more of this dealing my self from Papists Anabaptists or any that have turned their stiâ—e against me And at last Mr. Pierce hath answered my expectation and from my own confession not knowing me himself hath drawn my picture that I am Proâ—â—i Lazie False an Hypocrite uâ—just a Reader c. And from this Bolsecks credit I make no doubt but the Papists will think they may warrantably descrâ—bâ— me if I be thought worthy their reâ—embrance in all following Ageâ— though now I have nothing from them but good wordâ— But it is a small thing to be judged by man especially when our â—â—uâ—â— enjoy the Lord. They way-laid the Messengers that I sent Letters by to friends took them from the â— by force seâ—â— them to 〈…〉 to the Council of State to the trouble of those I wrote to though nothing was found but â—â—noâ—ency And this was by my old 〈…〉 who differed from â—â—â— in nothing but â—â—tant 〈…〉 Changes of our Government and yet 〈…〉
earth or from a carrion in a ditch so will our glorified immortal bodies differ from this mortal corruptible flesh If a skilful workman can turn a little earth and ashes into such curious transparent glasses as we daily see and if a little seed that bears no shew of such a thing can produce the more beautiful flowers of the earth and if a little acorn can bring forth the greatest Oak why should we once doubt whether the seed of everlasting life and glory which is now in the blessed souls with Christ can by him communicate a perfection to the flesh that is dissolved into its elements There 's no true beauty but that which is there received from the face of God And if a glympse made Moses face to shine what glory will Gods glory communicate to us when we have the fullest endless intuition of it There only is the strength and there 's the riches and there 's the honour and there 's the pleasure and here are but the shadows and dreams and names and images of these precious things And the perfection of the soul that 's now imperfect will be such as cannot now be known The very nature and manner of Intellection Memory Volition and Affections will be unconceivably altered and elevated even as the soul it self will be and much more because of the change on the corruptible body which in these acts it now makes use of But of these things I have spoke so much in the Saints Rest that I shall say no more of them now but this that in a Believer that expects this blessed change and knows that he shall never till then be perfect there is much unreasonableness in the inordinate unwillingness and fears of death 12. You know that fears and unwillingness can do no good but much increase your suffering and make your death a double death If it be bitter naturally make it not more bitter wilfully I speak this of a violent death for Christ as well as of a natural death For as the one cannot be avoided if we would so the other cannot be avoided when Christ calleth us to it without the loss of our Salvation and therefore it may be called Necessary as well as the other Necessary suffering and death is enough without thâ— addition of unnecessary fears 13. Nay were it but to put an end to the inordinate fears of death even death it self should be the less fearful to us These very fears are troublesome to many an upright soul and should we not desire to be past them As a woman with Child is in fear of the pain danger of her travel but joyful when it 's over so is the true believer himself too oft afraid of the departing hour but death puts an end to all those fears Is it the pain that you fear Why how soon will it be over Is it the strangeness of your souls to God and the place that you are passing to This also will be quickly over and one moment will give you such full acquaintance with the blessed God and the Celestial inhabitants and the world in which you are to live that you will find your self no stranger there but be more joyfully familiar and content than ever you were in the bosom of your dearest friend The Infant in the Womb is a stranger to this lighter open world and all the inhabitants of it and yet it is nor best stay there You can fail for commodity to a Country that you never saw and why cannot you pass with peace and joy to a God a Christ a Heaven that you never saw But yet you are not wholly a stranger there Is it not that God that you have loved and that hath first loved you Have you not been brought into the world by him and lived by him and been preserved and provided for by him and do you not know him Is it not your Father and he that hath given you his Son and his Spirit have you not found an inclination towards him desires after him and some taste of his love and communion with him and yet are you wholly unacquainted with him Know ye not him whom you have loved above all in whom you have trusted and whom you have daily served in the world Who have you lived to but him for whom else have you laid out your time and labour and yet do you not know him And know you not that Christ that hath purposely come down into flesh that you might know him and that hath shewed himself to you in a holy life and bitter death and in abundant precious Gospel mercies and in Sacramental representations that so he might entertain a familiarity with you and infinite distance might not leave you too strange to God Know you not that Spirit that hath made so many a motion to your soul that hath sanctified you and formed the image of God upon you and hath dwelt in you so long and made your hearts his very work-house where he hath been daily doing somewhat for God It is not possible that you should be utterly strange to him that you Live to and Live from and Live in and not know him by whom you know your selves and all things nor see that Light by which you see whatever you see O but you say you never saw him and have no distinct apprehension of his essence Answ What! Would you make a Creature of him that can be limited comprehended or seen with fleshly mortal eyes Take heed of such imaginations It is the understanding that must see him You know that he is most Wise and Good and Great and that he is the Creator and Sustainer and Ruler of the world and that he is your Reconciled Father in Christ and is this no knowledg of him And then the Heaven that you are to go to is it that you are an Heir of where you have laid up your treasure and where your hearts and conversation hath so long been and yet do you not know it You have had many a thought of it and bestowed many a days labour for it and yet do you not know it O but you never saw it for all this Answ It is a spiritual blessedness that flesh and blood can neither enjoy nor see But by the eye of the mind you have often seen at least some glimpse of it You know that it is the present intuition and full fruition of God himself and your glorified Redeemer with his blessed Angels and Saints in perfect Love and Joy and Praise And if you know this you are not altogether strangers to heaven And for the Saints and heavenly Inhabitants you are not wholly strangers to them Some of them you have known in the flesh and others of them you have known in the spirit You are fellow-Citizens with the Saints and of the houshold of God and therefore cannot be utterly unacquainted with them But me thinks the stranger you are to God and to Heaven and to the Saints