such useless members forseiting their very sustenance then surely he that is such or worse speeds fair if you leave him food and raiment 4. And the great command of doing all to Gods Glory and serving him with our substance will not be obeyed if you leave your Riches and Estates in the hands of such persons meerly because they are your Children No doubt but that is a selfish and unconscionable course and the thing that sets up the ungodly to disturb the Church Lord it over the world while parents furnish them with Riches to do the Devil eminent service with Object But who knows but God may convert them Answ You cannot guide your actions by things unknown You have no promise of their conversion nor much probability when they have frustrated all your Counsels and means of their good education and grace is supernatural and therefore you must proceed upon grounds that are known And for remoter Kindred if they may be as serviceable to God with what I give them as others nature teacheth me to prefer them before others but otherwise Grace teacheth me both to love a godly stranger better than ungodly kindred and to lay out all that I have as may be most serviceable to God CHAP. LVII Q. How we must love our Neighbours as our selves Quest 7. HOw is it that Self-denial requireth us to love our neighbour as our selves Is it with the same degree of Love Answ I answered this on the by before Briefly 1. The chief part of the precept is Negative thus q. d. Set not up thy self against the welfare of thy neighbour Draw not from him or covet not that which is his to thy self and confine not thy love and care of thyself 2. And it comprehendeth this positive and that as to the kind of Love we should love both our selves and neighbours as means to God and for the interest of God and in that respect there is an equality we must appretiative or estimatively love a better and more serviceable man that hath more of Gods Spirit in him above our selves and an equal person equally with our selves with this Rational Love which intendeth all for God 3. But Natural Love which is put into a man for self-preservation will be stronger to self than to another and alloweth us caeteris paribus to prefer and first preserve and provide for our selves And in this regard our neighbour must be loved but as a second self or next our selves 4. But this Natural Love in the exercise of it at least in imperate acts is to be subservient to our Rational spiritual Love and to be over-mastered by it And therefore it is that as Reason teacheth an Heathen to prefer his Country before his life though the instinct of Nature incline us more to life so faith teacheth a Christian much more to prefer Gods honour and the Gospel Church Common-wealth and his neighbours good when it more conduceth to these ends than his own before himself his liberty or life CHAP. LVIII Q. Is Self-revenge and Penance self-denial Quest 8. WHether self-denial require us after sin to use vindictive penance or punishment of the flesh by fasting watching going barefoot lying hard wearing hair-cloth or to do this ordinarily as some of the Papists Monks and Fryars do Answ The easiness of this case may allow a brief decision 1. The Body must be so far afflicted as is needful to humble it and subdue it to the spirit and tame its Rebellion and fit it for the service of God 2. The exercise of a holy revenge on our selves may be a lower end subservient to this 3. It must also be so far humbled as is necessary to express Repentance to the Church when Absolution is expected upon publick Repentance 4. As also to concur with the soul in secret or open humiliation But 1. He that shall think that whippings or sackcloth or going bare-foot or other self-punishing are of themselves good works and meritorious with God or satisfie his Justice or are a state of perfection doth offer God a hainous sin under the name and conceit of a good work 2. And he that shall by such self-afflicting unfit his Body for the service of God yea that doth not cherish it so far as is necessary to fit it for duty is guilty of self-murder and defrauding God of his service and abusing his creature and depriving others of the help we owe them so that iâ— one word the Body must be so used as may best fit it for Gods service And to think that self-afflicting is a good work meerly as it is penalty or suffering to the body or that we may go further herein is to think 1. That we should use our Body worse than our beast for we will no further afflict him than is necessary to tame him or serve our selves by him and not to disable him for service 2. And it will teach men to kill themselves for that is a greater penalty to the body than whipping or fasting 3. And it is an offering God a sacrifice of cruelty and Robbery which we commit against himself and man But I must needs add that though some Fryars and Melancholy people are apt to go too far in this and pine their bodies or misuse them with conceits of merit and satisfaction yet almost all the common people run into the contrary extream and pamper and please their flesh to the displeasing of God and the ruine of their souls And I know but few that have need to be restrained from afflicting or taking down the flesh too much CHAP. LIX Q. Is self-denial to be without Passion Quest 9. WHether self-denial consist in the laying by of all Passions and bringing the soul to an impassionate serenity Answ The Stoicks and some Behmenists think so But so doth not God or any well informed man For 1. God would not have made the Affections in vain It is not the Passions but the disorder of them that is sinful or the fruit of sin 2. We are commanded to exercise all the Affections or Passions for God and on other sutable objects We must Love God with all the heart and soul and might which is not without affection or passion We must Love his servants his Church his Word his wayes We must fear him above them that can kill us we must hunger and thirst after his Righteousness and pant after him as the Hart doth after the Water-brooks We must be angry and sin not A zeal for God is the life of our Graces we must always be zealous in a good matter fervent in Spirit serving the Lord. We must hate evil and sorrow for it when we are guilty and grieve under the sense of our miscarriages and Gods displeasure And all these expresly commanded in the Word are holy Affections or Passions of the soul 3. Yea it is the Work of the Holy Ghost to sanctifie all these Passions that they may be used for God and they are called by
that use it not for the fashion of this world passeth away 1 Cor. 7. 29 30 31. And when the soul of the worldly fool is required of him then whose shall all their Dignities and Honours and Riches be In the mean time God judgeth not by outward appearance as man judgeth nor honoureth any for being honoured of men Solus honor merito qui datur ille datur These Truths well known to you I thought meet here to set before your eyes not knowing whether I shall any more converse with you in the flesh and also to desire you seriously to read over these popular Sermons perswaded to the Press by the importunity of some faithful Brethren that love a mean Discourse on so necessary a subject Watch and pray that you enter not into temptation I rest Your Friend Richard Baxter Sept 12. 1659. THE PRFFACE Readers I Here present to your serious consideration a Subject of such Necessity and Consequence that the Peace and safety of Churches Nations Families and souls do lie upon it The Eternal God was the Beginning and the End the Interest the attractive the confidence the desire the delight the All of man in his upright uncorrupted State Though the Creator planted in mans Nature the principle of Natural Self-love as the spring of his endeavours for Self-preservation and a notable part of the engine by which he governeth the world yet were the parts subservient to the Whole and the whole to God And Self-love did subserve the Love of the Universe and of God and man desired his own Preservation for these higher Ends. When sia stept in it broke this order and taking advantage from the natural innocent principle of Self-love it turned man from the Love of God and much abated his Love to his neighbour and the publick good and turned him to Himself by an inordinate self-love which terminateth in himself and principally in his Carnal-self instead of God and the Common good so that Self is become All to Corrupted nature as God was All to Nature in its integrity Selfishness is the souls Idolatry and Adultery the sum of its Original and increased Pravity the Beginning and End the life and strength of actual sin even as the Love of God is the Rectitude and Fidelity of the soul and the sum of all our special Grace and the Heart of the new Creature and the life and strength of actual holiness Selfishness in one word expresseth all our Aversion Positively as the want of the Love of God expresseth it Privatively and all our sin is summarily in these two Even as all our Holiness is summarily in the Love of God and in self-denial It is the work of the Holy Ghost by sanctifying grace to bring off the soul again from Self to God Self-denial therefore is half the essence of Sanctification No man hath any more Holiness than he hath Self-denial And therefore the Law which the Sanctifying Spirit writeth on the heart doth set up God in the first Table and our neighbour in the second against the usurpation and encroachment of this Self It saith nothing of Love or Duty to our selves as such expresly In seeking the Honour and Pleasing of God and the Good of our neighbour we shall most certainly find our own Felicity which nature teacheth us to desire So that all the Law is Fulfilled in Love which includeth Self-denial as Light includeth the expulsion of darkness oâ— rather as Loyalty includeth a Cessation of Rebellion and a rejection of the Leaders of it and as conjugal fidelity includeth the rejection of Harlots The very meaning of the first Commandment is Thou shalt Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart c. which is the sum of the first Table and the Commandment that animateth all the rest The very meaning of the last Commandment is Thou shalt Love thy neighbour as thy self which is the summary of the second Table and in General forbiddeth all particular injuries to others not enumerated in the fore-going precepts and secondarily animateth the four antecedent precepts The fifth Commandment looking to both Tables and conjoyning them commandeth us to Honour our Superiours in Authority both as they are the Officers of God and so paticipatively Divine and as they are the Heads of humane Societies and our subjection necessary to Common good so that self-denial is principally required in the first Commandment that is The denying of self as opposite to God and his Interest And self-denial is required in the Last Commandment that is The denying of self as it is an enemy to our neighbours Right and welfare and would draw from him unto our selves Self-love and self-seeking as opposite to our neighbours good is the thing forbidden in that Commandment and Charity or Loving our neighbour as our selves and desiring his Welfare as our own is the thing commanded Self-denial is required in the fifth Commandment in a double respect according to the double respect of the Commandment 1. In respect to God whose Governing Authority is exercised by Governours their Power being a beam of his Majesty the fifth Commandment requireth us to deny our selves by due subjection and by honouring our Superiours that is to deny our own aspiring desires and our refractory minds and disobedient self-willedness and to take heed that we suffer not within us any proud or rebellious dispositions or thoughts that would lift us up above our Rulers or exempt us from subjection to them 2. In respect to humane Societies for whose Good Authority and Government is appointed the fifth Commandment obligeth us to deny our Private interest and in all competitions to prefer the publick good and maketh a promise of temporal peace and welfare in a special manner to those that in obedience to this Law do prefer the Honour of Government and the Publick Peace and welfare before their Own Thus Charity as opposed to selfishness and including self-denial is the very sum and fulfilling of the Law And selfishness is the radical comprehensive sin containing uncharitableness which breaks it all And as the Law so also the Redeemer in his Example and his Doctrine doth teach us and that more plainly and urgently this lesson of self-denial The life of Christ is the pattern which the Church must labour to imitate And Love and self-denial were the summary of his life Though yet he had no sinful self to deny but only natural self He denyed himself in avoiding sin but we must deny our selves in returning from it He loved not his Life in comparison of his love to his Father and to his Church He appeared without desirable form or comeliness He was despised and rejected of men a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief he bore our griefs and carryed our sorrows and was esteemed stricken smitten of God and afflicted he was wounded for our transgressions he was bruised for our iniquities the chastisement of our peace was laid upon him the Lord laid upon him the iniquity of
us all He was oppressed and afflicted yet he opened not his mouth he is brought as a Lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before her sheerers is dumb so he opened not his mouth He was taken from prison and from judgement he was cut off out of the land of the living for the transgression of his people was he stricken It pleased the Lord to bruise him he put him to grief Isa 53. What was his whole life but the exercise of Love and self-denial He denyed himself in Love to his Father obeying him to the death and pleasing him in all things He denyed himself in Love to mankind in bearing our transgressions and redeeâ—ing us from the curse by being made a curse for us Gal. 3. 13. He made himself of no reputation and tock upon him the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of men and being found in fashion as a man he humbled himself and became obedient unto death even the death of the Cross Phil. 2. 6 7 8. And this he did to teach us by his example to deny our selves to be like minded having the same love being of one accord of one mind that nothing be done through strife or vain-glory but in lowliness of mind that each esteem others better than themselves Looking not every man after his own matters but every man also after the things of others and thus the same mind should be in us that was in Christ Jesus Phil. 2. 3 4. 5. He denyed himself also in obedient submission to Governours He was subject to Joseph and Mary Luke 2. 51. He paid tribute to Caesar and wrought a Miracle for money rather than it should be unpaid Matth. 17. 24 25 26. He disowned a personal worldly Kingdom Joh. 18. 36. when the people would have made him a King he avoided it Joh. 6. 15. as being not a Receiver but a giver of Kingdoms He would not so much as once play the part of a Judge or divider of inheritances teaching men that they must be justly made such before they do the work of Magistrates Luke 12. 14. And his Spirit in his Apostles teacheth us the same Doctrine Rom. 13. 1 Pet. 2. 13 14 15 16 17. Eph. 6. 1 5. And they seconded his example by their own that we might be followers of them as they were of Christ What else was the life of holy Paul and the rest of the Apostles but a constant exercise of Love and Self-denial Labouring and travelling night and day enduring the basest usage from the world and undergoing indignities and manifold sufferings from unthankful men that they might please the Lord and edifie and save the souls of men and living in poverty that they might help the world to the everlasting riches In a word as Love is the fulfilling of the whole Law as to the positive part so is selfishness the evil that stands in contrariety thereto even self-conceitedness self-willedness self-love and self-seeking and thus far self-denial is the sum of our obedience as to the terminus à quo and Christ hath peremptorily determined in his Gospel that If any man will come after him he must deny himself and take up his Cross and follow him and that whosoever will put in a reserve but for the saving of his Life shall lose it and whosoever will lose his life for his sake shall find it Matth. 16. 24 25. And that he that doth not follow him bearing his Cross and that forsaketh not all he hath for him cannot be his Disciple Luke 14. 27 33. According to the nature of these holy rules examples is the nature of theworkings of the Spirit of Christ upon the soul He usually beginneth in shewing manhis sin and misery his utter insufficiency to help himself his alienation from God and enmity to him his blindness and deadness his emptiness and nothingness and then he brings him from himself to Christ and sheweth him his fulness and sufficiency and by Christ he cometh to the Father and God doth receive his own again It is one half of the work of Sanctification to cast ourSelves from our Understandings our Wills our Affections and our Conversations to subdue self-conceitedness self-willedness self-self-love and self-seeking to mortifie our carnal wisdom and our Pride and our concupiscence and our earthly members And the other and chiefest part consisteth in setting up God where self did rule that his Wisdom may be our Guide his Will our Law his Goodness the chiefest object of our Love and his service the work business of our lives The Spirit doth convince us that we are not our Own and have no power at all to dispose of our selves or any thing we have but under God as he commands us It convinceth us that God is our Owner and absolute Lord and that as we are wholly his so we must be wholly devoted to him and prefer his interest before our own and have no interest of our own but what is his as derived from him and subservient to him Fear doth begin this work of self-denial but it 's Love that brings us up to sincerity The first state of corrupted man is a state of selfishness and servitude to his own Concupiscence where pride and sensuality bear rule and have no more resistance than now and then some frightening uneffectual check When God is calling men out of this corrupted selfish state he usually or oft at least doth cast them into a state of Fear awakening them to see their lost condition and terrifying them by the Belief of his Threatnings and the sense of his indignation and making use of their Self-love to cause them to fly from the wrath to come and to cry out to the messengers of Christ What shall we do to be saved Some by these Fears are but troubled and restrained a little while and quickly overcoming them settle again in their selfish sensual senseless state some have the beginnings of holy Love conjunct with Fear of whom more anon And some do from this principle of Self-love alone betake themselves to a kind of Religious course and forsake the practise of those grosser sins that bred their Fears and fall upon the practise of Religious duties and also with some kind of faith do trust on the satisfaction and merits of Christ that by this means they may get some hopes that they shall escape the everlasting misery which they fear All this Religion that is animated by Fear alone without the Love of God and Holiness is but preparatory to a state of grace and if men rest here it is but a state of Hypocrisie or self-deceiving religiousness For it is still the old Principle of selfishness that reigns Till Love hath brought man up to God he hath no higher end than Himself The true mark by which these slavish professors and hypocrites may discern themselves is this They do the Good which they would not do and the evil which they do not they would do
Directions for this part of self-denial CHAP. XXII False Stories Romances and other tempting Books 5. ANother point of sensuality to be denied is The reading or hearing of false and tempting Books and those that only tend to please an idle fancy and not to edifie Such as are Romances and other feigned histories of that nature with Books of tales and jests and foolish complements with which the world so much aboundeth that there 's few but may have admittance to this Library of the Devil Abundance of old feigned Stories and new Romances are in the hands especially of Children and idle Gentlemen filthy lustful Gallants or â—…ty persons that savour not greater matters but have spirits sutable to such gawds as these But if they were only toyes I should say the less but having seen by long observation the mischief of them I desire you to note it in these few particulars 1. They ensnare us in a world of guilt by drawing us to the neglect of those many those great and necessary things that all of us have to mind and study O for a man or woman that is under a load of sin unassured of pardon and salvation that is near to death and unready to die to be seen with a story or Romance in their hand what a gross incongruity is this It 's fitter the Book of God should be in your hand It 's that which you must live by and be judged by There 's much that you are yet ignorant of which you have more need to be acquainted with than Fables Are you not ignorant of an hundred truths that you should know that God hath revealed to further your salvation and can you lay them all by to read Romances Are you travelling towards another world with a Play-book in your hand O that you did but know what greater matters you have to mind and to to do Do all that you have to do first that 's of a thousand times more worth and weight and need and then come to me and I will answer your Objections What harm is it to read a Play-book First Quench the fire of sin and wrath that is kindled in your souls and see that you understand the Laws of God and read over those profitable Treatises of Divines that the world aboundeth with and your souls more need and then tell me what mind or time you have for Fables 2. Moreover it dangerously bewitcheth and corrupteth the minds of young and empty people to read these books Nature doth so close with them and delight in them that they presently breed an inordinacy of affection and steal away the heart from God and his holy Word and ways It cannot be that the Love and delights of the heart can be let out on such trash as these and not be taken off from God and the most needful things That is the most dangerous thing to the soul that works it self deepest into the affections and is most delighted in instead of God And therefore I may well conclude that Play-books and History-Fables and Romances and such like are the very poyson of youth the prevention of grace the fuel of wantonness and lust and the food and work of empty vicious graceless persons and it 's great pity that they be not banished out of the Common-wealth 3. Moreover they rob men of much precious time in which much better work might be done much precious knowledge might be got while they are exercised in these Fables Those hours must be answered for And there is not the worst of you but then had rather be able to say I spent those days and hours in prayer and meditating on the life to come and reading the Law and Gospel of Christ and the Books which his Servants wrote for my instruction than to say I spent it in reading Love-books and Tale-books and Play-books All these considered I beseech you throw away these pestilent vanities and take them not in your hands nor suffer them in the hands of your children or in your houses but burn them as you would do a conjuring-book as they did Acts 19. 19. that so they may do no mischief to any others CHAP. XXIII Vain Sports and Pastimes to be denied 6. ANother part of fleshly interest to be denied is vain sports and pastimes and all unnecessary Recreations For this also is one of the harlots that the flesh is defiled with Recreations are lawful and useful if thus qualified 1. If the matter of them be not forbidden For there 's no sporting with sin 2. If we have an holy Christian end in them that is to fit our bodies and minds for the service of God and do not do it principally to please the flesh If without dissembling our hearts can say I would not meddle with this recreation If I thought I could have my body and mind as â—ell strengthned and fitted for Gods service without it 3. If we use not recreations without need as to the said End nor continue them longer than they are useful to that End and so do not cast away any of our precious time on them in vain 4. If they be not uncivil excessively costly cruel or accompanied with the like unlawful accidents 5. If they contain not more probable incentives to vice than to vertue as to Covetousness Lust Passion Prophaneness c. 6. If they are not like to be more hurtful to the souls of others that joyn with us than profitable to us 7. If they be not like to do more hurt by offending any that are weak or dislike them than good to us that use them 8. If they be used seasonably in a time that they hinder not greater duties 9. If we do it not in company unfit for us to joyn with 10. Especially if we make a right choice of Recreations and when divers are before us we take the best that which is least offensive least expensive of time and cost and which best furthereth the health of our bodies with the smallest inconvenience These Rules being observed Recreations are as lawful as sleep or food or Physick But alas they are made another thing by the sensual ungodly world Sometime they must sport themselves with sin it self in the abuse of Gods Name and Servants and Creatures Tipling and prophane Courses are some mens chiefest recreations And though the Law of the Land forbid most of their sports and the Law of God commandeth them to obey all the Laws of men that are not against the Law of God yet this is a matter of nothing to their consciences And let the matter be never so lawful they make all impious by a carnal end It 's none of their intention to strengthen and fit themselves for the service of God and an holy righteous life by their recreations but it 's meerly because their fancy and flesh is pleased in them Even as the Drunkard Glutton or Whoremonger that have no higher end than Pleasure and can give you no better account
down to be familiar with us and to bring us into a state of friendship and holy boldness with God himself And yet shall we draw back 17. I would put this question to you for your serious answer Can you be contented yea do you desire to have no more of God than here you have Is this much of the knowledge of him and his will and works sufficient for you Would you be no nearer him and enjoy no more of him What ever your flesh say sure the love of God in your hearts will not suffer you considerately to say so Consult with your new nature with the holy principle that is in you Me thinks you should not be content to remain for ever at such a distance from God as you are If you can I blame you not to be afraid of death If not Why then are you loth to go to him 18. And I would ask you also Whether you are content with the measure of sanctification which you have or which is to be attained in this life Are you content to live for ever with no more knowledge or love of God No more faith or love to Christ No more sense of the worth of Grace No more righteousness or peace or joy in the Holy Ghost No more meekness humility or heavenly mindedness Are you contented rather to live for ever under all the pride and ignorance and passion and selfishness and lust and worldliness and all other sins that here beset you rather than to remove to the place of perfection and yield that death shall break the vessel and nest of your corruptions If you care so little for the grace of God and see so little beauty in his image and see so little odiousness in sin that you had rather keep it for ever than go to God by the passage of death I blame you not to be afraid to die But if otherwise Why do you desire perfection and deliverance and yet be so loth to come and receive it When you know that it is not to be had on earth 19. Moreover are you contented to remain for ever as unserviceable to God as here you are Alas how little do you for him how much do you to displease him lay together all the service of your lives and how small and poor a matter is it And would you still live at these rates Will this content you Me thinks it should not if you have grace in your hearts Why then do you not desire to depart and to be with Christ There you shall be perfectly fitted for his service and therefore perfectly perform it What other service God will have for us we cannot yet tell but Love and Praise we are sure will be the chief and the rest will be good and holy and honourable what ever it be If you are Christians me thinks the sense of your unprofitableness and of your unpleasing frame of heart and life should be your daily grief and therefore you should desire the state where you may be more serviceable and not be so unwilling of it 20. Lastly I would ask you Are you contented to attain no other end of all your life and labours and sufferings than here you do attain What is it that you pray for and seek and strive for is it for no more than is to be had on earth If you have no higher design intentions or desires I cannot much blame you to be loth to die But if you have me thinks no man should be unwilling to attain his end What have you done and suffered so much for heaven and now would you not go to it Had you rather all your labour were lost Do you desire to be happy or do you not If you do as certainly you do would you not go where happiness it to be had when you are sure that it is not not to be had on earth What say you is there not plain reason in all this that I propound to you It is a sad case when men seek not God and Heaven as their felicity but only as a lesser evil than hell which they would endure rather than enjoy when they can keep no longer this earthly life which they account their felicity where this is the case it 's a sad case And were not this a common case there would not be so much unwillingness to depart And now Christian Reader I beseech thee weigh these foregoing Considerations and judge whether it be not a contradiction to thy profession and unseemly for a believer to be unwilling to die when God shall call him Much more to cast away evelasting life for the saving of his temporal life but a little longer O learn the needful lesson of self-denial especially in this point of denying your lives He that can do this can do all and may be sure that he is mortified indeed And he that can do all the rest and sticks but at this and could part with any thing for Christ save his life doth indeed do nothing nor is it esteemed self-denying It is a lesson therefore that is exceeding necessary to be learn'd and worthy all your time and diligence even to deny your Lives for the love of Christ Perhaps you will say We live in days of peace and liberty and therefore are not like to be called to Martyrdom What need then have we to learn this lesson I answer 1. You are uncertain what changes you may see but if you never suffer yet you must be sure that you have a heart that would suffer if God did call you to it For though you may be saved without suffering where you are not called to it yet you cannot be saved without a heart that would suffer if you were put upon it 2. And if you cannot deny your lives for Christ you will not sincerely deny your pleasures or profits or honours for him If you would not suffer death for him if he called you to it you will not sincerely suffer losses and wrongs and reproaches for him which almost every Christian must expect So that to try your own sincerity you should look after it 3. And it is certain that death will shortly come and then if you have not learnt this lesson to deny your selves even in case of life you will die unwillingly and uncomfortably At least me thinks I might reason thus with any man of you good or bad Either death is indeed terrible or not If it be not why do you so fear it when it comes If it be why do you not as well fear it before it comes even in your youth and health For you are sure then that you must die as if it were upon you A wonderful thing it is that mans heart should be so unreasonably insensible and that there should be so great a difference in the affections of most in regard of death It 's no matter of doubt or controversie whether they shall die He is a block and not a man that knoweth it
his soul And now Sirs I must let go this subject as to you that have heard it preacht for we must not be always on one thing but I am exceedingly afraid lest I have lost my labour with most of you and shall leave you as selfish as I found you because sad experience tells me that it is so natural and obstinate an enemy that I have discovered and that you have now to set your selves against I have done my work but self hath not done but is still at work in you I cannot now go home with every one of you but self will go home with you I cannot be at hand with every one of you when the next temptation comes but self will be at hand to draw you to entertain it When you are next tempted to error to pride to lust to contention with your brethren by words or real injuries what will you do then and how will you stand against this enemy If God be not your Interest and the dearest to your souls and you see not with his light and will not by his Will and self-denial be not become as it were your nature you will never stand after all this that I have said but self will be your undoing for ever If you have not somewhat within you as selfishness is within you to be always at hand as it is and ready and constant and powerful to overcome it it will be your ruine after all the warnings that have been given you And this preserving Principle must be the Spirit of God by causing you to Deny your selves Believe in Christ and Love God above all I say again that you may think on it and live upon it The sum of all your Religion or saving grace is in these three Faith Self-denial and the Love of God Departing from Carnal-self Returning home to God by Love and this by faith in the Redeemer is the true Christianity and the Life that leadeth to everlasting life FINIS A DIALOGUE OF Self-denial Flesh Spirit Flesh WHat become Nothing ne're perswade me to it God made me Something and I 'le not undo it Spirit Thy Something is not thine but his that gave it Resign it to him if thou mean to save it Flesh God gave me Life and shall I choose to die Before my time or pine in miserie Spirit God is thy Life If then thou fearest death Let him be all thy soul thy pulse and breath Flesh What! must I hate my self when as my brother Must love me d I may not hate another Spirit Loath what is loathsom Love God in the rest He truly love's himself that love 's God best Flesh Doth God our ease and pleasure to us grudge Or doth Religion make a man a drudge Spirit That is thy Poyson which thou callest Pleasure And that thy drudgery which thou count'st thy treasure lFesh Who can eudure to be thus mewed up And under Laws for every bit and cup Spirit Gods Cage is better than the Wilderness When Winter comes Liberty brings distress Flesh Pleasure 's mans Happiness The Will 's not free To choose our misery This cannot be Spirit God is mans End with him are highest joyes Sensual pleasures are but dreams and toyes Should sin seem sweet Is Satan turn'd thy friend Will not thy sweet prove bitter in the end Hast thou found sweeter pleasures than Gods Love Is a fools laughter like the joyes above Beauty surpasseth all deceitful paints What 's empty mirth to the delights of Saints God would not have thee have less joy but more And therefore shew's thee the eternal store Flesh Who can love baseness poverty and want And under pining sickness be content Spirit He that hath laid his treasure up above And plac'd his portion only in Gods love That waits for Glory when his life is done This man will be content with God alone Flesh What good will sorrow do us Is not mirth Fitter to warm a cold heart here on earth Troubles will come whether we will or no I 'le never banish pleasure and choose wo. Spirit Then choose not sin touch not forbidden things Taste not the sweet that endless sorrow brings If thou love pleasure take in God thy fill Look not for lasting joyes in doing ill Flesh Affliction 's bitter life will soon be done Pleasure shall be my part ere all be gone Spirit Prosperity is barren all men say The soyl is best where there 's the deepest way Life is for work and not to spend in play Now sow thy seed labour while it is day The Huntsman seeks his game in barren plains Dirty land answers best the Plowmans pains Passengers care not so the way be fair Husbandmen would have the best ground and air First think what 's safe and fruitful There 's no pleasure Like the beholding of thy chiefest treasure Flesh Nature made me a man and gave me sonse Changing of Nature is a vain pretense It taught me to love women honour ease And every thing that doth my senses please Spirit Nature hath made thee Rational and Reason Must rule the sense in ends degrees and season Reason's the Rider sense is but the Horse Which then is fittest to direct thy course Give up the reins and thou becom'st a beast Thy fall at death will sadly end thy feast Flesh Religion is a dull and heavy thing Whereas a merry cup will make me sing Love's entertainments warm both heart and brain And wind my fancy to the highest strain Spirit Cupid hath stuck a feather in thy cap And lull'd thee dead asleep on Venus's lap Thy brains are tipled with some wantons eyes Thy Reason is become Lust's sacrifice Playing a game at Folly thou hast lost Thy wit and soul and winnest to thy cost Thy soul now in a filthy channel lies While fancy seems to sore above the skies Beauty will soon be stinking loathsome earth Sickness and death mar all the wantons mirth It is not all the pleasure thou canst find Will contervail the sting that 's left behind Blind brutish souls that cannot love their God! And yet can dote on a defiled clod Flesh Why should I think of what will be to morrow An ounce of mirth is worth a pound of sorrow Spirit But where 's that mirth when sorrows overtake thee Will it then hold when life and God forsake thee Forgetting Death or Hell will not prevent it Now lose thy day thou 'lt then too late repent it Flesh Must I be pain'd and wronged and not feel As if my heart were made of flint or steel Spirit Dost thou delight to feel thy hurt and smart Would not an Antidote preserve thy heart Impatience is but Self-tormenting folly Patience is cordial easie sweet and holy Is not that better which turns grief to peace Than that which doth thy misery encrease Flesh When sport and wine and beauty do invite Who is it whom such baits will not incite Spirit He that perceives the look and sees the end Whither it is that
A TREATISE OF Self-Denial By Richard Baxter Pastor of the Church at Kederminster Phil. 2. 20 21. I have no man like minded who will naturally care for your estate For all seek their own not the things which are Jesus Christs LONDON Printed by Robert White for Nevil Simmons at the Princes Arms in Saint Pauls Church-yard 1675. A PREMONITION Concerning this Second Edition READER I Take the Love of God and Self-denial to be the sum of all saving Grace and Religion the first of the Positive part the second of the Oppositive or Negative part And I judge of the measure of my own and all other mens true piety by these two And it is the rarity of these two which assureth me of the rarity of sincere Godliness O how much selfishness and how little Love of God are too often found among those contenders for supposed true Doctrine true Worship true Discipline and the true Church who can say that their Zeal for these things doth eat up themselves their Charity their Peaceableness and their Brethren The same men that will not abate an opinion a formality a singularity for the Churches Peace and Concord or for the interest of Love and the healing of our wounds will as hardly abate a jot of their Wealth their worldly honour their carnal interest or selfish wills which shews that their zeal and seeming Orthodoxness and wisdom as in them is not from above but from beneath Jam. 3. 15 16 17. O that men knew what hearts-ease self-denial bringeth by mortifying all that corrupteth and troubleth the souls of sinners And if that part of Religion which seemeth hardest harshest be so sweet what is our Love and Delight in God but the foretaste of Heaven it self But the soul is seldom fit to relish this Doctrine aright till some special providence or conviction have made all the world notoriously insufficient for our relief But he that in or after sharp affliction will still be selfish in a predominant degree is next to hopeless I remember that one accounted of eminent wisdom a little before he forsook the Land of his Nativity made this the first word that ever he spake to me I thank you especially for your Book of Self-denial And when we are going out of the world we shall all be much fitter to relish and understand the Doctrine of Self-denial than now we are But though undeniable reason thus presented by the grace of God do much cure some particular souls yet alas the World the most of the Church visible the Land is so far uncured as that selfishness still triumpheth over our innocency piety and peace and seemeth to deride our hopes of remedy Were Profession as rare as true Self-denial I should be of their mind who reduce the Church into a much narrower room than either the Roman the National the Presbyterian or Independent Alas how few are those true Believers whose inordinate SELF-LOVE SELF-CONCEITEDNESS SELF-WILL and SELF-SEEKING are truly conquered by FAITH and turned into the LOVE of GOD as GOD and of the PUBLICK GOOD and of their NEIGHBOUR as themselves and into a HUMBLED UNDERSTANDING conscious of its Ignorance and into a humbled submissive WILL which is more disposed to follow than to lead and to obey than to be Imperious and domineer and into a LIFE entirely devoted to God and to the Common good But this complaint was made before But what we most feel we are most inclined to â—…r and to press that on others which we find most necessary to our selves And I must say that of all the Books which I have written I peruse none so often for the use of my own soul in its daily work as my Life of Faith and this of Self-denial and the last part of the Saints Rest One little thing I will here tell the Reader that no Book of mine except the two first had ever the word Dedicatory joyned to the Epistle by my consent but I have very oft prohibited it in vain whether by the oblivion or self-conceit of the Booksellers or the Printers I cannot tell Not that I condemn the word in others but that my Epistles were still of so different an importance as did require a different Title R. B. To the Honourable Colonel JAMES BERRY c. SIR PRovidence having deprived me of the opportunity of nearer converse with you which heretofore I have enjoyed yet leaving me the same affections they work towards you as they can and have chosen here to speak to you in the hearing of the world that my words may remain to the ends intended when a private Letter may be burnt or cast aside Flattery I am confident you expect not from me because you know me and know me to be your friend And yet my late Monitor hath made many smile by accusing me of that fawning crime I am told what it is to bless my friend with a loud voice Prov. 27. 14. I have learnt my self that Open rebuke is better than secret love and that faithful are the wounds of a friend but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful Prov. 27 5 6. And therefore I shall do as I would be done by Faithfulness and Usefulness shall be the measure of my message to you And they have commanded me to set before you this lesson of Self-denial and earnestly to intreat you and again intreat you that you will faithfully Read and Learn and Practise it Though I judged you have learnt it long ago I think it not needless to mind you of it again my soul being astonished to see the power of Selfishness in the world even in those that by Confessions and Prayers and high Professions have frequently condemned it Yet this is the Radical-mortal sin Where this lives all sins virtually lives Say that a man is Selfish and in that measure you say all that is naught of him as to his inclination That Selfishness is the summe of Vice and the Capital enemy of God of Common-wealths of Order and Government of all Grace and Vertue of every holy Ordinance and Duty especially of Unity and Brotherly Love and of the welfare of our neighbours and of our own salvation I have manifested to you in the following Discourse But alas what need we words to manifest it when the flames of discord and long-continued divisions among Brethren do manifest it When hatred strife variance emulation backbiting violence rebellions bloodshed resisting and pulling down of Governments have so lamentably declared it When such havock is made by it before our eyes and the evil spirit goes on and prospereth and desolation is zealously and studiously carried on and the voice of Peace-makers is despised or drowned in the confused noise Presumptuous are they self-willed they have not been afraid to speak evil of dignities 2 Pet. 2. 10. To speak evil was that the height of presumption and self-willedness then Alas how much further hath it proceeded now even under the Cloak of Liberty and
of Religion and judge by this whether they are self-denying men Who is it for but themselves that men make such a stir for Offices and Honours and places of Superiority Surely if it were for the good of others they would not be so eager and so forward We cannot perceive that their Charity is so hâ—â— as to make them so Ambitious to be serviceable to their Brethren If that be it let them keep their service till it be desired or much needed and not be so eager to do men good against their wills and without necessity As Greg. Mag. saith of the Ministry Si non ad elationis culpam sed ad utilitatem adipsci desiderat prius vires suas cum eo quidem subiturus onere metiatur ut impar abstineat ad id cum metu cui se sufficere existimat accedat Men use not to be ambitious of duty or trouble He that desireth Government ultimately and principally for himself desireth Tyranny and not a lawful Government whose ultimate end is the common good And will not the wrath of the King of Kings be kindled without so much ado nor hell be purchased at cheaper rates than all the contrivance cares and hazards that ambitious men do draw upon themselves O ambitio inquit Bernardus ambientium crux quomodo omnes torques Omnibus places nil acrius cruciat nil molestius inquietat nil tamen apud miseros mortales celebrius negotiis ejus Wonderful that such abundant warning tameth not these proud aspiring minds They set up or admired them but yesterday whom they see taken down and despised to day and see their honour turned to scorn and yet they imitate their folly They see the sordid relicts of the most renouned Conquerours and Princes levelled with the dirt and yet they have not the wit to take warning and humble themselves that they may be exalted They know how death will shortly use them and read of the terrors that pride and ambition bring men to but all this doth not bring them to their wits When Death it self comes then they are as sneaking shrinking worms as any and the worm of ambition that fed upon their hearts in their prosperity doth breed a gnawing worm in their consciences which will torment them everlastingly But ut Juvenal Mors sola fatetur Quantula sunt hominum corpuscula This Aerugo mentis as Ambrose calls it and regnandi dira cupido ut Virg. doth keep men from knowing what they know and denyeth them the use of their understandings All former professions are forgotten repentings are repented of the best parts are corrupted and sold to the Devil as truly as Witches sell themselves though not so grosly and men are any thing that self would have them be where the humour of Ambition doth prevail and this secret poison insinuateth it self into the mind This subtile malum ut Bernard secretum virus pestis occulta doli artifex mater hypocrisis livoris parens vitiorum origo tinea sanctitatis exâ—aecatrix cordium ex remediis morbos creans ex medicina languorem generans The God of Vengeance that abhorreth the Proud and beholdeth them afar off and that cast aspirers out of Paradise will shortly take these Gallants down and lay them low enough and make them wish they had denyed themselves 2. Observe but mens desire of applause and their great impatience of dispraise and judge by this of their self-denial Who is it that is angry with those that Praise them yea though they exceed their bounds and ascribe more to them than is due Saith Seneca Si invenimus qui nos bonos viros dicat qui prudentes qui sanctos non sumus modica laudatione contenti quicquid in nos adulatio sine pudore congessit tanquam debitum prehendimus Optimos nos esse sapientissimosque affirmantibus assentimus quum sciamus illos saepe multa mentiri Adeo quoque indulgemus nobis ut laudari velimus in id cui contraria maxime facimus Even Proud men would be praised for Humility and covetous men for Liberality and fools for Wisdom and ignorant men for Learning and treacheros hypocrites for sincerity and plain honesty and few of the best do heartily distaste their own commendations or refuse any thing that 's offered them though beyond desert But if they think they are lightly or hardly thought of or hear of any that speak against them or dishonour them in the eyes of men you shall see how little they can deny themselves O how the hearts of many that seemed godly men will swell against them that speak to their disparagement What uncharitable unchristian deportment will a little injury produce What bitter words What estrangedness and division if not plain hatred and reviling and revenge Yea it were well in comparison if a due Reproof from neighbours or from Ministers that are bound to do it by the Lord would not draw forth this secret Venom and shew the world the scarcity of self-denial Let others speak never so well of God and of all good men and be never so faithful or serviceable in the Church yet if they do but speak ill of them though it 's like deservedly and justly these selfish men cannot abide them By this you may perceive what interest is strongest with them were they carryed up from themselves by the Love of God they would delight to hear the Praise of God and of their Brethren and be afraid to hear their own and say from their hearts Not unto us O Lord not unto us but to thy name be glory Psal 115. 1. To praise another may be our gain in the discharge of a duty and exercise of Love but to be Praised our selves is usually our danger Pride needeth no such fuel or bellows Non laudato sed laudantâ—bus prodest saith Augustine Esse humilem est nolle laudari in se Qui in se laudari appetit superbus esse convincitur inq id It is the expectation of these proud and selfish men that tempteth men to the odious art of flattery when they find it is the way to please And when one is flattering and the other pleased with it what a foolish and sordid employment have they Et Vani sunt qui laudantur mendaces qui laudant saith Austin It is God to whom the Praise is due whom we know we cannot Praise too much whose praises we should love to speak and hear In laude Dei est securitas laudis ut laudator non timet ne de laudato erubescat saith Austin We may boldly Praise him of whom we are sure we never need to be ashamed It is God in his servants that we must praise and it is only his Interest in our own Praise that we must regard 3. Observe but upon what account it is that most mens Affections are carried to or against their neighbours and then judge by this of their self-denial Even men that would be accounted godly do Love or hate men
the Root I HAVE already spoken of Conversion in the foregoing Discourse both opening to you the true nature of it and the reasons of its necessity and perswading men thereunto But lest so great a work should miscarry with any for want of a more particular explication I should next open the three great parts of the work distinctly and in order that is 1. From what it is that we must Turn 2. To whom we must Turn 3. And By whom we must Turn For though I touched all these in the foregoing Directions and through the discourse yet I am afraid lest so brief a touch should be uneffectual The first of these I shall handle at this time from this Text medling with no more but what is necessary to our present business You may easily perceive that the Doctrine which Christ here proclaimeth to all that have thoughts of being his followers is this that All that will be Christians must Deny themselves and take up their Cross and follow Christ and not reserve so much as their very lives but resolve to resign up all for him Self-denyal is one part of true Conversion For the opening of this I must shew you 1. What is meant by Self and 2. What by Denying this Self and 3. The Grounds and Reasons of the point and 4. I shall briefly apply it I. Self is sometime taken for the very person consisting of soul and body simply considered and this is called Natural or Personal Self 2. Self is taken for this Person considered in its capacity of earthly comforts and in relation to the present blessings of this world that tend to the prosperity of man as in the flesh And this may be called Earthly Self yet in an innocent sense 3. Self is taken for the Person as corrupted by inordinate sinful sensuality which may be called Carnal Self 4. Self may be taken for the Person in his sanctified estate which is Spiritual Self 5. And Self may be taken for the person in his Naturals and Spirituals Conjunct as he is capable of a Life of Everlasting Felicity which is the Immortal Self II. By Denying Self is meant disclaiming renouncing disowning and forsaking it Self is here lookt on partly as a party disâ—unct from Christ and withdrawn from its due subordination to God and partly as his Competitor and opposite and accordingly it is to be denyed partly by a neglect and partly by an opposition Before I come to tell you how far self must be denyed I must tell you wherein the disease of selfishness doth consist and for brevity we shall dispatch them both together And on the Negative 1. To be a natural Individual person distinct from God our Creator is none of our disease but the state which we were created in And therefore no man must under pretence of self-denyal either destroy himself or yet with some Hereticks aspire to be essentially and personally one with God so that their individual personality should be drowned in him as a drop is in the Ocean 2. The disease of selfishness lyeth not in having a Body that is capable of â—asting sweetness in the Creature or in having the Objects of our sence in which we be delighted nor yet in all actual sweetness and delight in them nor in a simple love of life it self For all these are the effects of the Creators Will. And therefore this self-denyal doth not consist in a hatred or disregard of our own lives or in a destruction of our appetites or senses or an absolute refusal to please them in the use of the Creatures which God hath given us 3. Yea though our Natures are corrupted by sin self-denyal requireth not that we should kill our selves and destroy our humane natures that we may thereby destroy the sin Self-murder is a most hainous sin which God condemneth 4. Our spiritual self or self as sanctified must not be so denyed as to deny our selves to be what we are or have what we have or do what we do we may not deny Gods Graces nor deny that they are in us as the subject nor may we restrain the holy desires which God exciteth in us or deny to fulfil them or bring them towards fruition when opportunity is offered us 5. We may not deny to accept of any mercy which God shall offer us though but a common Creature nor to use any talent for his service if he choose us for his stewards much less may we refuse any spiritual mercy that may further our Salvation It is not the self-denyal required by Christ that we deny to be Christians or to be sanctified by the spirit or to he delivered from our sins and enemies or that we deny to use the means and helps that are offered us or to accept of the priviledges purchased by Christ Much less to deny our salvation it self and to undo our own souls In a word it is not any thing that is really and finally to our hurt or loss But as to the Affirmative I shall shew you what the disease of selfishness indeed is and so what self-denyal is 1. When God had created man in his own Image he gave him a holy disposition of soul which might incline him to his Maker as his only Felicity and Ultimate End He made him to be blessed in the sight of his Glory and in the everlasting Love of God and delight in him and praises of him This excellent employment and glory did God both fit him for and set before him But the first temptation did entice him to adhere to an inferiour good for the pleasing of his flesh and the advancement of him self to a carnal kind of felicity in himself that he might be as God in knowing good and evil And thus man was suddenly taken with the Creature as a means to the pleasing of his carnal self and so did depart from God his true felicity and retired into himself in his estimation affection and intention and delivered up his Reason in subjection to his sensuality and made himself his Ultimate End With this sinful inclination are we all born into the world so that every man according to his corrupted nature doth terminate all his desires in himself and what ever he may notionally be convinced of to the contrary yet practically he makes his earthly life and the advancement and pleasure which he expecteth therein to be his felicity and end Self-denyal now is the cure of this It carryeth a man from himself again and sheweth him that he was never made to be his own felicity or end and that the flesh was not made to be pleased before God and that it is so poor and low and short a felicity as indeed is but a name and shadow of felicity and when it pretends to that a meer deceit It sheweth him how unreasonable how impious and unjust it is that a Creature and such a Creature should terminate his desires and intentions in himself And this is the principal part
of self-denyal 2. As God was mans ultimate End in his state of innocency so accordingly man was appointed to use all Creatures in order to God for his Pleasure and Glory So that it was the work of man to do his Makers will and he was to use nothing but with this intention But when man was faln from God to himself he afterwards used all things for himself even his carnal self and all that he possessed was become the provision and fuel of his lusts and so the whole creation which he was capable of using was abused by him to this low and selfish end as if all things had been made but for his delight and will But when man is brought to Deny himself he is brought to restore the Creatures to their former use and not to sacrifice them to his fleshly mind so that all that he hath and useth in the world is used to another end so far as he denyeth himself than formerly it was even for God and not himâ—elf 3. In the state of Innocency though man had naturally an aversness from death and bodily pains as being natural evils and had a desire of the welfare even of the flesh it self yet as his body was subject to his soul and his senses to his Reason so his bodily ease and welfare was to be esteemed and desired and sought but in a due subordination to his spiritual welfare and especially to his Makers Will So that though he was to value his Life yet he was much more to value his everlasting life and the pleasure and Glory of his Lord. But now when man is faln from God to Himself his Life and earthly felicity is the sweetest and the dearest thing to him that is So that he preferreth it before the Pleasing of God and everlasting life And therefore he seeketh it more and holdeth it faster as long as he can and parteth with it more unwillingly As Innocent Nature had an appetite to the objects of sense but corrupted nature hath an enraged greedy rebellious and inordinate appetite to them so Innocent nature had a love to this natural earthly life and the comforts of it but corrupted Nature hath such an inordinate love to them as that all things else are made but subordinate to them and swallowed up in this gulf even God himself is so far loved as he befriendeth these our carnal ends and furthereth our earthly prosperity and life But when men are brought to Deny themselves they are in their measures restored to their first esteem of Life and all the prosperity and earthly comforts of life Now they have learned so to love them as to love God better and so to value them as to prefer everlasting life before them and so to hold them and seek their preservation as to resign them to the will of God and to lay them down when we cannot hold them with his Love and to choose death in order to life everlasting before that life which would deprive us of it And this is the principal instance of self-denyal which Christ giveth us here in the Text as it is recited by all the three Evangelists that recite these words He that saveth his life shall lose it c. And what shall it profit a man to win all the world and lose his soul By these instances it appears that by self-denyal Christ doth mean a setting so light by all the world and by our own lives and consequently our carnal Content in these as to be willing and Resolved to part with them all rather than with him and everlasting life even as Abraham was bound to love his Son Isaac but yet so to prefer the Love and Will of God as to be able to sacrifice his Son at Gods Command And the Lord Jesus himself was the liveliest Pattern to us of his Self-denyal that ever the world saw Indeed his whole life was a continued practice of it And it hath oft convinced me that it is a special part of our Sanctification when I have considered how abundantly the Lord hath exercised himself in it for our example For as it is desperate to think with the Socinians that he did it only for our Example so it is also a desperate Error of others to think that it was only for satisfaction to God and not at all for our Example Many do give up themselves to Flesh-pleasing upon a misconceit that Christ did therefore deny his flesh to purchase them a liberty to please theirs As in his Fasting and Temptations and his sufferings by the reproach and ingratitude of men and the outward Poverty and Meanness of his condition the Lord was pleased to deny himself so especially in his last Passion and death As I have shewed elsewhere he loved his natural life and peace and therefore in manifestation of that he prayeth Father if it be thy Will let this Cup pass from me But yet when it came to the comparative practical Act he proceeded to choose his Fathers Will with death rather than life without it and therefore saith Not my Will that is my simple love of life but thy Will be done In which very words he manifesteth another will of his own besides that which he consenteth shall not be done and sheweth that he preferred the pleasing of his Father in the Redemption of the world before his own life And thus in their measure he causeth all his Members to do so that life and all the comforts of life are not so dear to them as the love of God and everlasting life 4. When God had created man he was presently the Owner of him and man understood this that he was God's and not his own And he was not to claim a Propriety in himself nor to be affected to himself as his own nor to live as his own but as His that made him But when he fell from God he arrogated practically though notionally he may deny it a propriety in himself and useth himself accordingly And when Christ bringeth men to deny themselves they cease to be their own in their conceits any more Then they resign themselves wholly to God as being wholly his They know they are his both by the right of Creation and of Redemption And therefore are to be disposed of by him and to glorifie him in body and spirit which are his 1 Cor. 6. 19 20. Rom. 14. 9. To be thus heartily devoted to God as his own is the form of Sanctification and to live as God's own is the truly Holy life 5. As man in Innocency did know that he was not his own so he knew that nothing that he had was his own but that he was the Steward of his Creator for whom he was to use them and to whom he was accountable But when he was fallen from God to himself though he had lost the Right of a Servant yet be graspeth at the Creature as if he had the Right of a Lord He now takes his Goods his
and possess no interest but him and in him and to have nothing that we esteem or love or care for in comparison of him knowing that for him we were made redeemed preserved and sanctified and therefore desiring to be wholly and only his and to have no credit no goods no life no self but what is his for his service at his will and at his Disposal and Government and provision this is the true self-denyal which the spirit of God worketh in a prevailing though not a perfect measure in every gracious believing soul But alas Sirs how strange is this in the world and how weak and low in the souls where it is found And what matter of Lamentation would a survey of the world or of our selves present us with Is not SELF the great Idol which the whole world of unsanctified men doth worship Who is it that ruleth the children of disobedience but carnal self For what is all the stir and stirrings the tumults and contentions of the world but for self This ruleth Kingdoms and this is it that raiseth wars and what is it except the works of Holiness but self is the author of Look unto the Thrones and Kingdoms of the earth and conjecture how many self hath advanced and placed there and how feâ— have stayed till God enthroned them and gave them the Crown and Scepter with his approbation Among all the Nobles and great ones of the earth that abound in riches how few are there that were not set a work by self and ruled by it in the getting or keeping or using their riches dignities and honours Look on the great Revenews of the Nation and of the world and consider whether God or self have the more of it One man hath many thousands a year and another hath many hundreds and how much of this is devoted to God and how much to carnal self And the poor that have but little would think us injurious to them if we should call to them for any thing for God who have not enough for themselves when indeed God must have all and self must have nothing but what it hath by way of return from God again and that for God and not for self but as subservient unto him Alas of many hundred thousand pounds a year which the inhabitants of a Country possess among them how little hath God that should have all and how much hath self that should have nothing O dreadful reckoning when these Accounts must be all cast up Judge by the use of all whether self have not yet Dominion of all If men throw out to God his tenth which is none of their own or if they cast him now and then some inconsiderable alms when in his member he is fain to beg for it first they think they have done fair though self devour all the rest Is it more think you for God or self that our Courts of Law are filled with so many Suits and Lawyers have so much employment Is it more think you for God or self that Merchants compass Sea and Land for commodity Who is it that the Souldier fights for is it for God or self Who is it that the Tradesman deals for that the Plowman labours for that the Traveller goes for is it more for God or self Who is it that the most of mens thoughts are spent for and the most of their words are spoken for and the most of their rents and wealth laid out for and the most of their precious time imployed for is it for God or self Consider of it whether it be not self that finally and morally rules the world What else do most live for or look after And is not the common Piety Religion and Charity of the world a meer sending God some scraps of the leavings of carnal self If the flesh be full or have enough then God shall have the cruâ—â— that fall from its Table or at most so much as it card â—are but till the flesh have done and be satisfied Gâ—â— Gâ—â—st stay even for these scarps and crums and if theâ—… but say I want it my self or have use for it my self they think it a sufficient answer to all demands One may see by the irregularity of the motions of the world the confusions and crossings and mutabilities and contradictions the doing and undoing again the differences and fierce contendings that it is not God but self that is the End and Principle of the motions Nay most men are so dead to God and alive only to themselves that they know not what we mean when we tell them and plainly tell them what it is to live to God and what it is to serve him in all their affairs and to eat and drink and do all things for his glory but they ask in their hearts as Pharaoh Who is the Lord that I should serve him And when they read these passages about self-denyal and about referring all to God they will not understand them for they are unacquainted with God and know no other God indeed but self though in name they do Nay it were well if self were kept out of the Church and out of the Ministers of the Gospel that must teach the world to deny themselves that it did not with too many choose their habitations and give them their call and limit them in their labours and direct them in the manner and measure It were well if some Ministers did not study for self and preach and dispute for self and live for self when they materially preach against self and teach men self-denyal And then for our People alas it rules their families it manageth their business it drives on their trades it comes to Church with them and fights within them against the word and perverteth their judgement and will let them relish nothing and receive nothing but what is consistent with selfish interest in a word it makes men ungodly it keeps thâ—m ungodly and it is their very ungodliness it self O we it not for carnal self how easily might we deal withâ—â—â—â—rts of sinners but this is it that overcometh us CHAP. IV. The Prevalency of Selfishness in all Relations BEside all the generals already mentioned it will not be amiss to give you some particular Instances of the power of selfishness and the rareness of self-denyal in the world that you may see what cause of lamentation is before us 1. How ready and speedy how effectual and diligent how constant and unwearied are they in the service of self and how slow and backward how remiss and negligent how unconstant and tired are they in the works that are meerly for God and their salvation Do I need to prove it to you You may as well call for proof whether there are men in the world I were best for instance begin next home Many Ministers think it a drudgery and a toil that God requireth at their hands to confer with every family in their Parishes and instruct them privately in
doctrine of Christ and how much it doth to make them like or dislike their teachers or any point or practice in Religion And he is a stranger even among Divines themselves that seeth not the sway that self doth bear in their judgements and disputes and course of life and the choice of their party or society to which they joyn themselves CHAP. VI. Mens great aversness to costly or troublesome duties 3. ANother discovering instance of the rarity of self-denyal is this The great aversness of men to any costly or troublesome or self-denying duty how necessary soever how plainly soever revealed in the Scripture and how generally soever acknowledged by the Church As if self had a Negative voice in the making of Laws for the Government of the world and none must be binding without its consent I shall come down to some more particular instances 1. The great duty of charitable relieving our brethren in necessity to the utmost of our power is commonly made almost nothing of in the world And men cheat their souls by thinking they are passed from death to life because they love the brethren with such a cold and barren love as will neither lay down estate for them nor venture life for them but think they are sure Christians because they can say as the believers that James mentioneth Depart in peace be you warmed and filled but give them not that which is necessary thereto James 2. 16. Though it be told them plainly by Christ himself that it is not a fruitless uneffectual love but that which causeth them to feed and cloath and visit the Saints that must stand them instead at judgement Matth. 25. and the Apostle asketh them How the love of God can dwell in that man that seeth his brother have need and shutteth up the bowels of his compassion from him 1 John 3. 17. Yet do men think that by dropping now and then a penny they have discharged all this great duty And when they see many wayes by which they might promote the Gospel and help the Church and serve God with their estates yet self will not let them see the meaning of the plainest Scriptures that do require it 2. When men should practise the great duty of forgiving injuries trespasses and debts and of loving our enemies and blessing them that curse us and praying for them that hate and persecute us how stubbornly doth selfishness resist these duties What abundance of words may you use in vain with most men to perswade them to any of this work No they must have their right and that which is their own though it be to the undoing of their brother Passion and revenge even boil within them and the thoughts of an injury stick in their minds and if they do take on them dissemblingly to forgive it yet they cannot forget it nor heartily love a brother that displeaseth them much less an enemy And all this is from the dominion of self and shews that it prevaileth above God in the soul and therefore shews a graceless heart 3. When the Ministers of the Gospel themselves should be painful in their great and necessary work and should watch over all the flock Acts 20. 28. warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom that they may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus Col. 1. 28. condescending to men of the lowest sort and teaching them in season and out of season what reasonings and shifts will self bring in to resist so great and excellent a duty and prove it no duty and that God will give them leave to spare their pains and all because of the Powerful interest of self 4. And let the same Ministers have a disordered flock that hath scandalous members especially if they be great ones or many and how rarely will they do their duty to them in plain reproof and in case of impenitency and continuance in sin by Publick Admonition and Rejection what shiftings and cavillings will they find against this displeasing work of Discipline even when they will reproach a man themselves whose Opinion is against Discipline and when they have preacht and written and disputed so much for it and almost all parties are agreed of the necessity of it in the substance yet when it comes to practice it cannot be done without procuring mens hatred and opposition and laying us open to much incommodity and therefore self doth perswade us to forbear and whether God or self have the more servants even yet in a reformed Ministry I leave you to judge as your observation of the congregations through the Land shall direct you But were it not for self I should undertake to do more for discipline and personal Instruction with most Ministers by one Argument than I have done by a volume and you might see an unanimous concurrence in the work and consequently a great alteration in the Churches 5. And whence is it but from selfishness that plain and close Application in our Sermons is taken to be an injury to those that think themselves concerned in it If a Minister will speak alike to all and take heed of medling with their sores they will patiently hear him but if he make them know that he meaneth them in particular and deal closely with them about their miserable state or against any special disgraceful sin they fall a railing at him and reproaching him behind his back and perhaps they will say They 'le hear him no more O saith the selfish ungodly wretch I know he meant me to day had he no body but me to speak against As if a sick man should be angry with the Physitian for giving directions and medicines to him in particular and say Had he no body to give Physick to but me Were there not sick men enough in the Town besides me When Christ told the Despisers of the Gospel of the certain and dreadful destruction that was near them Mat. 21. 41 44 45. its said that When the chief Priests and Pharisees had heard his Parables they perceived that he spake of them A hainous business and therefore they sought to lay hands on him but that they durst not do it for fear of the multitude 6. Nay let a Minister preach but any such doctrine as seems consequentially to be against Self and to conclude hardly of them and they are ready to say as Ahab of Micaiah I hate him for he prophesieth not good of me but evil 1 Kings 22. 8. Let us but tell them how few will be saved what holiness and striving and diligence is necessary though we have the express word of God for it Heb. 12. 14. Mat. 7. 13 14. Luke 13. 24. 2 Pet. 1. 10. yet because they think that it makes against their carnal peace they cannot abide it Plain truth is unwelcome to them because it is rough and grates upon the quick and tells them of that which is troublesome to know Though they must know their sin and danger and misery or
upon the affairs of Nations and the wars of Princes and their confederacies and see who it is that rules in all how little will you see save here and there but carnal self It is self that makes the cause and manageth it It is self that maketh Wars and Peace Come down into our Courts of Justice and whose voice is loudest at the bar but selfs and who is it commonly else that brings in the Verdict at least who is it else that made and followeth on the quarrel How many causes hath self at an Assize for one that God hath Come lower into the Country and who is it that plows and sows who is it that keeeps House or Shop but self I mean what else but carnal self is the Principle what else but carnal self is the End what else but the will of self is the Rule and what else but selfish commodity or pleasure or honour are the matter or some provision that is made for these and consequently what else but self-respect is the form For the End informeth the means as means and therefore all that is done for self is self-service and self-seeking In a word as God is all in all to the sanctified so self is as all in all to the ungodly And alas how great a number are all these 3. Consider that it is a sin that is nearer us objectively than any other sin And the nearer the more dangerous Alas that a man should turn his own substance into poison feed upon it to his own destruction If you have drunk poyson you may cast it up again or nature may do much to work it out but if your own blood and humours and spirits be turned into venom that should nourish and preserve your life what then shall expell this venom and deliver you 4. Moreover it is the most obstinate disease in the world No duty harder except the Love of God than self-denial O how many wounds will self carry away and yet keep life and heal them all How commonly do we convince some carnal Gentlemen that One thing is needful and that its a better part than Earth and honour and sensuality that must be chosen or else they are undone and that the more they have the more they must forsake and the more self-denial is required to their salvation and that all their lands and wealth and honours and all their wit and parts and interest must be at the service of their Maker and Redeemer and that when they have all in the world that they can get that all must become Nothing and God must become all their treasure must become the dross and dung and Christ must become their treasure or they are lost I say how oft do we convince men of all estates of these important evident truths And yet this self is still alive and keeps the garrison of the heart and all that we can have from most of them is as the rich man Luk. 18. 23 24. to be very sorrowful that they cannot have heaven at easier rates and that Christ will not be a servant unto Self or they cannot have two Masters They go away sorrowful but away they go because they are rich which makes Christ say upon this observation How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the Kingdom of God But when the Disciples were troubled at his observation he lets them know that it is Self and not Riches that is indeed the deadly enemy It is the selfish that trust in Riches and love and use them for themselves and deny not themselves and devote not all to God that will be kept out of Heaven by them Or in Christs own words Luk. 12. It is he that layeth up treasure for Himself and is not rich towards God Conquer self and Conquer all 5. Moreover self is the most constant malady the sin that doth most constantly attend us Many actual sins may be laid by and we may for the time be free from them But selfishness is at the heart and lives with us continually It parteth not from us sleeping or waking It goes to the worship of God with us it will not stay behind in the holiest ordinance It will not forbear intermixing it self in the purest duties but will defile them all So that above all sins in the world it s this that must have the strictest constantest watch or else we shall never have any peace for it 6. Yea this self doth lamentably survive even in the sanctified soul among the special graces of the Spirit and lamentably distempereth the hearts and lives of too many of the godly themselves Not that any godly man is selfish in a predominant sense or that self is higher or more powerful in his heart than God for that 's a contradiction such a man cannot be a godly man without Conversion But yet the very remnants of conquered Self what a smoak do they make in our Assemblies and what noisom scent in the lives of many godly men what a stir have we sometimes with those that we hope are godly before we can get them to an impartial judgment to lament their own fowl words or other miscarriages and to humble themselves or freely to forgive another that hath wronged them especially to confess disgraceful sins in any self-denying manner How close stick they to their own conceits how lamentably do they improve them to the contempt of Ministers trouble and division of the Church How wise are they in their own eyes and how hardly yield they to any advice that crosseth Self How hardly are they brought to any dear and costly duty How much do they indulge their appetites and passions and how cheap a Religion do many think to come to heaven with we can scarce please some of them they are so selfish either because we cross them in their opinions or in their wayes or because we allow them not so much special countenance and respect as self would have or deny them somewhat which self desires If they have any use for us if we leave not more publick or greater work which god hath set us on and allow them not that part in our time or labours or other helps which God and Conscience will not allow them they are offended take it ill that self is not preferred before God and the publick service Their selves are so dear to themselves that they think we should neglect all to serve them Let the most useful Minister live in a place that hath the plague or other contagious mortal sickness and most that are visited will take it ill if the Minister come not to them though they know that his life is hazarded by it and that his loss to the whole Church is more to be regarded than the content or benefit of particular persons and it is not the pleasing of them nor their benefit by him then that will countervail the Churches loss of him What is this but too much preferring self I
interest and honour to your selves Holiness is an Inclination and Dedication to God by which two we are said to be separated to him And wickedness is an Inclination and Addictedness or Devotedness to our selves above God or as separated from God And this Inclination Disposition or Separation of man to Himself instead of God is it that I call self or selfishness and this self must it self be first destroyed as to the predominant degree And therefore let us First observe wherein this selfish Disposition doth consist which must be destroyed and then Secondly wherein the selfish Interest doth consist that must be denied And first the selfish Disposition consisteth in these several parts that follow 1. The principal part of it consisteth in an inordinate Self-love This is a corruption so deep in the heart of man that it may be called his very Natural Inclination which therefore lieth at the bottom below all his Actual sins whatsoever and must be changed into a New Nature which principally consists in the Love of God This is Original sin it self even in the heart of it This speaks what man by Nature is even an inordinate self-lover And as he is so he will act In this all other vice in the world is virtually contained even as all grace is in the Love of God which made the Schoolmen say that Love is the Form of all Grace not as they are this or that Grace in particular not of Faith as Faith nor of Hope as Hope but of Faith Hope c. as vital or gracious acts because the respect to the End is essential to the means as a means and therefore the respect to God as the End is Essential to Faith Hope c. as a means to him and therefore that Grace of Love which is terminated on the End must have an essential participation concurrence or influence on those that are directly terminated on the Way or Means and must convey somewhat of its very essence to them and so far as they partake of that essence of Love so far are they indeed those special Graces which carry the soul to God its End And in this sence we may allow the distinction between Fides Spes c. formata charitate which is true Christian Faith and Hope and Fides Spes c. informis which is but an opinion and dream And so it is in the body of sin When self-love doth reign it is the Heart of wickedness And though every sin hath its own specifick nature yet all are virtually in self-love and are so far mortal or prove men graceless as they are informed by the essential Communication of self-love For self being the End informeth all the means as they respect it I say the more to you of this because indeed it is a weighty truth for the right understanding of the true nature of Grace and sin and I doubt many are in the dark for want of understanding considering it A man that feareth and Loveth God and an unsanctified man may be both overtaken with the same sin perhaps a gross one as Noahs and Davids and Peters was and yet this may be a mortal sin in the ungodly I mean such as proves him in a state of death and yet not so in the gracious person The wicked will deride this in their ignorance as if we made God partial but it 's no such matter The Papists cannot endure it but suppose Peter David and Noah were quite without the Love of God and so were again unsanctified men but this is their error It was not from the Power of reigning self-love and the Habitual absence of the Love of God that these men or any Saints did sin but from a particular act of mortified self-love by a surprize upon the neglect of the actual exercise of the Love of God But all the sins of unsanctified men or at least their common sins are from the Habitual reign of self-love and the Habitual absence of the Love of God And therefore the sins of the Saints are as the Schoolmen speak of the graces of the ungodly unformed they be not Mortal sins in the sense aforesaid because they be not naturalized informed animated by the malignity and venom of the Mortal End and Principle which is Habitual reigning self-love But those of the wicked are sins informed by this inordinate self-love as an habitual reigning sin and therefore being animated by its malignity are mortal Yet say not that this makes God partial and not to hate the same sin in one as he doth in another For two things must be taken in 1. Where the heart is sanctified such sins are strangers perhaps one Godly man of ten or twenty may be guilty of one of them as Noah was of drunkenness once in all his life since his conversion For it will not stand with grace to live in them For such as a mans Love and Inclination and nature is such will be the drift of his Life And would not you have God make a difference between those that sin once and those that live in it 2. Besides will not any honest man make a great difference of the same acts according as they come from different hearts you will not take a passionate word from a Father Husband or Wife so ill as the same word from a malicious enemy If an unthrifty Son should spend you twenty shillings wastfully you will not prosecute him as you would do a thief or an enemy that takes it from you violently Wilful murder and casual man-slaughter have not the same punishment by the Law of the Land If you will make such a difference your selves of the same words or deeds as they come from different meanings and affections quarrel not with God for doing that which you confess is just and necessary to be done 1. The Faculty where this Disposition is principally seated is the Will which in man is the Heart of Morality whether Good or Evil. And the Principal Act is an Inordinate Adhesion of man to himself and Complacency in himself And this is the inordinate self-love that must be first mortified 2. The next faculty that self hath corrupted is the Understanding and here we first meet with the sin of self-esteem which is the second part of selfishness to be mortified It is not more natural for man to be sinful vile and miserable than to think himself vertuous worthy and honourable All men naturally over-value themselves and would have all others also over-value them This is the sin of Pride But of this I must speak by it self CHAP. XIV Self-conceitedness must be denied 3. THe next part of selfishness to be mortified is in the same faculty and it is called self-conceitedness And it consisteth of two parts the first is a Disposition to selfish opinions or conceits that are properly our own and the second is to think better of those conceits than they do deserve Naturally men are prone to spin themselves a web of
sometime all is comprehended in the term world and selfishness in the word flesh the world being that harlot with which the flesh commits adultery So 1 Joh. 2. 15 16. Love not the world nor the things that are in the world If any man Love the world the Love of the Father is not in him For all that is in the world the Lust of the flesh the Lust of the eyes and the Pride of Life is not of the Father but is of the world and the world passeth away and the Lust thereof but he that doth th will of God abideth for ever To these three heads therefore we shall reduce all that we have to say of this matter I. The selfish fleshy Pleasure that must be denied consisteth in these particulars following which I shall but briefly touch because they are so many 1. One Principal part of Sensuality or Self-interest consisteth in meats and drinks to please the Appetite So far as these are taken to fit us for Gods service and used to his Glory so far they are sanctified as before was said but when they are meerly to please the appetite they are offered to an enemy and are the fuel of lust Do you see any thing that your Appetite desireth whether meats or drinks whether for quality or quantity Take it not touch it not meerly upon that account but enquire whether it tend to the strengthning and fitting your bodies or minds for the service of God and if so take it if not let alone If your appetite had rather have Wine than Beer or strong Beer than small take it not meerly upon that account If your appetite would fain have one cup more when nature hath as much as is profitable deny that appetite If your appetite would fain be tasting of any thing that is not for your health deny that appetite If it would fain have one bit more when you have as much before as is wholesom or useful to you deny that appetite Or else you are guilty of flesh pleasing and plain Gluttony Quest But is it not lawful at a feast to taste of another dish or eat another bit when I think that nature needs no more what perplexities then will you cast men into to know just how many morsels they may eat Answ It is gluttony and no beter to take the creatures of God in vain and sacrifice them to a devouring throat which should be used only for his service That which is a mans ultimate end is his God What would you have plainer than express words of Scripture that tell you that whether you eat or drink it must be all to the glory of God 1 Cor. 10. 31. and that the fleshly do make their bellies their Gods Phil. 3. 18. And therefore when you have taken as much as suiteth with your end the service and glory of God you must not take more for another end the pleasing of your fleshly desires But for the scruples that you mention about the just proportion we need not be disquieted with them For God hath given us sufficient means to direct us to know what is for our good and what is superfluous and it is our duty in an even and constant way to use our Reason and keep as near the due proportion as we can and when we know that this is our desire and endeavour it were a sin against God to trouble our selves with continual or causless scruples or fears lest we do exceed or miss the rule For what can we do more than go according to the best skill we have and if for want of skill we should a little mistake it is pardoned with the rest of our daily infirmities and to trouble and distract our selves with causeless fears would more unfit us for Gods service than some degree of mistake in the proportion would do and so would be as great a sin as that which we feared And therefore our way is quietly and comfortably without distracting fears or scruples to do our best and use our prudence with self-denial and remember that we have to do with a Father that knows the flesh is weak when the spirit is willing But yet wilfully to cast away one cup or one morsel on the pleasing of our appetites when it no way fits us for the service of God and will do us no other good this is not self-denial but sensuality Quest But nature knows best what 's good for it self and therefore that which it desireth is to be judged best A Beast liveth as healthfully as a man that obeyeth his appetite only Is it not lawful to take either meat or drink on this account that the Appetite is pleased with it Answ 1. Some Beasts would presently kill themselves in pleasing their appetites if man that is Rational did not rule restrain and moderate them A Swine will burst himself with whey in half an hour A Beast in new after-grass will surfeit if he be suffered No Beast knows poyson from food but would soon perish by it in obeying his appetite 2. And yet as a Bâ—â—st hath no Reason so he is better provided to live without Reason than man is His appetite is not so corrupted by sin as ours is Original sin hath depraved and enraged our appetites And if man had not more use for his reason than a Beast even in ordering his natural actions God would not have given him reason to rule his appetite and commanded him to use it herein And who knows not that if a man did follow his appetite alone as Beasts do he were like to murder himself the next day or week or at least in a very little space The appetite would presently carry us to that for quality or quantity or both that would cast us into mortal diseases and soon make an end of us And in those diseases the pleasing it usually would be certain death And indeed this is a beastly doctrine that man that hath reason to rule his sensual inclinations should lay it by and please his appetite without it like a brute what more do all Gluttons Drunkards and Whoremongers but follow ther fleshly desires And if the desires of the flesh might be followed who would not be such as they in some measure That which is no sin in a Beast is a hainous sin in a man because man hath reason to rule his appetite and a Beast hath none and therefore is not capable of sin And for the body it 's certain that most of the diseases in the world are bred and fed by the pleasing of the appetite and I think that there 's few that are laid in their graves but this was the cause of it though the ignorant know it not and the sensual are loth to believe it And for the question whether we may not take any meat or drink purposely to please the appetite I answer yes as a means to fit us for duty but not as your chief end 1. Sometimes especially in weak bodies the
mean that we are employed in yet all is but the serving of God as long as we do them all for him this is the main difference between an unsanctified scholar and a servant of God in all their studies One of them is but recreating his curious fancy or inquisitive mind and seeking matter of honour and applause or some way or other studying for himself but the other is searching after the nature and will of his Creator and learning how to do his work in that manner as may please and honour him most So that when they are reading the same books and studying the same subjects they are upon quite different works as having contrary ends in all their studies the one is content with bare speculation and aery knowledge which puffeth up and the other studieth and knoweth practically to feed the holy fire of love in his heart and to guide and quicken and strengthen him for obedience 3. Moreover there is a difference commonly in the subject which they most desire to know for though there is no truth but a wicked man may know which a true Christian knoweth and also but few truths but what he may for selfish ends be desirous to know yet ordinarily a carnal heart is much more forward to study common Sciences than Divinity and in Divinity to study least the practical part and to be most in points that exercise the brain and lie further from the heart but the sanctified man delighteth most in knowing the mysterie of Redemption the riches of grace the glory which he hopeth for the nature and will of God the way of duty the temptations that are before him and his danger by them and the way to escape with such other useful truths which he must live upon One feeds but upon the air and chaff of words and notions or common truths and the other is taken up with the most spiritual heavenly and necessary matters yea it is not so much the truth as the matter or thing revealed by it which the Christian looks after it is not only to understand the meaning of the Scripture but to find and love and enjoy that God that Christ that Spirit that Life which is revealed in those words of Scripture but the hypocrite sticks most in a Grammatical superficial kind of knowledge 5. Carnal knowledge would break Gods bounds and would needs know that which else they might know and cannot see the strength of a reason which the wise can see yet will they sooner quarrel with the light than with their eyes and suspect the reasons and words of God rather than their purblind minds But spiritual knowledge is modest and humble and obedient presumeth not to climb any higher than the ladder lest he lose more by such a step too high than he got by all his labor hitherto find himself all in pieces at the bottom while he would needs climb above the top He finds work enough in what God hath commanded him to study in his word and therefore hath no leisure to look after things that God hath hid from him It is for the use of knowledge that he would know and therefore he hath no great mind of that which is useless and he knows that God is the best Judge of that and therefore he takes that to be best for him which is prescribed him 6. Carnal Students are apt to learn in the wayes which their interests and fancies lead them to but holy Students learn of God in his prescribed way that is 1. In his Church which is his School 2. And in and by his holy Scripture which is the book he sets us to learn And 3. By his Ministers whom he commandeth to teach us 4. And in obedience to his spirit that must make all effectual And 5. In fervent prayer to God for that spirit and a blessing This is Gods way in which he will bring men to saving knowledge 7. Also Carnal Students observe not commonly Gods order in their learning but they begin at that which suteth best with their carnal interest or disposition as being least against it and they catch here and there a little and make what their list of it and force it to their carnal sense and to speak for that which their minds are most affected to But the sanctified student begins at the bottom and first seeks to know the Essentials of Religion Points that life lieth most upon and so he proceeds in order and takes the lesson which God and his Teachers set him and takes up truths as they lie in order of necessity and use 8. And in the manner also the difference is great The Carnal student searcheth presumptuously self-conceitedly and unreverently and speaks of holy things accordingly and censureth them when he should censure himself and actions by them and bendeth the words of God to his own carnal interest and will But the spiritual student searcheth meekly with fear and reverence with self-suspicion and consciousness of his exceeding darkness and with a willingness and resolution to submit to the light for conviction and for the guidance of his conversation And now you see what carnal studies are remember that to avoid them is part of your self-denial Restrain your ranging phantasies understanding as you would do a ranging appetite If you have a mind that would fain reach higher than God hath given you light in Scripture or a mind that must needs be satisfied of the reasons of all Gods ways and murmureth if any of its doubts be unresolved remember that this is self that must be denied and if any be wise in his own eyes he must become a fool that he may be wise 1 Cor. 3. 18. and as little children must you come to the School of Christ if you will indeed be his Disciples And remember that this Intellectual voluptuousness licentiousness and presumption of Carnal minds is a higher and in some respects greater and more dangerous vice than brutish sensuality And you may cheat and undo your souls in a civil course of carnal selfish studies as well as in a course of more gross and sensual vâ—luptuonsness CHAP. XXXIII Factious Desire of the success of our own Opinions and Parties as such c. 16. ANother selfish Interest to be denied is The factious desire of the success of any odd opinions which we have espoused and of the increase and prosperity of any dividing party in the Church which we have addicted our selves unto It exceedingly delighteth a Carnal mind that his Judgement should be admired and he should be taken as the light of the Country round about him and therefore when he hath hatcht any opinions of his own or espoused any whereby his singularity may be manifested or by which his selfish interest may be promoted he is as careful to promote these opinions and the party that holdeth with him as a Covetous man is to promote his gain There is indeed as much of self in many mens
holiness more abound If so be not too hasty to censure their Zeal But usually all these dividing ways are the diseases of the Church which cause its languishing decay and dissolution 7. Lastly This selfish zeal is commonly censorious and uncharitable and diminisheth Christian Love and sets those a reproaching and despising each other that should have lived in the Union and Communion of Saints Where you find these properties of your zeal and desire for the promoting of your Opinions or parties in Religion you have great reason to make it presently your business to find out that insinuating self which maketh your Religion Carnal and to deny and mortifie it CHAP. XXXIV Carnal Liberty to be denied What. 17. ANother selfish interest to be denied is Carnal Liberty A thing that selfishness hath strangely brought of late into so much credit that abundance among us think they are doing some special service to God their Country the Church and their own souls when they are but deeply engaged for the Devil by a self-seeking spirit in a Carnal Course For the discovery of this dangerous common disease I must first tell you that there is a threefold Liberty which must carefully be differenced 1. There is an Holy Blessed Liberty which no man must deny 2. There is a wicked Liberty which no man should desire 3. And between these two there is a Common Natural and Civil Liberty which is good in its place as other worldly matters are but must be denied when it stands in competition with higher and better things and as all other worldly matters is Holy when it is Holily esteemed and used that is for God but sinful when it is sinfully esteemed and used and that is for Carnal self I. The first of these is not to be denied but all other Liberty to be denied for it This Holy Liberty consisteth in these following Particulars 1. To be freed from the Power of sin which is the disability the deformity the death of the soul 2. From the Guilt of sin and the wrath of God and the Curse of the Law 3. To be restored to God by Christ in Union Reconciliation and Sanctification and our enthralled spirits set free to know and love and serve him and delight in him Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is Libert y 2 Cor. 3. 17. God is the souls freedom who is its Lord and life and end and all 4. To be delivered from Satan as a Deceiver and enemy and executioner of the wrath of God 5. To be freed from that Law or Covenant of Works which requireth that which to us is become impossible 6. To be freed from the burdensome task of useless Ceremonies imposed on the Church in the times of infancy and darkness 7. To be freed from the accusations of a guilty conscience those self-tormentings which in the wicked are the fore-tastes of hell 8. To be freed from such temporal judgments here as might hinder our salvation or our service of God 9. To be free from the condemning sentence at the last day and the everlasting Torments which the wicked must endure 10. And to be delivered into the blessed sight of God and the perfect fruition and pleasing of him in Perfect Love and Joy and Praise to all eternity This is the Liberty which you must not deny which I therefore name that by the way you may see that it is not for nothing that the other sorts of Liberty are to be denied II. The second sort of Liberty is that which is wicked directly evil which all men should deny And this is a freedom from Righteousness as the Apostle calls it Rom. 6. 20. To be free from a voluntary subjection to God and free from his severe and holy Laws and free from the thoughts of holiness and of the life to come and free from those sighs and groans for sin and that godly sorrow which the sanctified undergo and to be free from all those spiritual motions and changing works upon their hearts which the Spirit doth work on all the Saints to be free from holy speeches and holy prayer and other duties and from that strict and holy manner of living which God commandeth to be at liberty to sin against God and to please the flesh and follow their own imaginations and wills let God say what he will to the contrary to be free to eat and drink what we love and have a mind of and to be merry and wanton and lustful and worldly and take our course without being curbed by so precise a Law as God hath given us to be free from an heavenly conversation and those preparations for death and that Communion with God which the Saints partake of This is the wicked Liberty of the world which the worst of carnal men desire And the next beyond this is a Liberty to lie in the fire of hell and a freedom from salvation and from the everlasting Joy and Praises of the Saints If freedom from Grace and Holiness deserve the name of Freedom then you may next call Damnation a Freedom And it is part also of this sinful miserable Liberty to be free from the Government and Officers and good Laws which rule the Church and Commonwealth And such wretches there are in the world that seriously judge it a desirable Liberty to be free from these They think that their Country is Free when every man may do what he list and they have no King or other Governors or none that will look after them and punish their miscarriages And they think the Church is free when they have no Pastors or when Pastors have least power over them and they may do what they list And indeed if they were rid of Magistrates and Ministers they were free As a School is free that hath shut out the Master or have rejected him and teach and rule one another And as a Ship is free when the Master and Pilot are thrown over-board and as an Army is free when they have cast off or lost their commanders or to speak more fitly as an Hospital is free when they are delivered from their Physician and as the madmen in Bedlam are free when they have killed or escaped from their Keepers As Infidels keep their Freedom by refusing Christ in himself so carnal Dividers and Hereticks keep their Freedom by refusing his Officers and Christ in those Officers For he that heareth them heareth him and he that despiseth them despiseth him and he that despiseth despiseth not man but God Luke 10. 16. 1 Thes 4. 8. And another part of this ungodly Liberty is to be free from the exercise at least of this power of Magistrates and Ministers so far as not to be restrained from sin though they be not free from the state of subjects To swear and be drunk and live as most Ale-sellers on the damning sins of others and make a trade of selling men their damnation and to have no Magistrate punish them no
remember that Heathens themselves have chosen death First in case of some extream torment or other misery which they had no other hope to prevent or end But this was but a choosing a speedier or easier Death before a more grievous death though remote or before a death that had so great a misery for its fore-runner or at least before such a life as is a continual death And so the conquered Heathens would frequently kill themselves to prevent a more dishonourable cruel death from the hand of the Conqueror And so many a one in uncurable misery wiâ—â—eth rather to die than endure it partly because that the suffering is so great as to overcome all the comforts of life For I yield that some degrees of misery with life are more terrible to nature than death and partly because that they know they must die at last however Secondly in a desire of fame that they may leave behind them an honourable name when they are dead But this is not to desire death but life Fain they would live for ever and because they know that it cannot be obtained on earth they had rather die some honourable death a little sooner that their names may live when they are dead than to die ignominiously shortly after Thirdly And some have chosen to die for the publick good of their Country But as it 's very uncertain whether the desire of a living Name were not their greater motive so it was but a choosing a present death for their Country before a latter unavoidable death without any such advantage In all these cases a natural man may venture on death that knows he cannot scape it long but must shortly die whether he will or no. But if they could avoid it there 's very few would submit to death but believers and none but in one of these cases 1. To end or avoid some extream intolerable uncurable misery 2. To deliver their Country or friends 3. And whether any would do it upon their ungrounded hopes of better things in the life to come I leave to consideration But if it be taken for granted that a natural man may love 1. The comforts of life above it self 2. And the good of his Country or the world or his children above his life 3. Or some carnal felicity falsly conceited to be had in another life yet it is certain that none but a sanctified believer can Love God better than his Life or can prefer those spiritual heavenly joys which consist in the holy Love and Fruition of God before his life And therefore he that for these can deny his Life is indeed a Christian and none but be Though it be an ungrateful word to the ears of some I must say it again and none but he For this is the very point in which Christ for instance doth put our self-denial to the trial He that will save his life shall lose it Whether you Love an immortal holy life with God or this earthly fleshly life better is the great question on which it will be resolved whether you are Christians or Infidels at the heart and whether you are heirs of heaven or hell Some Love to God may be in the unsanctified but not a love to him above their lives and in some cases they may submit to death but not for the Love of God But both these set together that is a submitting to Death for the Love of God or a Loving of God above this life is the most infallible proof of your sincerity I confess flesh and blood must needs think this is a very hard saying and though they might consent to acknowledge it a Duty and a Reasonable thing to die for Christ and a note of excellency and a commendable qualification of some few extrordinary Saints yet it goeth very hardly down with them that it should be the lowest measure of saving grace that the weakest Christian must have it that will be saved For say they What can the strongest do more than die for Christ But to this I answer 1. There is no rom for objections against so plain a Word of God It is the wisdom of God and not our Reason that disposeth of the Crown of life and therefore it is his Wisdom and not our Reason must determine by what we shall attain it And if God say plainly that If any man come to Christ and hate not his own life that is love it not so much less than Christ that for his sake he can use it as a hated thing is used he cannot be his Disciple Luke 14. 26. it is too late for the vote of man or all the clamour of foolish reason to recal this resolution The word of God will stand when they have talk'd against it never so long we may destroy our selves by dashing against it but we cannot destroy or frustrate it 2. And whereas men ask What can the strongest do more than die for Christ I answer Abundance more They can die for him with far greater Love and Zeal and Readiness and Joy than the weak can do and so bring much more honour to him by their death Though there be no higher way of outward expressing our Love to Christ than by dying for him yet the inward work of Love may be in very different degrees in persons that use the same expression of it Some may come to the stake with a little Love comparatively and some with fervent hot affections Some have much ado to yield to die and some die so chearfully that they rejoyce in the opportunity of honouring God and passing to him Yea and in the Expressions there is much difference in the manner Some give up themselves with so much readiness as works more on the standers by than their meer patience or the death it self And some are drawn so hardly to it as drowneth much of the honour and fruit of their martyrdom Of this read Mr. Pinks Serm. on Luke 14. 26. Obj. But Nature is of God and Nature teacheth us to Love and save our Lives and is it like that the God of Nature will command and teach us to cast them away and so contradict his own Law of Nature Answ 1. As Nature teacheth you to love your lives so God doth not forbid you But 2. Is it Natural to man to be Reasonable as well as to be sensitive and animate To have a reasonable soul as to have a temporal life 3. And doth not Reason tell us by the light of Nature that God should be loved better than our Lives If it did not yet by the help of supernatural light even Reason clearly tells us this And it is no contradiction for God to bid you Love your lives but love him better And he that bids you seek the preservation of your lives doth plainly except that you resign them to his dispose and that you seek not to save them from him when he commandeth you to lay them down So that it is not simply
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
And from each of them we partake of an answerable Nature As is the Earthy such are they that are earthy even all of us in our fleshly state having earthy bodies from an earthy Adam and natural bodies from the natural Adam And as is the heavenly such are they that are heavenly for Christ makes men like himself even first gracious and then glorious as Adam begets us like himself that is natural and sinful And therefore all those that have followed Christ in the Regeneration shall follow him into Glory and having conquered by him shall reign by him and with him and having received the holy nature here which is the seed of glory they shall receive the glorious nature there which is the perfection of that Grace And so as Christ hath an heavenly spiritual body and â—â—â— an earthy natural body so shall his Members have that they may be like him And as we have here born the image of the earthy in having first a natural fleshly body we shall also bear the Image of the Heavenly Adam in having a spiritual body that is not fleâ—â— Now lest any doubt of it saith the Spirit of God this I say that Flesh and Blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God neither doth Corruption inherit incorruption 1 Cor. 15. 42. to 51. Object If there were but as much likelihood of a Resurrection as there is of the Reviving of the plants in the Spring I could believe it for there is a life remaining in the Root or Seed but the body of man hath neither Root nor seed of life and therefore it 's contrary to nature that it should revive Answ 1. If it be above nature that is all it is not contrary to it Or not so contrary as to be above the power of the Lord of nature Will you allow no greater works for God than such as you can see a reason of and can assign a natural cause of what did Nature in the creation of nature It was not certainly any cause of it self If Christ rose without a natural cause even so shall we 2. But why may I not say that the dead body of man hath a living Root as truly as the plants in winter The soul is the Root of the body and the soul is still alive And Christ is the Root of the soul and he is still alive For though we are dead yet our Life is hid with Christ in God and when Christ who is our life shall appear at the Spring of Resurrection then we shall also appear with him in Glory Col. 3. 3 4. And though there be no Physical contact between this living soul and the body yet there is a Relative Union and a deep rooted Love of the soul to its body and inclination to it so that it is mindful of it and waiteth with longing for that hour when the command of God shall send it to revive that body It is not incredible that a silly snail should by its natural life and power make for it self a beautiful habitation Or that the life of a Rose-tree that was buried in the root should fabricate a sweet and beauteous Rose by which it may make an ostentation of its invisible self to the world In how small a room doth the life of a silk-worm lie of which I spoke before in the winter That little grain or seed is such as yields no sign of life to the beholder yet doth it form it self a larger body and that body spin its silken web out of its own substance and in that house it self in a husk and take to it self another shape and thence become a winged Fly and so generate more But nearer us in the generation of man the vital principle in the seed doth quickly with concurrent causes form it self a body The warmth of the body of the Hen or other Bird can turn the egge into a Chicken Why then may not the living sâ—ul that is the Root and life of the body in the dust be the instrument of God to reform its own body as certainly it will be the principle that shall reinform it But you say the body being dead hath no natural root nor way of recess to life again because the privation is total To which I answer First the Relative union between the soul and it and the souls disposition to the Return into its body is as potent a cause of its reviving as the natural union of the Root and branches if withal you consider that Christ is the Root of the soul Rational agents if perfect will work as certainly as Natural For natural causes do nothing but by a Power communicated to them from an Intellectual cause even God himself Why should Nature do any of these things but because God that makes and ruleth all will have it to be so Now Jesus Christ is the Political Head of the Church The body in the grave hath its own Relation to him Christ is still living and resolved and engaged by promise and enclined by Love to revive that body And as Christ is the life of the soul so the soul is the life of the body and this soul as I said is waiting to be sent again into it And when the hour comes what can hinder The Love of the soul to its body and its desire to be reunited is a kind of natural cause of the Resurrection A candle not lighted is as far from light and as much without it as a dead body is without life And yet one touch of a lighted candle will light that which never was lighted before And so may one touch of the living soul that 's now with Christ put life into the body that lieth in the dust And as the lighted candle makes the other like it and communicateth of its own nature to it so doth the glorified soul communicate a new kind of excellency to the body which it never had before even to be a spiritual glorious incorruptible and immortal body In the first creating of man the new formed body as to the matter of it was no better than the body of a Beast or any common piece of earth But the soul made the difference when a Rational Soul was breathed into that Body it advanced the very body to a dignity beyond the bodies of brutes even such as the natural body of man had before sin When Christ was about to repair faln man it was the spirit of Christ informing the soul that caused the renewed soul to communicate again a dignity to the bodies of sanctified men above other bodies And so when the body was dead because of sin having the root of sin and death within it and being mortal therefore yet the spirit was life because of Righteousness being the Root of holy and Righteous dispositions and the new life in man himself Rom. 8. 10. For Christ the principal root of life and the spirit and holiness are first in order of nature in the soul and but by
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
affections It is Gods highest honour to be highliest esteemed and dearliest beloved as being the most perfect and transcendent Good And Proud men in this world aspire to his Prerogative and much affect to be beloved of all and fain they would sit near mens hearts and be the darlings of the world This is a fine but dangerous sin and I doubt many that are guilty of it never well considered that it is a sin and so great a sin as indeed it is Deny your selves in this It is God that must be Loved of all and not you You must be content to be hated of all men for his name sake that he may be beloved Mens hearts were not made to be your throne but Gods Your work is to Love and not ambitiously to seek for love So far as your interest in mens affections doth conduce to Gods honour and service and their good desire it and spare not But see that these be really your ends But for your selves take heed of desiring or seeking for mens Love They are apt enough to have inordinate affections to the creature without your temptations To Love God in you and Love you for God is their duty which you may provoke them to in season But seek not for any nearer interest in them nor for such a love as terminateth in your selves Nature is exceeding ambitious of being beloved but steal not Gods due You are to be sutors and sollicitors for him to win the hearts of as many as you can and not to speak for your selves in his stead Thankfully accept of mens Ordinate Love to you if you have it but if they deny it for you or for the sake of Christ and turn it into hatred do you deny your selves herein and remember that it 's no more than you were forewarned of and no more than your Lord and his worthiest servants have endured What a Pattern is Paul that tells his converts he seeks not theirs but them as parents lay up for the children and not children for the parents and would gladly spend and be spent for them though the more he love the less he were beloved 2 Cor. 12. 14 15. See that you Love God and them and that is your duty do that and you need not take care for the Love of men to you Their Love is none of your felicity and therefore their hatred depriveth you not of your felicity for that lieth only in the Love of God Here therefore self must be denied CHAP. XLIII The Reputation of Riches to be denied 3 ANother part of the Honour which self must be denied in is The Reputation of your Riches For wealth is one thing that men are proud of Some desire to be esteemed richer than they are and therefore go in the best apparel they can get that they may not be thought to be persons of the lowest poorest sort And some that are Rich do glory in their Riches and think they are much more to be honoured than the poor But alas if they had well read and considered what Christ hath said of the danger of the rich particularly in Luke 12. 16. 18. 8. 14. Mat. 13. 22. Mark 10. 23. and what James saith to them James 5. 1 2. c. they would see that Riches is not a thing to be Proud of Not many great and noble are called God hath chosen the poor of this world Rich in faith to be heirs of the Kingdom The talents for which we must give such an account at the bar of Christ should be rather the matter of our fear and trembling than of our Pride That which makes our passage to heaven to be as the Camels through a needle's eye I think should not much lift us up All the Riches of the world do make you never the better thought of with God or any wise man Nor will they cause you to live a moneth the longer or quiet your Consciences or save you from death or the wrath of God The only worth of Riches is that you are better furnished than others to do God some good service by relieving the poor and helping the Church and furthering many such good works And for the sake of these good ends you must patiently bear a state of Riches yea and thankfully receive them if they are given you by God though the care and labour in a faithful distribution of them and the danger of abusing them and the reckoning to be made for them are so great as may deter a wise man from a greedy seeking them or glorying in them CHAP. XLIV Comeliness and Beauty to be denied 4. ANother part of the Honour that self must be denied in is The Reputation of your personal comeliness or beauty For such fools and children sin hath made folks that many much set by the Reputation of these And hence is most commonly the abuse of Apparel Every proud person is desirous of that which will make them seem the handsomest or beautifullest persons unto others and make it their care to set forth themselves to the eyes of beholders What they indeed are we can see as well in the meanest attire but what they would be thought to be we may best see in this But of this I spoke before yea some think that they are not Proud of their comeliness yet cannot endure to be esteemed ill-favoured or uncomely and so shew that Pride which they would deny I confess these are commonly but the temptations of women and procacious youth But one would think it should be easie for a few sober thoughts to cut their combs and let them see how little cause they have to be proud of beauty or comeliness of the flesh Alas what is that body that you are proud of Filth and corruption covered with a cleaner skin than some of your neighbours Ah but the skin is thin and if that be all you have to glory in it is as frail as contemptible There 's many a pretty flower in the common field that 's trodden down by the feet of beasts that have a gloss and hue incomparably beyond your beauty I asked you before what beauty you will have to glory of when you have dwelt but a few moneths in the grave or if the small Pox or Leprosie should clothe you with another coloured skin or if a Cancer should but seize upon your face and turn it into such an ugly shape as makes men tremble to behold it or when wrinkled age hath made you as another person or when death hath deprived you of that soul which was your beauty and laid you out as a prey and sacrifice to corruption Ah that ever such a skin full of dirt such a bag of filth should yet be proud that 's carried about by a living soul and by it kept a little while from falling down as a sensless clod and turning into a stinking corpse They are short-sighted and short-witted as well as graceless that cannot look so far before them
the names of the several graces of the Spirit And it is not Passion but disordered Passion that must be denied CHAP. LX. How far must we deny our own Reason Quest 10. HOw far must we deny our own Reason Answ 1. We must not be unreasonable nor live unreasonably nor believe unreasonably nor love or choose or let out any affection unreasonably We are commanded to be ready to give a reason of our hopes It is our Rational faculty that proveth us men and is essential to us And without it we can neither understand the things of God or man For how should we understand without an understanding But yet Reason must thus far be denied 1. We must not think highlier of our Reason than it deserves either in it self or as compared to others 2. We must not satisfie its curiosity in prying into unrevealed things 3. Nor must we satisfie or suffer its presumption in judging our Brethren or censuring mens hearts or ways uncharitably 4. Nor must we endure it to rise up against the Word or ways of God or contradict or quarrel with Divine Revelations though we cannot see the particular Evidence or Reason of each Truth nor reconcile them together in our apprehensions Though we may not take any thing to be the Word of God without Reason yet when he have Reason to it take to be his Word we must believe and submit to all that is in it without any more Reson for our belief For the formal Reason of our belief is because God is true that did reveal this Word And we have the greatest Reason in the world to believe all that he revealeth CHAP. LXI Q. Must we be content with affiictions permitted sin c. Quest 11. IF Self-denial require us to Content our souls in the Will of God then whether must we be content with his afflictions or permission of sin or the Churches sufferings and 1. How will this stand with our due sense of Gods displcasure and chastisements 2. And with our praying against them 3. And our use of means for their removal Answ 1. The Will of God is one thing and the Hurt which he willeth us is another and the Good En for which he willeth it is a third The afflicting Will of God is good and must be Loved as good and the End and Benefit of Chastisement is good and must be loved But the hurt as hurt must not be loved It is not Gods Will that we must resist or seek to change nor yet is it the End or Benefit of the Chastisement but only the hurt which our folly hath made a sutable means And we may not seek to remove this hurt till the effect be procured or on terms that may consist with the End of it And this is not against the Will of God that when the good is attained the Affliction be removed 2. And you must distinguish between his Pleased and Displeased Will his complacency and acceptance and his Displacency and Rejecting Will. Every act of Gods Will must be approved and loved as Good in God but it is not every one that we may Rest and Rejoyce in as Good to us and as our felicity We must be grieved for Gods Displeasure and yet Love even that holy will that is displeased with us and we must be sensible of Gods judgments and yet Love the Will that doth inflict them But it is only the Love of God and Pleasure of his Will to us that can be the Rest and felicity of our souls 3. Some acts of Gods Will are about the Means and have a tendency to a further end and some are about the End it self His Commanding Will we must Love and obey his forbidding Will must have the same affections his threatning Will we must love and fear his Rewarding Will we must Love and Rejoyce in His full Accepting Will that is his Love and Complacency in us we must Rest and Delight our souls in for ever And thus we must comply with the Will of God CHAP. LXII Q. May God be finally Loved as our Felicity and Portion Quest 12. YOu tell us that we must seek our selves but as Means to God How then may we make our salvation our End or desire the fruition of God when fruition is for our selves of somewhat that may make us happy Doth he not desire God as a Means for himself as the End that desireth him as his Portion Treasure Refuge and Felicity Answ There are such abundance of abstruse Philosophical Controversies de anima fine that stand here in the way that I must only decide this briefly and imperfectly for vulgar capacities Schoolmen and other Philosophers are not so much as agreed what a final Cause is But this much briefly may give some degree of satisfaction to the Moderate 1. No fleshly Profits Pleasures or Honours must be made our End This we are agreed on 2. The Ultimate End of all the Saints is an End that is sutable to the Nature of Love and that is perfectly to love God and Please him and serve him and to be perfectly beloved of him and behold his glory So that it is not an End of self-love or Love of Concupiscence or for our Commodity only but it is the End of the Love of Friendship Now all Love of friendship doth take in both the party Loving and the party beloved into the End For the End is a perfect Union of both according to their capacities And it being Intentio amantis the End of Love both God and our selves must be comprehended in it as the parties to be united and so it is both for him and for our selves 3. But yet though both parties as united be comprized in the End it is not equally but with great inequality For 1. God being Infinite Goodness it self must appreciative in estimation and affection be preferred exceedingly before our selves so that in desiring this blessed Union we must more desire it to Please and Praise him and give him his due for which he Created Redeemed and Glorified us than to be our selves happy in him 2. And God being not a meer friend but our Absolute Lord of Infinite Power and Glory it must be more in our Intention to bring to him eternally than to receive from him though both must be comprized For Receiving is for our selves further than we intend it for Returns but Returning is for God Not to add to his blessedness but to Please his Will and give him his own For he made all things for himself And so that in union with him we may give him his own in fullest love and Praise and service and thus please him must be the higest part of our Intention about our own felicity in enjoying him So that you may see that self-denial teacheth no man to ask Whether he could be content to be damned for Christ For this is contrary to our propounded End in the whole For a damned man hath no union of Love with God and
giveth him not his own in Love or Praises Object What say you then by the wishes of Moses and Paul Answ 1. The saying of Moses is very plain Exod. 32. 32. He doth not desire that his soul might be made a ransom for Israel but that if God would not pardon them but destroy them and cast them off he would blot out Moses name from his Book that is from among the number of the living so that his saying is no other than such as Elias or Jonas was What good will my life do me if I live to see thy people cast off and all thy wonders for them buryed therefore either let them live in thy sight or kill me with them This is the plain meaning of Moses request And for Pauls the difficulty is somewhat greater 1. Some think that Paul meaneth Rom. 9. 3. that he once wished himself to be no Christan in the days of his ignorance and all through his Zeal for the Jewith Nation But this is improbable 2. Some think that he meaneth only I could wish to be given up to death for them as the accursed under the Law 3. Some think he meaneth only I could wish my self yet unconverted to Christ so they were converted 4. Some think the meaning is I could wish my self cast out of the Church and given up to Satan for any bodily suffering 5. Some say it is only to have his salvation deferred 6. And some that it is damnation for a time But 7. The plain meaning seemeth to be this so great is my Love to my Countrymen the Jews that if it were offered to my choice whether they or I without them should enjoy Christ I would yield to be cast out of his sight for ever rather than they should where mark 1. That it is not a wish that it were so for he knew that this was no means to promote their salvation but it 's a discovery of his affection that would with or choose this if it were a means to that End 2. And it is not the sin of not Loving Christ that he would choose but only the misery of being deprived of his blessed presence 3. And the Reasons of this his choice are these two conjunct 1. Because the souls of so many thousands is in impartial Reason more to be valed than the soul of one 2. And principally because by the conversion and salvation of a whole Nation God may be more honored and served than by one And note farther 1. That this is not set as a mark for every Christian to try the truth of his Love by 2. But yet no doubt but it is a duty and degree of Grace that every one should aim at For 1. We see among Heathens that nature it self teacheth them that a man should lay down his life for his Country because a Country is better than a man And proportionably Reason tells us that the salvation of a Country being a greater good than of any one it should be more preferred And Self-love goeth against plain Reason when it contradicteth this What mans Reason doth not tell him that it were better he should die than the world should be destroyed or the Sun turned into darkness yea or that one Church or Country perish And so of salvation 2. And it is agreeable to the nature of Love to desire that most that most Pleaseth him whom we Love and therefore to desire rather that God may have multitudes than one and be served and Praised by them So much about the Matter of self-denial III. I Have finished the two first things which I promised you under the use of Exhortation viz. the trial of your self-denial and the particulars in which it consisteth and must be exercised and there I have shewed you 1. In what respect self must be denied 2. What that selfishness is that must be denied as to the inward Disposition and 3. What is that objective self-interest that must be denied which consisteth in so many Particulars that I cannot undertake to enumerate all but I have mentioned twenty Particulars under the general head of Pleasure and ten under the general Head of Honour and have referred you to another Treatise for that which consisteth in worldly profits And now I come to the third part of my work which is to shew you a little more fully the Greatness of the sin of selfishness and give you thence such moving reasons as may conduce to the cure of it which are these that follow CHAP. LXIII Motives 1. Selfishness the grand Idolatry of the world 1. SElfishness is the grand Idolatry of the world and self the worlds Idol as I have told you before It usurpeth the Place of God himself in mens Judgements wills affections and endeavours It was the work of the ten Discoveries in the Beginning of the Book to demonstrate this and therefore I shall say but little more But self-denial destroyeth the worlds great Idol and giveth God his own again The selfish lean most to their own understandings but the self-denying trust the Wisdom of God The selfish are careful principally for themselves and their own felicity even a terrene and carnal kind of felicity But the self-denying are principally careful how they may Please and Honour God and promote the welfare of his Church and in this way attain the spiritual everlasting felicity of the Saints The selfish must have their own humors pleased and their own wills accomplished and their own desires granted But the self-denying do slay their own carnal wills desires and conceits and lay them dead at the feet of Christ that his will alone may be exalted The selfish would have all men love them admire them and commend them But the self-denying would have all men to Love Admire and Glorifie the Lord above himself and all the world The selfish can bear with Gods enemies but not with their Own and they can suffer men to wrong Cod and sin against him more patiently than they can suffer them to wrong themselves But it is contrary with the self-denying A wrong to God and his Church seemeth far greater to them than a wrong against themselves In a word the selfish intend themselves and live to themselves and the self-denying intend God and live to him in the course of their lives And therefore when the selfish are troubled about many things the self-denying are minding the One thing Necessary And when the selfish are seeking to know what is good or evil to their flesh the self-denying are seeking to Please the Lord and desire to know nothing but him in Christ crucified and they could part with all the knowledge of the creatures as useful to themselves if they could but know more of God in Christ The selfish would be in his own hands at his own dispose and government and the self-denying would be in the hands of God and at his dispose and Government And doubtless the very state of mans Apostacy did lie in
Unworthiness by reason of this sin But self is not easily so far abased as to be heavy-laden and sick of sin nor is it easily drawn to value Grace or feel how much you are unworthy of it or need it nor easily driven to renounce all sufficiency and conceits of a Righteousness of your own and wholly to go out of your selves to Christ for life Self cannot spare sin for it is its darling and play-fellow its food its recreation and its life You must daily pray to be saved from temptation and delivered from Evil even the Evil of sin as well as of punishment But self doth Love the sin and therefore cannot long to be delivered from it and therefore Loveth the temptation that leadeth to it indeed is a continual tempter to it self Would the Covetous worldling be delivered from his worldliness Would the Ambitious Proud person be delivered from his Pride or Honours or the sensual person from his sensual delights No they do not Love the Preacher or people that are against them in these ways nor the holy self-denial that is contrary to them nor the Scripture that condemneth them nor indeed the Lord himself that forbids them and is the author of all these Laws and holy ways which they abhor So that you see how self is an enemy to every Petition in the Lords Prayer 3. And it is a violation of all the ten Commandments The first and second it is most directly against and is the very thing forbidden in them and all the rest it is against consequentially and is the virtual breach of them as disposing and drawing the soul thereunto The two Tables have two Great Commands which are the sum of the whole Law and all the other Commandments are consequents or particulars from these The sum of the first Table is Thou shalt Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart or above all This is the first Commandment Thou shalt have none other Gods before me which is put first as being the Fundamental Law commanding subjection it self to the soveraign Power of God which necessarily goes before all actual obedience to particular precepts But self is directly against this and sets up man as a God to himself And all the unsanctified Love themselves better than God and therefore cannot Love him above all And therefore neither second third or fourth command can be sincerely kept by such For when self is set up and God denied in stead of the right worshipping of God they are worshipping themselves or suiting God worship to the conceit and will of self Instead of the Reverent use of his name they are setting up their own names and will venture on the grossest abuse of Gods name rather than self shall suffer or be crossed And instead of hallowing the Lords day they devote both that and every day to themselves The sum of the second Table is Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self and this is the meaning of the tenth Commandment which forbiddeth us to covet any thing from him to our selves that is that we set not up self and its interest against our neighbour and his good and be not like a bruised or inflamed part of the body that draweth the blood or humors to it self or like a Wen or other Tumor that is sucking from the body for its own nutrition so that it is but plainly this Be not selfish or drawing or desiring any thing to thy self which is not thy due but belongeth to another but let Love run by even proportions between thy neighbour and thy self in order to God and the publick good And this Commandment brings up the rear that it may summarily comprehend and gather up all other particulars that be not instanced in in the foregoing Commandments Now selfishness being the very sin that is here forbidden I need to say no more to tell you that self is the breaker of this Law Next to this summary concluding Precept the greatest in the second Table if not one of the first is the fifth Commandment which requireth the preservation of Relations and Societies and the duties of those Relations especially of inferiors to superiors for the Honour of God and the Common good And this is set before the rest because the publick good is preferred to the personal good of any and Magistrates and Superiors being Gods Officers and for the Publick good are to be prefered before the subjects But what an enemy selfishness is to this Commandment I intend anon to shew you distinctly and therefore now pass it by And for the following Commandments who ever murdered another but out of some inordinate respect to himself either to remove that other 〈…〉 of his selfish Ends or to be revenged on â—…riving self of profit or honour or somâ—… it would have had or in some way or other â—…in your Own Ends by anothers blood And what is it but the satisfaction of your Own â—â—â—thy lusts that causeth Adultery and all uncleanness And what is it but the furnishing and providing for self that provoketh any man to Rob another And what is it but some selfish End that causeth any man to pervert Justice or slander or bear false witness against his neighbour so that nothing is more plain than that selfishness is all sin and villany against God and man comprized in one word And therefore you need not ask me which Commandment it is that doth forbid it For it is forbidden in every one of the ten Commandments The first condemneth self as it is the Idol set up and Loved trusted and served before God the second condemneth it as the Enemy of his worship and the third condemneth it as the Prophaner of his Name and the fourth as the Prophaner of his Hallowed time The second Table in the tenth Commandment condemneth self as it is the Tumor and gulf that is contrary to the Love of our neighbour and would draw all to it self The fifth Commandment condemneth it as the Enemy of Authority and Society the sixth as the Enemy to our Neighbours life the seventh eighth and ninth condemn it as the enemy to our neighbours chastity Estates and Cause or Name So that if you see any mischief done in Persons Families Towns Countrys Courts Armies or any where in the world you need not send out Hue and Cry to find out and apprehend the actor It is selfishness that is the Author of all If the poor be oppressed by the rich and their lives made almost like the life of a labouring Ox or Horse till the Cry of the oppressed reach to heaven who is it that doth all this but self The Landlords and rich men must Rule and be served by them I warrant you they would not do thus by themselves If the poor be discontented and murmur at their condition and steal from others who is it that is the cause of this but self If another were in poverty they would not murmur nor steal for him It is selfishness
your lungs to breathe your stomach to turn your meat to nourishment and that nourishment into blood and spirits and strength Is it God or you Who is it that causeth the Sun to rise upon you in the morning to light you to your labours and to set upon you at night that the Curtains of darkness may be drawn about you and you may quietly repose your selves to rest Who giveth you strength to labour in the day and refeâ—â—eth you with sleep at night and provideth all the creatures for your assistance Is it you or God O Sirs me thinks such silly worms that cannot live a minute of themselves and cannot fetch a breath of themselves should easily see that they should not live to themselves but to him from whom and by whom they live Direct 7. If you would live in self-denial be sure that you keep the mastery of your senses and do not let them be ungoverned but shut them up when reason doth require it It is your Appetite and senses that feed this carnal selfish vice but reason and faith are both against it Whenever you consult with sense you may know what brutish advice you may expect Ask not therefore what is delightful nor what is for your carnal ease and peace but what is necessary to please the Lord and for your everlasting peace And if the tempter tell you This is the easier and the broader way tell him that it is not the honester nor the safer way And the question is not which is the fairest way but which is the way to Heaven It 's better go the hardest way to glory than the smoothest to damnation If you cannot keep under your sensitive appetite and subdue the eager desires of the flesh and learn to want as well as to abound to be empty as well as to be full you will never attain to self-denial Direct 8. To promote your self-denial me thinks it should be effectual to understand the great advantage that you have by the Communion and Society which you enter into when you deny your selves Though a Prince or Lord would be loth to enter into a Colledge or Monastery where there 's no Propriety and yet withal no care or want yet a poor labouring man or a beggar would be glad of such a life So you that cannot live of your selves me thinks should be glad of such a Community 1. Consider that the Lord Jesus is the Head of the Society who hath undertaken to make provision for the whole and is engaged for their security and to save them harmless and all the Riches of his grace and love belong to that Society and will be yours which is more than all that you can part with of your own yea more than all the treasures of the world It is therefore the noblest and richest Society in the world that you shall live in communion with if you will deny your selves 2. And the Saints that are the Members of that Society are the Brethren of Christ and the Heirs of Heaven And all these are your Brethren endeared in special love to you engaged to assist you by prayers and counsel and pains and purse and every way that you can so that well might Christ say that he that forsaketh any thing for him shall receive even an hundred fold in this life and in the world to come eternal life For this one sorry self that you forsake and it 's poor accommodations you have God for your Father and Christ for your Head and the Holy Ghost for your Sanctifier and Comforter and the Sripture for your guide and Saints for your Brethren Companions and Assistants engaged to you in truer and dearer love than your unsanctified friends that cast you off for the sake of Christ And had you rather be toiling and caring for your selves than let go self and enter into so blessed a Community where you may cast all your care away upon God who hath promised to care for you and may feed your selves in the daily delightful fore-thoughts of life eternal Direct 9. And me thinks it should much promote your self-denial to study well the self-denying example of Christ and his eminent servants that have troden in his steps Christ had no sinful self to deny nor any corrupted flesh to mortifie or subdue And yet he had a self-denial in which we must imitate him Rom. 15. 3. For even Christ pleased not himself but as it is written The reproaches of them that reproached thee are faln upon me We are told therefóre by Christs example that it is not only the pleasing of self as corrupted by sin but also a pleasing of natural self in things where God may lay a restraint on it or put it to the tryal that we must avoid and in which we must deny our selves Even as Adam was to have denyed his natural appetite before sin had corrupted it and Christ had an innocent natural will of which yet he saith Not my will but thine be done His whole life was a wonderful example of self-denial He lived in a low estaâ—â— and denyed himself of the Glory and Riches of the world and became poor though he were Lord of all that by his poverty we might be made rich 2 Cor. 8. 9. He lived under the reproach of sinners of sinners that he created of sinners whom he dyed for He would wear no Crown but a Crown of Thorns He would wear no Robes but the Robes of their reproach He yielded his cheeks to be smitten and his face to be spit upon by the vilest sinners whom he could with a word have turned into Hell And at last he gave himself for us on the Cross in suffering a reproachful cursed death Heb. 7. 27. Tit. 2. 14. Eph. 5. 2. 2. 25. Gal. 1. 4. And can you read such an example of self-denial given you by the Lord of glory and not be transformed into the image of it I think the study of a self-denying Christ is one of the most excellent helps to self-denial Take it from the Apostle himself Phil. 2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8. Fulfil ye my joy that ye be like-minded having the same love being of one accord of one mind let nothing be done through strife or vain-glory but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves Look not every man on his own things but every man also on the things of others Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus who being in the form of God thought it no robbery to be equal with God but made himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of men and being found in fashion as a man he humbled himself and became obedient unto death even the death of the Cross Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him Look therefore unto Jesus the Author and Finisher of our faith who for the joy that was set before him endured the