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
man but a woman that had been a sinner When she held him by the feet Love did begin low in humility but it tended higher and ended higher Christ hath told us that where much is forgiven there will be much love For there 's most of the fruits of God's love and least of self and most to abase self It is not possible that love to Christ should dwell or work in any but the humble that feel at the heart that they are unworthy of love and worthy of everlasting wrath The Proud and Self conceited cannot love him for they cannot be much taken with Christ's love to them except as the Pharisee in a way of self-flattery But the poor soul that was lost will heartily love him that sought and found him and he that was dead will love when he finds himself alive and he that was condemned both by God and conscience will surely love the Lord that ransomed him And it is the apprehensions that men have of themselves that much causeth all this difference The self-abhorring self-judgeing self-denying sinner is melted with the love of God in Christ because it is to such a worthless sinful wretch What Lord saith he is the blood of Christ the pardon of sin the spirit of grace the priviledges of a child and everlasting glory for such an unworthy wretch as I that have so long offended thee and so much neglected thee and lived such a life as I have done and am such an empty unprofitable worm O what a wonder of mercy is this But the full soul loaths the honey-comb The self-conceited unhumbled sinner looks as mindlesly at Christ as a healthful man at the Physitian or an innocent man at a pardon And that good that is in the Proud and Self-conceited doth seldom do much good to others much less to themselves As such do but serve themselves so ordinarily God doth not bless their endeavours but as they are perverted they are the likest to pervert others and propagate their self-conceitedness Two words from an humble self-denying man doth oftentimes more good than a Sermon from the self-conceited I admonish you therefore in the name of God that you take heed of this part of selfishness and mortifie it It will else keep out God and almost all that is good If you are proud and self-conceited you will hear a Minister rather to cavil with him than to be edified and when any thing from God doth cross your foolish wisdom you will but slight it or make a jest at it And if any truth of God do strike at the heart of your selfish interest you will but fret at it and secretly hate it and perhaps as the Devils open souldiers publickly reproach it and as the Jews did against Stephen Act. 7. even gnash the teeth at the Preacher or as they did by Paul Act. 22. 22. They gave him audience to that word even that word that made against themselves and then lift up their voices and said Away with such a fellow from the earth for it is not fit that he should live This entertainment we still meet with from our hearers when self hath brought them the next step to hell O Sirs suspect your own understandings Think not of them beyond the proportion of your attainments Nor beyond your experience and the helps and time and opportunities which you have had for knowledge nor beyond the measure of your diligence for the improving of these For these are God's ordinary way of giving in a ripeness in knowledge Read and study Heb. 5. 12 14. 1 Tim. 3. 6. Set not up your own conceits too boldly against those of longer standing and diligence in holy studies much less against your Teachers and much less against a multitude of Ministers and much less against all the Church of God and least of all against God himself as speaking to you by the holy Scriptures O take warning by the swarms of heresies and scandals that have been caused by self-conceitedness and pride Object If you may think your self wiser than me and others without self-conceitedness why may not I think my self wiser than you and such others without self-conceitedness Answ I may not do it in the cases before-mentioned I may not think my self to be what I am not nor exalt my self above them that are wiser than I nor against my Guides or the Church of God Object But it is but your conceit that you are wise enough to be a Teacher or wiser than others and why may not I as well conceit it Answ No man on his own Conceits must become a Teacher but the judicious of that Calling must Call them and judge of their abilities And conceits are as the ground of them is The true understanding of the grace that we have received is a duty and fitteth us for thankfulness but the false conceit that we have what we have not is a dangerous delusion For he that thinketh he is something when he is nothing deceiveth himself Gal. 6. 3. What if a blind man should argue as you do with one that sees and say You say that you see so far off and why may not I say so too would you not answer him I know that which I say to be true and so do not you And what if he still go on and say you think that I am blind and I think that you are blind and why may not I be believed as well as you would this kind of talk prove the man to have his eye-sight or should it make me question wheâ—â—er I have mine He that seeth knoweth that he seeth whoever question it and if another make doubt of it let men that have eyes in their head be Judges but not the blind But I confess spiritual blindness hath this disadvantage that whereas I can easily make any other blind man know that he is blind and therefore be willing to be led or help'd here the more blind men are most commonly they are the more confident that they see and scornfully say as the Pharisees to Christ John 9. 40. Are we blind also For Pride will not let them know their ignorance The same light that cureth ignorance must reveal it Especially when men are born blind and never knew the saving illumination of the Saints they will not believe that there is any other light than they have seen But I have been somewhat long on this part I pass now to the next CHAP. XV. Self-will be denied 4. THe fourth part of selfishness to be mortified is self-will And this is the fruit of self-conceit and also a natural corruption of the soul And a most deep rooted obstinate vice it is Every wicked man is a self-willed man against God and all that speak for God And till self be mortified in the will there is no saving grace in that will Quest But what will is it that is to be called a self-will Answ Not that which is from God and for God but all the
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
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
you by God that you may be Accepted by him and offer your selves and all your labors purely to him and to his honour and his will God will take these for honourable services and you are as truly at his work even in your shops and fields as Princes are in Ruling or Pastors in teaching or guiding the flock you that are poor and cannot set so much time apart for reading and other holy duties as some other do see that you neglect no holy opportunity that you can take and then consider that if God set you to do him service even by washing dishes or sweeping channels or the meanest drudgery he will accept it and the more by how much the more humble submission and self-denial is found in it Take him as the only Lord and Master of your souls and lives and all that you have and when you are called to your daily labour look but to your hearts that God be your End and that you can truly say I do not this principally to provide for my self but as an obedient child in my Fathers service because he bids me do it and it is pleasing to him through Christ I do it not principally from self-self-love but from the Love of God that commandeth me my work and as a traveller that laboureth in his way for the love of his home so I am here at labour in this world in the place that God hath set me that I may in his appointed way attain the everlasting glory that he hath promised I say do but see to it that thus you dedicate your labours to God and you may take comfort in the daily labours of your lives even the meanest and most contemptible as well as Princes and Preachers may in their more honourable works Nay all your labours are honoured and sanctified by this For all is Holy that is heartily devoted to God upon his invitation And thus all things are pure to the pure For it is Gods interest in your work that is the holiness and excellency of them Were servants and labouring people more Holy and self-denying they might have more true comfort in their daily labour than the best of the unsanctified can have from their prayers or other worship of God Not that worship may be therefore neglected but that a Christian must do nothing at all but for God and then he may be sure of Gods Acceptance CHAP. LXX Deny Self or you will deny Christ 8. MOreover the selfish will never suffer as Christians but deny Christ in a day of trial when the self-denying will go through all and be saved Nothing doth so througly try whether self or God be best beloved as suffering for his cause In this it is that Christ useth to try mens self-denial and it is a principal use of persecution When you hear of coming before Rulers and Judges and being hated of all men for Christs name sake then self riseth up to plead for its interest and never maketh more ado than when it seeth the flames The flesh cannot Reason but it can strive against Reason and draw it to its side No Reason seemeth sufficient to it to perswade it to choose a suffering state If you perswade a Carnal man to let go his estate to be poor and despised in the world and to give up life it self if it be called for and all this for the hope of an invisible felicity you lose your labour till God set in and all such reasoning seems to him most unreasonable And what a dreadful case such souls are in my Text and many another passage in Scripture may convince you If you cannot drink of his cup and be baptized with his baptism you cannot be advanced with him to glory Through many tribulations we must enter into the Kingdom of God The pleasing of the flesh is the high way to misery by displeasing God and the voluntary submission to the suffering of the flesh for the cause of Christ is the high way to felicity 2 Tim. 2. 11 12. It is a faithful saying for if we be dead with him we shall also live with him if we suffer we shall also reign with him if we deny him he also will deny us Rom. 8. 17. Yea and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution 2 Tim. 3. 12. The day of trial is a kind of Judgement day to the selfish unsanctified man For it discovereth his hypocrisie and sheweth him to be but dross and separateth him from the suffering servants of Christ But self-denial maketh suffering light and will make you wish that you had any thing worth the resigning unto Christ and any thing by the denial whereof you might serve him For him you would suffer the loss of all things and account them dross and dung that you may win him Phil. 3. 8. He will count us worthy of the Kingdom for which we suffer 2 Thes 1. 5. As the Captain of our salvation was made perfect by suffering Heb. 2. 10. so also must his members by filling up the measure and being made partakers of his sufferings and knowing the fellowship of them 2 Cor. 1. 5 6 7. Phil. 3. 10. And the God of all grace who hath called us into his eternal glory by Christ Jesus after we have suffered a while will make us perfect stable strengthen and settle us 1 Pet. 5. 10. If therefore you would not prove Apostates and deny Christ in a day of trial and be denied by him before his Father aud the holy Angels see that you now learn this needful Lesson of self-denial CHAP. LXXI The selfish deal worse with God than with Satan 9. COnsider also that selfish Carnal men deal worse with God than they do with the Devil and sin it self God offereth them Christ and pardon and eternal life if they will but deny themselves in a thing of nought and they will not be ruled or perswaded by him The Devil offereth them but the delights of the flesh and the pleasures of sin for a season and they will deny ten thousand sold more for this They will deny God their Maker and Redeemer their Lord and Judge their Preserver and their hope though he have the only Title to them and their lives and souls be in his hand They will for the sake of a filthy lust or of a short and miserable life deny him that never did them wrong nay that hath always shewed them kindness even all the kindness that ever they received and that when they know that their everlasting state must stand or fall according to his judgement They will deny the Lord Jesus the Redeemer of their souls They will deny and resist the holy spirit of God They will deny his Laws his Gospel-promises and all his Mercies They will deny his Ministers and all their perswasions and daily labours They will deny their dearest Christian friends and deny their own Consciences and Convictions and deny themselves the Peace and Joy which they might
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
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
changed in the point of Baptism and these are greatly offended with me for dissenting and giving the Reasons of my dissent what uncharitable dealings some of them have been guilty of I shall not now express Some of them have turned to one opinion and some to another and almost all that make these turns have left their Charity behind them Some of them take up new Causes in the Common-wealth and these are as angry with me as the rest because I cannot follow them in their Changes How many waies hath a man to lose a selfish friend I was once beloved by all these men and now I am either hated or lookt at as a stranger at least when I am where I was when I had their Love If I know my heart I speak not this in any great sense of the loss of my own interest but in the sense of the lamentable Power and Prevalency of self-Self-love and Self-conceitedness in the world And while I am bitterly censured by almost every party how easily could I recover my interest and reputation with any one of them if I could but be of their mind and side How wise and how honest a man could I be with the Anabaptists if I would but be Rebaptized and turn to them And how much should I be valued by the Papists if I would turn to them The like I may say of all the other fore-named parties For every one of them have by word or writing signified so much to me Even the Grotian Prelatists would wipe their mouths and speak me fairer if I could turn to them Mr. Pierce himself that hath exceeded all men in his late Book abounding with visible falâ—hoods and unchristian abuse of the servants of the Lord whom he calleth Puritans yet telleth me page 212. We contend for your fellowship and daily pray for your coming in if you by name should have occasion to pass this way and present your self with other guests at the holy Supper of our Lord no man on earth should be more welcome but if you and your partners will continue your several separations and shut your selves out from our Communion as it were judging your selves unworthy of the Kingdom of God and excommunicating your selves c. See here the power of Selfishness A man that is painted out as Lazie a Reader a Proud Hypocrite and much more should be as welcome as any man on earth if he will but have communion with them in their way how much more if he were but of their party This would cure Hypocrisie Pride and all these crimes And till we can comply with them we Excommunicate our selves and judge our selves unworthy of the Kingdom of God He that thinks Bishops should not be as now Diocesan and undertake many hundred Parishes and then feed and govern them by others and he that submits not to their mode in a Surplice or some form of Prayer doth therefore judge himself unworthy of the Kingdom of God as if Gods Kingdom were confined to them and lay in meats and drinks and not in Righteousness and Peace And as if we continued in an excommunication of our selves because we are not of their party when yet we deny no Protestants to be our Brethren nor refuse local Communion with them so they will grant it us on Scripture-terms which if they will not we will yet hold communion with them in several Congregations But thus it appeareth how strong self-interest is in the world and how charitable men are to those of their own opinions or parties and how easily many do take liberty to speak their pleasure against any that are not of their mind 8. Observe also how forward men are to Teach and how backward to be Learners and then judge of their Self-denial Why are so many unwilling to enter by the way of Ordination but too commonly because they judge better of their Own abilities than Ordainers do and therefore suspect that they may be rejected by the Ordainers or disgraced at the least while they think highly of themselves But if they were self-denying men they would think the sober faithful Pastors much fitter Judges of their abilities than themselves and would not run before they are sent Many that reproach the Ministers as deceivers will needs be themselves the Teachers of the people As if they should say We silly ignorant souls are wiser and fitter to be Teachers than you come down and let us take your places In conference you may observe that most are forwarder to speak than to hear which shews that they over-value their own understandings And so much are Proud men delighted to be thought the Oracles of the world that if you will but seem to hearken to them and learn of them and yield to their Opinions you win their hearts and shall be the men that have their commendations Insomuch that some late ambitious persons that have thought to rise by the art of dissimulation have found that there is no way for the deceiving of the people and procuring the good will of most like this even to seem to be of every mans opinion that they talk with and to make every Sect and Party believe that they are their friends and of their mind Especially if you will seem to be changed by their arguments and give them the glory of your convictions and illuminations you will then be the dearly beloved of their hearts In all this you may see the rarity of self-denial Yea in the very work of God too many of the most zealous godly Ministers that have been the instruments of converting many souls are toucht a little with the temptation to this selfishness looking too much to their own part in the work 9. Observe but how commonly with men called Christians the interest of Christ is trodden in the dirt when it seemeth to cross any interest of their own An Argument drawn from the commands of God or the necessity of the Church or of the souls of men seems nothing to them if their Honour or Gain or Greatness or safety do stand up against it and be inconsistent with its conclusion Hence it is that the souls of Hypocrites do cheat themselves by a Carnal Religiousness serving God only in subserviency to themselves Hence it is that Hypocrites do most shew themselves in matters of self-interest In the cheap part of Religion they seem to be as good as any as zealous for their party and opinions which they call the Truth and as long and loud in prayer and for as strict a way of Discipline with others But touch them in their Estates or Names Call them to costly works of Charity or to let go their right for peace or publick good or to confess and lament any sin that they commit and you shall then see that they are but common men and Self bears rule instead of Christ Hence also it is that so many persons can bear with themselves in any calling or trade of life
for our selves and not as duly subordinate to God The soul having unfaithfully and rebelliously withdrawn it self from God in point of Love and subjection it become its own Idol and looks no higher than it self and Loveth God and all things but for it self and principally for its carnal pleasure And the Propensity to this with the Privation of the souls Inclination to God is Original sin the Disposition suited to the actual sin that caused it which was a retiring from God to self He that feeleth not this evil in himself hath no true knowledge of Original sin And it 's the want of the sense of this great evil and so the want of being acquainted with their hearts that causeth so many to turn Pelagians and to deny the being of Orignal sin 2. Both selfishness and the want of a true discerning of it doth breed and feed abundance of errours and teach men to corrupt the whole body of Practical Divinity and to subvert many Articles of faith which stand in their way How comes the world to be all in a flame about the Universal Reign of the Pope of Rome but from the dominion of selfishness Whence is it that the Nations of the earth have been so troubled for Patriarchs Metropolitans and Diocesans that must do their work by others and for many things that at best can pretend to be but humane indifferent changeable forms but from the prevalency of Self Whence is it that mens consciences have been ensnared and the Churches troubled by so many Ceremonies of mens invention and the Church must rather lose her faithfullest Pastors than they be permitted to worship God as Peter and Paul did Hath not selfishness and Pride done this It is self that hath taught some to plead too much for their own sufficiency and to deny the need of special Grace And so far hath it prevailed with some of late as to lead them Doctrinally to deny that God is the Ultimate End of man and to be Loved for himself and above our selves and all things but only they say he is our finis cujus vel rei to be loved amore concupiscentiae In a word it is this woful principle that hath corrupted Doctrine Discipline and Worship in so many of the Churches 3. We shall never have Peace in Church or Common-wealth while selfishness bears sway Every mans Interest will be preferred before the publick Interest and rise against it as oft which will be oft as they seem inconsistent This is the Vice that informeth Tyranny whether it be Monarchy Aristocracy or Democracy when selfish interest is preferred before the Common Interest This makes our people think themselves too wise or too good to learn or to be guided by their Pastors and every man of this strain seems wise enough to lead off a party of the Church into a mutiny against the Pastors and the rest This makes the labours of Reconcilers unsuccessful while selfishness engageth so many wits and tongues and pens and parties against the most necessary equal terms and endeavours of such as would Reconcile Were it not for these selfish men how soon would all our rents be healed how soon would all our wars be ended and all our heart-burnings and malicious oppositions be turned into charitable consultations for an holy peace If once men were carryed above themselves they would meet in God the Center of Unity 4. It is for want of self denial that we undergo so many disappointments and suffer so much disquietment and vexation Were our wills more entirely subjected to the will of God so that his will were preferred before our own we should Rest in his will and have no contradictory desires to be disappointed and no mâ—tâ—er left for self-vexation Had we no disease we should feel no pain and it is our self-will rebelling against the will of God that is our disease Self-denial removeth all the venom from our hearts Persecution and poverty and sickness may touch our fleâ—h but the heart is fortified so far as we have his Grace O how happily doth it quiet and calm the mind when things befall us that would even distract a selfish man O happy man where God is All and Self is Nothing There Duty and Love and Joy are all and trouble and distress is nothing These are not our matters now Partly because we are above them and partly because they belong not to our care but to his Povidence Let us do our Duty and adhere to him and let him dispose of us as he sees meet Who would much fear a Tyrant or any other enemy that saw God and Glory which faith can see Did we see the glorious Throne of Christ we should be so far from trembling at the bar of Persecutors that we should scarce so much regard them as to answer them the infinite Glory would so potently divert our minds As we scarce hearken to our childreâ—s impertinent babblings when we are taken up with great Affairs so if a Tyrant talk to us of â—â—â—â—ging or imprisonment we should scarce hearkeâ— to such trivial impertinencies were we so far above our selves as Faith and Love should advance the soul I have further shewed you in the following Treatise how self-denial disableth all Temptations how it conduceth to all eminent works of Charity but especially to the secret works of the sincere It is of absolute necessity to salvation It is thething that hypocrites are condemned for want of It is the wisdom of the soul as being the only way to our own security And it is the holiness and justice of the soul as it is conjunct with the Love of God in that it restoreth to God his own The excellency of Grace is manifested in self-denial To do or suffer such little things as self is not much against is nothing But to be Nothing in our selves and God to be our All and to close with our first and blessed End this is the nature of Sanctification Alas poor England and more than England even all the Christian world into what confusion and misery hath selfishness plunged thee Into how many pieces art thou broken because that every hypocrite hath a self to be his principle and end and forsakes the true Universal End How vain are our words to Rulers to Souldiers to Rich and Poor while we call upon them to Deny themselves And must we lose our labour and must the Nation lose its peace and hopes Is there no remedy but selfishness must undo all If so be it known to you the principal loss shall be your own ☞ and in seeking your safety liberty wealth and glory you shall lose them all and fall into misery slavery and disdain Deny your selves or save your selves if you can God is not engaged to take care of you or preserve you if you will be your own and will be reserving or saving your selves from him ☞ And though you may seem to prosper in self-seeking waies they will end yea shortly end
of self-denyal 2. As God was mans ultimate End in his state of innocency so accordingly man was appointed to use all Creatures in order to God for his Pleasure and Glory So that it was the work of man to do his Makers will and he was to use nothing but with this intention But when man was faln from God to himself he afterwards used all things for himself even his carnal self and all that he possessed was become the provision and fuel of his lusts and so the whole creation which he was capable of using was abused by him to this low and selfish end as if all things had been made but for his delight and will But when man is brought to Deny himself he is brought to restore the Creatures to their former use and not to sacrifice them to his fleshly mind so that all that he hath and useth in the world is used to another end so far as he denyeth himself than formerly it was even for God and not himâ—elf 3. In the state of Innocency though man had naturally an aversness from death and bodily pains as being natural evils and had a desire of the welfare even of the flesh it self yet as his body was subject to his soul and his senses to his Reason so his bodily ease and welfare was to be esteemed and desired and sought but in a due subordination to his spiritual welfare and especially to his Makers Will So that though he was to value his Life yet he was much more to value his everlasting life and the pleasure and Glory of his Lord. But now when man is faln from God to Himself his Life and earthly felicity is the sweetest and the dearest thing to him that is So that he preferreth it before the Pleasing of God and everlasting life And therefore he seeketh it more and holdeth it faster as long as he can and parteth with it more unwillingly As Innocent Nature had an appetite to the objects of sense but corrupted nature hath an enraged greedy rebellious and inordinate appetite to them so Innocent nature had a love to this natural earthly life and the comforts of it but corrupted Nature hath such an inordinate love to them as that all things else are made but subordinate to them and swallowed up in this gulf even God himself is so far loved as he befriendeth these our carnal ends and furthereth our earthly prosperity and life But when men are brought to Deny themselves they are in their measures restored to their first esteem of Life and all the prosperity and earthly comforts of life Now they have learned so to love them as to love God better and so to value them as to prefer everlasting life before them and so to hold them and seek their preservation as to resign them to the will of God and to lay them down when we cannot hold them with his Love and to choose death in order to life everlasting before that life which would deprive us of it And this is the principal instance of self-denyal which Christ giveth us here in the Text as it is recited by all the three Evangelists that recite these words He that saveth his life shall lose it c. And what shall it profit a man to win all the world and lose his soul By these instances it appears that by self-denyal Christ doth mean a setting so light by all the world and by our own lives and consequently our carnal Content in these as to be willing and Resolved to part with them all rather than with him and everlasting life even as Abraham was bound to love his Son Isaac but yet so to prefer the Love and Will of God as to be able to sacrifice his Son at Gods Command And the Lord Jesus himself was the liveliest Pattern to us of his Self-denyal that ever the world saw Indeed his whole life was a continued practice of it And it hath oft convinced me that it is a special part of our Sanctification when I have considered how abundantly the Lord hath exercised himself in it for our example For as it is desperate to think with the Socinians that he did it only for our Example so it is also a desperate Error of others to think that it was only for satisfaction to God and not at all for our Example Many do give up themselves to Flesh-pleasing upon a misconceit that Christ did therefore deny his flesh to purchase them a liberty to please theirs As in his Fasting and Temptations and his sufferings by the reproach and ingratitude of men and the outward Poverty and Meanness of his condition the Lord was pleased to deny himself so especially in his last Passion and death As I have shewed elsewhere he loved his natural life and peace and therefore in manifestation of that he prayeth Father if it be thy Will let this Cup pass from me But yet when it came to the comparative practical Act he proceeded to choose his Fathers Will with death rather than life without it and therefore saith Not my Will that is my simple love of life but thy Will be done In which very words he manifesteth another will of his own besides that which he consenteth shall not be done and sheweth that he preferred the pleasing of his Father in the Redemption of the world before his own life And thus in their measure he causeth all his Members to do so that life and all the comforts of life are not so dear to them as the love of God and everlasting life 4. When God had created man he was presently the Owner of him and man understood this that he was God's and not his own And he was not to claim a Propriety in himself nor to be affected to himself as his own nor to live as his own but as His that made him But when he fell from God he arrogated practically though notionally he may deny it a propriety in himself and useth himself accordingly And when Christ bringeth men to deny themselves they cease to be their own in their conceits any more Then they resign themselves wholly to God as being wholly his They know they are his both by the right of Creation and of Redemption And therefore are to be disposed of by him and to glorifie him in body and spirit which are his 1 Cor. 6. 19 20. Rom. 14. 9. To be thus heartily devoted to God as his own is the form of Sanctification and to live as God's own is the truly Holy life 5. As man in Innocency did know that he was not his own so he knew that nothing that he had was his own but that he was the Steward of his Creator for whom he was to use them and to whom he was accountable But when he was fallen from God to himself though he had lost the Right of a Servant yet be graspeth at the Creature as if he had the Right of a Lord He now takes his Goods his
by Christ And therefore it is past dispute that none but the self-denying are sanctified and therefore none bâ— they do truly take the Holy Ghost for their Sanctifier and truly believe in him So far as men are in Love with the disease it is certain they will not use the Physitian Reas 5. No man is a true Christian and in a state of salvation that denyeth renounceth or rejecteth the word of God But all men that have not self-denyal that hear the word of God do renounce deny it or reject it and therefore no man without self-denyal is a true Christian or can be saved In the Scriptures it is that we have eternal life it s they that must make us wise to salvation the man that will be blessed must meditate in them day and night Psal 1. 3. And it is not the hearers but the Doers of them that are blessed But nothing is more clear than that the voice of Scripture calleth aloud on all men to deny themselves and that the scope of it is to cry down self and set up God in Jesus Christ It is the very drift and meaning of it from end to end to take down self and abase men in their own eyes and bring them home to God from whom they are revolted Reas 6. No man can be a Christian or be saved without saving Grace But no man without self-denyal hath saving Grace For it is the nature of every Grace to carry man from himself to God by Christ It is the work of godly sorrow to humble proud man and break the heart of carnal self It is the work of faith for a self-denying soul to pass out for hope and life to Christ It is the work of Love to carry us quite above our selves to that infinite goodness which we love it is the nature of holy fear to confess our guilt and insufficiency and to suspect our selves and dread the fruit of our own ways Confidence doth bottom us upon God and Hope it self doth imply a Despairing in our selves Thankfulness doth pay the homage to him that hath saved us from our selves And every grace hath self-denyal as half its very life or soul And therefore it is certain that no man hath any more grace than he hath self-denyal Reas 7. They that reject the Ministry and the fruit of all the Ordinances of God are not true Christians nor cannot be saved But so do all among us that have not self-denyal For the use of the Ministry is to call home sinners from themselves to God The use of every Ordinance of God is to get or keep down carnal self and exalt the Lord. Confession is nothing but self-abasing and he must confess that will have the faithful and just God to forgive him for he that covereth his sin shall not prosper 1 John 1. 9. Prov. 28. 13. Prayer is a confession of our own emptiness insufficiency and unworthiness and a flying from our selves for help unto another In Baptism we come as condemned prisoners for a pardon as it were with ropes about our necks and strip our selves of the rags of our filthiness that by the blood of the lamb we may be washed from our blood and our sins may be buried as in the depth of the Sea In the Lords Supper we renew the same Covenant and receive the same renewed pardon and still fly from our selves to Christ for life and renounce our carnal selves by solemn Covenant as a people coming home to God So that never was any Ordinance of God effectual and saving on the soul of any further than it brought them to self-denyal or preserved exercised or manifested it Reas 8. He that can do no work sincerely nor go one step in the way of life is no true Christian nor in a state life But this is the case of all that have not self-denyal For self is their Principle Rule and End and he that hath either a false Principle Rule or End cannot be sincere in any of the means much less when he is out in all of these A selfish man is seeking himself in his very Religion and is serving himself when he seemeth to be serving God And indeed he doth not any service sincerely unto God because he makes not God his End And therefore cannot be accepted Reas 9. No man is a true Christian or can be saved that sticks in the depth of his natural misery in his lapsed state But so do all men that have not self-denyal for it is self that they are faln to and must be saved from Reas 10. No man can be a true Christian and be saved that is not a member of the Holy Catholick Church and the Communion of Saints But so is none but the self-denying for every true member of the Church hath a publick spirit preferring the Churches interest to his own and suffering with fellow members in their suffering and having a care of one another 1 Cor. 12. But the self-seeking unsanctified person is a stranger to this disposition Reas 11. He that is led by the greatest enemy of God and his own soul is not a true Christian nor in a state of life But so is every man that hath not learned to deny himself For self is the greatest enemy of God and us Escape but your own hands and you are out of danger All the Devils in Hell cannot destroy you if you would not be your own destroyers Reas 12. Lastly It is a plain contradiction to be saved without self-denyal For as its self that we must be saved from both as our End and Means and greatest enemy so to stick in self is still to be lost and miserable and therefore not to be saved So that the case is as plain as a case can be that no man can be a true Christian or Disciple of Christ without self-denyal and consequently none without it can be saved I have been the briefer upon the Arguments because the matter of some of them may come to be fullier opened anon in the Application CHAP. III. Use 1. A general complaint of the Prevalency of Selfishness Use 1. AND now we have seen from the words of Christ the absolute Necessity of self-denyal and that there is no true Christianity nor salvation without it let us next take a view of our selves and of the world and Judge of our condition by this certain Rule Look well into your selves and into the world and tell me whether you find not cause to lament 1. That true Christianity is so rare a thing even among the professors of Christianity seeing self-denyal is so rare 2. That Grace is so weak and small in the most of the regnerate seeing self-denyal is so little and imperfect O if the name of Christians would prove us Christians and the magnificent Titles we give to Christ would prove that we are his true Disciples if reading and hearing and outward duties and a cheap Religiousness would serve turn we have then great
break out in the Town and infect but a quarter as many houses as here are infectious Alehouses that harbour tiplers and drunkards and see whether the Magistrates of this or any Town will not a little better bestir themselves and send to search after infected places and nail up their doors and write on them Lord have mercy on us that all may take warning and keep away They will not here be offended with Informers nor say Am I bound to look after them And why are they not as zealous against sin as against the plague Great reason Self is for sin and God only is against it but self is against the Plague because it is concerned in it sin doth but hurt the soul and bring men to Helfire but the plague destroys their body and this is the greater matter with them because they have flesh and sense to judge of it but they have not faith to believe the other Again let but one house in the Town be on fire and all are up to quench it and the Bell is rung and the Magistrate doth not think that he wants a Call himself to look after it And when the fire of Hell is kindling in an Ale-house that 's nothing but must be let alone there 's no such zeal nor no such haste And why so Why one they see in good sadness and perceive that it is fire indeed but the other they believe in jest as if it would prove but a painted fire Again let but an ungodly fellow slander the Magistrate or call him all to naught especially if he give him but two or three boxes on the ear and see whether he will let that man alone But let the same man abuse the name of God and break his Laws and with too many he may be let alone unless they be urged to do Justice And how comes this difference Why self is toucht in one and it is but God But God! O Atheists that 's touched in the other Self can do more with them than God can do Remember still when I say that self can do more with them than God that I speak not of what God could do by his Omnipotency if he would but of the final Causality or the small interest that God hath in their hearts by holy Faith and Love Again let but a servant rob the Magistrate and carry his money and goods to an Ale-seller to reset and try whether he will look after him and the Ale-seller And why not as soon and as zealously when Ale-sellers reset mens sons and servants and drown mens understandings and turn them into beasts Why because in one it is but God and mens souls that are concerned a matter of nothing but in the other it is self a greater matter with them Shall I give you but one instance more that the Ale-sellers themselves will take my part in so far as to bear me witness that its true Here are Farmers of the Excise that have power to know what Ale-houses are in the Town and their gain lyeth on it and there shall scarce a man in Town or Country sell Ale so secretly but they will know it nor sell a Barrel but what they are acquainted with They do not say I am not bound to go search after them nor that they be not able to discover them and to bring them to pay Excise But the Justices too commonly can overlook abundance that the Excise-men can find and they cannot make one of twenty pay when the other can And what 's the matter Why one works for self and money and the other works but for God and his own and other mens salvation a small matter See then beyond denyal what self and money can do with such men when God and mens salvation can do next to nothing But I must desire you not to mistake me and think I speak this of any honest godly Magistrate and abuse the good by joyning them with the bad No far be it from me to be so injurious For its evident that they can be no good men nor have any true Love of God in their souls that are such in a predominant sense as I have here described It is not in my thoughts to lay this blame on any honest Godly Magistrate for none but the ungodly would do as I have mentioned and prefer themselves before the Lord and the bodies of men before the souls And alas if the Soveraign Powers of the Nations of the world were not too sick of the same disease gain would not be accounted Godliness but Godliness the greatest gain and carnal Policie would not go for Piety but true Piety would go for the surest Policie It would not be so common in most Nations to have the Truth and Cause of Christ disowned and his servants persecuted and their lives and blood to be made a sacrifice to carnal Self and worldly Interests Nor would the breaches of the Churches be so long unhealed and grow wider and wider and few much regard them but all have their own work to do which must be looked after Yea and the Cause of Christ and the Gospel must be trod down if it stand in the way of their own And the Churches must be set on fire by their wars and contentions for their selfish Interests And if Self were not too strong among us we should not have had such connivence at doctrinal and practical abominations nor so much delay or neglect of healing the discomposed Churches and uniting the divided Christians or attempting it more effectually than we have done But because I desire to speak to none but those that are within my hearing I will return home to our selves The holy ordering and instructing of families and suppressing sin in Children and servants is one of the most effectual works for the building up of the Church and the glory and stability of the Common-wealth O if Parents and Masters would but sanctifie their houses to the Lord and teach their families the will and fear of God and do their best by punishment when instruction will not serve to hinder sin how fast would Reformation then go on And what hindreth why carnal Self If it were but for wordly commodities they would do more Would you have me prove it Let experience speak Let a servant or child go prayerless to their work and few regard it but they will not go without meat or drink or cloaths The Master will suffer them to neglect Gods service but if they neglect his own and should do him no more or better service than they do to God they should soon hear of it and be turned out of door and they were no servants for him They will teach their children to do their own work or set them Apprentices to learn it but the work of God and their salvation they shall for them have little teaching in how plainly soever God hath commanded it them Deut. 11. 18 19. 6. 6 7 8. Ephes 6. 4. Let
doctrine of Christ and how much it doth to make them like or dislike their teachers or any point or practice in Religion And he is a stranger even among Divines themselves that seeth not the sway that self doth bear in their judgements and disputes and course of life and the choice of their party or society to which they joyn themselves CHAP. VI. Mens great aversness to costly or troublesome duties 3. ANother discovering instance of the rarity of self-denyal is this The great aversness of men to any costly or troublesome or self-denying duty how necessary soever how plainly soever revealed in the Scripture and how generally soever acknowledged by the Church As if self had a Negative voice in the making of Laws for the Government of the world and none must be binding without its consent I shall come down to some more particular instances 1. The great duty of charitable relieving our brethren in necessity to the utmost of our power is commonly made almost nothing of in the world And men cheat their souls by thinking they are passed from death to life because they love the brethren with such a cold and barren love as will neither lay down estate for them nor venture life for them but think they are sure Christians because they can say as the believers that James mentioneth Depart in peace be you warmed and filled but give them not that which is necessary thereto James 2. 16. Though it be told them plainly by Christ himself that it is not a fruitless uneffectual love but that which causeth them to feed and cloath and visit the Saints that must stand them instead at judgement Matth. 25. and the Apostle asketh them How the love of God can dwell in that man that seeth his brother have need and shutteth up the bowels of his compassion from him 1 John 3. 17. Yet do men think that by dropping now and then a penny they have discharged all this great duty And when they see many wayes by which they might promote the Gospel and help the Church and serve God with their estates yet self will not let them see the meaning of the plainest Scriptures that do require it 2. When men should practise the great duty of forgiving injuries trespasses and debts and of loving our enemies and blessing them that curse us and praying for them that hate and persecute us how stubbornly doth selfishness resist these duties What abundance of words may you use in vain with most men to perswade them to any of this work No they must have their right and that which is their own though it be to the undoing of their brother Passion and revenge even boil within them and the thoughts of an injury stick in their minds and if they do take on them dissemblingly to forgive it yet they cannot forget it nor heartily love a brother that displeaseth them much less an enemy And all this is from the dominion of self and shews that it prevaileth above God in the soul and therefore shews a graceless heart 3. When the Ministers of the Gospel themselves should be painful in their great and necessary work and should watch over all the flock Acts 20. 28. warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom that they may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus Col. 1. 28. condescending to men of the lowest sort and teaching them in season and out of season what reasonings and shifts will self bring in to resist so great and excellent a duty and prove it no duty and that God will give them leave to spare their pains and all because of the Powerful interest of self 4. And let the same Ministers have a disordered flock that hath scandalous members especially if they be great ones or many and how rarely will they do their duty to them in plain reproof and in case of impenitency and continuance in sin by Publick Admonition and Rejection what shiftings and cavillings will they find against this displeasing work of Discipline even when they will reproach a man themselves whose Opinion is against Discipline and when they have preacht and written and disputed so much for it and almost all parties are agreed of the necessity of it in the substance yet when it comes to practice it cannot be done without procuring mens hatred and opposition and laying us open to much incommodity and therefore self doth perswade us to forbear and whether God or self have the more servants even yet in a reformed Ministry I leave you to judge as your observation of the congregations through the Land shall direct you But were it not for self I should undertake to do more for discipline and personal Instruction with most Ministers by one Argument than I have done by a volume and you might see an unanimous concurrence in the work and consequently a great alteration in the Churches 5. And whence is it but from selfishness that plain and close Application in our Sermons is taken to be an injury to those that think themselves concerned in it If a Minister will speak alike to all and take heed of medling with their sores they will patiently hear him but if he make them know that he meaneth them in particular and deal closely with them about their miserable state or against any special disgraceful sin they fall a railing at him and reproaching him behind his back and perhaps they will say They 'le hear him no more O saith the selfish ungodly wretch I know he meant me to day had he no body but me to speak against As if a sick man should be angry with the Physitian for giving directions and medicines to him in particular and say Had he no body to give Physick to but me Were there not sick men enough in the Town besides me When Christ told the Despisers of the Gospel of the certain and dreadful destruction that was near them Mat. 21. 41 44 45. its said that When the chief Priests and Pharisees had heard his Parables they perceived that he spake of them A hainous business and therefore they sought to lay hands on him but that they durst not do it for fear of the multitude 6. Nay let a Minister preach but any such doctrine as seems consequentially to be against Self and to conclude hardly of them and they are ready to say as Ahab of Micaiah I hate him for he prophesieth not good of me but evil 1 Kings 22. 8. Let us but tell them how few will be saved what holiness and striving and diligence is necessary though we have the express word of God for it Heb. 12. 14. Mat. 7. 13 14. Luke 13. 24. 2 Pet. 1. 10. yet because they think that it makes against their carnal peace they cannot abide it Plain truth is unwelcome to them because it is rough and grates upon the quick and tells them of that which is troublesome to know Though they must know their sin and danger and misery or
else they can never scape it yet they had rather venture on Hell than hear the danger And as a sortish Patient they love that Physitian better that will tell them there is no danger and let them dye than he that will tell them your discase is dangerous you must bleed or vomit or purge or you will dye O what a wrong they take it to be told thus If a Minister tell one of them that hath the death marks of ungodliness in the face of his Conversation Neighbour I must deal plainly with you your state is sad you are unsanctified and unjustified and in the slavery of the Devil and will be lost for ever if you dye before you are converted and made a new creature and therefore turn presently as you love your soul its ten to one but he should have a reproachful answer instead of thanks and obedience And all this shews that self bears the rule I will give one instance from the Gospel that will tell you plainly the power of self In Luke 4. 20. c. you read of an excellent Sermon preached by Jesus Christ himself so that all did wonder at his gracious words yet few were converted by it but they fell on cavilling against him because of his supposed Parentage and Breeding Whereupon Christ telleth them that Elias and Elisha though most excellent Prophets were sent but for the sake of a few and therefore it was no wonder if of all that multitude it was but a few that should be converted and saved by him This very doctrine so netled these wretches that the Text saith ver 28 29. that all they in the Synagogue when they heard these things were filled with wrath and rose up and thrust him out of the City and led him to the brow of the hill whereon their City was built that they might cast him down headlong See what entertainment such doctrine had even from Christ himself As if they should have said what are we all unconverted and ungodly shall none be saved but a few such as you Self was not able to bear this doctrine they would have had his life for it 7. Again let but a Minister or private Christian deal closely with ungodly men or Hypocrites about their particular sins by private reproof and see whether Self be not Lord and King in them O how scurvily they will look at you and their hearts do presently rise against you with displeasure and they meet you with distaste and passion and plead for their sins or at least excuse or extenuate them or bethink themselves what they may hit you in the teeth with of your own Or if malice it self can fasten nothing on you they let fly at professors or those that they think are of your mind and way in a word they shew you that they take it not well that you meddle with them and let not their sin alone and look to your selves for all that God hath expresly commanded us Lev. 19. 17. Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thy heart thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour and not suffer sin upon him And Heb. 3. 13. Exhort one another daily while it is called to day lest any be hardned by the deceitfulness of sin So Mat. 18. 15 16. Try but plain dealing with your neighbours one twelve moneth with as much prudence and love and lenity as will stand with faithfulness and when you have done I dare leave it to your selves to judge whether God or self have the more servants in the world and whether self-denyal and Sanctification be not very rare 8. Yet further you see it is the duty of Christians to admonish and faithfully reprove one another but because most men take it ill and plain dealing will displease and lose a friend how few even of professors will be brought to perform it yea of those that expect a Minister should reject the offendor when it cannot be done till after admonition and impenitency thereupon No this is a troublesome duty and self will not give them leave to do it 9. Moreover You know that Church-Government and Discipline is an undoubted Ordinance of Christ which the Church hath owned in every age though in the execution some have been negligent and some injurious and that open scandalous sins must have open confession and repentance that the ill effects may be hindered or healed and the Church see that the person is capable of their communion and that the absolution may be open and well grounded And yet let any man except the truly penitent and godly be called after a scandal to such a necessary confession and how hardly are they brought to it What cavilling shall you have against the duty They will not believe that it is their duty not they And why so is it because it is not plainly required by God No but because it tends they think to their disgrace and self is against it and when you have shewed them such reasons for it that they cannot answer yet the sum is they will not believe it or if they believe it they will not do it What! will they make themselves the laughing stock and talk of the Countrey No they will never do it and it is an injury they think for God or man to put them upon it God commands and self forbids God bids them yield lest they perish in impenitency self bids them not to yield lest they shame themselves before men God perswadeth and self disswadeth and which is it that most commonly prevails Though to avoid the shame of excommunication self also will some time make them yield Did but the Magistrate by a penalty of ten or twenty pound upon refusers perswade them to this not one of a hundred would then refuse but when God urgeth them with the threatning of Hell the wages of impenitency they make little or nothing of it as if they could escape it by not believing it or some way or other could deal well enough with him Judge by the performance of this one duty Whether God or Self have more Disciples 10. Lastly let me instance in one duty more Suppose a deceitful Tradesman or oppressing Land-lord or any one that gets unlawfully from another is told from the word of God that it is his duty to make Restitution either to the person or to his posterity or to God by the poor if neither can be done and to give back all that ever he thus unjustly came by though he have been possessed of it without disgrace never so long See what entertainment this doctrine will have with the most Self will not lose the prey that it hath got hold off till death shall wring it out of its jaws and Hell make them wish they had never medled with it or else had penitently and voluntarily restored it O what abundance of objections hath self against it and no answer will satisfie from God or man Of a thousand unjust getters how many do restore
How shall he cloath you with his righteousness while self keeps on your own defiled rotten rags Down therefore with self that Christ may be exalted Away with your own conceited righteousness that he may be your righteousness down with your Selfish foolish wisdom that the supposed foolishness of God may be your wisdom Level this mountain which Satan hath built up in enmity against the holy mountain of the Lord. 5. Moreover Self must be denyed as it is the great resister of the Holy Ghost The sanctifying spirit hath no greater enemy at least except the Devil himself One half of the work of sanctification is to destroy this Carnal self And therefore no wonder if hence it find the chief resistance Not an holy motion can be made to the soul but self is against it No work hath the spirit to do upon us but self is ready to gainsay it and contradict it and work against it when ever therefore this mortal Principle is contending against the spirit of God dishonouring holiness disswading you from duty perswading you to sin down with it and deny it as you would be true to the spirit and your selves 6. Moreover self must be denyed as it traiterously complyeth with the enemies of Christ and your own salvation when it takes part with Satan and pleads for sin and saith as wicked men say and entreth a conspiracy with all that would undo you and all this under pretence of your own good When ever it speaks for sin you may be sure it speaks against God and you and therefore it 's reason you should deny it Self also must be denied when it riseth up against the supposed tediousness or difficulty of duty when it grudgeth at an holy life saith What a stir is here what a weary life is this what do I get by serving God Now self is playing the traitor against God and you and therefore deny it 7. Moreover when self doth rise up against sufferings and make you believe that they are intolerable and that it is unreasonable for a man to forsake all that he hath for fear of a sinful word or deed when we sin every day when we have done our best it 's time now to stop the mouth of self for it plays the Devils game against God and you and would perswade you to prefer a short uncertain miserable life before eternal life and to give up your self to wilful sin because God beareth with the sins of mens infirmity It 's reason that you should deny so unreasonable an enemy to God you 8. Moreover self must be denyed when it stands up against the Ordinances of God When it pleadeth against the arguments of the word and findeth fault with the Law that it should obey and quarrelleth with prayer and all holy duties and would make all instituted means uneffectual for your saving good it 's time now that you deny it 9. When self doth rise up against the Officers of Christ and would make you believe your teachers fools and you are wise that they are beside the truth and you are in the right or that they speak against you out of malice or singularity or some such distemper and so would deprive you of the saving benefit of their Doctrine and Office it 's time now to deny self if you know but what belongeth to your peace And though I grant that you must not follow a Teacher into a certain sin and error yet when it is not God but self that riseth up against your Teachers and possesseth you with a spirit of bitterness disobedience contradiction and malignity this self must be denyed 10. Lastly as self is against the good of our neighbour or humane Societies it must be denyed For we must love our Neighbour as our selves that is both self and neighbour must be loved in a due subordination to God as means to his Glory and in this notion of a means the Love should be equal though there is also a Natural Love in order to self-preservation put into us by the Creator which our Love to every Neighbour is not to equal in degree yet our love to Societies should exceed it and our Love to a Neighbour should come so near it that we should diligere proximum proxima delictione love him as a second self and so study his welfare as to promote it to our power and not to covet or draw from him for our selves nor do him any wrong This is the sense of the tenth Commandement and sum of the second Table CHAP. XIII 1. Selfish Dispositions must be denyed and 1. self-Self-love HAving seen in what respects and upon what accounts it is that self must be denyed I am next to tell you the particulars of that selfish interest that must be denyed and the parts that are contained in this needful work And here you must remember what saving faith is that seeing how self opposeth it you may know wherein it must be denyed Saving faith is such a Belief in Christ for Reconciliation with God and the everlasting fruition of him in Glory as makes us for sake all the things of this world and give up our selves to the conduct of the word and spirit for the obtaining of it When a man can strip himself of all the pleasures and profits and honours of this world first in his estimation and love and resolution and then in the actual forsaking of them at the Call of God because of the firm belief and hope that he hath of the fruition of God in Glory as purchased and promised by Jesus Christ this is a Christian a Disciple of Christ a true believer and none but this And as I have told you as God in Unity and Father Son and Holy Ghost in Trinity is the Object of our saving faith so Carnal Self in unity and Pleasure Profits and Honours in trinity must be renounced and denied by all true Christians as being that which we turn from when we turn to God So that in brief to deny your selves doth generally consist in denying all your own Dispositions and Interests whatsoever as they are against God the Father Son or Spirit or stand not in a due subserviency to him And this Interest which you must deny consisteth in your Pleasures Profits and Honour Of these therefore I shall speak distinctly though but briefly I. You must begin at the denial and mortification of your Corrupt and selfish Disposition or else you can never well deny your selfish interest It is not enough to keep under this selfishness by denying it somewhat that it would have but the selfish Inclination or Nature it self must be so far mortified and destroyed that it shall not reign as formerly it did For this which we call selfishness is not your very Persons nor any spiritual or right natural desire of your owngood But it is the inordinate adhering of the soul to your selves by departing from God to whom you should adhere and so a carrying over Gods
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-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-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
12. The words of a wise mans mouth are gracious but the lips of a fool will swallow up himself Eccles 10. 14. A fool is full of words And therefore Solomon opposeth the tongue of the just and the heart of the wicked Prov. 10. 20. The tongue of the just is as choice silver the heart of the wickd is little worth See Pro. 17. 27 28. Psal 37. 30 31. The mouth of the righteous speaketh wisdom and his tongue talketh of judgement and whence is this The Law of his God is in his heart none of his steps shall slide It is a sign that a man hath little feeling of the greatness of his own sin of the greatness of Gods Love in Christ of the greatness of the joy that is set before him of the greatness of duty that lyeth on him when he can spend so much of his time in talking of meer vanity You cannot get a dying man or a man that 's taken up with any great important business to jest and prate with you of idle matters It 's only alienated idle minds that can give way to a course of idle words nay it is a sign that Conscience is not so tender as it ought to be when men can knowingly go on in a course of sin Doth not Conscience ask you what you are doing and whether this discourse do tend to edification and the cherishing of grace What Consciences have you that look no better after your tongues but will let them wander so long after vanity before they call them to account Do you remember Gods presence and withall his holiness and jealousie Can you talk so idly and God stand by and hear every word and put down all How can you be so contemptuously fearless of his presence 2. The tongue of man is a noble member called our glory Psal 30. 12. 57. 8. given us for the Praise of our great Creator and for other high and noble ends And should it be abased and abused to idleness and vanity You will not take the cloaths that adorn your bodies to cloath a Maukin or sweep the Oven or wipe your dishes with and why should you use your tongues to filth or base unprofitable things that are given you for the noblest uses in the world even the honour of God the edifying of your brethren the reproof of sin and your own salvation 3. Consider what abundance of great and needful employment you have for your tongues and then tell me whether you should spare them to idleness and vanity O what work hath that little member to perform what matters have you to mind and talk of what transcendent subjects what matter of highest excellency and greatest necessity you have a life of sin to look back upon and lament you have many a sin to confess to others you need much help against temptations and for the strengthning and exercise of your graces what need to make sure of your title to salvation and to prepare for death and to get ready the graces that you must use in you last necessities and yet have you words to spare for vanity What abundance of poor souls about you are ignorant hard-hearted sensual covetous empty of grace in a state of death and need all that ever you can do for their recovery and all too little and yet can you find in your heart to talk with them of vain unprofitable things Alas Sirs most of the persons about you are within a step of death and going to the bar of God and want nothing but one stroak of death to make them past help and send them to damnation And can you find in your hearts to talk idly with such men O cruel unmerciful people that regard no more your neighbours miseries If you came to them at the point of death or if their houses were on fire would you sit down and tell them an old tale or talk of the weather or this trifle or that what an absurdity would this be and insensibility of your brethrens case And will you do so in a case ten thousand fold greater Can you find in your heart to stand jesting prating with a poor unregenerate man that is within a step of Hell Have you not more need to call to him to look about him in time and to remember eternity and to turn and live If you see but the nakedness of the poor or the sores of a Cripple it should move you to compassion And will not mens ignorance and ungodliness move you Their miseries cry aloud to you for pity though themselves are silent O help to save us from sin and hell as you have the hearts of men and yet will you stop your ears and fall a prating and jesting with them you rob them of the means that God hath commanded you to use for their recovery God hath commanded that the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another Col. 3. 16. yea that you daily exhort one another while it is called to day lest any be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin Heb. 3. 13. Nay you have the great mysteries of the Gospel to discourse of with the Godly the glorious things of everlasting life to make mention of to one another yea you have the high praises of God to advance in the world and all his blessed attributes to magnifie and all his glorious works to praise all the experiences of your own souls to lay open his many great mercies towards you to admire and thankfully contess And yet have you leasure for idle talk For number of objects you have God and all his works in heaven and earth that are revealed to talk of you have all his providences all his judgments all his mercies and all his word And is not this field large enough for your tongue to walk in but you must seek out more work in vanity it self For Greatness you have the greatest things in all the world to mind and talk of For necessity you have the matters of your own and other mens salvation to discourse of For excellency you have God and his Image and works and ways and heaven it self to talk of For delightfulness you have the sweetest objects in the world even goodness it self salvation the way to it to be the matter of your discourse And lest one thing should weary you you have a world of variety to employ your speeches on even God and all his works and word and ways before-mentioned And is it not a shame to talk of vanity yea to go seek for recreation in vanity while all these stand by and offer themselves to the subjects of your wise and fruitful and delightfullest discourse Consider whether this be wise or equal dealing 4. Moreover a course of idle talk is a thief that robs us of our precious time And he that knows what God is or what duty is or what his soul is or what everlasting joy or
torment is will know that time is a commodity of greater worth than so contemptuously to be cast away for nothing O remember when thou art next in idle talk Did God make thee for this doth he continue thee among the living and keep thee out of hell and yet prolongeth thy days that thou shouldest waste thy time in idleness and vanity Hast thou so many sins to mortifie and so many other works to do which heaven or hell lyeth on and so short and uncertain a time to do them in and yet hast thou leasure for idle talk 5. Moreover this sin is so much the greater because it is not a rare or seldom sin but frequently committed and continued in It is not like the sin of David or Noah that though greater yet was but once committed But this is made great by the number and continuance How many thousand idle words have you been guilty of in your time 6. And it is a sin that tendeth to greater sins For idle words are the ordinary passage to backbiting railing lying and contentious words Prov. 10. 19. In the multitude of words there wanteth not sin but he that refraineth his lips is wise Thus a fools lips enter into contention Prov. 18. 6. His mouth is his destruction and his lips are the snare of his soul Eccles 5. 7. In the multitude of dreams and many words are divers vanities but fear thou God Eccles. 10. 12 13. The Lips of a fool will swallow up himself the beginning of the words of his mouth is foolishness and the end of his talk is madness Idleness is the beginning but worse than Ideness is the end 7. It is a sin that habituateth the speaker and hearers both to vanity use makes us disposed to that which we use It will grow strange to you to speak of better things when you are used to vanity And the use of hearing you is an exceeding wrong to the souls of the hearers And a small matter confirmeth such bad hearts as the most have in the vanity that they are in You cast water on their graces and your own if there were any If any of them had better thoughts your idle talk doth drown and divert them 8. And it is a sin that hindreth abundance of Edification that holy conference might bring It 's a precious thriving course for Christians to be communicating experiences and declaring the excellencies and loving-kindness of God and exciting one another and this you lay by and turn to vanity Nay perhaps some other that is in the company may be purposed to set upon such profitable discourse and your idle talk doth hinder them and suppress the exercise of Gods graces for your good At least there may be much precious matter in them that wants but vent if you would but begin it may be poured forth as precious ointment Many wise and able men are too backward in beginning edifying discourse that yet are exceeding fruitful when you have once set them a work And idle talk is the hinderer of this 9. And it is a very fruitless sin You offend God for nothing What get you by an hours idle talk or what have you to tempt you to it 10. And it is a wilful sin and usually accompanied with much Impenitency which makes it much the greater Men use not to lament it and call themselves to account for it and say what have I done but go on in it as if it were no sin And now you see the greatness of the sin I beseech you make more conscience of it than you have done And that you may avoid it observe these brief Directions Direct 1. Labour for understanding in the matters of God for that 's it that must furnish the tongue and prevent vanity Prov. 11. 12. 10. 19. A foolish head will have a foolish tongue Dir. 2. Get a deep impression and lively sense of the matters of God upon the heart For a man never talks heartily that talks not from the Heart He that is full of the Love of God possessed of the Spirit of Christ taken up with the riches of grace and of glory will scarce want matter to talk of nor an holy disposition to set him a work For the Word of God will be as a fire in his heart he will be weary with forbearing till the flames burst out Psal 119. 11. 40. 8. 57. 7. 119. 111. 39. 3. Jer. 20. 9. The hearty experienced Christian is usually the fruitful Christian in word and deed Dir. 3. Preserve a tender conscience that may check you when you begin to turn to vanity The fear of God is the souls preserver Psal 19. 9. Prov. 16. 6. 23. 17. Dir. 4. Walk as before the Lord Live and think and speak as in his presence If the presence of an Angel would call you off from idle words what then should the presence of God himself do Dare you run on in idle foolish prating when you remember that he heareth you Dir. 5. Keep out of the company of idle talkers lest they entangle you in the sin unless when you have a call to be among them Prov. 13. 20. We are apt to let our discourse run with the stream Direct 6. When you are with the ungodly maintain in you a believing compassion to their souls And then the sense of their condition will heal your discourse Dir. 7. Provide matter of holy discourse of purpose beforehand As you will not travel without money in your purses to defray your charges so you should not go into company without a provision of such matter as may be profitable for the company that you may be cast upon Study and contrive how to suit your speeches to the Edification of others or else to draw good from others even as Ministers study for their Sermons Dir. 8. Speak not till you have considered what is like to be the effect of it and weighed the quality of the person and other circumstances to that end Do not speak first and consider after but first think and then speak Dir. 9. Be still sensible of the worth of time and opportunity and then you will be as loth to cast it away on idle talk as a good husband will be to cast away his money for nothing Dir. 10. Keep up a sense of your own necessity which may provoke you to be better husbands of your tongues and time and engage those you converse with to mind you of your idle talk and take you off it as soon as you begin Dir. 11. See that your heart and tongue and all be Absolutely devoted to God and then you will question any by-expense of words and Whatsoever you do in word or deed you will do all in the name of Christ and to the glory and praise of God Col. 3. 17. 1 Cor. 10. 31. Dir. 12. Be Resolute for God and be not ashamed to own him and his cause A sinful bashfulness hinders much good Observe these
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
not principally to please your own fancy and carnal mind but for the enabling you the better and more chearfully to serve God Nothing but God may be loved for it self When the Pleasing of the flesh and fancy is the utmost thing we look at in any of our desires they are wicked and idolatrous Our houses therefore must be fitted to Necessary uses and not to inordinate delights Our Gardens Orchards Walks and such like must be first suited to Necessity and then to so much Delight as is useful to us for the promoting of our holiness but not to any useless tempting Delight But worldlings and sensual persons will not be tied to these Christian Rules Alas it 's the furthest matter from their minds to make Heaven the End of all their earthly possessions and accommodations They may hypocritically talk of God and of serving him by their estates but really it is the pleasing of a fleshly mind that is the thing which they intend They have more delight in their houses and gardens and lands and cattle than in God and the hopes of life everlasting They desire fair houses that they may be thought to be no mean persons in the world and that they may please their humours that run after creatures for felicity and content I would desire such men to consider these things 1. All these are but the baits of Satan to delight you and entangle your desires and find you work in seeking after them while you neglect far greater matters Can you have while to look so much after superfluities and delights in the world when you have Necessaries yet to look after for your souls Have you not greater things to mind than these which these occasion you to neglect 2. Do you really find that they conduce to your main end even to make you more holy or more serviceable to God Nay do not your own Consciences tell you that they hinder you and cross those ends And yet will go against your experience 3. If you are humble conscionable Christians you feel cause enough already to lament that your love to God and delight in him is no more And yet are you preparing snares for your souls to steal away that little remnant of your affections which you seemed to reserve for God 4. If you have any spark of Grace in you you know that the flesh and the world are your dangerous enemies and you know that the way that the world doth undo men is by ticing them to over-value it over-love it that those that love it most are deepest in a state of condemnation and the less men love it the less they are hurt or endangered by it And do you not know that you are liker to over-love a sumptuous house with gardens orchards and such accommodations than a mean habitation Why should you be such enemies to your own salvation as to make temptations for your selves Have you not temptations enough already Do you deal with those you have so well and overcome them so easily and so constantly as that you have reason to desire more If Christ your General send you upon a hotter service you may go on with courage and expect his help But if you will so glory in your own strength as to run into the hotter battle and call for more and stronger enemies it 's easie to conjecture how you will come off If you are Christians know your selves you know that in the meanest state you are too prone to over-love the world and that under all Gods medicinal afflictions you cannot be so weaned from it as you ought Are you not daily constrained to groan and complain to God under the burden of too much Love of the world and too much delight in worldly things If this be not your case I see not how you can have any sincerity of saving grace And if it be your case will you be so sottiâ—â— and hypocritical as to complain daily to God of your sin in the mean time to love and cherish it to groan under your disease and wilfully eat and drink that which you know doth increase it What will you think of a man that will pray to God to save him from uncleanness and yet will dwell no where but in a Brothel-house What do you better that must needs have the world in the loveliest garb and must needs have house and grounds and all things in that plight as are fittest to entice the heart and then will complain to God that you over-love the world and love him too little To your shame you may speak it when you do it so willfully and cherish the sin which you thus complain of If God call you into a state of fulness and temptations watch the more narrowly over your affections and your practices and use no more of the creatures for your self if you have ten thousand pound a year than if you had but an hundred but do not seek and long for temptations With not for danger unless you were better able to pass through it 4. Remember when your fancies desire such things not only that it is an enemy that desireth them and to please your enemy is not safe for you but also that it 's the way that most have perished by to have the world before them in too pleasing and lovely a condition Remember Nebuchadnezzar's case Dan. 4. 30. that for glorying in his pompous buildings was turned as a mad man among the Beasts Remember the rich mans sad example Luke 12. 20. 16. and think whether it be safe to imitate them If men must perish for loving the creature more than God methinks you should long most for that condition in which the creature appeareth least lovely or is least likely to steal your love from God and in which you may love him and enjoy him most 5. And bethink you how unsuitable it is to your condition to desire sumptuous buildings and enticing accommodations to your flesh Have you not taken God for your portion and Heaven for your home and are you not strangers and pilgrims here and is not God and everlasting glory sufficient for you You profess all this if you profess to be Christians and if you be not you should not profess that you are And what do you begin to repent of your choice must you yet turn to the pomp and vanity of the world again and will you quit your hopes of God and glory Ah poor souls what little need have you of such great matters on earth you have but a little to do with them and but a little while to stay with them and will not a mean habitation and shorter accommodations serve you for so short a time Stay but a while and your souls shall have house-room enough in heaven or hell and a narrow grave of seven foot long will serve your bodies till the resurrection And cannot you make shift with an ordinary habitation and with small common things till then
of so many thousands as Prosperity hath undone and by so many dreadful Passages of Scripture which shew the danger of it and see that if you prosper in any worldly thing you offer it all to God and Deny your selves and prosper not to the flesh CHAP. XXIX Children and Relations how to be denied 12. ANother selfish interest is in friends and children and other near and dear Relations and this is also to be denied Not that you should imitate those unnatural Hereticks that tell us that Fathers and Mothers and Brethren and Sisters and Husbands Princes Wives and Subjects are all Carnal Relations that must be disowned any further than Justice binds us to a retribution to parents or others that have been at pains or cost upon us No this is worse than heathenish impiety and not only against the fifth Commandment but abundance of the plainest passages through the Scripture To be without natural affection and disobedient to parents is part of the Character of those impious professors of whom Paul prophesied 2 Tim. 3. 2 3. If Christian servants have Heathens to their Masters they must not therefore cast off the yoak but count them worthy of all honour that the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed And if they have believing Masters they must not despise them because they are brethren but the rather do them service because they are faithful This is the doctrine of the Gospel which stablisheth and not dissolveth our Relations and if any teach otherwise he is proud knowing nothing but doating about questions and strifes of words 1 Tim. 6. 1 2 3 4. Believing wives must stay even with unbelieving husbands and win them to Christ by an eminent subjection chastity modesty and piety 1 Pet. 3. 1 2 3 4 6. 1 Cor. 7. 13 14. And the like may be said of other relations God calls us not as Popish votaries conceive to renounce and separate from our natural or other near relations on pretence of being devoted to him The words of Paul 2 Cor. 5. 16. are abused by them It 's true we must know no man after the flesh no not Christ himself that is as esteeming them principally for carnal excellencies as personage greatness birth c. or to carnal advantages and ends or preferring the body and common relations before the inward spiritual worth and spiritual relations And thus we must not know either parents or children or husbands or wives after the flesh nor should a Christian know or do any thing after the flesh as a Carnal man but yet as we still continue our Relation to Christ as his Disciples and Servants and Members and Redeemed ones for all that we know him not after the flesh so must we continue our Relations to others and be faithful in the duties of those Relations and this after the Spirit and for God So that by this you may see that it is our Relations carnally considered that are the fleshly interest which we must not know that is As they are look'd upon as any part of that self or of the Interest of that self which would be its own End and God and which is opposite to God or not subordinate to him To look upon your children more as yours than as God's is a carnal selfish thought To love them inordinately and more because they are your own than because they are Gods and to love your own interest in your children more than Gods interest in them is a selfish regarding them after the flesh Grace doth not destroy nature nor natural Relations or affections but it sanctifieth them all to God and carrieth us above it and destroyeth it as glorious intuition destroyeth gracious knowing in part that is by perfecting it Before Sanctification we know esteem regard and love our parents children husbands wives meerly as thus related to us and in these Carnal respects and rise no higher and if we had converst with Christ himself and eat and drank in his presence and loved him accordingly it would have been but by a selfish carnal knowledge esteem and love But now we are sanctified as God is exalted and self denied and annihilated as opposed or separated from God so are all things that belong to self And therefore if we had loved parents or Christ himself but with such a carnal selfish love before yet now we love them with higher love that carrieth self and all to God And thus even self is so destroyed as opposite to God and separate from him as thereby to be exalted as united and subservient to him And so is the love of friends Relations or Christ himself if we had loved him as a natural Kinsman or brother as some did that yet believed not in him it 's destroyed but by an exalting perfecting destruction Just so far as self is dead so far Carnal knowledge and self-interest in friends is dead and their dearness to us for that interest and self and they are all advanced and dedicated unto God And thus it is that the Apostle would be understood and thus it is that self must be denied in your Relations but because much duty consisteth herein I shall moreover tell you the several parts of it in a few Directions which shall mostly extend to other Relations but principally to parents because they are aptest to exceed 1. See that it be God more than your selves that you love in your Children and other Relations And to that End see what of God is in them as they are his creatures as devoted to him as any way gifted by him for his service and as sanctified if they are such He that loveth any creature for it self and doth not principally love God in them loveth them but carnally 2. See therefore that you value and love those most that have most of God in them and the best of his endowments Love a crooked deformed child that is Godly better than the most comely or beautiful or witty that is ungodly When Parents have a humorous unreasonable love to one child above the rest without desert or to a worse before a better this is but a carnal selfish Love 3. Love none excessively but with a moderate love such as shall allow God and holiness the preheminence so that when you have the most love for your Relations you may have more for God at least in the Estimation Resolution Adhesion of your souls to him if not in the passionate part of Love 4. See that you subject them to the Government of Christ Labour to win all other relations to him and devote your children to him betimes that they may be his as soon as yours Whiles they have no wills of their own to use they are to choose with your wills that is you are to make choice for them And therefore if you unfeignedly Dedicate them to God you have small reason to doubt of his acceptance This all parents do virtually that are Godly For he that is himself devoted
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
Heresies and Church-divisions as any Sensualist hath in his way And hence it is that a zeal for selfish opinions is easily got and easily maintained when zeal for the saving truths of God is hardly kindled and hardly kept alive Yea multitudes in the world do make the very truth to be the matter of their carnal interest in it while they some way get a seeming peculiar interest and promote it but as an opinion of their own or of their party and use it for selfish carnal ends And hence it is that many that are called Orthodox can easily get and keep a burning zeal for their Orthodox opinions when Practical Christians do find it a very hard matter to be zealous for the same truths in a Practical way Many ungodly men will be hot in Disputing for the truth and crying down all that are against it and perhaps so far exceed their bounds that the godly dare not follow them And the reason is clear Whether it be Truth or Error that a man holds if he hold it but as a conceit of his Own or as the opinion of his party or to be noted in the world as one that hath found out more truth than others or any way make it but the matter of his selfish interest nature and corruption will furnish him with a zeal for it It 's easie to go where sin and Satan drives and to be zelous where zeal hath so small resistance and to swim down the stream of corrupted nature But it is not so easie to be zealous in the practical saving entertainment of the truth and exercising that faith and love to God and holy obedience which truth is sent to work in us A schismatical or Opinionative use of truth it self is but an using it for self against the God of truth and it is no more wonder to see men zealous in this than to see men forward and hot in any evil We cannot tell how to quench or restrain this selfish carnal kind of zeal But when men should use the truth for God and their salvation against Satan and sin and self then it 's hard to make them zealous They are like green wood or wet fuel on the fire that will not burn without much blowing and soon goeth out when it seemed to be kindled if once you leave it to it self Paul spoke not non-sense when he said For ye are yet Carnal for whereas there is among you envying and strife and divisions are ye not carnal and walk as men For while one saith I am of Paul and another I am of Apollo are ye not Carnal 1 Cor. 3. 3 4 5. How secretly soever it may lurk there is doubtless much of self and flesh in Heresies and unjust Divisions I know that most of them little perceive it James and John in their zeal which would have called for fire from heaven did not know what spirit they were of But God would not have spoke it if it were not true Rom. 16. 17. Now I beseech you brethren mark them which cause Divisions and offences contrary to the Doctrine which ye have learned and avoid them For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ but their own belly and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple Though they little believe that that there is any such wickedness in them as this yet the Spirit of God that is the searcher of hearts is acquainted with it and assureth us that both at the bottom and the End Church-dividing courses have a carnal selfish nature It is some secret interest of self though scarce discerned that kindleth the zeal and carrieth on the work It is not God that is served by the divisions of his Church Many Sects now among us do put a face of Truth and Zeal upon their cause But self is the more dangerously powerful with them by how much the less suspected or observed The Papists under the pretence of the Churches Union are the great dividers of the Christian world unchurching the far greatest part of the Church and separating from all that be not Subjects of the Pope of Rome And do you think it is self and flesh that is the Principle and Life and End of this their Schism were it not for the upholding of this usurped power and worldly immunities and greatness of the Clergy it is morally impossible that so many men of reason and learning could concur in such a schism and in so many gross conceits as go along with it It is not the Pope that they are principally united in For the far greatest part of them it it too evident that it is selfish and fleshly interest that is their Center to which the Pope is but a means Hence it is that many of their Jesuits and Fryars are carried abroad the world with such a fire of zeal to promote their cause that they will compass sea and land for it and day and night are busie at the work to plot and contrive and insinuate and deceive and think no cost or pains too great For a selfish sinful zeal and diligence hath so many friends and so little hindrance that it 's easily maintained but so is not the healing peaceable practical and holy zeal of true believers Well! Consider what I say to you from the Word of the Lord There is a selfish dividing Zeal in Religion which must be denied as well as whoredom or drunkenness If you ask me how it 's known Briefly now I shallonly tell you this much of it 1. That it is usually for either an Error or a particular Truth against the interest and advantage of the body of unquestionable Christian verities They can let Religion suffer by it so their opinion do but thrive 2. It is usually for an Opinion by reason of some special endearment or interest of their own in it 3. They cry up that opinion with a zeal and diligence much exceeding that which they bestow upon other opinions of equal weight and lay a greater stress upon it than any shew of reason will allow them 4. They usually are zealous for a party and division against the Unity of the Catholick Church 5. Their Zeal is most commonly turned against the faithful Pastors of the Church For it 's hard to keep in with schism and with faithful Pastors too And if the Ministers will not own their sin and error they will disown the Ministers The Anabaptists and other Sects of late would never have been so much against Christ's Ministers if the Ministers had not been against their way 6. Their course doth in the conclusion bring down Religion and hinder the thriving of the Gospel and of Godliness Mark what is the issue of most of those ways that these men are so hot for Doth it go better or worse with the Church and cause of Christ in general where they are than it did before Is Religion in more strength and beauty and life and honour or doth real
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
any Creature wise enough to order the world and the affairs thereof Is any Creature powerful enough to dispose of the world and all things in it Is any Creature good enough to do it without the communication of its imperfection which would disorder destroy all I know you make no doubt of any of these things No Creature is fit to be God and therefore none is fit to undertake the work of God And therefore it must be God or none that must have the Disposal of your lives and you But I know what it is that self would have You would have the Disposal of your own lives or else have God to dispose of them as you would have him which comes all to one But how unreasonable is this Would you alone have the Disposal of your own lives or would you have all men else in the world also to have the Disposal of theirs If all should have this Priviledge what a miserable Priviledge would it prove No man then would die and then either you must forbear marriage or what would you do with your posterity when there were no room on earth And then you could not punish a Malefactor with death And what a world would it be if all men were Disposers of themselves when there would be as many different ends and minds as men every man would be for himself and an enemy to others and the world would run every man on his own head and a madder confusion than can be imagined would seize on all If you would have every man have the dispose of his own life you would have as many Gods as Men and so have no God and you would have as many Kings or Rulers as men and so have no Ruler and you would have the world to be no world when God were to them as no God And if you would not have it thus with all what reason have you to desire it for your self What are you more than all the world that you should be exempted from the common state of mortals and be at your own disposal more than they and be instead of God unto your selves 5. You think it neither cruelty or injustice that the lives of bruits should be much at your dispose Your poor fellow-creatures must die when you require it Birds and Beasts and Fishes even multitudes of them must die to feed you yea often for your delight to make you a Feast when you have no necessity The most harmless sheep you will not spare The most laborious Ox the most beautiful Bird must give up their lives to satisfie your pleasure And is not God ten thousand thousand times even infinitely more above you than you are above your fellow-creatures Is one creature fitter to kill another and afterwards devour it and becomes its grave than God to dispose of the Lives of all 6. Where could you wish your Lives to be better than in the hand of the most wise gracious God If you may rest content or have confidence in any it is in him You neednot doubt of his Goodness for he is goodness and Love it self And therefore though you see not the world to come that you are passing to yet as long as you know that you are in the hands of Love it self what cause have you of disquiet or distrust And that you know that he is wise as well as Good and Almighty as well as Wise and therefore as he meaneth you no harm if you are his children so he will not mistake nor fail in the performance You need not fear lest your happiness should miscarry for want of skill in him that is Omniscient or for want of will in him that is your Father or for want of Power in him that is Omnipotent You may far better trust God with your lives than your selves For you have not wisdom enough to know what is best for you nor skill to accomplish it nor Power to go through with it Nay you love not you selves so well as God doth love you Did you but believe this you would better trust him You can trust your selves in a narrow Ship upon â—he wide and raging Seas when you never saw the Country that you are gâ—ing to and all because you believe that the voyage is for your commodity and that you have a skilful Pilot. And cannot you commend your souls into the hand of God to convey you through death to the invisible glory as confidently as you dare commit your lives to the conduct of a man and to a tottering Ship in a hazardous Ocean You can trust your lives on the skill of a Physician And cannot you trust them on the will of God If you had your choice whether your lives should be at your own dispose or Gods you should far rather choose that God might dispose of them than your selves As it is better for an Infant to be guided and disposed of by the Parents than by it self A Good King will not kill his own Subjects needlesly And a natural Father or Mother will not not needlesly kill their own Children yea a very brute will tenderly cherish their young And do you think that God who is infinitely good will causelesly orinjuriously take your lives or that he doth not mean you good even in your death Object But how can I think it for my good to die and to have my nature dissolved Answ Paul did desire to depart or be dissolved and to be with Christ as best of all Phil. 1. 23. And did not he know what was for his good as well as you He was willing rather to be absent from the body and present with the Lord than at home in the body and absent from the Lord and therefore groaned earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with his house which is from heaven that mortality might be swallowed up of life 2 Cor. 5. 1 2 4 6 8. When the Hen hath sate to hatch her young ones they must leave the shell as good for nothing and must come into a world which they never saw before And what of that Should they murmur at the breaking of tâ—â—â—r former habitation or fear the passagâ— inâ—â— so 〈◊〉 â—â— wide so strange a place in 〈…〉 â—f 〈…〉 which they were in before No more 〈…〉 the breaking of these bodies and 〈…〉 the 〈…〉 of flesh and passing under the conduct of Angels into the presence of our Lord. God is but hatching us here by his spirit that he may bring us out into the light of glory And should we grudge at this 7. And what if God call you to sacrifice your lives to him as he called Abraham to sacrifice his Son What if he call you to come to him by a persecutors hand or at least to be willing of your natural death He calls you but to give up a life which you cannot keep and to do that willingly which else you must do whether you will or not Willing or unwilling die you must
How loth soever you are you are sure to die You may turn you every way and look about you on the right hand and the left to all the friends and means in the world and you will never find a medicine that will here procure immortality nor ever scape the hands of death It is appointed to all men once to die and after that the Judgement Heb. 9. 27. And no man can change the Decrees of Heaven And seeing all your turnings and unwillingness cannot avoid it is it not better to submit to it willingly than unwillingly God doth impose it on you as a necessity Your willingness may make a vertue of Necessity and out of Necessity extract a reward but your unwillingness may turn your suffering into your sin and a Necessary death unto an unnecessary misery now and hereafter if you be not true believers as Paul saith of his Ministerial labours 1 Cor. 9. 16 17. If I do this thing willingly I have a reward but if against my will a dispensation is committed to me for necessity is laid upon me So I may say in the present case If you give up your lives willingly in the love of God you have a Reward but if you do not Necessity is upon you and die you must whether you will or no. You may scape the Reward by your unwillingness but death you cannot escape And me thinks you should see that it 's little thanks to you to give up that life which you cannot keep And yet this is all that God requireth Perhaps you think that though you cannot keep it still yet somewhat longer you may keep it But you be not sure of that The next hour may God deprive you of it And O what a dreadful thing it were if as soon as you have denied God your lives he should snatch them from you in his fury and cast you into Hell and if he should distrain for his own as soon as you have denied it him and you should die as enemies that would not die as Martyrs and as his Friends And in this sence hath my Text been many a time fulfilled He that will save his Life shall lose it 8. Consider also that it is upon terms of the highest advantage imaginable to your selves that God calls you to resign and lay down your lives It is not indeed to lose them but to save them as my Text doth promise you He that loseth his life shall save it No more than you lose your cloaths which you put off at Night and put on again in the Morning Or rather no more than you lose your lousie rotten rags when you put them off at Night and are to have in the Morning a Suit of Princely attire in their stead Will any man say these rags are lost At least they will not say that the man is a loser by the change That is not lost that is committed to God upon the ground of a promise Nor that which is laid out in his Servive at his command Reason will tell us that no man can be a loser by a course of submissive Obedience to God You cannot be at so much cost for him or offer him so dear a service which he is not able and willing to satisfie you for a thousand fold God will not be beholden to any man You cannot bring him in your debt beyond what he doth by his bountiful promise But if you could he would not continue in your debt You 'l make nothing of your death if you do not either undergo it for Christ or bear it submissively by the power of heavenly love constraining you Meerly to die whether you will or no as a fruit of sin is common to the most ungodly men But if the love of God can make you voluntarily submit to death whether natural or violent from persecutors what a glorious advantage may you make of it You will 1. Put your salvation more out of doubt â—han any other course in this world could do For whosoever perisheth it 's most certain that such as these all be saved 2. And therefore you may die with the greatest confidence and joy as having seen the matter of your doubts removed and dying in the very exercise of those graces that have the promise of salvation and in such a 〈…〉 as hath the fullest and most frequent promises in the Gospel 3. And then the Crown of Martyrdom is the most glorious Crown You will not have an ordinary place in heaven These are that part of the Heavenly Host that si and nearest to the Throne of God and that praise him with the highest joys who hath brought them through tribulations and redeemed them by his blood If a man should make a motion to you to exchange your cottage for a Palace and a Kingdom you would not stick at it as if it were against you because you must leave your ancient home And how much less should you be against it when you are but moved to step out of your ruinous cottage into glory when it would shortly fall upon your heads and you must leave it whether you will or no for nothing 9. What reason have you to be so tender of the flesh Is it the greatness of its suffering that you stick at Why you put poor Beasts and Birds to as much and so do the Butchers daily for your use and they must suffer it And why should the body be so dear to you for the matter of it what is it but earth and wherein is it more excellent than the beasts that perish I think God hath purposely clothed your soul with so poor a dress that you should be the less unwilling to be unclothed and might learn to set more by your souls than by your bodies and to make more carefully provision for them It seems he hath purposely lodged you in so poor a cottage that you should not be at too much care for it nor be too loth to leave it You have its daily Necessities and Infirmities and pains and somewhat of its filth and lothsomeness to tell you of its meanness And why should you be so loth that so poor a cottage so frail a body should be turned to dust Dust it is and to dust it is sentenced When the soul hath left it but a week men can scarce endure to see it or smell it And should the breaking of such an earthen Vessel be so unpleasing a thing to you And for its usesulness though so far as it is obedient it was serviceable to your souls and God yet was it so refractory ill disposed and disobedient that it proved no better than your enemy Many a temptation it hath entertained and cherished and many a sin hath it drawn you to commit Those senses have let in a world of vanity Those wandring eyes have called in covetousness and pride and lust Those greedy appetites have been so eager on the bait that they have too oft born down your faith and
not as certainly now as he shall do in his sickness And yet in health these wretches will not be awakened so much to fear it as may restrain them from sin and help them to prepare for it It 's troublesome precise talk with them to talk of making ready to die Either they slight it or love not to hear or think of it And yet the same men when death is coming and they see they must away are even amazed with fear and horror And I cannot blame them unless they were in a better case But this I must blame them for as most unreasonable that they can make such a lamentable complaint when death and Hell are near hand and yet make so light of it all their life time CHAP. XXXIX Answer to their doubts that fear death BUt because this is the hardest part of self-denial and yet most necessary and the particular subject of my Text I shall stay upon it yet so much longer as to resolve a question of some doubting Christians and to give you some Directions for the furtherance of self-denial herein Object If it be a necessary part of self-denial to deny our own lives I am much afraid that I am no Disciple of Christ as having no true self-denial For I find that for all these Reasons I cannot be willing to die but when you have said all that can be said death is the most terrible thing in the world to me Answ I pray you lay together these following particulars for answer to this great and common doubt 1. Death as death is naturally dreadful to all and the best men as men are naturally averse to it and abhor it No man can desire death as death nor ought to do it If it had not been an evil to nature it had not been fit to be the matter of Gods punishment and to be Threatned to the world Threatnings would not do their work if that which is threatned were not naturally evil or hurtful and dreadful to the subject To threaten men with a benefit is a contradiction as much as to promise him a mischief and more 2. It is not therefore a simple Displacency or Averseness to die that God requireth you to lay by Self-denial consisteth not in reconciling us to Death as death For then he might as well perswade us to become Angels as to deny our selves and Preachers had as hard a work to do as to perswade men to cease to be men Death will be an enemy as long as it is death Even the separated soul hath so natural an inclination to union with its Body that the separation is part of the penalty to it And though heaven be their joy and Christ their life and fulness yet the separation from the body which they have even with Christ is a penalty and they have not that perfect measure of Joy and Glory as they shall have when they are joyned in the body again So that separation as such is penal to the soul in blessedness And even the separated soul of Jesus Christ that was more blessed than ours was as separated in a state of penalty when his body was in the grave Of which see my Appendix to the Reformed Pastor about the Descent into Hell 3. That which you have to look after therefore in your souls is not a love to death or willingness to death as death which no man hath or should have but it is 1. A Submission to it as a less evil than sin and Hell and the Displeasure of God and a choosing rather to die than wilfully to sin and forsake the Lord. 2. And a Love to that glory in the fruition of God which death is the passage to Seeing we cannot obtain the end of our faith and patience by any easier passage than death you must rather be content to go this strait and grievous way than miss of the state of eternal blessedness Let death be never so odious and dreadful to you if you had but rather die than forsake Christ by sin or miss of everlasting life with God you have that true self-denial even of life it self which is required in my Text. 4. And yet even a gracious soul may be so much unprepared as to desire to stay yet longer on earth though he be absent from the Lord while he is present in the body that so a better preparation may be made And also the love of God may make a man desire to stay yet longer for the service of the Church or to be with Paul in a strait between two Phil. 1. 21 22 23. 5. Have you not such pleasant apprehensions of the New Jerusalem and the coming of Christ in glory and the blessed state of the Saints in heaven as that you could most gladly enter into that blessed state by any other way than death And had you not rather die than miss of that felicity At least when you know that die you must had you not rather die sooner even a violent death by persecution than miss of your eternal life by saving your lives a little longer 6. And for your unwillingness to die as death is the last enemy to be conquered by Christ at the Resurrection so the fears of death and the power of it is the last evil that we shall be troubled with and you must not expect to be fully freed from these fears in this life for death will be death and man will be man But yet let me tell you that before you die God may very much abate your fears and very ordinarily doth so with his servants 1. By giving them that grace that is suited to a dying state and 2. By the help of sickness and pain it self And that is one great reason why sickness shall usually go before death that pain and misery may make the flesh even a weary of it self and make the soul a weary of its companion and both a weary of this miserable life And now I shall briefly name some few Directions which if you will practise you will more easily submit to death CHAP. XL. Directions to be willing to die Direct 1. BY all means endeavour the strengthening of your Belief of the Reality of eternal life and the truth of the promise of Christ concerning it For if you Believe it not you cannot die for it nor chearfully submit to a natural death through the hopes of it This is the sum or principal work of the Christian faith to Believe the everlasting life as procured for us by the love of the Father the Obedience Death Resurrection and Intercession of the Son and the Sanctification of the Holy Ghost It is the unsoundness or the weakness of this Belief that is the principal cause of our unwillingness to die Direct 2. By all means endeavour to get and maintain the Assurance of your Title to this Promise and Felicity Get sound evidence and keep it clear Expunge all blots without delay Take heed of such sin as woundeth Conscience
the burdens that are here upon you which should make you long to be with God One would think the feeling of them should force you to consideration and weariness of them and make the thoughts of rest to be sweet to you Have you yet not sin enough and sorrow and fear and trouble enough Or must God lay a greater load on you to make you desire to be disburdened Every hour you spend and every creature you have to do with afford you some occasion of renewing your desires to depart from these and be with Christ Direct 7. Observe and magnifie that of God which is here revealed to you in his word and works Study him and admire him in Scripture study and admire him in the frame of nature And when you look towards Sun or Moon or Sea or Land and perceive how little it is that you know and how desirable it is to know them perfectly think then of that estate where you shall know them all in God himself who is more than all Study and admire him in the course of Providences study and admire him in the person of Christ in the frame of his holy life in the work of Redemption in the holy frame of his Laws and Covenants study and admire him in his Saints and the frame of his holy Image on their souls This life of studying and admiring God and dwelling upon him with all our souls will exceedingly dispose us to be willing to come to him and to submit to death Direct 8. Live also in the daily exercise of holy Joy and Praise to God which is the heavenly Employment For if you use your selves to this heavenly life it will much incline you to desire to be there Exercise fear and godly sorrow and care in their places but especially after Faith and Love be sure to live in holy Joy and Praise Be much in the consideration of all that Riches of grace in Christ communicated and to be communicated to you And be much in Thanks to God for his mercies and chearing and comforting your soul in the Lord your God And thus the Joy of Grace will much dispose you to the Joys of glory the Peace which the Kingdom of God consisteth in will incline you to the peace of the everlasting Kingdom and the chearful Praising of God on Earth in Psalms or other ways of Praise will prepare and dispose you to the heavenly Praises And therefore Christians exceedingly wrong their souls and hinder themselves from a willingness to be with God in spending all their days in drooping or doubting or worldly dulness and laying by so much the Joy of the Saints and the Praises of God Direct 9. Dwell on the believing fore-thoughts of the everlasting glory which you must possess Think what it is that others are enjoying while you are here and what you must be and possess and do for ever Daily think of the Certainty Perfection and Perperuity of your Blessedness What a life it will be to see the blessed God in his Glory and taste of the fulness of his love and to see the glorified Son of God and with a perfected soul and body to be perfectly taken up in the Love and Joy and Praises of the Lord among all his holy Saints and Angels in the heavenly Jerusalem You must by the exercise of Faith and Love in holy Meditation and Prayer even dwell in the Spirit and converse in Heaven while your bodies are on earth if you would entertain the news of death as beseems a Christian But of this at large elsewhere Direct 10. Lastly if you would be willing to submit to death resign up your own understandings and wills to the wisdom and the will of God and Know not good and evil for your carnal selves but wholly trust your lives and souls to the Wisdom and Love of your dearest Lord. Must you be carking and caring for your selves when you have an Infinite God engaged to care for you O saith self I am not able to bear the terrors and pangs of death O saith Faith My Lord is easily able to support me and it is his undertaken work to do it My work is but to Please him and it 's his work to take care of me in life and death and therefore though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death yet will I fear no evil O saith Self I am utterly a stranger to another world I know not what I shall see nor what I shall be nor whither I shall go the next minute after death None come from the dead to satisfie us of these things O but saith Faith My blessed Father and Redeemer is not a stranger to the place that I must go to He knows it though I do not He knows what I shall be and do and whither I shall go and all is in his power And seeing it belongs not to me but to him to dispose of me and give me the promised reward it is meet that I rest in his understanding And it is better for me that his Infinite Wisdom dispose of my departing soul than my shallow insufficient knowledge I may much more acquiesce in his knowledge than my own O but saith self I fear it may prove a change of darkness and confusion to my soul what will become of me I cannot tell O but saith Faith I am sure I am in the hands of Love and such Love as is Omnipotent and engaged for my good and how can it then go ill with me If I had my own will I should not fear And how much less should I fear when I am at the will of God even of most Wise Almighty Love There is no true Centre for the soul to Rest in but the Will of God It is our business to Obey and Please his Will as dutiful Children and to commit our selves contentedly to his Will for the absolute disposal of us It is not possible that the Will of an Heavenly Father should be against his Children whose desire and sincere endeavour hath been to Obey and Please his Will And therefore learn this as your great and necessary Lesson with Joyful Confidence to Commit your selves and your departing souls to your Fathers Will as knowing that your Death is but the execution of that Will which is engaged to cause all things to work together for your good Rom. 8. 28. And say with Paul I suffer but am not ashamed for I know whom I have believed and I am perswaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed to him against that day 2 Tim. 1. 12. 1 Tim. 4. 10. Therefore we labour and suffer because we trust in the living God who is the Saviour of all men especially of those that believe say therefore as Job Though he kill me yet will I trust in him Or rather as Christ Father into thy hands I commend my Spirit Luke 23. 46. If the hands and Will of the Father was the Rock and
and have you sought first to get in a fitter man what can they for shame say to it If they say No they proclaim themselves notorious self-seekers For it 's very seldom that an humble man is allowed to judge himself the fittest 4. And he that seeketh Dignities for God and not for himself will use them for God and not for himself For the Intention will command the use He will deny himself in his superiority as well as if he were in the lowest place and will contrive how he may most serve and honour God and this will be easily seen in his endeavours whether it be God or self that he serves and liveth to And now I advise all that love their souls to take heed of this aspiring act of selfishness If you will needs seek your selves and be your own Exalters you must trust to your selves and be your own defenders And then you will find that the lowest condition in the hand of God is more safe and comfortable than the highest in your own hand If God should lift you up to the top of the highest mountains you may expect either a calm or his protection in the storm and to be as safe as those below but if you lift up your selves and Satan carry you to the pinacle of the Temple take heed lest you thence cast down your selves by his temptations that did lift you up Dignities and Honours are not indeed the things that they seem to be to carnal eyes that see not the inside but judge by the outward glittering shew There is most holy Duty and work to be done where is the greatest dignity And certainly the life of greatest work labour is not the life of greatest ease or carnal pleasure especially when it is the work of God that you must do a work which all the world is against and which Satan and all his power will resist and which must meet with enmity and abundance of enmity when ever you set about it Though you are Commanders yet you are Souldiers and you that are Leaders have the hottest standing and must expect the sharpest conflicts Do you think of your Dignities and Offices as places of meer superiority and honour and accommodation to your carnal selves then are you Carnal men and enter upon you know not what and make your selves Traitors and Enemies to God whom he is engaged to bring down and be avenged on at last you debase the sacred coin which bears the stamp and name of God Magistracy is holy and the Image of God and you basely turn it into the Image of the flesh and blot out Gods name from it and stamp upon it the name of self and traiterously make it your own which was eminently his Believe it whoever you are if you seek for places of Rule and Dignity with carnal selfish expectations you must either use them accordingly when you have them which is the readiest way to damnation in the world or else you must find your expectations crost and mifs of all your carnal Ends and find that the greatest toil and burden which you expected should have been your chief content God hath annexed the Honour and outward greatness partly to encourage you to so hard a work lest the burden should be too heavy and partly to enable you to perform it and give you some advantages against opposition But though the cloathing of Authority and Rule be splendid the substance thus covered is extraordinary Labour and duty and suffering It is Honourable but it 's an honourable burden and an honourable painful difficult work So that if men understood what Office and Authority is in Church or Common-wealth and look'd after the substance as well as the ornaments the work as well as the Honour and Greatness it would be an eminent piece of self-denial for a man to submit to the call of God to be a Prince a Judge a Justice or but a Constable and men would as hardly be drawn to take the Office as they are now to do the work of the Office in faithfulness and with courage and zeal for God and that is almost as hard as an offendor is drawn to the stocks Offices and high places are not intended to accommodate the flesh nor are they things to be ambitiously desired and sought for by such as understand the Ends and use of them but they are such laborious hazardous ways of serving God which a wise man knows must cost him more than the honour will repay and which a Good man will not run away from when God calleth him thereto but will so far Deny himself as to submit to them but not thrust himself into them as the Proud and selfish do It is a work of Patience to a Godly man to be thus exalted but it is a work of Pride and self-seeking in others Deny your selves so far as to submit to Government dignity bear it patiently if it be cast upon you as being an excellent opportunity of serving God But wiâ—â— not for it because of the Honour and advantages to the flesh much less contend for it or set your hearts on it He that seeketh an Office or Honour for himself must have another heart before he will use it for God It 's better with Saul to hide our selves from honour than with Absalom to contrive and seek it but best of all with David to stay till God call us and then obey CHAP. XLII The Love and good Word of others denied 2. ANother part of selfish Interest to be Denied is the Love and good Will and Word of others This is a thing that may and must be desired to good ends but not for carnal self When Paul look'd at Gods honour and the good of souls he became all things to all men that he might by all means save some and this he did not for self but for the Gospels sake and yet for himself in subordination to God that he might be partaker of it with them He would give no offence to Jew or Gentile or the Church of God but pleased all men in all things that tended to their good not seeking his own profit but the profit of many that they may be saved 1 Cor. 10. 32 33. And he hath left it as the duty of the strongest Christians not to please themselves but every one to please his neighbour for his good to edification But when Paul look'd at himself and his esteem among men then he saith With me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you or of mans judgment 1 Cor. 4. 3. And Gal. 1. 10. Do I seek to please men For if I yet pleased men I should not be the Servant of Christ Good natures are loth to provoke others to displeasure and Grace moveth us to Please men for the saving of their souls But it 's Pride and Self-seeking to desire to set up our selves in mens esteem and to endear our selves for our selves into their
That if God deny you even that honour which in the lawfullest manner you desire that you submit to his pleasure and take it patiently and in these two respects you must here deny your selves Above all others these sorts of persons following are in danger of this odious Pride in desiring for themselves an extended and surviving Name 1. Princes and Souldiers that have the management of the great affairs of the world Fain would they be Renowned to Posterity And hence are their aspiring ambitious designs For this are their Wars and Conquests that they may be famous when they are dead as well as while they live And thus they make their Noble Conquests to be but Murders of the vilest sort and worse than any Cut-throats and Robbers by the high way while they intend them but for themselves and their own vain-glory and better might they seek honour by whoredom drunkenness or theft which are far smaller sins Whereas if their wars had been undertaken for God and managed according to his Will they had made them truly honourable and renowned And from this odious Pride it is that Absaloms Pillars must be erected and Monuments must be built to perpetuate their names and tell the world what need they have of means to keep alive their memories and how destitute they are of nobler means when Marbles and Monuments must be the great preservers of their fame Yea it were well if this Pride and selfishness did not corrupt the noblest of their works and turn them into deadly sins if they did not build their Hospitals Colledges or Churches and endow them with Revenues to perpetuate their own Names rather than to do good Though the works themselves are so good and so rare that I would not cast any dishonour upon them seeing all that can be said is too little to provoke men to do the like yet am I bound in duty to tell them that if self should be the End instead of God and Pride the cause instead of charity Hell would be the Reward instead of Heaven so great a matter it is to have an honest heart and right intentions in the most excellent and noble works In so much that a poor man that hath a heart to build a Colledge or an Hospital if he had but means shall be Rewarded by God as if he had done it if God were the End and Charity the Principle when a rich man that doth the work it self shall have but a poor and temporary reward if self be the End and Pride the Principle 2. Another sort that are specially in danger of this sin are all Rich men who would be the great in the world and perpetuate their names and memory in their houses lands and posterity and therefore they would purchase Towns and Lordships that their Houses may be famous when they are gone For it seems a kind of life to them if their Greatness do but live in their posterity Psal 49. 11 12. Their inward thought is that their houses shall continue for ever and their dwelling places to all generations they call their lands after their own names This their way is their folly yet their posterity approve their sayings Hence also is that ostentation of Escucheons and Arms and of Ancient Gentility or Nobility and much more such proud and selfish vanity 3. Another sort that are in danger of this sin are Divines and Learned men in all Professions who make their Writings but a means to perpetuate their own Names to Posterity Temptations to this sin may be offered to the best and too much entertainment they may have with our natures because of the remnants of selfishness and Pride But yet they do not prevail with the sanctified so far as to aim more at their own honour than at Gods The Labours that in themselves are excellent and a blessing to the Church are lost to him that was the Author of them if self be the End and Pride the fountain And exceeding great need have the godliest men to watch their hearts in this particular for they are very deceitsul and selfishness will too often interpose where nothing but God and publick good is discerned And now because that the sin is very great and dangerous I shall here annex a few Considerations which by opening the evil of it may help you to abhor it 1. These Proud desires of a great and surviving Name do shew that you lamentably overlook the true eternal honour of the Saints Must you have Honour choose that which lieth in the esteem of God Must you be great and glorious why you may be so and God would have you be so if you will but know where Greatness and Glory is to be had even in that blessedness that Christ hath purchased Must you have your greatness and honour perpeuated why you may have that which will never have an end And when God hath set before you such an endless glory are you looking after a Name among mortal men to leave behind you on the Earth Do you think to be saved indeed or not If you do what need have you of the smoak of mans applause when you are with God what unworthythoughts have you of heaven if you think when you are there you shall have need of mens good thoughts or words on earth But it 's a dangerous sign that you are indeed unbelievers and lay not up your treasure in heaven when you are so careful to perpetuate your names and shaddows here with men The true reliâ—h of Heavenly honour would put you out of love with this 2. And do you not plainly see in your own desires the vanity of all these Earthly things when you are put at last to take up with such a shaddow such a Nothing as is a surviving name Is this all that the world can do for you And do you not see here the wonderous deceitfulness of the world and the foolishness of unsanctified men that they will dâ—â—s stick to the world for very nothing when they know that they shall have no more from it they are contriving for a name when they are dead Wonderful blindness that experience and the approach and thoughts of death should no more open your eyes surely if this be all that the world will do for you at the last you should even renounce it and use it accordingly at the first 3. You cannot but know that when you are dead and gone the Honour of the world is none of yours nor can it do you any good any further than it relateth to your eternal blessedness and your honour is serviceable to the honor of God What good will it do you to be magnified by men when you neither know nor feel it what the better is a Tree or House if men commend it And for your souls if they be with God they will be far above the praise of men 4. Nay as such a design is a dangerous sign of your Damnation so I beseech you think what
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
Cross despising the shame and is set down at the right hand of the Throne of God Consider him that endured such contradictions of sinners against himself lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds Heb. 12. 2 3 4. Direct 10. But the greatest help to self-denial is To retire from the Creature into God and live in the love of him and employ the soul continually upon him Men will not be frightned from self love It must be another more powerful Love that must draw them from it And that can be none but the Love of God When you have soundly discerned a surer friend than self a wiser a better an abler Governour and Defender and one that much more deserveth all your Love and Care then you will turn away from self and never till then See therefore that you espouse no Interest but God's and then you wil have nothing to call you from him Let love so close you with him and unite you to him that you may know no Happiness but his Love and Glory and see with no other Light than his and know no will but the will of God nor meddle with any work which for matter and end you cannot call the work of God Then you have indeed denyed your selves when you are nothing have nothing and do nothing but as from God and by him and for him Own not any self but in and for God and then you may love and seek it freely or this is to be called a loving and seeking of God and not of self Own not any Knowledge but that which is from the Light of God by his word works Spirit and Ordinances and which leadeth you to God in Holiness and Peace and guideth you in his service and then you need not condemn your selves of self-conceitedness or a selfish understanding Know not any will in your selves but that which is caused by the will of God and directed by it and intended to sulfil it So that you maybe able to say of every desire of your soul I desiâ—e this because that God would have me desire it and I am resolved to follow his will in the seeking of it and the end of my desire is that I may please him and his will may be done and then you may say you have conquered self-will O see then that you be more with God and study his Mind and Will his Excellency Sufficiency and Love and remember that you are a dependent being that are nothing but in and by him and therefore should know no interest but him and his interest nor possess any thing but for him nor know any will or way but his will and way and so let his be yours and yours be his by a holy resignation conformity and subserviency unto his and this is the true rectitude and holiness of man this is a finding our selves by losing our selves and the only saving and exalting of our selves by denying our selves Nothing but the Light of God will master self-conceitedness and nothing but the love of God will overcome self-love and nothing but an union and closure with the will of God will overcome self-will and nothing but an espousing and intending God and his interest will cause a true denial of carnal self-interest and nothing but a seeking of God conversing as with him and living to him will cure the soul of self-seeking and an ungodly and unprofitable living to our selves One other Direction I should add which is to be always jealous and suspicious of self but this will fall in the Conclusion The Conclusion I Have now finished what I had to say to you on this great and needful subject And I have stayed the longer on it that I might occasion your own thoughts to be the longer on it For it is not a few hasty running thoughts that will make any great impression on the soul And now Christian friends whoever you are that hear or read these words I earnestly intreat you in the name of God that you will set your hearts to the deep consideration of the nature and odiousness of this sin of selfishness and of the nature and necessity of self-denial You will never effectually hate and resist the sin which you think lightly of and is not in any great discredit with you nor will you fly from it with fear and care and vigilancy till you apprehend the dangerousness of it I have not only told you but proved it to you that this is one of the most odious and dangerous sins in the world even the sum of all iniquity that containeth a thousand sins in the bowels of it This is it that generateth all other vices and fills the world with swarms of mischief It is this selfishness that corrupteth all estates and distracteth all Societies and disturbeth all affairs Never look further for the cause of our calamities It is self that causeth the miscarriages and negligence of the Princes Governours and â—…istrates of the world while they look all at their â—…nterest and little at the things of Jesus Christ or at least prefer themselves before him It is self that causeth the disobedience of subjects while they judge themselves capable of censuring their Rulers for matters that are beyond their reach and grudge at all necessary burdens for the common good because they are a little pinched by them It is self that hath kindled the miserable Wars that are laying waste so many Countrys and that makes such woful havock in the World It is self that hath so lamentably abused Religion and introduced so many fantastical self-conceits under the name of high Scholastical subtilties and that hath let in so many errors in Doctrine and Worship and defiled Gods Ordinances and corrupted and almost extinguished the Discipline of Christ in the Church It is self that hath caused the Leaders of the Assemblies that should be exemplary in Unity and Holiness and Industry to be some of them idle and negligent and some of them carnal and vicious and so many of them in discord and fierce opposition of one another So that every man that is grown up to a high degree of wisdom in his own eyes and such Degrees are soon attained is presently venting his own conceits and perhaps publishing them to the world and seeking out an Adversary to shew his Manhood upon and reviling all that are not of his Opinion as if there were no difficulty in the matter but he is Learned and Wise and they are are all unlearned and ignorant he is Orthodox and they are Hereticks or what his Pride and self-conceitedness is pleased to call them It is this selfishness that makes even Godly Ministers the Dividers of the Church the reproach of their Holy Calling the occasion of the increase of triumph of the Adversaries and the causes of no small part of all our unreformedness distractions and calamity and the refusers and resisters of the Remedies that are tendred for Healing and Reformation I dare boldly say if this
fleshly Pleasures tend He that by faith hath seen both Heav'n and Hell And what sin costeth at the last can tell He that hath try'd and tasted Better things And felt that love from which all pleasure springs They that still watch and for Christs coming wait Can turn away from or despise the bait Flesh Must I be made the foot-ball of disdain And call'd a precise fool or Puritane Spirit Remember him that did despise the shame And for thy sake bore undeserved blame Thy journey 's of small moment if thou stay Because dogs bark or stones lie in the way If life lay on it wouldst thou turn again For the winds blowing or a little rain Is this thy greatest love to thy dear Lord That canst not for his sake bear a foul word Wilt thou not bear for him a scorners breath That underwent for thee a cursed death Is not Heav'n worth the bearing of a flout Then blame not Justice when it shuts thee out Will these deriders stand to what they say And own their words at the great dreadful day Then they 'd be glad when wrath shall overtake them To eat their wrrds and say they never spake them Flesh How Forsake all Ne're mention it more to me I 'le be of no Religion to undo me Spirit Is it not thine more in thy Fathers hand Than when it is laid out at sins command And is that sav'd that 's spent upon thy lust Or which must be a prey to thieves or rust And wouldst thou have thy riches in thy way Where thou art passing on and canst not stay And is that lost that 's sent to Heav'n before Hadst thou not rather have thy friends and store Where thou may dwell for ever in the light Of that long glorious day that fears no night Flesh But who can willingly submit to Death Which will bereave us of our life and breath That laies our flesh to rot in loathsome graves Where brains and eyes were leaves but ugly caves Spirit So nature breaks and casts away the shell Where the now beauteous singing bird did dwell The secundine that once the infant cloath'd After the birth is cast away and loath'd Thus Roses drop their sweet leaves under-foot But the Spring shews that life was in the root Souls are the Roots of Bodies Christ the Head Is Root of both and will revive the dead Our Sun still shineth when with us it's night When he returns we shall shine in his light Souls that behold and praise God with the Just Mourn not because their bodies are but dust Graves are but beds where flesh till morning sleep's Or Chests where God a while our garments keep 's Our folly thinks he spoils them in the keeping Which causeth our excessive fears and Weeping But God that doth our rising day foresee Pittie 's not rotting flesh so much as we The birth of Nature was deform'd by sin The birth of Grace did our repair begin The birth of Glory at the Resurrection Finisheth all and brings both to persection Why should not fruit when it is mellow fall Why would we linger here when God doth call Flesh The things and persons in this world I see But after death I know not what will be Spirit Know'st thou not that which God himself hath spoken Thou hast his promise which was never broken Reason proclaims that noble heav'n-born souls Are made for higher things than worms and moles God hath not made such faculties in vain Nor made his service a deluding pain But faith resolves all doubts and hears the Lord Telling us plainly by his Holy Word That uncloath'd souls shall with their Saviour dwell Triumphing over sin and death and hell And by the power of Almighty Love Stars shall arise from graves to shine above There we shall see the Glorious face of God His blessed presence shall be our abode The face that banisheth all doubts and fears Shuts out all sins and dryeth up all tears That face which darkeneth the Suns bright rayes Shall shine us into everlasting joyes Where Saints and Angels shall make up one Chore To praise the Great Jehovah evermore Flesh Reason not with me against sight and sense I doubt all this is but a vain pretence Words against nature are not worth a rush One bird in hand is worth two in the bush If God will give me Heav'n at last I 'le take it But for my Pleasure here I 'le not forsake it Spirit And wilt thou keep it bruitsh flesh how long Wilt thou not shortly sing another song When Conscience is awakened keep thy mirth When Sickness and Death comes hold fast this earth Live if thou canst when God saith come away Try whether all thy friends can cause thy stay Wilt thou tell death and God thou wilt not die And wilt thou the consuming fire defie Art thou not sure to let go what thou hast And doth not Reason bid thee then forecast And value the least hope of endless joyes Before known vanities and dying toyes And can the Lord that is most just and wise Found all mans duty in deceit and lies GET thee behind me Satan thou dost savour The things of flesh and not his dearest favour Who is my Life and Light and Love and All And so shall be whatever shall befall It is not thou but I that must discern And must Resolve It 's I that hold the stern Be silent Flesh speak not against my God Or else hee 'l teach thee better by the rod. I am resolved thou shalt live and die A servant or a conquered enemy LOrd charge not on me what this rebel sayes That alwaies was against me and thy wayes Now stop its mouth by Grace that shortly must Through just but gainful death be stopt with dust The thoughts and words of Flesh are none of mine Let Flesh say what it will I will be thine Whatever this rebellious Flesh shall prate Let me but serve the Lord at any rate Use me on earth as seemeth good to thee So I in Heav'n thy Glorious face may see Take down my Pride let me dwell at thy feet The humble are for earth and heav'n most meet Renouncing Flesh I Vow my self to thee With all the Talents thou hast lent to me Let me not stick at honour wealth or blood Let all my dayes be spent in doing good Let me not trifle out more precious hours But serve thee now with all my strength and powers If Flesh would tempt me to deny my hand Lord these are the Resolves to which I stand Richard Baxter October 29. 1659. The laâ—e Lord Chief Justice Oliver St. John See my Reasons of the Christ â—â—â—g since written I may with Tertullian call all our enemies to search their Court Records and â—ce how many of us have been cast out or silenced for any immorality but for obeying Conscience against the interest or wills of some who think that Conscience should give place to their Commands Read the two or three last Chapters in Dr. Holden's Analâ—fidei Read Mr. Stubbs and Mr. Rogers books against me and the souldiers openly thâ—â— calumaiâ—â—ed me and thâ—e in eâ— my death as the said Authors â—eâ—red them to call me to a trâ—al even for speaking and writing against their casting dow the Government of the Land â—â—ing 〈◊〉 themselves and aâ—â—â—pting at once to Vo e out all the â—arâ—â—h 〈◊〉 I know that it hardneâ—h thousands in impenitency to say that Others have done worse and Is the matter mended with you And will it also eâ—se men in heâ—l to think that some others suffer more The Quuakers and other Self-esteemers are reverthemore reconcil'd to us now we have been eleven years turned out of all So common it is for selfish meâ— to make their gain sayers as odious as they can devise that I conâ—eâ—s I wondred that I me with no more of this dealing my self from Papists Anabaptists or any that have turned their stiâ—e against me And at last Mr. Pierce hath answered my expectation and from my own confession not knowing me himself hath drawn my picture that I am Proâ—â—i Lazie False an Hypocrite uâ—just a Reader c. And from this Bolsecks credit I make no doubt but the Papists will think they may warrantably descrâ—bâ— me if I be thought worthy their reâ—embrance in all following Ageâ— though now I have nothing from them but good wordâ— But it is a small thing to be judged by man especially when our â—â—uâ—â— enjoy the Lord. They way-laid the Messengers that I sent Letters by to friends took them from the â— by force seâ—â— them to 〈…〉 to the Council of State to the trouble of those I wrote to though nothing was found but â—â—noâ—ency And this was by my old 〈…〉 who differed from â—â—â— in nothing but â—â—tant 〈…〉 Changes of our Government and yet 〈…〉