to change; nor yet is it the end or benefit of the chastisement; but only the hurt, which our folly hath made a suitable 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 God's will must be approved and loved as good in God:, but it is not every one that we may rest and rejoice in as good to us, and as our felicity. We must be grieved for God's displeasure, and yet love even that holy will that is displeased with us; and we must be sensible of God's 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 God's will are about the means, and have a tendency to a further end; and some are about the end itself. His commanding will we must love and obey: his forbidding will must have the same affections: his threatening will we must love, and fear; his rewarding will we must love and rejoice 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.

CHAPTER LXII.

May God be finally Loved as our Felicity and Portion?

Quest. 12. You tell us that we must seek ourselves but as means to God: how then may we make our salvation our end; or desire the fruition of God, when fruition is for ourselves, 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 et fine,' that stand here in the way, that I must only decide this briefly and imper-fectly 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 suitable 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 selflove, 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 ourselves must be comprehended in it, as the parties to be united; and so it is both for him, and for ourselves.

3. But yet though both parties as united be comprised in the end, it is not equally, but with great inequality. For, 1. God being infinite goodness itself, must appreciative' in estimation and affection, be preferred exceedingly before ourselves; 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 glorifieth us, than to be ourselves happy in him. 2. And God being not a mere 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 comprised :) For receiving is for ourselves, 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 highest 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.

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Object. What say you then by the wishes of Moses and

Paul?"

Answ. 1. The saying of Moses is very plain, Exod. xxxii. 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 buried? Therefore either let them live in thy sight or kill me with them." This is the plain meaning of Moses' request.

And for Paul's, the difficulty is somewhat greater: 1. Some think that Paul meaneth (Rom. ix. 3.) that he once wished himself to be no Christian in the days of his ignorance, and all through his zeal for the Jewish 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 that he meaneth only, I could wish myself yet unconverted to Christ, so they were converted.

4. Some think the meaning is, 'I could wish myself 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 of fered 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 is a discovery of his affection that would wish 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 valued than the soul of one; 2. And principally because by the conversion and salvation of a whole nation, God may be more honoured 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 itself 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 man's 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 to 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.

CHAPTER LXIII.

Motives: 1. Selfishness the grand Idolatry of the World.

1. SELFISHNESS is the grand idolatry of the world, and self the world's idol, as I have told you before.. It usurpeth the place of God himself in men's judgments, wills, affections, and endeavours. It was the work of the ten disco

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veries in the beginning of the book to demonstrate this: and therefore I shall say but little more. But self-denial destroyeth the world's 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 humours 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 glorify the Lord, above himself and all the world. The selfish can bear with God's enemies, but not with their own; and they can suffer men to wrong God, and sin against him, more patiently than they can suffer them to wrong themselves. But it is contrary with the selfdenying 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 to 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-deny ing 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 man's apostacy did lie in turning from God to self, and to the creature for self; so that he now studieth, and useth, and loveth the creature but for himself: and so he would have himself, and all as far out of the hands of God in his own, as possibly he can. I