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TREATISE OF SELF-DENIAL.

LUKE IX. 23, 24.

And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me : for whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it.

I

CHAPTER I.

What Selfishness and Self-denial are, at the root.

HAVE already spoken of Conversion in a foregoing discourse, both opening to you the true nature of it, and the reasons of its necessity, and persuading men thereunto. But lest so great a work should miscarry with any for want of a more particular explication, I should next open the three great parts of the work distinctly and in order: that is, I. From what it is that we must turn. II. To whom we must turn. III. And by whom we must turn. For though I touched all these in the foregoing Directions, and through the discourse, yet I am afraid lest so brief a touch should be ineffectual.

The first of these I shall handle at this time from this text, meddling with no more but what is necessary to our present business.

You may easily see that the doctrine which Christ here proclaimeth to all that have thoughts of being his followers, is this, that, All that will be Christians must deny themselves, and take up their cross and follow Christ, and not

reserve so much as their very lives, but resolve to resign up all for him.'

Self-denial is one part of true conversion; for the opening of this I must shew you,

1. What is meant by self.

II. And what by denying this self.

III. And the grounds and reasons of the point.
And iv. I shall briefly apply it.

I. 1. Self is sometimes taken for the very person, consisting of the soul and body simply considered; and this is called natural or personal self. 2. Self is taken for this person considered in its capacity of earthly comforts, and in relation to the present blessings of this world, that tend to the prosperity of man as in the flesh; and this may be called earthly self (yet in an innocent sense). 3. Self is taken for the person as corrupted by inordinate sinful sensuality; which may be called carnal self. 4. Self may be taken for the person in his sanctified estate; which is spiritual self. 5. And self may be taken for the person in his naturals and spirituals conjunct, as he is capable of a life of everlasting felicity; which is the immortal self.

11. By denying self, is meant disclaiming, renouncing, disowning and forsaking it. Self is bere partly as a party disjunct from Christ, and withdrawn from its due subordination to God, and partly as his competitor and opposite; and accordingly it is to be denied, partly by a neglect, and partly by an opposition.

Before I come to tell you how far self must be denied, I must tell you wherein the disease of selfishness doth consist; and for brevity we shall dispatch them both together.

And on the negative, 1. To be a natural individual person distinct from God our Creator, is none of our disease, but the state we were created in; and therefore no man must under pretence of self-denial either destroy himself, or yet with some heretics aspire to be essentially and perso nally one with God, so that their individual personality should be drowned in him as a drop is in the ocean.

2. The disease of selfishness lieth not in having a body' that is capable of tasting sweetness in the creature, or in having the objects of our sense in which we be delighted, nor yet in all actual sweetness and delight in them; nor in a simple love of life itself; for all these are the effects of the

Creator's will. And therefore this self-denial doth not consist in a hatred or disregard of our own lives, or in a destruction of our appetites or senses, or an absolute refusal to please them in the use of the creatures which God hath given us.

3. Yea, though our natures are corrupted by sin, selfdenial requireth not that we should kill ourselves, and destroy our human natures that we may thereby destroy the sin. Self-murder is a most heinous sin, which God condemneth.

4. Our spiritual self, or self as sanctified, must not be so denied as to deny ourselves to be what we are, or have what we have, or do what we do. We may not deny God's graces, nor deny that they are in us as the subject, nor may we restrain the holy desires which God exciteth in us, or deny to fulfil them, or bring them towards fruition when opportunity is offered us.

5. We may not deny to accept of any mercy which God shall offer us, though but a common creature: nor to use any talent for his service if he choose us for his stewards; much less may we refuse any spiritual mercy that may further our salvation. It is not the self-denial required by Christ, that we deny to be Christians, or to be sanctified by the Spirit, or to be delivered from our sins and enemies; or that we deny to use the means and helps offered us, or to accept of the privileges purchased by Christ; much less to deny our salvation itself, and to undo our own souls. In a word, it is not any thing that is really and finally to our hurt and loss.

But (as to the affirmative) I shall shew you what the disease of selfishness indeed is, and so what self-denial is.

1. When God had created man in his own image, he gave him a holy disposition of soul, which might incline him to his Maker as his only felicity and ultimate end. He made him to be blessed in the sight of his glory, and in the everlasting love of God, and delight in him, and praises of him. This excellent employment and glory did God both fit him for, and set before him.

But the first temptation did entice him to adhere to an inferior good, for the pleasing of his flesh and the advancement of himself to a carnal kind of felicity in himself, that he might be as God, knowing good and evil. And thus man was suddenly taken with the creature as a means to the

pleasing of his carnal self, and so did depart from God his true felicity, and retired into himself in his estimation, affection and intention; and delivered up his reason in subjection to his sensuality, and made himself his ultimate end.

With this sinful inclination are we all born into the world, so that every man according to his corrupted nature doth terminate his desires in himself; and whatever he may notionally be convinced of to the contrary, yet practically he makes his earthly life and the advancement and pleasure which he expecteth therein, to be his felicity and end.

Self-denial now is the cure of this: it carrieth a man from himself again, and sheweth him that he never was made to be his own felicity or end; and that the flesh was not made to be pleased before God; and that it is so poor, and low, and short a felicity, as indeed is but a name and shadow of felicity; and when it proceeds to that, a mere deceit. It sheweth him how unreasonable, how impious and unjust it is, that a creature, and such a creature, should terminate his desires and intentions in himself: and this is the principal part of self-denial.

2. As God was man's 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 Maker's will, and he was to use nothing but with this intention.

But when man was fallen 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 himself.

3. In the state of innocency, though man had naturally an averseness from death and bodily pains, as being natural evils, and had a desire of the welfare even of the flesh itself: 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 Maker's 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 fallen from God to himself, his life and earthly felicity is the sweetest and 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 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-denial 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-denial, Christ doth mean a setting so light by all the world and by our own lives, and consequently our carnal comfort 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 God's command.

And the Lord Jesus himself was the liveliest pattern to us of this self-denial that ever the world saw; indeed his