[2.] To God: Gal. ii. 19, ' I through the law am dead to the law, that I may live to God.' There the apostle showeth the ordination of the spiritual life. As soon as we are alive by grace, we are alive unto God, and the stream of our afi'ections, respects, and endeavours, is turned into a new channel ; so Eom. vii. 4, ' Married to Christ, that we may bring forth fruit unto God,' This ' unto God,' is explained. Col. i. 10, ' That we may walk worthy of God unto all pleasing ; ' that is, agreeable to his will or word, wherein he hath declared his pleasure, and stated the rule of our actions. So 1 Cor. x. 31, ' AYhether ye eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.' That is the end and aim of all our actions, sacred or civil, spiritual or natural. God is the beginning, and must be the end of all things ; he is the ab- solute Lord, and the infinite and inestimable good, in the enjoyment of whom our happiness lieth,
I shall observe something from the text, and as the point is delivered in this place.
1. I observe, that this end of the new life is propounded disjunc- tively, for a man cannot do both : he cannot live to himself and God too. A man cannot live to God till he has denied himself. Before
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the fall there was no such things as self, opposite to God and separate from him. But when man forsook God as his chief good and last end, then self was set up as an idol in the place of God ; for, lay aside God, and self interposeth as the next heir. And what kind of self do we set up hut carnal self — the pleasing of the flesh, or the advancement of a kind of carnal felicity to ourselves, in opposition to God, and in disjunction from him ? Thence we are hidden to deny ungodliness and worldly lust.s, hefore we can give up ourselves to the service of God, Titus ii. 12. Mark the two things to be denied — ' ungodliness and worldly lust.' For when we fall from God, we fall to the world, or some inferior good thing, wherewith we please the flesh, and so make the earthly life, and the pleasure we expect therein, to be our chief good and ultimate end^ and bestow all our time and care upon it. Thence that dis.suasive, Rom. xiii. 14, ' Make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.' The unrenewedpart of mankind do altogetherspend their time in provid- ing for the flesh, and seeking the happiness of the animal and earthly life, apart from God, or in opposition to him. Now this disposition must be mortified and cured before we can live unto God. We must not live to ourselves ; self is only to be regarded in a pure subordina- tion to God, not as opposite to him, not as separated and divided from him only, as self-respects would tempt us not only to disobey God,' but also to forget and neglect God. Most will grant that we are not to mind self in opposition to God, but few consider that we are not to mind self apart from him, but God must be at the end of all our desires, motions, actions, enjoyments ; though this latter be as evident a truth as the former. Natural self is to be denied as well as corrupt self, as appeareth by the example of Christ, who had no corrupt self to deny, and yet it is said, Eom. xv. 3, ' He pleased not himself.' Christ had an innocent natural will, by which he loved his natural life and peace — ' Father, let this cup ]iass ; ' but he submitted it to God — ' Not my will, but thine be done,' Mat. xxvi. 39. Therefore we also must not only deny self as corrupted by sin, but self as separate from God. How else shall we submit to God in these things wherein he may lay a restraint upon us, or put us to trial about them, whether we love them in order to him, they being things which otherwise we may affect? And besides, to love anything apart from God, and to seek it apart from (iJod, and rejoice in it apart from God, without any reverence and respect to God, is to make the creature the last end in which the action terminateth, which is an invading of God's prerogative. But if these things be so, who then can be saved ? For do not all love them- selves, and please themselves, and seek their own things ? If they do not love the creature so as to fall into gluttony, drunkenness, adultery, oppression, and the like, yet in the temperate and lawful use of the creature, who looks to God ? I answer, All the godly should, or else they are not godly ; for there is no living to God and ourselves in an equal or violent degree, as a man cannot go two ways at once. But yet there is self in the faithful in a remiss degree, even self inordinately affected, that is either in opposition to God or apart from him in some particular acts, but the main drift and course of their lives is to God and for God. Living to God or self must be determined by Avhat the man is principally set to maintain, promote, and gratify ; the end which