Book I.] a treatise of self-denial. 183
part of self-denial, to work us off from other dependences, and to trust in God alone.
2c?. As God is tlie cliiefest good, so he must have the highest esteem. Valuing other things above God is the ground of all miscarriage in the business of religion. When anything is honoured above God, or made equal with God, or indulged agaiust the will of God, Dagon is set up, and the ark is made to fall.
'6d. As God is the highest lord and most absolute sovereign, it is his peculiar prerogative to give laws to the creature ; therefore self is not to interpose and give laws to us, but only God ; his will must stand. The great contest indeed between God and the creature is, whose will shall stand, God's will or ours ; who shall prescribe to us, self or God. Fleshly nature sets up laws against laAvs, and our fleshly wills set up providence against providence. Self-will is bewrayed by murmuring against God's providence, by rebellion against his laws, and when we are obstinate in our homage and obedience to self : Jer. xviii. 12, we will walk in the way of our own heart ; and Jer. xliv. 17, what- soever Cometh out of our mouths, that we will do. So James i. 14, the apostle makes it to be the root of all sin when a man is drawn away by his own lusts and his own will, that is set up against the laws of God. So in providence, a stubborn creature will not submit when God's will is declared. It was a great submission, and an act of self- denial in Christ — ' Not as I will, but as thou wilt ; ' but self saith. Not as thou wilt, but as I will ; for we by murmuring set up an anti-pro- vidence against God.
4:th. As God is the last end of our beings and actions, the supreme cause is to be the utmost end : Prov. xvi. 4, ' God made all things for himself.' But now, in all that we do we look to ourselves ; vain man sets up self at the end of every action, and jostles out God. In all the actions of life they are but a kind of homage to the idol of self. If they eat and drink, it is to nourish self, a meat-offering and drink-offering to appetite. If they pray or praise, it is but to worship self, to advance the repute of self ; the crown is taken off from Gud's head, he is not made the utmost end. If they give alms, they are a sacrifice offered to the idol of self-estimation ; ' They give alms to be seen of men,' saith Christ, and in this self is set up, and God is deposed and laid aside.
[2.] Let me give you some particular instances. To instance in ex- cellences, moral or natural, or in civil interest. In moral excellences: w righteousness, that is apt to be a snare in point of self-dependence. Paul found it to be ^rj/jilav, a loss, Phil. iii. 7, a hindrance from casting ourselves entirely upon grace. It is the highest point of self- denial for a man to deny his own righteousness, to see the dung and dross that is in himself and all his moral excellences. So also, con- cerning our own wisdom, that is a self that comes to be denied. It is said to Babylon: Isa. xlvii., 'Thy understanding hath undone thee.' So of all men, when we presume upon our own sense and apprehension, we soon go wrong. This is the main thing to be considered here ; for Peter, out of carnal wisdom, dissuades Christ, and then Christ saith, ' Whoever will come after me, let him deny himself,' deny the dic- tates of his own reason and will. He that makes his own bosom his oracle, asketh counsel of a fool ; we shall be cavilling and disputing till
184 A TREATISE OF SELF-DENIAL. [BoOK I.