190 A TREATISE OF SELF-DENIAL. [BoOK I.
reward ; we are acted with a more mighty spirit. It is true, in carnal men it is not self-denial so much as the obstinacy of self-will and stomach. The kingdom of Satan is divided ; self-will is set up against self-delight or ease. Nay, in pleasure, which doth seem of all vanities to be most soft and effeminate, yet men can deny themselves for their pleasure, their credit, estate, their conscience, and all sacrificed to the gullet of that great idol and Moloch-god, their belly.
4. Because self is the greatest enemy both to God and man. (1.) It robs God of his honour. Self, it is a near and dear word to man ; it is both the idol and the idolater. It receives the worship which it })erformeth ; as the sea sends out waves to the shore, and then sucks them in again. Self is made a god, and then god is made an idol ; Phil. iii. 20, ' Whose god is their belly.' All their toil and labour is to feed and delight themselves, and to exalt themselves. Self hath such sacrifices and devotions as God requires. Self hath solemn worship. A carnal man prays, and what then? He makes God the object, and self the end ; so that self is the god. So self hath private and closet duties, vain thoughts, and musings, in which we lift up our- selves in our own conceit — ' Is not this great Babel that I have built?' Some time of the day we consecrate to the great idol self, to puff up ourselves with the conceit of our own worth. This is a more secret worship of self. The public worship of self is in self-seeking, and the private in self-conceit, when we feast and entertain our spirits with whispers of vanity, and suppositions of our own excellency and greatness. (2.) As it is God's, so it is man's enemy. Self parts itself against itself, and is its own greatest enemy. Not only they of a man's own house are his enemies, as Christ speaks, but his own heart is his enemy ; self-will, self-wit are the greatest foes you have in the world. Look, as the ape doth crush out the bowels of her young ones while she embraceth them, so man wrongs himself when he overloves himself; a man need fear and suspect no creature in the world so much as himself, and that when we most respect self The world and the devil may trouble thee, but cannot hurt thee without thyself No enemy can hurt us so much as we hurt ourselves; therefore, if we would take revenge of them that hate us most, we should begin with our own hearts. Men trust their hearts as their best friends, and so they are deceived. It is the greatest judgment that God can lay upon any creature, to give him up to himself: Ps. Ixxxi. 12, ' So I gave them up to their own heart's lusts, and they walked in their own counsels.' Oh ! it is a sad doom to be given up to self. On the other side, it is the greatest conquest that can be, to conquer self ; it is an enemy that will hardly be subdued : Prov. xvi. 32, ' Better is he that overcometh himself than he that conquereth a city ;' i.e., he that is able to conquer the masterless bosom enemy, self, that is so apt to betray us.
5. Because those that are Christ's disciples are not their own men : Pom. xiv. 6, ' We are not our own, but the Lord's.' Our will should not be our own law, nor our profit our aim, because we are not our own. There are many relations between us and Christ which take away all the property we have in ourselves. We cannot say that our tongues are our own, to. speak what we please, nor our works our own, nor our interests our own ; no, thy tongue when thou speakest, it is not thine,
Book I] a treatise of self-denial. 191
but Christ's ; and so thy estate when thou tradest, remember it is not thine, but Christ's ; thy prayer, thy public service, they are not thine, but Clirist's. Eemember, thy strength is not thine own when thou art wasting it in lust and vanity ; it is not thine, but Christ's. So our several relations. I have showed you before the title God hath to us ; now let me open the several relations. We are but servants ; now servants are not suijicris, masters of their own will, but subject to the will of another, by whose command and for whose profit they are to act. The property of servants, saitli Aristotle, is not to do their own will and pleasure ; they have given up themselves to another. So we are children, and God is our Father, and children are under govern- ment, they are to be guided by their father. Then the most honourable relation is that of a spouse, 1 Tim. ii. 12. Now the woman, saith the apostle, must not rule over her own head , we are to be guided and directed by him. The most honourable relations put us upon self- denial.
6. Because it is the most gainful project in the world, therefore we must deny self. Self-denial is the true way of self-adv^ancing. Leave as much as you can for Christ, you will lose nothing — ' He that loseth his life shall find it : ' Mark x. 29, 30, ' Jesus answered and said, Verily I say unto you. There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake and the gospel's, but he shall receive an hundred-fold now in this time, iiouses, and brethren, and sisters, and mother, and children, and lands, with persecution, and in the world to come, eternal life.' Though we have it not in specie, in kind, we shall have it over and above in value. God will not weary us with expecting too much. Here we have peace of conscience, and hereafter life eternal ; others do but gain a shadow to the loss of the substance. They have neither quiet of conscience nor the hopes of glory : Mat. xvi. 26, ' What is a man profited if he should gain the whole world, and lose his own soul ? ' &c. And the evangelist Luke hath it, chap. ix. 25, ' Lose himself.' To seek the good of our souls, that is indeed to seek ourselves. Every man's mind, his soul, is himself ; to lose his soul, that is indeed to lose himself ; and when we lose ourselves, we lose all. When a man hath most need, riches fly away ; you cannot bribe divine justice, nor keep the soul from hell. Therefore if you would seek yourselves indeed, seek yourselves in God.