5lli. This public self-denial is required of you in seeking to promote the common salvation and public benefit of the saints, without any partial respect to your own interest and opinion. Usually this is the fault of the children of God, saith Nazianzen, when they begin to grow well, then they are factious and divided, as green timber that lies in the sunshine is apt to warp ; so when we enjoy the sunshine of pros- perity, we are apt to divide and grow turbulent: Eom. xv. 2, the apostle saith, "' Let every one of us please his neighbour for his good, to edification.' We are not to please ourselves, not to look to the gratification of our own opinions, not to be privately urging our own opinions to the tormenting of interests and the breach of christian charity ; it is a most spiritual kind of self-denial to be ever ruled by respects to the general interests of religion more than by private alTec- tion to our own party. Look, as the elements leave their proper motion, the water will ascend, and the air descend, to conserve the universe, and that there may be no vacuum and emptiness in the world ; so it is good not to be partial to our own private interest, and at least to for- bear censures and exasperations, and drawing everything to the height.
Seconclhj, Having handled the doctrine of self-denial in general, I come to the kinds and subjective parts of it ; self must be denied so fjar as it is opposite to God, or put in the place of God ; and therefore we may judge of the kinds of self-denial according to the distinct privi- leges of the Godhead.
1. As God is the first cause, upon whom all things depend in their being and operation, and so we are to deny self, that is, self-dependence.
2. God is the chiefest good, and therefore to be valued above all beings, interests and concernments in the world, and so we are to deny self, that is, self-love.
3. God is, and he alone, the highest lord and most absolute sovereign, who swayeth all things by his laws and providence, and so we are to deny self, that is, self-will, by a willing and full obedience to his laws, and by an absolute subjection to the dominion of his providence ; the one is holiness, and the other is patience; the one relateth to his governing, the other to his disposing will.
4. God k the last end, in which all things do at length terminate.
^6 A TREATISE OF SELF-DENIAL. [BoOK I.
and so we are to deny self, that is, self-seeking. According to tliese considerations is the doctrine of self-denial.
As God is the first cause, so he would keep up the respects of the world to his majesty by dependence and trust. It is the ambition of man to affect an independenc}', to be a god to himself, sufficient to his own happiness. Now nothing can be to God more hateful than this. The main thing that preserves and maintains our allegiance and respect to tbe crown of heaven, is a constant dependence upon God for all things. For we find by experience that the heart is never kept in a right frame but when we look for our all from God. And therefore it is notable that in the covenant of grace, wherein the Lord would repair the ruins of the fall, and bring the creature into a new obligation to himself, God represents himself as all-sufficient, when he came to make a covenant with Abraham : Gen xvii. 1, ' I am God all-sufficient ; ' we bring nothing to the covenant but all-necessity, and we come to meet witii all-sufficiency in God. Now a great part of self-denial is to work us off from all other dependencies. We are marvellously apt to depend upon our own righteousness, our own wit and wisdom, our own spirit- ual strength, and the supplies of outward life. Therefore I shall in the succeeding discourse, seek to draw off the heart from these things, that so our trust and dependence may entirely be fixed upon God himself
That which I shall first persuade yon unto is —
First, To deny our own righteousness. For this we have a pregnant example, and that is the example of the apostle Paul : Phil. iii. 9, ' I count all things but dung and dross, that I may be found in him, not having mine own righteousness.' Look into the context, and you will find it express to the ptirpose. In the 4th ver. he saith. ' If any might have confidence in the flesh, I might much more.' It is no great matter for those to deny themselves that have nothing to trust to; but now, who could display such a banner of his own excellency as Paul could ? Besides his other external pris^ileges, take notice of his moral qualifica- tion : ver. 6, ' That he was, touching the righteousness of the law, blameless;'" that is, whilst a pharisee, he was a man of a strict and severe life, for outward confortmity and righteousness of life altogether blameless. Who so strict, so just, and temperate as Paul ? Nay, after he was a christian : ver. 8, ' I have suffered the loss of all things for Christ ; ' credit and interest, honours among the Jews, friends, country, all things, in the behalf of the gospel. Now what is his judgment upon all ? See ver. 7, ' Those things which were gain to me 1 counted loss.' Naturally, he was apt to count those things gain, to look upon them as rare and singular giounds of confidence. If any might expect to be saved, certainly Paul might ; you would have wished your soul in his soul's stead, if you had been acquainted with him. But saith Paul, ' 1 counted them to be loss," that is, through the treachery of my heart would prove hindrances from closing with Christ, and dangerous allurements to hypocrisy and self-confidence. Nay, he repeats it again in the 8th ver, for the greater emphasis — ' Yea, doubtless, and I do account all things but loss,' to show that he made this judgment, not only upon his Jewish observances, but upon his actions as a christian, upon his good works after faith ; though he had converted many thou- sands to God, and done and suffered much for Christ, ' yet I do to this