[3.] Let me come to the odiousness of this sin. This is prejudicial to God, to your neighbours, to yourselves.
(1.) To God it is flat sacrilege ; we detract from God, and rob him of the praise of his gifts, that we may set the crown upon our own head : Hab. i. 16, ' They sacrifice to their net, and burn incense to their own drag.' Instead of acknowledging God, in their greatness they cry up their prudence, valour, and understanding. When we JBterceut God's praise, this is to deify ourselves, and put ourselves in the place of God. Trust and praise are God's own privileges ; it is the rent which God, as the great landlord of the world, expects from us. He hath leased out mercies and comforts to the world upon this condition, that we
Book I.] a treatise of self-denial. 263
should give him the acknowledgment of praise. To intercept tlie praise due to him is to rob him of his rent and revenue. All creatures are bound to exalt and magnify God.
(2.) It is ])rejudicial to others. Self-love makes men envious and slanderous. When men would shine alone, and would have all the world else to serve for their foils, to set them off, tlierefore they blast their gifts with censure, aggravate their failings, and load them with prejudice, that upon the ruins of their good name, they might erect a fabric of praise to themselves. Self-lovers are always bitter censurers ; they are so indulgent to their own faults, that they must spend their 7.eal abroad. And therefore, observe it, the apostles, when they would dissuade from the pride of censuring, they always bid us to consider ourselves : Gal. vi. 1, ' If any brother be fallen, restore such a one with the spirit of meekness, considering yourselves.' Do not set up a high conceit of yourselves, and so blemish others, and make an advantage of their failings. So James iii. 1, ' Be not many masters, knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation/ If men would look inward, they might judge freely, with more profit and less sin.
(3.) It is prejudicial to ourselves. Inordinate self-love was the ruin of angels, and it will prove the confusion of men ; he is the best "friend to himself who loveth himself least. Carnal self-love is indeed but self-murder ; properly, it is the hatred of thy soul. which is truly thy- self. As the ape which hugs her young ones with too much earnest- ness, crusheth them, and thrusts out their bowels ; so this self-hugging will be your ruin. It hinders us from the love of God ; and those that love not God shall never be happy ; and it is the cause of all sin, 2 Tim. iii. 2, ' Men shall be lovers of themselves.' It is set in the first place, as the mother of all the rest — ' They shall be lovers of them- selves, then covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce-breakers ; ' lovers of themselves, therefore ' covetous ' seeking to increase their own ^store, though the means be never so unjust and irregular. They ' shall be lovers of themselves,' therefore proud, as it is common for such men to gaze upon their own excellency, and the idol they set up in their own hearts. They ' shall be lovers of themselves,' therefore ' boasters.' Men use to draw others to the worship of their own idols, insulting over others, because they deify themselves, loving pleasure more than God, gratifying their private appetites, though with the displeasure of God. ' Fierce, incontinent.' It were easy to derive their pedigree. But to instance in a sensible inconvenience, self-love is a ground of self- trouble and discontent. When men set an high price upon themselves, and others will not come up to it, then they are troubled and vexed. He that is low in his own eyes is secured against the contempt of others ; they cannot think w^orse of him than he doth of himself. ^ It is true, a self-loving man may set himself low in his own expression, speak as if he were a vile creature ; but that is but an artifice of pride, to beat self down that it may rebound the higher. If others should think of him as he speaks of himself, he would be much troubled.
[4.] To give you some remedies against this self-love. If you would not dote upon yourselves, consider —
(1.) The vileness of your original ; it is good to remember ' the hole
26-1 A TREATISE OF SELF-DENIAL. [BoOK I.
of the pit, out of whicli wc were digged.' Agatliocles, a potter's son, afterward king of Sicily, would be served in earthen dishes, that he might be put in mind of his first condition. We should all consider the baseness of our original. Why should we be proud of our own worth? We have been infamous from our birth, tainted in our blood, prisoners to Satan, defiled in nature, guilty of high treason against God. What a pitiful creature is man by nature ! Certainly the angels, if they could be touched with such kind of passions and afflictions, they cannot choose but laugh at us, to see us dote upon ourselves ; it is as if a leper should be conceited of the comeliness of his own face, and think every scar a pearl or ruby. We still halt of the fall and maim of nature all our lives ; and the longer we live in the world, we are the more sensible of it. A m;m that hath been sick, and begins to walk, he feels the aches in his bones ; so after we are recovered, we feel the disorder of nature — ' We cannot do the things that we would,' Gal. v. 17 ; and Kom. vii. 18, ' For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing ; for to will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good, I find not.'