[5,] The very motives and reasons that draw us to self-love do draw us to better things, for he that loveth anything would love the best of the kind ; and therefore, if we love anything that is. good, let us love that which is eternally good. What do we love ? is it friends, life, glory, pleasure, substance ? When we love friends, let us love the best of friends, an eternal friend, such as God is. We should please them most with whom we are to live longest. If we love long life, let us love eternity ; if glory and praise, remember that there is no praise like that which is given us before God and angels, out of Christ's own mouth ; vain glory, it is nothing to everlasting glory. If we love plea- sure, let us love the best of the kind ; those ' pleasures which are at God's right hand ; ' the nearer the fountain, the sweeter the water. If we love wealth, let us love ' enduring substance.' Heb. x. 34, the
Book I.] a treatise of self-denial. 277
joy of heaven is called ' enduring substance.' All earthly things are but perishing movables.
[6.] Consider, what reason we have to love God above all things ; not only in point of desert, we are more obliged to God than to "all things in the world, and not only in point of law and duty, which we shall be responsible for, but in point of natural reason. All the crea- tures are but the image and shadow of that goodness which is in God. Tlie good of the creature is but splendor summi honi — a ray or beam of the chiefest good. God hath parcelled out his goodness, these are but broken pieces. Why should we dote upon the image, and neglect the substance ? Why should we love other things, and not God much more ? and, with the dog, catch after the shadow, and let go the sub- stance ? It is true, in the creature there are some draughts and strict- ures of God's goodness which serve to put us in mind of God ; not to intercept our affections, but to proclaim to us that God is more worthy of our respect and esteem. God hath parcelled out his goodness in all the creatures, to admonish us, and not to satisfy us. Consider, all these things stand in need of God to preserve them, they need other things. But now, God alone is enough, and he himself, without the creature, can satisfy thee ; he that hath God hath all things ; he that possesseth him, ' possesseth all things,' 1 Cor. iii. 18, and they are more thine when thou hast them not, than when thou dost enjoy them without God, for then they are a less snare to thee. So then say with indignation to all other loves, ' Whom have I in heaven but thee/ &c. Ps. Ixxiii. 25.
[7.] It is a very great honour when thou art called out to any actual trial, to show how much thou lovest God above the creature. There is no cause of grief in such a case, if our eyes were opened and our affections mortitied. Certainly it is better to give up our concernments to God freely than to have them taken away from us by force ; to offer them up to God, than to have them snatched from us. It is a great honour that God will have our will exercised, and our loyalty mani- fested ; he might take away our pleasant things by the dominion of his providence, and so they may be taken away in punishment. It is an honour when we can sacrifice them by way of thanksgiving ; death will take us from them, and God may take them from us. It is an honour that we may resign them before we die, and that by an act of choice and consent we may render them to God for the sake of a good conscience. ' To you, it is given to suffer,' saith the apostle ; your gain will be more than your loss. The means that may enable you to obtain this self-denial, follow.
(1.) See that you take heed of complicating and folding up thyself with the creature. We are apt to make ourselves too large ; take heed, what thou countest thyself. There is an old and corrupt self, which we should not own. Consider thy comfort, thy safety, thy value and acceptation with God, doth not depend upon these things, Luke xii. 15 ; thy safety doth not lie in them ; these things are but pipes to con- vey the blessing of God to thee. Thou dost not live upon abundance, but upon providence ; otherwise thy bread would be as a turf of earth to thee, not thy comfort. A man may have happiness enough in a single God, without the creature, Hab. iii. 18. In heaven, it is our privilege that there God is ' all in all,' without the intervention of
278 A TREATISE OF SELF-DENIAL. [BoOK I.
means and creatures. It is a dark way to enjoy God in the creature ; tlie highest way is to enjoy him alone, separate from these outward things. Neither thy value and esteem with God, nor thy eternal life, doth lie in it. God loves thee, though naked, stripped of all temporal gifts and favours ; he doth not love thine, but thee. Jesus Christ died not for thy goods and estate, but for thy person. And when God looks for thee in heaven, he doth not look that thou shouldst come with a train of outward comforts ; for when we go to the grave we go naked, and leave these things behind us.