When our blessed master had been discoursing publicly concerning the watchfulness of the faithful and wise steward, his disciples asked him, “Speakest thou this parable to all, or only to us?” The same question I am aware has been, and will be put concerning the foregoing doctrine: for too many, unwilling to take CHRIST’s easy yoke upon them, in order to evade the force of the gospel precepts, would pretend that all those commands concerning self-denial, and renouncing ourselves and the world, belonged to our LORD’s first and immediate followers, and not to us or to our children. But such persons greatly err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of godliness in their hearts. For the doctrine of JESUS CHRIST, like his blessed self, is “the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.” What he said unto one, he said unto all, even unto the ends of the world; “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself:” and in the text it is particularly mentioned that he said it unto them ALL. And lest we should still absurdly imagine that this word ALL was to be confined to his apostles, with whom he was then discoursing, it is said in another place, that JESUS turned unto the multitude and said, “If any man will come after me, and hateth not his father and mother, yea and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.” When our blessed LORD had spoken a certain parable, it is said, “the scribes and Pharisees were offended, for they knew the parable was spoken against them:” And if christians can now read these plain and positive texts of scripture, and at the same time not think they are spoken of them, they are more hardened than _Jews_, and more insincere than Pharisees¹.
¹ Law’s _Christian Perfection_.
In the former part of this discourse I observed, that the precepts concerning forsaking and selling all, did not oblige us in a literal sense, because the state of the church does not demand it of us, as it did of the primitive christians; but still the same deadness to the world, the same abstemious use of, and readiness to part with our goods for CHRIST’s sake, is as absolutely necessary for, and as obligatory on us, as it was on them. For though the church may differ as to the outward state of it, in different ages, yet as to the purity of its inward state, it was, is, and always will be invariably the same. And all the commands which we meet with in the epistles, about “mortifying our members which are upon the earth, of setting our affections on things above, and of not being conformed to this world;” are but so many incontestible proofs that the same holiness, heavenly-mindedness, and deadness to the world, is as necessary for us, as for our LORD’s immediate followers.
But farther, as such an objection argues an ignorance of the scriptures, so it is a manifest proof, that such as make it are strangers to the power of godliness in their hearts. For since the sum and substance of religion consists in recovery from our fallen estate in _Adam_, by a new-birth in CHRIST JESUS, there is an absolute necessity for us to embrace and practice the self-denial before spoken of. If we are alive unto GOD, we shall be dead to ourselves and the world. If all things belonging to the spirit live and grow in us, all things belonging to the old man must die in us. We must mourn before we are comforted, and receive the spirit of bondage before we are blessed with the unspeakable privilege of the spirit of adoption, and with a full assurance of faith can say, “Abba, Father.”
Were we indeed in a state of innocence, and had we, like _Adam_ before his fall, the divine image fully stamped upon our souls, we then should have no need of self-denial; but since we are fallen, sickly, disordered, self-righteous creatures, we must necessarily deny ourselves (and count it our privilege to do so) ere we can follow JESUS CHRIST to glory. To reject such a salutary practice on account of the difficulty attending it at first, is but too like the obstinacy of a perverse sick child, who nauseates and refuses the potion reached out to it by a skilful physician or a tender parent, because it is a little ungrateful to the taste.