A Premonition Concerning This Second Edition
The Crucifying of the World by the Cross of Christ With a Preface Against Self-Seeking by Richard Baxter Pastor of the Church at Kidderminster A Treatise of Self-Denial "I have no man like-minded, who will naturally care for your estate.
For all seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ's."
— Philippians 2:20–21 London:
Printed by Robert White, for Nevill Simmons at the Prince's Arms in Saint Paul's Churchyard
A Premonition Concerning This Second Edition Reader, I take the love of God and self-denial to be the sum of all saving grace and religion: the first, of the positive part; and the second, of the
oppositive or negative part. I judge the measure of my own, and of all other men's true piety, by these two. And it is the rarity of these two which assures me of the rarity of sincere godliness.
Oh, how much selfishness, and how little love of God, are too often found among those who contend for supposed true doctrine, true worship, true discipline, and the true church! Who can say that their zeal for these things eats up themselves, their charity, their peaceableness, and their brethren? The same men who will not yield in an opinion, a formality, or a singularity for the church's peace and concord, or for the interest of love and the healing of our wounds, will just as hardly yield a jot of their wealth, their worldly honor, their carnal interest, or their selfish wills. This shows that their zeal and seeming orthodoxy and wisdom—as it is in them—is not from above, but from beneath (James 3:15–17).
Oh, that men knew what heart's ease self-denial brings, by mortifying all that corrupts and troubles the souls of sinners! And if that part of religion which seems hardest and harshest is so sweet, what is our love and delight in God, but the foretaste of heaven itself?
But the soul is seldom fit to relish this doctrine rightly until some special providence or conviction has made the world clearly insufficient for our relief. But he who, in or after sharp affliction, still remains selfish in a predominant degree, is next to hopeless.
I remember that one accounted a man of eminent wisdom, a little before he left the land of his nativity, made this the first word he ever spoke to me: "I thank you especially for your book of Self-Denial."
And when we are going out of the world, we shall all be much fitter to relish and understand the doctrine of self-denial than we are now.
Though undeniable reason thus presented, by the grace of God, does much cure some particular souls, yet alas, the world—most of the visible church and the land—is so far uncured that selfishness still triumphs over our innocence, piety, and peace, and seems to mock our hopes of remedy. Were profession as rare as true self-denial, I should agree with those who would reduce the church to a much narrower compass than either the Roman, the National, the Presbyterian, or the Independent.
Alas, how few are the true believers whose inordinate self-love, selfconceit, self-will, and self-seeking are truly conquered by faith and turned into the love of God as God, and of the public good, and of their neighbor as themselves—and into a humbled understanding, conscious of its ignorance—and into a humbled, submissive will, more disposed to follow than to lead, and to obey rather than to be imperious and domineering—and into a life entirely devoted to God and to the common good?
But this complaint has been made before. Yet what we most feel, we are most inclined to lament—and to press that on others which we find most necessary to ourselves. I must say, that of all the books I have written, I peruse none so often for the use of my own soul in its daily work as My Life of Faith, this Treatise of Self-Denial, and the last part of The Saints' Rest.
One little thing I will here tell the reader: that no book of mine (except the first two) ever had the word Dedicatory joined to the epistle by my consent; and I have often prohibited it in vain— whether through the forgetfulness or self-conceit of the booksellers or printers, I cannot tell. Not that I condemn the word in others, but