CHAPTER XIII – Selfish dispositions to be denied: 1. Self-love
9. When self rises up against the officers of Christ, and would make you believe your teachers fools and you are wise; that they are beside the truth, and you are in the right; or that they speak against you out of malice or singularity, or some such distemper, and so would deprive you of the saving benefit of their doctrine and office—it is time now to deny self, if you know but what belongs to your peace.
And though I grant that you must not follow a teacher into a certain sin and error, yet when it is not God but self that rises up against your teachers, and possesses you with a spirit of bitterness, disobedience, contradiction, and malignity, this self must be denied.
10. Lastly, as self is against the good of our neighbor or human societies, it must be denied. For we must love our neighbor as ourselves: that is, both self and neighbor must be loved in a due subordination to God, as means to his glory; and in this notion of a means, the love should be equal—though there is also a natural love, in order to self-preservation, put into us by the Creator, which our love to every neighbor is not to equal in degree. Yet our love to societies should exceed it; and our love to a neighbor should come so near it that we should diligere proximum proxima dilectione—love him with the nearest love—love him as a second self, and so study his welfare as to promote it to our power, and not to covet or draw from him for ourselves, nor do him any wrong. This is the sense of the tenth Commandment, and the sum of the second Table.
CHAPTER XIII
I. Selfish Dispositions must be Denied; and, 1. Self-love HAVING seen in what respects and upon what accounts it is that self must be denied, I am next to tell you the particulars of that selfish interest that must be denied, and the parts that are contained in this needful work.
And here you must remember what saving faith is, that seeing how self opposeth it, you may know wherein it must be denied.
'Saving faith is such a belief in Christ for reconciliation with God, and the everlasting fruition of him in glory, as makes us forsake all the things of this world, and give up ourselves to the conduct of the word and Spirit, for the obtaining of it.'
When a man can strip himself of all the pleasures, and profits, and honours of this world, first in his estimation, and love, and resolution, and then in the actual forsaking of them at the call of God, because of the firm belief and hope that he hath of the fruition of God in glory, as purchased and promised by Jesus Christ; this is a Christian, a disciple of Christ, a true believer, and none but this. And (as I have told you) as God in unity, and Father, Son and Holy Ghost in Trinity, is the object of our saving faith, so carnal self in unity, and pleasure, profits and honours in trinity must be renounced by all true
Christians; as being that which we turn from, when we turn to God.
So that, in brief, to deny yourselves doth generally consist in denying all your own dispositions and interests whatsoever, as they are against God the Father, Son or Spirit, or stand not in a due subserviency to him. And this interest which you must deny, consisteth in your pleasures, profits and honour; of these therefore I shall speak distinctly, though but briefly.
I. You must begin at the denial and mortification of your corrupt and selfish disposition, or else you can never well deny your selfish interest. It is not enough to keep under this selfishness by denying it somewhat that it would have, but the selfish inclination or nature itself must be so far mortified and destroyed, that it shall not reign as formerly it did. For this which we call selfishness is not your very persons, nor any spiritual or right natural desire of your own good; but it is the inordinate adhering of the soul to yourselves, by departing from God, to whom you should adhere, and so a carrying over God's interest and honour to yourselves. Holiness is an inclination and dedication to God, by which two we are said to be separated to him: and wickedness is an inclination, and addictedness or devotedness to ourselves above God, or as separated from God; and this inclination, disposition or separation of man to himself instead of God, is it that I call self or selfishness; and this self must itself be destroyed as to the predominant degree.
And therefore let us first observe wherein this selfish disposition doth consist, which must be destroyed; and then secondly, wherein the selfish interest doth consist that must be denied.
And first, the selfish disposition consisteth in these several parts that follow.
1. The principal part of it consisteth in an inordinate self-love. This is a corruption so deep in the heart of man, that it may be called his very natural inclination, which therefore lieth at the bottom, below all his actual sins whatsoever; and must be changed into a new nature, which principally consists in the love of God. This is original sin itself, even in the heart of it. This speaks what man by nature is;
even an inordinate self-lover; and as he is, so he will act. In this, all other vice in the world is virtually contained; even as all grace is in the love of God; which made the schoolmen say, that love is the form of all grace; not as they are this or that grace in particular; not of faith as faith, nor of hope as hope; but of faith, hope, &c. as vital or gracious acts. Because the respect to the end is essential to the means as a means; and therefore the respect to God as the end, is essential to faith, hope, &c. as a means to him: and therefore that grace (of love) which is terminated on the end, must have an essential participation, concurrence or influence on those that are directly terminated on the ways or means, and must convey somewhat of its very essence to them; and so far as they partake of that essence of love, so far are they indeed those special graces which carry the soul to God its end. And in this sense we may allow the distinction between 'fides,' 'spes,' &c. 'formata charitate' (which is true Christian faith and hope), and 'fides,' 'spes,' &c. 'informis' (which is but an opinion and a dream). And so it is in the body of sin; when self-love doth reign, it is the heart of wickedness: and though every sin hath its own specific nature, yet all are virtually in self-love, and are so far mortal, or prove men graceless, as they are informed by the essential communication of self-love; for self being the end, informeth all the means as they respect it. I say the more to you of this, because indeed it is a weighty truth, for the right understanding of the true nature of grace and sin; and I doubt many are in the dark for want of understanding and considering it. A man that feareth and loveth
God, and an unsanctified man may be both overtaken with the same sin; perhaps a gross one, as Noah's, or David's and Peter's was; and this may be a mortal sin in the ungodly, I mean, such as proves him in a state of death, and yet not so in the gracious person. The wicked
will deride this in their ignorance, as if we made God partial; but it is no such matter. The Papists cannot endure it, but suppose Peter,
David and Noah, were quite without the love of God, and so were again unsanctified men; but this is their error. It was not from the power of reigning self-love, and the habitual absence of the love of God, that these men (or any saints) did sin, but from a particular act of mortified self-love by a surprise upon the neglect of the actual exercise of the love of God. But all the sins of unsanctified men, or at least their common sins, are from the habitual reign of self-love, and the habitual absence of the love of God; and therefore the sins of the saints are, as the schoolmen speak of the graces of the ungodly, unformed: they be not mortal sins in the sense aforesaid, because they be not naturalized, informed, animated by the malignity and venom of the mortal end and principle, which is habitual, reigning self-love: but those of the wicked are sins informed by this inordinate self-love as an habitual, reigning sin; and therefore being animated by its malignity are mortal: yet say not that this makes God partial, and not to hate the same sin in one as he doth in another. For two things must be taken in, 1. Where the heart is sanctified, such sins are strangers: perhaps one godly man of ten or twenty may be guilty of one of them, as Noah was of drunkenness, once in all his life (since his conversion); for it will not stand with grace to live in them; for such as a man's love, and inclination, and nature is, such will be the drift of his life. And would not you have God make a difference between those that sin once, and those that live in it? 2. Besides, will not any honest man make a great difference of the same acts according as they come from different hearts? You will not take a passionate word from a father, husband or wife, so ill as the same word from a malicious enemy. If an unthrifty son should spend you