CHAPTER XIX – II. Self-interest to be denied: 1. Pleasure, especially that of taste; lustful pleasur
honourable beasts do not see that they do as bad? What is your own fleshly sensual appetite any better than that of a beast? A dog hath as a good a scent as you; and a swine hath as good a taste or sight as you, also as strong a lust as you. What great difference is there betwixt the serving your own flesh and another's, your own brutish part, or any other brute that lives about you? Wonderful! if the favour of God be nothing with you, and if damnation be nothing with you, that yet you are insensible of your honour in the world, and that you that cannot put up a disgraceful word or blow, can yet put up at your own hands such a bestial indignity, as the subjecting of a rational immortal soul, to that brutish flesh, which was made to be its servant!
CHAPTER XIX
II. Self-interest. And 1. Pleasure. And 1. Of the Taste to be Denied I HAVE told you what the selfish disposition is that must be mortified and denied; and now I must tell you what is the selfish interest that must be denied: having described self-denial from the faculties, I must now describe it by its objects.
The selfish interest consisteth in this trinity of objects, pleasure, profit, and honour, not spiritual, but carnal; not heavenly, but worldly pleasure, profit, and honour. Sometimes, all these are comprehended in the word 'pleasure' alone; and then it is taken more comprehensively, and not only for sensual pleasure, called voluptuousness, as it is here in this distribution; and sometimes all is comprehended in the term 'world,' and selfishness in the word
'flesh;' the world being that harlot with which the flesh commits
adultery. So 1 John 2:15, 16. "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world: and the world passeth away, and the lust thereof; but he that doeth the will of God, abideth for ever." To these three heads therefore we shall reduce all that we have to say of this matter.
1. The selfish, fleshly pleasure that must be denied, consisteth in these particulars following, which I shall but briefly touch, because they are so many. 1. One principal part of sensuality or self-interest, consisteth in meats and drinks to please the appetite. So far as these are taken to fit us for God's service, and used to his glory, so far they are sanctified, as before was said; but when they are merely to please the appetite, they are offered to an enemy, and are a fuel to lust. Do you see any thing that your appetite desireth, whether meats or drinks, whether for quality or quantity? Take it not, touch it not, merely upon that account; but enquire whether it tend to the strengthening and fitting your bodies or minds for the service of God; and if so, take it; if not, let it alone. If your appetite had rather have wine than beer, or strong beer than small, take it not merely on that account: if your appetite would fain have one cup more, when nature hath as much as is profitable, deny that appetite. If your appetite would fain be tasting of any thing that is not for your health, deny that appetite. If it would fain have one bit more, when you have had as much before as is wholesome or useful to you, deny that appetite: or else you are guilty of flesh-pleasing, and plain gluttony.
Quest. 'But is it not lawful at a feast to taste of another dish, or eat another bit, when I think that nature needs no more? What
perplexities then will you cast men into, to know how many morsels they may eat?'
Answ. It is gluttony, and no better, to take the creatures of God in vain, and sacrifice them to a devouring throat, which should be used only for his service. That which is a man's ultimate end, is his God.
What would you have plainer than express words of Scripture, that tell you, that whether you eat or drink, it must be all to the glory of God (1 Cor. 10:31.); and that the fleshly do make their bellies their gods (Phil. 3:19.); and therefore when you have taken as much as suiteth with your end, the service and glory of God, you must not take more for another end, the pleasing of your fleshly desires. But for the scruples that you mention, about the just proportion, we need not be disquieted with them; for God hath given sufficient means to direct us, to know what is for our good, and what is superfluous; and it is our duty in an even and constant way to use our reason, and keep as near the due proportion as we can; and when we know that this is our desire and endeavour, it were a sin against God to trouble ourselves with continual or causeless scruples or fears, lest we do exceed or miss the rule. For what can we do more, than go according to the best skill we have, and if for want of skill we should a little mistake, it is pardoned with the rest of our daily infirmities; and to trouble and distract ourselves with causeless fears, would more unfit us for God's service, than some degree of mistake in the proportion would do, and so would be as great a sin as that which we feared.
And therefore our way is quietly and comfortably, without distracting fears or scruples, to do our best, and use our prudence with selfdenial, and remember that we have to do with a Father that knows the flesh is weak when the spirit is willing. But yet wilfully to cast away one cup or one morsel, on the pleasing of our appetites, when it
no way fits us for the service of God, and will do us no other good, this is not self-denial but sensuality.
Quest. 'But nature knows best what is good for itself, and therefore that which it desireth is to be judged best: a beast liveth as healthfully as a man, that obeyeth his appetite only. Is it not lawful to take either meat or drink on this account, that the appetite is pleased with it?'
Answ. 1. Some beasts would presently kill themselves in pleasing their appetites, if man that is rational did not rule, restrain and moderate them. A swine will burst himself with whey in half an hour.
A beast in new after-grass will surfeit, if he be suffered. No beast knows poison from food, but would soon perish by it, in obeying his appetite. 2. And yet as a beast has no reason, so he is better provided to live without reason, than man is. His appetite is not so corrupted by sin as ours is! Original sin hath depraved and enraged our appetites. And if man hath not more use for his reason than a beast, even in ordering his natural actions, God would not have given him reason to rule his appetite, and commanded him to use it herein. And who knows not that if man did follow his appetite alone as beasts do, he were like to murder himself the next day or week, or at least in a very little space? The appetite would presently carry us to that for quality, or quantity, or both, that would cast us into mortal diseases, and soon make an end of us; and in those diseases, the pleasing it usually would be certain death. And indeed this is a beastly doctrine, that man that hath reason to rule his sensual inclinations, should lay it by, and please his appetite without it like a brute! What more do all gluttons, drunkards, and whoremongers, but follow their fleshly desires? And if the desires of the flesh might be followed, who would
not be such as they, in some measure? That which is no sin in a beast, is a heinous sin in a man, because man hath reason to rule his appetite, and a beast hath none, and therefore is not capable of sin.
And for the body, it is certain that most of the diseases in the world are bred and fed by the pleasing of the appetite; and I think that there are few that are laid in their graves, but this was the cause of it, though the ignorant know it not, and the sensual are loath to believe it.
And for the question, 'Whether we may not take any meat or drink purposely to please the appetite?' I answer, yes, as a means to fit us for duty; but not as your chief end. 1. Sometimes, especially in weak bodies, the very pleasing of the appetite doth recreate nature, and further strength. 2. And sometimes the appetite shews what sort of food nature will best close with and concoct, so that as to the quality, if reason have nothing against it, it hath something for it; because it is a sign that it is like to be best digested, which is more desired. And so if you thus far follow the appetite, as a sign directing your reason what is best, and take nothing ultimately to please it, but by pleasing it to preserve the health or vigour of your bodies for God's service; thus you may do, and yet be self-denying: for this is not a sensual serving of our flesh. But if you will, 1. Take that which reason tells you is unhealthful in quality. 2. Or that which reason tells you is either hurtful, but needless and unprofitable in the quantity. 3. Or have mastered your reason so far by your appetite, that you will not believe that is hurtful or needless which you love, but judge what is good for you, merely by your appetite, as a beast. 4. Or if you make the pleasing of your appetite your chief end, in any meat or drink that you take; all this is bestiality, sensuality, carnality, gulosity, and contrary to true moderation and self-denial.
Live therefore like men, and not like beasts; like Christians, and not like atheists and epicures: he hath as base a god as most of the vilest heathen idolaters, that makes his belly his god. He that cannot deny himself a delicious cup or morsel, would ill deny himself a kingdom if it were made the bait of sin. He that will not displease his appetite in so small a matter, would hardly leave his estate, or liberty, or life, if he were put to it, either to sin, or leave them. As he is a faithful servant to God indeed, that will not displease him in the smallest matter, so he is most fully obedient to the flesh, that cannot deny it the least thing that it desireth. Though I know that the smallness of the matter doth often so relax the cautelousness of the godly, that they venture on a small thing, who would not on a greater: yet even with them it is some aggravation of the sin, that they cannot bear so small a matter as the displeasing of their appetites in such a trifle: and that they cannot deny themselves, where they may do it at so cheap a rate; and that they have the hearts to displease God, and wrong their souls, for a cup or a morsel which their appetite hath a mind to. He sets little by heaven or the favour of God, that will venture it for so small a thing. It hath ofttimes abated my compassion to dying men, when I have known that their death was caused by a wilful obeying their appetite against the persuasion of their physician; and be the person never so dear to me, I feel that there is a somewhat in nature that inclineth us to consent to the sufferings of the wilful, or abateth our pity of them in their misery. It was an aggravation of Adam's sin, that a forbidden morsel could entice him to venture on the wrath of God, and the ruin of himself and his posterity. And it will be a double aggravation of your sin, if you will take the same course, and take no warning by him, or by the sinning world that hath followed him to this day, "When the woman
saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eye; and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof and did eat;" Gen. 3:6. Thus entered sin, and death by sin.
2. Another part of self-interest to be denied, is the pleasing of lustful venereous inclinations. Not only in avoiding the gross act of adultery and fornication itself, but also in avoiding the pleasing of any of the senses by lascivious actions that lead to this: especially some men that are naturally prone to lust, have need to set a work both faith and reason, and sometimes call for help from others to quench the dangerous hellish flames; for it is a sin that God hath spoken terribly against, and that so often that intimateth man's proneness to it, and expresseth God's detestation of it. And seldom doth Paul rebuke it, but he reckoneth up the several kinds, that he may make it odious, and none may escape. "Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these, adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,
&c. of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God;"
Gal. 5:19. The sins which he would not have the Ephesians name, are, "Fornication and all uncleanness, neither filthiness nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient: because no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God;"
Eph. 5:3–5. So "Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness which is idolatry; for which things' sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience;" Col.
3:5, 6. "Be not deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,
&c. shall inherit the kingdom of God;" 1 Cor. 6:9, 10. "The law is
made for whoremongers, for them that defile tWhoremongers and adulterd," &c. 1 Tim. 1:10. "Whoremongers and adulterers God will judge;" Heb. 13:4. Read also, 1 Cor. 5:11. Matt. 15:19. Heb. 12:16. 1
Thess. 4:3. Rom. 1:28, 29, &c. 1 Cor. 6:13, 18. and 10:8. "These filthy dreamers defile the flesh," &c. Jude 7, 8. "But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness—Having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin;" 2 Pet. 2:10. 14. Abhor therefore this filthy damnable sin, which God abhorreth. And to that end please not the flesh by any beginning of it, or any thing that savoureth of it, or makes way to it. Chambering and wantonness are mentioned by the apostle among the fulfilling of the fleshly lusts;
Rom. 13:13, 14. The allurements of the lusts of the flesh and wantonness was the course of the wretched apostates, 2 Cor. 12:21.
Mark 7:22. And Christ himself hath told you, that "he that looketh on a woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery already in his heart;" Matt. 5:28. Suffer not therefore your eye to entice your hearts, by gazing on beauty or any alluring objects; touch them not, come not near them without necessity. The fire of lust doth need no blowing up; but in some it needeth all that ever they can do to quench it. Fly therefore from the temptations and occasions, if you would escape; cast not yourselves upon opportunities of sinning; let temptations have as little advantage as you can. A weak Christian may walk more evenly that flieth from temptations, and keeps at a distance from that which would ensnare him, than a strong Christian that suffers the bait to be near him. David's woeful experience could tell you, what it is to give way to a wandering, lustful eye, when
Joseph's resolution may tell you what an advantage it is, to fly away and not to stand a parley with temptations. As ever you would escape this sin, this horrible soul-destroying sin, keep off from all