CHAPTER LXIII – Motives to self-denial: Selfishness is the grand idolatry
enumerate all; but I have mentioned twenty particulars under the general head of pleasure, and ten under the general head of honour, and have referred you to another treatise for that which consisteth in worldly profits. And now I come to the third part of my work, which is to shew you a little more fully the greatness of the sin of selfishness, and give you thence such moving reasons as may conduce to the cure of it, which are these that follow.
CHAPTER LXIII
Motives: 1. Selfishness the grand Idolatry of the World 1. SELFISHNESS is the grand idolatry of the world, and self the world's idol, as I have told you before. It usurpeth the place of God himself in men's judgments, wills, affections, and endeavours. It was the work of the ten discoveries in the beginning of the book to demonstrate this: and therefore I shall say but little more. But selfdenial destroyeth the world's great idol, and giveth God his own again. The selfish lean most to their own understandings: but the self-denying trust the wisdom of God. The selfish are careful principally, for themselves, and their own felicity, even a terrene and carnal kind of felicity; but the self-denying are principally careful how they may please and honour God, and promote the welfare of his church, and in this way attain the spiritual everlasting felicity of the saints. The selfish must have their own humours pleased, and their own wills accomplished, and their own desires granted; but the self-denying do slay their own carnal wills, desires, and conceits, and lay them dead at the feet of Christ, that his will alone may be exalted.
The selfish would have all men love them, admire them, and commend them. But the self-denying would have all men to love,
admire, and glorify the Lord, above himself and all the world. The selfish can bear with God's enemies, but not with their own; and they can suffer men to wrong God, and sin against him, more patiently than they can suffer them to wrong themselves. But it is contrary with the self-denying: a wrong to God and his church seemeth far greater to them than a wrong against themselves. In a word, the selfish intend themselves, and live to themselves, and the selfdenying intend to God, and live to him, in the course of their lives.
And therefore when the selfish are troubled about many things, the self-denying are minding the one thing necessary. And when the selfish are seeking to know what is good or evil to their flesh; the selfdenying are seeking to please the Lord, and desire to know nothing but him in Christ crucified; and they could part with all the knowledge of the creatures, as useful to themselves, if they could but know more of God in Christ. The selfish would be in his own hands, at his own dispose and government, and the self-denying would be in the hands of God, and at his dispose and government.
And doubtless, the very state of man's apostacy did lie in turning from God to self, and to the creature for self; so that he now studieth, and useth, and loveth the creature but for himself: and so he would have himself, and all as far out of the hands of God in his own, as possibly he can. I gave you my thoughts in the beginning, that this was the meaning of man's knowing good and evil by the fall. And since I wrote that, I met with the same exposition in 'Damascene, de
Orthodox, fid. li. 11. c. 11. p. (mihi) 113. part of whose words I shall here translate:—In the midst of Paradise, God planted the tree of life, and the tree of knowledge: and the tree of knowledge was for the trial, and proof, and the exercise of man's obedience and disobedience. And therefore it is called the tree of knowledge of good
and evil; or because it gave man a power to know his own nature; which indeed to the perfect is good, but to the infirm is evil; and to them that are yet prone to concupiscence, as strong meats to the weak and those that need milk. For the Lord that created us, would not have us careful and troubled about many things, nor to become contrivers and providers for our own lives: into which it was that Adam fell. For when he had eaten, he knew that he was naked, and made himself an apron of fig-leaves to cover his nakedness. But before both Adam and Eve were naked and not ashamed. And God would have had us insensible of (or not to suffer by) such things; for this is but an insensibility and impossibility. But we had one work only to do without vexation and care, which is the work of angels, unweariedly and continually to praise our Creator, and to delight in the contemplation of him, and to cast all our care on him, as he taught us by the prophet David, saying, "Cast thy care on the Lord, and he shall nourish thee;" and the Lord taught his own disciples in the Gospel, "Take no care what ye shall eat, nor wherewith you shall be clothed;" and again, "Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and these things shall be added to you;" and to Martha, "Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things, but one thing is needful: Mary hath chosen the best part which shall not be taken from her;" that is, to sit at his feet, and hear his word; and this is the tree of life.—So far Damascene, who you see driveth at the same sense, though it be not clearly and fully expressed by him.
And as man, by his fall, desired to know what was good and evil for himself, that is, to his own nature, for his daily provision and safety, that he might be able to choose for himself, and not trust himself wholly on the provision of God; so accordingly God in judgment hath