CHAPTER LXIV – 2. It is the enemy of all moral good
given him over to himself, according to his desire, of which more anon.
And accordingly our restoration from this lapsed state, consisteth in retiring from ourselves to God; and giving up to him again those minds, those thoughts, those wills, those affections that have been all this while detained from him, and misemployed by self; down then with this idol, and set up God. Did you make yourselves? or redeem yourselves? or do you sustain yourselves, or are you sufficient for yourselves? Let him that doth all this for you be acknowledged to have the only title to you; and consider what an odious crime it is for such worms to exalt themselves as gods, and so deny the Lord to be their God.
CHAPTER LXIV
Enemy to all Morality; Faith; Prayer; Obedience 2. MOREOVER, this self is the enemy, as of God himself, so also of all the frame of morality: of every article of your belief, and every petition in the Lord's prayer, and of every one of the ten commandments, and of the whole word of God.
1. For your Belief, it advanceth your own reason against it, as to the truth of it; so that you cannot discern these things of God, because they are spiritually discerned. It shutteth up your understandings against the meaning of it; so that when you know the grammatical sense of the words, you know not half the meaning yet for all that.
The words are written to signify the spiritual apprehensions and affections which the holy inditers had of the matter signified by
them: and till you come by the help of those words to have the same impress upon your souls, the same apprehensions and affections which the inditers had, and intended to express by them, you have not the perfect understanding of the Scriptures; and therefore while you are wholly without their spiritual apprehensions and affections, you do not so much as sincerely or truly understand them; however you may be able to speak as good grammarians, and true expositors in the explaining of them to others. And also selfishness in the will doth make you disrelish the doctrine which you should believe, because that being practical, either the doctrine, or its consequence, or the practice that it puts you on, is against your carnal self and interest.
2. And for prayer, I might easily shew you, that self contradicteth all the parts of it. You should first pray that the name of God may be hallowed, making his glory the end of your desires; but self must be its own end, and seek the honour of its own name, and less regardeth the hallowing of God's.
You must pray that the kingdom of God may come; but this kingdom treadeth down self as an enemy, and therefore no marvel if self be unwilling of it. Would you be disposed, and subjected to a spiritual government, and do nothing nor have nothing but at the pleasure of Christ? The reign of self is contrary to his reign.
You must pray that the will of God may be done. But self hath a will that is contrary to God's will; and every carnal man would be a lawgiver to himself, and unto others, and had rather have his own will done, than God's. Or else whence come all the sins of your lives,
which are nothing but the doing of your own wills, and the not doing the will of God?
You must pray each day for your daily bread, as children that live not on their own provision, but on their Father's love and bounty, and have their address to him for all they want, desiring but such supplies as are necessary or useful to them for his service. But self desireth more than daily bread, and desireth it not so much to strengthen you for God's service, as to delight and gratify the flesh; and had rather have its stock in its own possession, than daily to fetch it as you use it from God.
You must pray daily for the forgiveness of your sins, as people that are grieved for them, and weary of them, and hate them, and are sensible of the want and worth of pardon, and of the abundant grace of Christ that purchased it, and the preciousness of the Gospelpromises that convey it, and of your own unworthiness by reason of this sin. But self is not easily so far abased as to be heavy laden, and sick of sin; nor is it easily drawn to value grace, or feel how much you are unworthy of it, or need it; nor easily driven to renounce all sufficiency and conceits of a righteousness of your own, and wholly to go out of yourselves to Christ for life: self cannot spare sin; for it is its darling and play-fellow, its food, its recreation, and its life.
You must daily pray to be saved from temptation, and delivered from evil; even the evil of sin, as well as of punishment. But self doth love the sin, and therefore cannot long to be delivered from it, and therefore loveth the temptation that leadeth to it, and indeed is a continual tempter to itself. Would the covetous worldling be delivered from his worldliness? Would the ambitious proud person
be delivered from his pride or honours? or the sensual person from his sensual delights? No, they do not love the preacher or people that are against them in these ways; nor the holy self-denial that is contrary to them; nor the Scripture that condemneth them; nor indeed the Lord himself that forbids them, and is the author of all these laws and holy ways which they abhor. So that you see how self is an enemy to every petition in the Lord's Prayer.
3. And it is a violation of all the ten commandments, The first and second it is most directly against, and is the very thing forbidden in them: and all the rest it is against consequently, and is the virtual breach of them, as disposing and drawing the soul thereunto.
The two tables have two great commandments, which are the sum of the whole law, and all the other commandments are consequents or particulars from these. The sum of the first table is, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart;" or above all. This is the first commandment: "Thou shalt have none other Gods before me;" which is put first as being the fundamental law, commanding subjection of self to the sovereign power of God, which necessarily goes before all actual obedience to particular precepts. But self is directly against this, and sets up man as a God to himself: and all the unsanctified love themselves better than God, and therefore cannot love him above all.
And therefore neither second, third, or fourth command can be sincerely kept by such; for when self is set up, and God denied, instead of the right worshipping of God, they are worshipping themselves, or suiting God's worship to the conceit and will of self.
Instead of the reverent use of his name, they are setting up their own
names, and will venture on the grossest abuse of God's name, rather than self should suffer or be crossed. And instead of hallowing the Lord's Day, they devote both that and every day to themselves.
The sum of the second table is, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself;" and this is the meaning of the tenth commandment, which forbiddeth us to covet any thing from him to ourselves: that is, that we set not up self and its interest against our neighbour and his good; and be not like a bruised or inflamed part of the body, that draweth the blood or humours to itself, or like a wen or other tumor, that is sucking from the body for its own nutrition: so that it is but plainly this. "Be not selfish, or drawing, or desiring any thing to thyself, which is not thy due, but belongeth to another; but let love run by even proportions, between thy neighbour and thyself, in order to God and the public good." And this commandment brings up the rear, that it may summarily comprehend and gather up all other particulars that be not instanced in, in the foregoing commandments. Now selfishness being the very sin that is here forbidden, I need to say no more to tell you that self is the breaker of this law.
Next to this summary concluding precept, the greatest in the second table (if not one of the first) is the fifth commandment; which requireth the preservation of relations and societies, and the duties of those relations, especially of inferiors to superiors, for the honour of God and the common good. And this is set before the rest, because the public good is preferred to the personal good of any; and magistrates and superiors being God's officers, and for the public good, are to be preferred before the subjects. But what an enemy
selfishness is to this commandment, I intend anon to shew you distinctly, and therefore now pass it by.
And for the following commandments, who ever murdered another but out of some inordinate respect to himself, either to remove that other out of the way of his selfish ends, or to be revenged on him for depriving self of profit, or honour, or something that it would have had, or in some way or other to attain your own ends by another's blood?
And what is it but the satisfaction of your own filthy lusts, that causeth adultery and all uncleanness? And what is it but the furnishing and providing for self that provoketh any man to rob another? And what is it but some selfish end that causeth any man to pervert justice, or slander, or bear false witness against his neighbour? so that nothing is more plain than that selfishness is all sin and villany against God and man, comprised in one word.
And therefore you need not ask me, which commandment it is that doth forbid it; for it is forbidden in every one of the ten commandments. The first condemneth self as it is the idol set up, and loved, trusted, and served, before God: the second condemneth it as the enemy of his worship; and the third condemneth it as the profaner of his name; and the fourth as the profaner of his hallowed time. The second table in the tenth commandment condemneth self as it is the tumour and gulf that is contrary to the love of our neighbour, and would draw all to itself. The fifth commandment condemneth it as the enemy of authority and society: the sixth as the enemy to our neighbour's life; the seventh, eighth, and ninth,
condemn it as the enemy to our neighbour's chastity, estates, and cause or name.
So that if you see any mischief done in persons, families, towns, countries, courts, armies, or any where in the world, you need not send out hue and cry to find out and apprehend the actor: it is selfishness that is the author of all. If the poor be oppressed by the rich, and their lives made almost like the life of a labouring ox or horse, till the cry of the oppressed reach to heaven, who is it that doth all this but self? The landlords and rich men must rule and be served by them. I warrant you they would not do thus by themselves.
If the poor be discontented and murmur at their condition, and steal from others, who is it that is the cause of this but self? If another were in poverty, they would not murmur nor steal for him.
It is selfishness that blemishes judges, and justices and officers with the stains of partiality, avarice, and injustice: it is this that disturbeth the peace of nations; that will not let princes rule for God, and consequently overthrows their thrones; that will not let subjects obey them in the Lord, but lets in wars and miseries upon them; that sets the nations together by the ears, and so continueth them; yea, it is self that will not let neighbours live together in peace: that provoketh people to disobey their teachers, and teachers to be man-pleasers, and neglect the people; that will not let masters and servants, parents and children, husband and wife, live peaceably and lovingly one with another; it is the common make-bate and troubler of the world.
Nay, it is self that causeth most of the new opinions and practices in religion; that sets up Popery, and most other sects; and causeth the
pastors to contend for superiority to the troubling of the church, after all the plain prohibitions of Christ.
In a word, selfishness is the grand enemy of God, and man; the disease of depraved lapsed nature: the very heart of original sin and the old man; the root of all iniquity in the world: the breach of every commandment of the law; the enemy of every article of faith, and every petition in the Lord's prayer; and by that time we have added the rest of its deformity, you will see whether it be not the very image of the devil, as the love of God and our neighbour which is its contrary, is the image of God.
But now on the contrary side, self-denial complieth with all divine Revelations, and disposeth the soul to all holy requests, and to the observation of every command of God.
It humbly stoopeth to the mysteries of faith, which others proudly quarrel with in the dark. It makes a man say, 'O what am I that I should set my wit against the Lord, and make my reason the touchstone of his truth, and think to comprehend his judgments that are incomprehensible!' It causeth a man to sit as a little child, at the feet of Christ to learn his will, and say, "Speak Lord, for thy servant heareth." It silenceth the carpings of an unsatisfied understanding, and limiteth the inquiries of a busy, prying, presumptuous wit; and subdueth the contradictions of flesh and blood: it casteth off that pride and self-conceitedness that hindereth others from believing.
In prayer it bringeth an empty soul, that is not stopped up against the grace and blessings of God; it layeth us low in a receiving posture: it emptieth us of ourselves, that we may be filled with God: it hath nothing to say against any one of those requests which Christ
hath put into our mouths, but subscribeth to them all. It is the highest ambition, the greatest desire of a self-denying soul, that God's name may be hallowed and honoured; whatever become of his own name or honour; and that the kingdom of God may flourish, in which he desireth to be a subject; and that the will of God may be done, and the will of himself and all the world conformed and subjected to it: and so of the rest of the petitions. Self-denial is half the life of prayer.
And it is a dutiful observer of all the commandments. It giveth up our love to God as his own, and consequently worshippeth him in love, and reverenceth his name, and observeth his time, and indeed is wholly devoted to him. And it giveth our neighbour that part of our love which belongeth to him; and therefore will not dishonour superiors, or encroach upon the possessions of others, or injure them for his own ends.
And indeed what should draw a self-denying man to sin, (were he but perfect in self-denial) when the poise is taken off, the wheels all stand still. Self-denial doth frustrate temptations, and leave them little to work upon. What should move a self-denying man to be proud, or covetous, or injurious to others? No man doth evil, but as it seemeth good, and for some good that he imagineth it will do him: and this seeming good is to carnal self: and therefore a self-denying man hath taken off the bias of sin, and turned out the deceiver, and when satan comes, he hath little in him to make advantage of. O how easily may you take sin out of the hands of the self-denying, and make them cast it away with lamentation, when other men will hold it as fast as their lives! O try this speedy way of mortification. Would you but destroy this original breeding sin, you would destroy all. All