CHAPTER LXXII – It is the heaviest plague to be left to ourselves
worse than nothiug, or for a very sensual, brutish pleasure. And yet these men cannot deny themselves in life, or liberty, in gain, or honour, no nor in the filthiest lusts, for the sake of Christ and their own salvation; even when they may know that they most deny themselves when they will not deny themselves. They deny themselves eternal glory, because they will not deny themselves in temporal vanity. Heaven and earth will witness against such sottish and unrighteous dealing as this, if true conversion do not prevent it.
Hath God, hath Christ, hath your own salvation deserved no better at your hands than this? O miserable souls! All things can be easily denied save sin and carnal self, and these cannot be denied. God can be denied, Christ, and Scripture, and heaven itself can be denied, for flesh and sin; and flesh and sin cannot be denied for God, and for eternal glory. Do you think that this will look like wise or righteous dealing when you stand in judgment? Ask now any stander-by that is impartial, whether God or the flesh should be denied? Whether heaven or earth should be denied, seeing one of them you must deny? And if any impartial man will be now against you, what think you will God be, who is not only impartial, but wronged by you, and a hater of your unrighteous dealing?
CHAPTER LXXII
To be left to Self, is the sorest Plague 10. LASTLY, remember, that to be given over to ourselves, is the heaviest plague on this side hell; and therefore he that delighteth not to be miserable should not desire to be selfish. To be given over to the love of yourselves, is to turn from the love of the blessed God to the love of a filthy sinner, and so to forfeit God's love to you. To be
given over to care for yourselves, is to forfeit the fatherly care of God, and to be at the care of a silly, insufficient, improvident sinner. To be given over to your own conceits or wisdom, is to be forsaken of the sun, and left in darkness, and spend the rest of your days in a dungeon, the beginning of the endless utter darkness. To be given over to your own wills, is to be at the choice and disposal of a fool and of an enemy; and to be in such hands as will certainly undo you, and to be cast out of the hands of God. To be given over to seek yourselves, is to lose yourselves and God, and your salvation. To be given over to live as your own, is to forfeit the protection of God, without which you cannot be kept an hour out of hell. To be given over to the defending of yourselves, and delivering yourselves in danger of soul and body, is even to be exposed to certain and perpetual perdition. To be given over to be ruled by yourselves, is to be relinquished as rebels, and exposed to the tyranny of sin and satan. So that in all things it is most certain, that you are never well but in the hands of God, and never so ill as when you are most in your own hands. In Paradise innocent man was wholly at the government of God; and when by casting off his government he had forfeited the benefit of it, the most of the world became even brutish: and when God had owned the government of Israel above other nations, and kept the choice of the sovereign under him in his own hands; at last the foolish people, in imitation of the nations, must needs have a king, and extort the nomination out of the hands of special extraordinary Providence, that they might have more of it in their own; and this was an increase of their misery. Woe to that man that ever he was born, that is finally given over to himself; for this is a sign that God hath forsaken him, and he stands at the brink of eternal death. O think of this, you that are self-conceited, and self-