tions 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, 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 mor tification. Would you but destroy this original breeding sin, you would destroy all. All the sins of your lives are the fruits of your selfishness; kill them at the heart and root, if you would go the nearest way to work. What abundance of sin doth self-denial kill at once? Indeed it is the sum of mortification. And therefore be sure that you deny yourselves.

CHAPTER LXV.

Contrary to the State of Holiness and Happiness.

3. MOREOVER, selfishness is contrary to the state of holiness and happiness; contrary to every grace, and contrary to the life of glory. For it is the use of all grace to recover the soul from selfishness to God; that God may be loved, and self-love may be overcome; that God may be trusted, and pleased, and his service may be our care and business, when before our care was to please ourselves.

And the very felicity of the soul consisteth in a closing and communion with God. The soul that will be happy, must be conscious of self-insufficiency, and must go out of itself, and seek after life in God; it must forsake itself, and apply itself to him. Men lose their labour till they deny themselves, by going to a broken, empty cistern, and forsaking the fountain of the living waters. The nearer men are to God, and the more fully they are conformed to him, and close with him, and know him, and love him, the happier they are. Glory itself is but the nearest and fullest intuition and fruition of God. And he that hath most of him here in his soul, and in the creatures, providences, and ordinances, is the happiest man on earth, and likeliest to the glorified. And there is no approach to God but by departing from carnal self. I know self-seeking men do think of finding most peace and comfort in that way; but they are always deceived of their hopes: it is self-denial that is the way to peace and comfort. While we rest on ourselves, or are taken up with anxious caring for ourselves, we are but tossed up and down as on a tempestuous sea; and are seeking rest but never find it: but when we retire from ourselves to God, we are presently at the harbour, and find that peace which before we sought in vain. I confess, in the too little experience that I have myself of the way of peace and quiet to the soul, I must needs say, there is none but this. Never can I step out, but self meets with somewhat that is vexatious and displeasing to it: this business goes cross, and that business is troublesome: this person is troublesome, and that person is abusive and injurious:

one is false and treacherous, or slanderous; and another is imprudent and weak, and burdensome: what between the baits of prosperity, and the troubles of affliction, the perverseness of adversaries, and the weakness of friends, and the changes that all states and persons are liable to; the multitudes that would be pleased, and the labour and the cost that it will stand us in to please them, and the multitudes that will be displeased when we have done our best; and the murmurings, reproaches, and false accusations that we shall be sure of from the displeased; and which is the worst of all, the burdensome weaknesses and corruptions of our own souls, and the sins of our lives, and the daily vexation that our dark and shattered condition doth occasion to ourselves; I say, between all these disquieting perplexities, enough to rack and tear in pieces the heart of man, I have no way but to shut up the eyes of sense, and forget all selfinterest, and withdraw from the creature, as if there were no self or creature for it in the world, and to retire into God, and satisfy my soul with his goodness and all-sufficiency, and faithfulness, and immutability. And in him is nothing to disquiet or discontent, unless you will call his enmity to our own diseases and unhappiness a discontenting thing. And this is not my own experience alone, but all that know what Christian peace and comfort is, do know that they lose it, and are torn in pieces while they are caring and contriving for themselves; and that retiring into God, and casting all their care on him, and satisfying themselves with him alone, though all the creatures should turn against them, is the way to their content and quietness of mind. The example of David is exceedingly observable; 1 Sam. xxx. 6. When besides the distressed estate that he was before in, the city where he left his family and the families of his followers, was taken and burnt down, and their wives and children carried away, and all gone, so that David and the people that were with him, “lift up their voice and wept, until they had no more power to weep ;" and to make up his calamity, the soldiers that were with him talked of stoning him because of the loss of their wives and children; in this desolate condition, saith the text, "But David encouraged (or comforted) himself in the Lord his God." And it is good for us sometime to have nothing in this world left us that will afford us comfort, that we may

be driven to God for it: until the house be as on fire over our heads, and we are as it were fired out of every room of it, we will hardly be gone, and partake ourselves to God our only rest. Try it, Christians, when you will, and you shall find it true, that selfish contents do but tice you to straggle away from your true comfort; and when you have done all, it is in returning unto God that you must find the comfort which you lost by seeking it abroad. It is only in the God of peace that your souls will find peace, and therefore away from self and creatures, and retire into God.

CHAPTER LXVI.

Self-seeking is Self-losing: Self-denying our Safety.

4. MOREOVER, consider that self-seeking is self-destroying, and self-denial is the only way to our safety. We were well when we were in the hands of God, and had no need to care for ourselves. But we were lost as soon as we left him and turned to ourselves. If God care for you, Infinite Wisdom cares for you; whom no enemy is able to overwit or circumvent; who can foresee all your dangers, and is acquainted with all the ways of your enemies, and with all that is necessary to your preservation. But if you be at your own care, you are at the care of fools, and shortwitted people, that are not acquainted with the depths of satan, the subtleties of men, nor the way of your escape, but may easily be over-reached to your undoing. If you are in your own hands, you are in the hands of bad men, that though they have self-love, yet are so blinded by impiety that they will live like self-haters; and this experience fully manifesteth, in that all sinners are self-destroyers no enemy could do so much against us as the best of us doth against himself: did a man hate himself as bad as the devil hateth him he could shew it by no worse a way than sin; nor do himself a greater mischief than by neglecting God, and the life to come, and undoing his own soul, as the ungodly do. Should you sit down of purpose, to study how to do all the hurt to yourselves that you can