will go through all; and be saved. Nothing doth so thoroughly try whether self or God be best beloved, as suffering for his cause. In this it is that Christ useth to try men's self-denial; and it is a principal use of persecution. When you hear of coming before rulers and judges, and being hated of all men for Christ's name sake, then self riseth up to plead for its interest, and never maketh more ado than when it seeth the flames. The flesh cannot reason, but it can strive against reason, and draw it to its side. No rea son seemeth sufficient to it, to persuade it to choose a suffering state. If you persuade a carnal man to let go his estate, to be poor and dispised in the world, and to give up life itself, if it be called for, and all this for the hope of an invisible felicity, you lose your labour (till God set in), and all such reasoning seems to him most unreasonable. And what a dreadful case such souls are in, my text and many another passage in Scripture may convince you. If you cannot drink of his cup, and be baptized with his baptism, you cannot be advanced with him to glory. Through. many tribulations we must enter into the kingdom of God. The pleasing of the flesh is the high way to misery by displeasing God; and the voluntary submission to the sufferings of the flesh for the cause of Christ, is the high way to felicity; 2 Tim. ii. 11, 12. "It is a faithful saying; for if we be dead with him, we shall also live with him; if we suffer, we shall also reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us;" Rom. viii. 17. "Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution;" 2 Tim. iii. 12. The day of trial is a kind of judgment-day to the selfish, unsanctified man; for it discovereth his hypocrisy, and sheweth him to be but dross, and separateth him from the suffering servants of Christ.

But self-denial maketh suffering light, and will make you wish that you had any thing worth the resigning unto Christ, and any thing by the denial whereof you might serve him. For him you would suffer the loss of all things, and account them dross and dung that you may win him; Phil. iii. 8. He will count us "worthy of the kingdom for which we suffer;" 2 Thess. i. 5. As the " Captain of our salvation was made perfect by suffering, (Heb. ii. 10.) so also must his members, by "filling up the measure," and being "made partakers of his sufferings," and "knowing the

fellowship of them;" 2 Cor. i. 5-7. Phil. iii. 10. And the "God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after we have suffered awhile, will make us perfect, stablish, strengthen and settle us ;" 1 Pet. v. 10.

If therefore you would not prove apostates, and deny Christ in a day of trial, and be denied by him before his Father and the holy angels, see that you now learn this needful lesson of self-denial.

CHAPTER LXXI.

The Selfish deal worse with God than with Satan.

9. CONSIDER also that selfish carnal men deal worse with God, than they do with the devil and sin itself. God offereth them Christ and pardon, and eternal life, if they will but deny themselves in a thing of nought, and they will not be ruled or persuaded by him: the devil offereth them but the delights of the flesh, and the pleasures of sin for a season, and they will deny ten thousandfold more for this. They will deny God their Maker and Redeemer, their Lord and Judge, their Preserver and their Hope; though he have the only title to them, and their lives and souls be in his hand; they will for the sake of a filthy lust, or of a short and miserable life, deny him that never did them wrong; nay, that bath always shewed them kindness, even all the kindness that ever they received; and that when they know that their everlasting state must stand or fall according to his judgment. They will deny the Lord Jesus the Redeemer of their souls; they will deny and resist the Holy Spirit of God; they will deny his laws, his Gospel-promises, and all his mercies; they will deny his ministers and all their persuasions and daily labours: they will deny their dearest Christian friends, and deny their own consciences and convictions; and deny themselves the peace and joy which they might find in a holy walking with God. Yea, they will deny themselves everlasting life, and the favour of God, and cast themselves into endless misery; and all this for a thing that is ten thousand times worse than nothing, 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-willed, and self-lovers, and self-seekers, and know not how to deny yourselves. Must self be so regarded and tenderly used? Take heed, you may have enough of self with everlasting vengeance, if God once give you over to yourselves, and say of you as of them: "But my people would not hearken unto my voice; and Israel would none of me: So I gave them up to their own hearts' lusts, and they walked in their own counsels;" Psal. lxxxi. 11, 12. So much for the aggravations.

CHAPTER LXXIII.

Ten Directions to get Self-denial.

IV. I COME now to the last part of my task, which is to tell you what course you should take to procure self-denial. For

though it be the gift of God, yet there are certain means appointed us for the attainment of it, and God useth to give it men in the use of his means, and by those means must it be confirmed and continued.

Direct. 1. Set faith a work upon the promises of God and upon everlasting life;' for the flesh will not be taken off these lower things, till you have found out better, and such as will be sure to save you harmless. The most covetous man will let go silver, if he might have gold instead of it. Set faith a pleading the case with the flesh; and urge your own hearts with the certainty, the nearness, the glory, the eternity of the kingdom which by self-denial you may attain; and if they will not yield to such a change as this, they are unreasonable, unbelieving hearts.

Direct. 2. Never be deluded to forget the vanity, the brevity and, the emptiness and insufficiency of all these earthly things, which self so adhereth to, as to neglect the promised life of blessedness. Acquaint your own hearts

what a nothing it is that they make so much of, and follow so greedily, and hold so fast; shew them in the sanctuary the glass of the word of God, which will tell them what will be the end of all, and where all their worldly prosperity will leave them. Ask your hearts, Can I keep these things for ever, or not? If not, is it not better let them go for something, than for nothing? and to part with them as a child, at the command of my heavenly Father, than to part with them as a thief doth with his prize, at the gallows? Is it not better let them go to ease me, and to secure my eternal peace, than let them go to wound me and torment me? And while I keep them, what will they do for me, that I should buy them at so dear a rate? O how dear must I pay for my ease, and honour, and gluttony, and drunkenness, and sensual delights, if I part not with them when God commandeth! How cheap is a holy, blessed life, in comparison of this which I must pay so dear for!'

Direct. 3. To promote your self-denial, Consider frequently and seriously, who God is, and to what end he made, redeemed, sustaineth, and governeth the world: and then bethink you, whether it be meet that this glorious God should be neglected, and frustrated of the end of all these works!' and whether any thing besides him be fit to be the creature's end. You think it meet that every workman should have