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long offended thee, and so much neglected thee, and lived such a life as I have done, and am such an empty unprofitable worm?' O what a wonder of mercy is this! But the full soul loathes the honeycomb. The self-conceited unhumbled sinner looks as mindlessly at Christ, as a healthful man at the physician, or an innocent man at a pardon.

And that good that is in the proud and self-conceited doth seldom do much good to others (much less to themselves). As such do but serve themselves, so ordinarily God doth not bless their endeavours; but as they are perverted, they are the likest to pervert others, and propagate their self-conceitedness: two words from an humble selfdenying man, doth oftentimes more good than a sermon from the self-conceited.

I admonish you therefore in the name of God, that you take heed of this part of selfishness and mortify it. It will else keep out God, and almost all that is good. If you are proud and self-conceited, you will hear a minister rather to cavil with him, than to be edified: and when any thing from God doth cross your foolish wisdom, you will but slight it, or make a jest at it: and if any truth of God do strike at the heart of your selfish interest, you will but fret at it, and secretly hate it, and perhaps, as the devil's open soldiers, publicly reproach it; and as the Jews did against Stephen (Acts vii. 54.), even gnash the teeth at the preacher, or as they did by Paul; " They gave him audience to that word (even that word that made against themselves) and then lifted up their voices, and said, Away with such a fellow from the earth; for it is not fit that he should live;" Acts xxii. 22. This entertainment we still meet with from our hearers, when self hath brought them the next step to hell.

O sirs, suspect your own understandings; think not of them beyond the proportion of your attainments, nor beyond your experience, and the helps, and time, and opportunities which you have had for knowledge, nor beyond the measure of your diligence for the improving of these; for these are God's ordinary way of giving in a ripeness in knowledge. Read and study Heb. v. 12. 14. 1 Tim. iii. 6. Set not up your own conceits too boldly against those of longer standing and diligence in holy studies, much less against your teachers, and much less against a multitude of ministers;

and much less against all the church of God; and least of all, against God himself, as speaking to you by the Holy Scriptures. O take warning by the swarms of heresies and scandals that have been caused by self-conceitedness and pride. Object. If you may think yourself wiser than me and others without self-conceitedness, why may not I think myself wiser than you and such others, without self-conceitedness?'

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Answ. I may not do it in the cases before-mentioned. I may not think myself to be what I am not, nor exalt myself above them that are wiser than I, nor against my guides, or the church of God.

Object. But it is but your conceit that you are wise enough to be a teacher, or wiser than others, and why may not I as well conceit it?'

Answ. No man on his own conceits must become a teacher; but the judicious of that calling must call them, and judge of their abilities. And conceits are as the ground of them is. The true understanding of the grace that we have received is a duty, and fitteth us for thankfulness; but the false conceit that we have what we have not, is a dangerous delusion; "For he that thinketh he is something when he is nothing, deceiveth himself;" Gal. vi. 3. What if a blind man should argue as you do with one that sees, and say, 'You say that you see so far off, and why may not I say so too? Would you not answer him, I know that which I say to be true, and so do not you?' And what if he still go on and say, 'You think that I am blind, and I think that you are blind; and why may not I be believed as well as you?' Would this kind of talk prove the man to have his eyesight, or should it make me question whether I have mine? He that seeth knoweth that he seeth, whoever question it; and if another make doubt of it, let men that have eyes in their head be judges, but not the blind. But I confess, spiritual blindness hath this disadvantage, that whereas I can easily make any other blind man know that he is blind, and therefore be willing to be led or helped, here the more blind men are, most commonly they are the most confident that they see, and scornfully say, as the Pharisees to Christ, "Are we blind also?" John ix. 40. For pride will not let them know their ignorance. The same light that cureth ignorance must reveal it. Especially when men are born

blind and never knew the saving illumination of the saints, they will not believe that there is any other light than they have seen. But I have been somewhat long on this part; I pass now to the next.

CHAPTER XV.

Self-will to be denied.

4. THE fourth part of selfishness to be mortified, is selfwill. And this is the fruit of self-conceit, and also a natural corruption of the soul; and a most deep-rooted obstinate vice it is. Every wicked man is a self-willed man, against God, and all that speak for God. And till self be mortified in the will, there is no saving grace in that will.

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Quest. But what will is it that is to be called a selfwill?'

Answ. Not that which is from God and for God; but all the rest. 1. That will that is not fetched from God, and moved by his will, as the lesser wheels in a clock are moved by the first wheel and by the poise, is no better than selfwill. A will that is not dependent on God's will, is an idol, usurping the prerogative of God; for it is proper to him to be dependent upon none, and to have a will that is not ruled by a superior will. Little do the most know how great a sin this is, to be self-willed. You have a will to something or other continually; and it is your will that ruleth the rest of your faculties and actions: but what is it that ruleth your will? whence do you fetch the rise and reason of your desires? Is it from God's will, or is it not? You pray to God," Thy will be done," and do your own wills answer these prayers? or are they hypocritical, dissembling words? If indeed it be God's will that you would have fulfilled, then will the knowledge of that will of God determine your own wills. As a servant dependeth on his master's will, for all the work that he is to do, and doth not what he will himself, but what his master will have him do ; and as a scholar dependeth on his master's will, and learneth only such books and lessons as he sets him; so must we depend on the will of God, and know what is his will, before we give way to any will of our own. The reason why you

choose any trade or calling, or course of life, should be the will of God. If you are in poverty, and desire to be richer, and that to please your own will, and not that you think that it would be any more pleasing to God, this is selfwilledness. If you desire any change in your condition, if you undertake any thing in the world, know why you do this; whether it be principally because you think it is the will of God, or because it is your own will. I tell you again, you should not have one wish or desire in your souls, till you can prove or find that God would have it so; and if your own wills be made the absolute rulers of your ways, you make gods of yourselves, and God will deal with you accordingly.

2. Yea, if you think the will of God is according to your will, and you are moved the more to it on that account, yet if your own wills do lead and make the first choice, and God's will be brought in but to follow and encourage yours, this is still self-willedness and self-idolizing. This is the common trick of the ungodly. They first give way to their own self-will, and then they will go to Scripture for somewhat to bear them out; and will needs believe that God's is agreeable to theirs, that so they may go on with peace of conscience. They go for counsel to God as Balaam did, not sincerely to know the will of God, with a resolution to obey it, but with a desire that God would conform his will to theirs. I tell you if the matter be never so much commanded in the Scriptures, and never so agreeable to the will of God, yet if you desire, and do it from yourselves, and not for this reason, because it is the will of God, and do not let God's will lead your own, but let your own will lead, and God's will follow, this is no better than self-willedness, were the matter never so good in itself.

3. If the end that moveth your will, be not the service and glory of God, but only your own interest, this is but self-will. God giveth you leave to look to yourselves as his servants, in a due subserviency to him. But if you will principally look at your own interest, and make light of God's, and fetch the reason of your will and desires from your own ends and commodity, rather than his glory, this is an ungodly selfish will. And yet alas, how many are there that know not any better frame of will than this! If they were truly to give an account of the principal reason

and motive of every desire of their hearts, why they would have this, or why they would do that, must they not confess it is for themselves, because it serveth their own ends or interests, and because it pleaseth their own wills, and not because it furnished them better to serve and please the will. of God? If you ask men in their buying and selling, and marrying, and trading, and dealing with men, why it is that they do this or that, can they truly say, 'I do it because I think in this way I can do God the best service, and the church and commonwealth most good, and this is my chief reason?' Alas, I fear they are too few that have any higher principal end and motive than self. Self-will is the spring of their whole conversations, that sets them upon all they do. Nay doubtless, in the very duties of religion, in praying, hearing, reading and the like, they are but serving self, while they take on them to serve God; and their holiest devotions are but such a serving of God, as flatterers will serve their prince or landlord with, merely that he may do them a good turn, and may serve their ends, and be serviceable to them; or else as some Indians serve the devil, for fear of him lest he should do them a mischief. The will that is moved chiefly by self-interest, is a self-will.

4. And much more is it self-willedness, when men contradict the will of God; when Scripture saith one thing and they another; when they disrelish God's laws, and dislike the work that he sets them on; when they have a will to that which God forbids, and would fain be doing with unlawful things; yea, and it doth not satisfy their corrupt desires to see that the express will of God is against them; this is self-will in a high degree..

5. So also when men's wills are to that which is against the honour and interest of God; which would hinder his Gospel, and the saving men's souls, and is displeasing to him, this is self-willedness in a high degree.

And thus you see what it is to be self-willed. And now do but consider whether this part of self be commonly denied in the world. Among the millions of desires that are in men's hearts, how few of them are kindled by the commands of God, or moved by his interest and glory! How commonly are the word and ways of God distasteful to the world! How ill do men like the disposals of his providence! And what a striving is there in their wills against him! And were it

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