worst, it is God's will that must stand; and such a will as is little to the pleasure of your wills. But self-will is never of long continuance; its content is short. Now you will have your will, let God say what he will to you; you love to please your appetite in meats and drinks; you love to be carnally merry, and spend your time in vain sports and pleasure; you love to be respected and humoured by all, and to be honoured and counted somebody in the world; you love to be provided for, for the time to come, and to be wealthy that you may take out of a full heap, or at least not want for the contentment of your flesh; and therefore you must have your wills, and have that you love, if you can tell how to get it: but how long will you have your wills? How long will you have that you love, though God forbid it? When death comes, will you have it then? When you lie in pain, expecting every hour to appear in another world, will you then have your wills? When you are in hell, will you then have your wills, or that you love? O sirs, selfwill is short-lived, as to its delights and pleasure; but the will of God is everlasting. And, therefore, if you take up with your own wills, how short will be your content! But if you look for content in the will of God, you will have everlasting content. Your own wills may be crossed by every trifle; any man that is greater than you can cross them; yea, those that are under you, can cross them. The poorest beggar can rob you, or scorn you, or raise a slander of you, or twenty ways can cross your self-wills; a hundred accidents may cross them. Your very beast can cross you; and almost any thing in the world can cross you; much more can God at any time cross you; and cross you certainly he will so that in your own wills there is no rest nor happiness. But if you could bring your wills to God's, and take up your full content in this, It is the will of God, then what a constant, invincible content might you have! Then all the world could not disturb you and rob you of your content, because they cannot conquer the will of God: his will shall be done; and so you should always have content.

4

CHAPTER XVI.

Selfish Passions to be Denied.

5. ANOTHER part of selfishness to be mortified and denied, is, selfish passions. The soul is furnished with passions by God, partly for the exciting of the will and other faculties, that they do not sluggishly neglect their duties; and partly to help them in the execution when they are at work: so that they are but the wheels or the sails of the reasonable soul, to speed our motion for God and our salvation, and not to be employed for carnal self. When passions and affections are sanctified and used for God, they are called such and such particular graces, and the fervour of them is an holy zeal; but when they are used for carnal self they are our vices; and the heat of them is but fury, or carnal zeal, and the height of vice. But how rare is it to meet with men that are meek and patient in their own cause, and passionate in a holy zeal for God! I know many are passionate in disputes and other exercises about religion, and think that it is purely zeal for God, when self is at the bottom of the business, and ruleth as well as kindleth the fire, when they scarce discern it, and little know what spirit they are of; but pure zeal for God, conjoined with self-denial, is exceeding rare. How few can say, that their love to God is greater and hotter than their love to themselves! The desires of men are strong after those things that supply their own necessities, and please their own corrupted wills; but how cold are they after the honour of God! How averse are men from that which hurteth the flesh; as to go into a pesthouse, or to take deadly poison, or to suffer any pain; but few are so averse to the breaking of the law of God. A hard word, or a little injury done to themselves, will put them into a passion, so that their anger is working out in reproach, if not in more revenge: but God may be abused from day to day, and how patiently can they bear it! There are few carnal minds but can more patiently hear a man swear, or curse, or scorn at Scripture and a holy life, than hear him call them rogue, or thief, or liar, or any such disgraceful It seems an intolerable dishonour with selfish persons that are advanced by pride to be great in their own

name.

eyes, for a man to give them the lie, or to reproach their parentage, or make them seem base; but they can hear twenty oaths and reproaches of the truths or ways of God, as quietly and patiently as if there were no harm in them. Their own enemies, whom God commandeth them to love, they hate at the heart; but the enemies of God and holiness, whom David hated with a perfect hatred (Psa. cxxxix. 21, 22.), do little or nothing at all offend them. It is not thus with self-denying gracious souls. When David heard Shimei curse him, he commanded his soldiers to let him alone, for God had bidden him; that is, by that afflicting providence on David he had occasioned it, and by the withdrawing of his restraint, he had let out his malice, for a trial for David. Thus David could endure a man to go along by him cursing him, and reviling him as a traitor, and a man of blood, and throwing stones at him; and he rebuked Abishai that would have taken off his head; 2 Sam. xvi. 7-10. But when the same David speaks of the wicked, the froward, the slanderer, the proud, the liar, and the deceitful, he resolveth that he will not know them, they shall not dwell in his house, nor tarry in his sight; he hateth them; they shall depart from him; he will cut them off, and early destroy them from the land, and from the city of the Lord; Psal. ci. So was it with Moses: when God was offended by the idolatry of the Israelites, he was so zealous that he threw down the tables of stone, in which God had written the law, and broke them; but when Miriam and Aaron spake against himself, he let God alone with the cause, and only prayed for them; for saith the text, 68 He was very meek above all the men that were on the face of the earth;" Numb. xii. 3. Phineas's zeal for God did stay the plague, and was imputed to him for righteousness; when the selfish zeal of Simeon and Levi was called but a cursed anger, and brought a curse on them instead of a blessing from their dying father, that they should be divided in Jacob, and scattered in Israel; and left them the name of instruments of cruelty; Gen xlix. 5—7.

Take warning then from the word of God; and use your passions for God that gave them you; but when it is merely the cause of self, be dead to passion, as if there were no such thing within you. If the wrong be done to you, think then with yourselves, Alas, I am such a silly wretched worm, that a wrong done to me is a small matter

in comparison of the least that is done to God; it is not great enough for indignation or passion.' Remember, that it is God's work to right your wrongs, and your work to lament and hinder the abuse of God. And therefore if men curse you, or revile you, or slander you, if God's interest in your reputation command you to seek the clearing of it, then do it, but not for yourself, but for God: but otherwise, be as a dead man that hath no eyes to see an injury, nor ears to hear it, nor heart to feel it, nor understanding to perceive it, no, nor hands to be revenged for it: this is to be mortified, and dead to self. When passion begins to stir within you, ask, 'What is the matter? who is it for? and who is it that is wronged? If it be God, ask counsel of God, what he would have you to do, and let your passion be well guided and bounded, and then it will be acceptable holy zeal: but if it be but self that is wronged, remember that you are not your own; and therefore take no thought of the business, but leave God to look to his own, and do with it as he please: if you are his, your cause is his, and therefore let him look to it that is concerned in it more than you, and that hath said, "Vengeance is mine, and I will repay."

CHAPTER XVII.

Self-imagination to be Denied.

6. ANOTHER part of self to be mortified and denied, is self-imagination. It is the selfishness of men's thoughts, that is the vanity of their thoughts; and these are the imaginations that are only evil continually. The thoughts should be let out on God and his service; so that our meditation of him should be sweet, and we should delight in the Lord (Psal. civ. 34.); and in the multitude of our thoughts within us, his comforts should delight our souls (Psal. xciv. 19.). His word should be our meditation all the day (Psal. cxix. 97. 99.); and in his law we should meditate day and night (Psal. i. 2.). God should be the spring, the end, the sum of all our thoughts; if we find a thought in our minds that savoureth not of God, yea, that is not sent by him, and doing his work, we must disown it, apprehend it, and

cast it out. But alas, how contrary is the case with the most! As self is advanced highest in their imagination, so doth it there attract and dispose of the thoughts. What are all the thoughts of unsanctified men employed for, but for themselves and theirs? Their fantasies hunt about the world; but it is their own game and pleasure that they range about. The thoughts of one man run upon his covetousness, and another man's upon his filthy lusts, and another man's on his sports and pleasures, and another man's upon his honour and reputation with men! They feed the imaginations of their mind upon almost nothing but selfish things; sometimes delighting themselves with the very thoughts of men's esteem of them, or of their worldly plenty, or of their sinful lusts and pleasures; and sometimes troubling themselves with the thoughts of their wants, or low condition, or crosses, or injuries from men; sometimes contriving how they may attain their desires, and carking and caring for accomplishing their selfish ends: morning and evening, at home or abroad, as the thoughts of the sanctified are on God, and heaven, and the way thereto, so the thoughts of the unsanctified are all upon self, and the interest of self, and the means thereto. O cleanse your minds, sirs, of this great self-pollution; keep them more clean and chaste to God. Deny self this room in your imaginations, and waste not thoughts and precious time, on such unjust and unprofitable employment. It is an impertinency, to be so much solicitous about the charge of God, and to care so much when he hath bid us "be careful for nothing." It is a debasing of our minds to feed them so long on so low an object, when they might be taken up with God. Care not therefore what you shall eat or drink, or wherewith you shall be clothed; for after all these things do the selfish unsanctified Gentiles seek; and our Father knoweth that we have need of all these things: but seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you; Matt. vi. 31-33. Self doth but rob you of the fruit of your thoughts which you might reap by feeding them on God.