be feared, they will bring upon themselves fure, if not 'Twift deftruction.

12

But, as we must deny ourselves in, our understandings, fo muft we deny, or, as it might be more properly rendered, renounce our wills: that is, we must make our own wills no principle of action, but whether we eat or drink, or whatfoever we do, we must do all, (not merely to please ourselves, but) to the glory of GOD." Not that we are therefore to imagine we are to have no pleasure in any thing we do: “ Wifdom's ways are ways of pleasantnefs;" but pleafing ourfelves muft not be the principal, but only the fubordinate end of our actions.

And I cannot but particularly prefs this doctrine upon you, because it is the grand fecret of our holy religion. It is this, my brethren, that diftinguishes the true chriftian from the mere moralift and formal profeffor; and without which none of our actions are acceptable in GoD's fight: For "if thine eye be fingle," fays our bleffed LORD, Matth. vi. 22. that is, if thou aimeft fimply to please GoD, without any regard to thy own will," thy whole body, (or all thy actions) will be full of light;" agreeable to the gospel, which is called light : "But if thine eye be evil, (if thine intention be diverted any other way) thy whole body, (all thy actions) will be full of darkness," finful and unprofitable, we must not only do the will of God, but do it because it is his will; fince we pray that "God's will may be done on earth as it is in heaven." And no doubt, the bleffed angels not only do every thing that GOD willeth, but do it chearfully, out of this principle, becaufe GOD willeth it: And if we would live as we pray, we muft go and do likewife.

But farther; as we must renounce our wills in doing, fo likewife muft we renounce them in fuffering the will of God. Whatsoever befals us, we muft fay with good old Eli, “It is the LORD, let him do what feemeth him good;" or with one that was infinitely greater than Eli, Father, not my will, but thine be done." O JESUS, thine was an innocent will, and yet thou renouncedit it: Teach us, even us also, O our Saviour to fubmit our wills to thine, in all the evils which fhall be brought upon us; and in every thing enable us to give thanks, fince it is thy bleed will concerning us!

Thirdly,

Thirdly, we must deny ourselves, as in our understandings and wills, fo likewife in our affections. More particularly, we must deny ourselves the pleasurable indulgence and felfenjoyment of riches: If any man will come after me, he muft forfake all and follow me." And again (to fhew the utter inconfiftency of the love of the things of this world with the love of the Father) he tells us unlefs a man fʊrfake all that he hath, he cannot be my difciple.'

Far be it from me to think that these texts are to be taken in a literal fenfe; as though they obliged rich perfons to go. fell all that they have and give to the poor, (for that would put it out of their power to be ferviceable to the poor for the future) but however, they certainly imply thus much, that we are to fit loose to, fell and forfake all in affection, and be willing to part with every thing, when GOD fhall require it at our hands: that is, as the apoftle obferves, we must "ufe the world as though we ufed it not ;" and though we are in the world, we must not be of it. We must look upon ourfelves as ftewards, and not proprietors, of the manifold gifts of God; provide firft what is neceffary for ourselves and for our houfholds, and expend the reft, not in indulgencies and fuperfluous ornaments, forbidden by the apostle, but in cloathing, feeding, and relieving the naked, hungry, dif tressed disciples of JESUS CHRIST. This is what our blessed LORD would have us understand by forfaking all, and in this fense must each of us deny himself.

I am fenfible that this will feem an hard' faying to many, who will be offended because they are covetous, and lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God:" but if I yet pleased fuch men, I should not be the fervant of CHRIST. No, we must not, like Ahab's falfe prophets, have a lying spirit in our mouths, but declare faithfully the whole will of God; and like honeft Micajah, out of pity and compaffion, tell men the truth, though they may falfely think we prophecy not good but evil concerning them.

But to proceed: As we must renounce our affection for riches, fo likewife our affections for relations, when they ftand in oppofition to our love of, and duty to GOD: For thus faith the Saviour of the world: If any man will come after me, and hateth hot his father and mother,

his children, and brethren, and fifters, yea and his own life alfo, he cannot be my difciple." Strange doctrine this! What, hate our own flesh! What, hate the father that begat us, the mother that bare us! How can these things be? Can GOD contradict himself? Has he not bid us to ho nour our father and mother? and yet we are here commanded to hate them. How can these truths be reconciled? By interpreting the word hate, not in a rigorous and absolute sense, but comparatively: not as implying a total alienation, but a lefs degree of affection. For thus our bleffed Saviour himfelf (the best and fureft expofitor of his own meaning) explains it in a parallel text, Matth. x. 37. "He that loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me: He that loveth fon or daughter more than me, is not worthy of me." So that when the perfuafions of our friends (as for our trial they may be permitted to be) are contrary to the will of GOD, we must fay with Levi, "we have not known them;" or, agreeably to our bleffed LORD's rebuke to Peter, " Get you behind me, my adverfaries; for you favour not the things that be of GOD, but the things that be of man."

Farther, we must deny ourselves in things indifferent : for it might eafily be fhewn, that as many, if not more, perish by an immoderate use of things in themselves indifferent, as by any grofs fin whatever.. A prudent christian therefore, will confider not only what is lawful, but what is expedient alfo not fo much what degrees of felf-denial beft fuit his inclinations here, as what will most effectually break his will, and fit him for greater degrees of glory hereafter.

Laftly, To conclude this head, we must renounce our own righteousness For, though we should give all our goods to feed the poor, and our bodies to be burned, yet, if we in the leaft depend on that, and do not wholly rely on the perfect all-fufficient righteoufnefs of JESUS CHRIST, it will profit us nothing. "CHRIST is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth." We are compleat in him, and him only. Our own righteoufneffes are but as filthy rags. We must count all things but dung and drofs, fo that we may be found in him, not having our own righteoufnefs, but the righteoufnefs which is of GOD, through JESUS CHRIST Our LORD.

And

And is this the doctrine of chriftianity? is not the chriftian world then afleep? If not, whence fo much felf-righte oufnefs, whence the felf-indulgence, whence the reigning love of riches which we every where meet with ? Above all, whence that predominant greediness after fenfual pleasure, that has fo over-run this finful nation, that was a pious franger to come amongst us, he would be tempted to think fome heathen Venus was worshipped here, and that temples were. dedicated to her fervice. But we have the authority of ant infpired apoftle to affirm, that they who live in a round of pleasure," are dead while they live." Wherefore, as the Holy Ghoft faith, "Awake thou that fleepeft, and arife from the dead, and CHRIST fhall give thee light." But the power of raifing the fpiritually dead belongeth only unto God. Do thou therefore, O Holy JESUS, who by thy almighty word commandeft Lazarus to come forth, though he had lain in the grave fome days, fpeak alfo as effectually to thefe fpiritually dead fouls, whom Satan for many years hath fo faft bound by fenfual pleasures, that they are not fo much as able to lift up their eyes or hearts to heaven....

II. But I pafs on to the fecond general thing propofed, to confider the univerfal obligation and reafonableness of this doctrine of felf-denial.

When our bleffed mafter had been difcourfing publicly concerning the watchfulness of the faithful and wife fteward, his difciples afked him, "Speakeft thou this parable to all, or only to us?" The fame queftion I am aware has been, and will be put concerning the foregoing doctrine; for too many, unwilling to take CHRIST's eafy yoke upon them, in order to evade the force of the gospel precepts, would pretend that all thofe commands concerning felf-denial, and renouncing ourfelves and the world, belonged to our Loxp's first and immediate followers, and not to us or to our children. But fuch perfons greatly err, not knowing the fcriptures, nor the power of godliness in their hearts. For the doctrine of Jesus CHRIST, like his bleffed felf, is "the fame yesterday, to-day, and for ever." What he faid unto one, he faid unto all, even unto the ends of the world; "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself" and in the text it is parti VOL. V.

Ee

sularly

cularly mentioned that he said it unto them ALL. And left we should still abfurdly imagine that this word ALL was to be confined to his apofties, with whom he was then difcourfing, it is faid in another place, that JESUS turned unto the multitude and faid, "If any man will come after me, and hateth not his father and mother, yea and his own life alfo, he cannot be my difciple." When our bleffed LORD had spoken a certain parable, it is faid, "the fcribes and Pharifees were offended, for they knew the parable was spoken against them :" And if chriftians can now read thefe plain and pofitive texts of fcripture, and at the fame time not think they are spoken of them, they are more hardened than Jews, and more infincere than Pharifees *.

In the former part of this difcourfe I obferved, that the precepts concerning forfaking and felling all, did not oblige us in a literal fenfe, because the state of the church does not demand it of us, as it did of the primitive chriftians; but ftill the fame deadnefs to the world, the fame abftemious ufe of, and readinefs to part with our goods for CHRIST's fake, is as abfolutely neceflary for, and as obligatory on us, as it was on them. For though the church may differ as to the outward fate of it, in different ages, yet as to the purity of its inward ftate, it was, is, and always will be invariably the fame. And all the commands which we meet with in the epiftles, about mortifying our members which are upon the earth, of fetting our affections on things above, and of not being conformed to this world;" are but fo many inconteftible proofs that the fame holiness, heavenly-mindedness, and deadness to the world, is as neceffary for us, as for our LORD's immediate followers.

But farther, as fuch an objection argues an ignorance of the fcriptures, fo it is a manifeft proof, that fuch as make it are ftrangers to the power of godlinefs in their hearts. For fince the fum and fubftance of religion confifts in recovery from our fallen eftate in Adam, by a new-birth in CHRIST JESUS, there is an abfolute neceffity for us to embrace and practife the felf-denial before fpoken of. If we are alive unto GOD, we fhall be dead to ourfelves and the world. If all things belonging to the fpirit live and grow in us, all things belonging to the old man muft die in us. We muft moura * Law's Chriftian. Perfection,

be