Directions for weak distempered Christians, to grow up to a confirmed state of grace…

XV. 1. A confirmed Christian is one that taketh self-denial for the one half of his Religion; and therefore hath bestowed one half of his endeavours to attain and exercise it. He knoweth that the fall of man, was a turning to himself from God: And that selfishness and want of Love to God, are the sum of all corruption and ungodliness: And that the Love of God and self-denial are the sum of all religion: And that conversion is nothing but the turning of the heart from carnal self to God by Christ: And therefore on this hath his care and labour been so successfully laid out, that he hath truly and practically found out something that is much better than himself, and to be loved and preferred before himself; and which is to be his chiefest ultimate end: He maketh not a God of himself any more, but useth himself for God, to fulfil his will, as a creature of his own, that hath no other end and use. He no more preferreth himself above all the world, but esteemeth himself a poor and despicable part of the world: And highlier valueth the honour of God, and the welfare of the church, and the good of many, than any interest of his own. Though God in nature hath taught him to regard his own felicity and to love himself, and not to seek the glory of God, and the good of many souls in opposition to his own, yet hath he taught him to prefer them (though in conjunction) much before his own: For reason telleth him that man is nothing in comparison of God, and that we are made ⟨p. 39⟩by him and for him; and that the welfare of the Church or public societies is better (in order to the highest ends) than the welfare of some one. Selfishness in the unregenerate, is like an inflammation or apposteme, which draweth the humours from other parts of the body to it self: The interest of God and man are all swallowed up in the regard that men have to self-interest: And the Love of God and our neighbour are turned into self-love. But self is as annihilated in the confirmed Christian, so that it ruleth not his Judgement, his affections, or his choice: And he that lived in and to himself, as if God and all the world were but for him, doth now live to God, as one that is good for nothing else, and findeth himself in seeking him that is infinitely above himself. Luk. 14.31, 32, 33. Phil. 2.4, 21.