A treatise of self-denial. By Richard Baxter, pastor of the church at KidderminsterA treatise of self-denial. By Richard Baxter, pastor of the church at Kederminster

Before I come to tell you how far self must be denied, I must tell you wherein the disease of selfishness doth consist; and for brevity we shall dispatch them both together.

Before I come to tell you how far self must be denyed, I must tell you wherein the disease of selfishness doth consist; and for brevity we shall dispatch them both together.

And on the Negative, 1. To be a natural Individual person distinct from God our Creator, is none of our disease, but the state which we were created in. And therefore no man must under pretence of self-denial either destroy himself, or yet with some Heretics aspire to be essentially and personally one with God, so that their individual personality should be drowned in him as a drop is in the Ocean.

And on the Negative, 1. To be a natural Individual person distinct from God our Creator, is none of our disease, but the state which we were created in. And therefore no man must under pretence of self-denyal either destroy himself, or yet with some Hereticks aspire to be essentially and personally one with God, so that their individual personality should be drowned in him as a drop is in the Ocean.

2. The disease of selfishness lieth not in having a Body that is capable of •asting sweetness in the Creature, or in having the Objects of our sense in which we be delighted, nor yet in all actual sweetness and delight in them; nor in a simple love of life it self: For all these are the effects of the Creators Will. And therefore this self-denial doth not consist in a hatred or disregard of our own lives; or in a destruction of our appetites or senses, or an absolute refusal to please them in the use of the Creatures, which God hath given us.