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

But now when man is fallen from God to Himself, his Life and earthly felicity is the sweetest and the dearest thing to him that is. So that he preferreth it before the Pleasing of God and everlasting life: And therefore he seeketh it more, and holdeth it faster as long as he can, and parteth with it more unwillingly. As Innocent Nature had an appetite to the objects of sense; but corrupted nature hath an enraged, greedy, rebellious and inordinate appetite to them: so Innocent nature had a love to this natural earthly life and the comforts of it: but corrupted Nature hath such an inordinate love to them, as that all things else are made but subordinate to them, and swallowed up in this gulf: even God himself is so far loved as he befriendeth these our carnal ends, and furthereth our earthly prosperity and life.

But now when man is faln from God to Himself, his Life and earthly felicity is the sweetest and the dearest thing to him that is. So that he preferreth it before the Pleasing of God and everlasting life: And therefore he seeketh it more, and holdeth it faster as long as he can, and parteth with it more unwillingly. As Innocent Nature had an appetite to the objects of sense; but corrupted nature hath an enraged, greedy, rebellious and inordinate appetite to them: so Innocent nature had a love to this natural earthly life and the comforts of it: but corrupted Nature hath such an inordinate love to them, as that all things else are made but subordinate to them, and swallowed up in this gulf: even God himself is so far loved as he befriendeth these our carnal ends, and furthereth our earthly prosperity and life.

But when men are brought to Deny themselves, they are in their measures restored to their first esteem of Life and all the prosperity and earthly comforts of life. Now they have learned so to love them as to love God better; and so to value them as to prefer everlasting life before them; and so to hold them and seek their preservation as to resign them to the will of God, and to lay them down when we cannot hold them with his Love, and to choose death in order to life everlasting, before that life which would deprive us of it. And this is the principal instance ⟨p. 7⟩