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

THE PREFACE.

THE PRFFACE.

Readers,

I Here present to your serious consideration, a Subject of such Necessity and Consequence, that the Peace and safety of Churches, Nations, Families and souls do lie upon it. The Eternal God was the Beginning and the End, the Interest, the attractive, the confidence, the desire, the delight, the All of man in his upright uncorrupted State. Though the Creator planted in mans Nature the principle of Natural Self-love, as the spring of his endeavours for Self-preservation, and a notable part of the engine by which he governeth the world, yet were the parts subservient to the Whole, and the whole to God: And Self-love did subserve the Love of the Universe, and of God: and man desired his own Preservation, for these higher Ends. When sin stepped in, it broke this order: ⟨image 24⟩and taking advantage from the natural innocent principle of Self-love, it turned man from the Love of God, and much abated his Love to his neighbour and the public good, and turned him to Himself by an inordinate self-love, which terminateth in himself, and principally in his Carnal-self, instead of God and the Common good: so that Self is become All to Corrupted nature, as God was All to Nature in its integrity. Selfishness is the souls Idolatry, and Adultery: the sum of its Original and increased Pravity, the Beginning and End, the life and strength of actual sin: even as the Love of God is the Rectitude and Fidelity of the soul, and the sum of all our special Grace, and the Heart of the new Creature, and the life and strength of actual holiness. Selfishness in one word expresseth all our Aversion Positively, as the want of the Love of God expresseth it Privatively; and all our sin is summarily in these two: Even as all our Holiness is summarily in the Love of God and in self-denial. It is the work of the Holy Ghost by sanctifying grace to bring off the soul again from Self to God. Self-denial therefore is half the essence of Sanctification. No man hath any more Holiness, than he hath Self-denial. And therefore the Law, (which the Sanctifying Spirit writeth on the heart) doth set up God in the first Table, and our neighbour in the second, against the usurpation and encroachment of this Self. It saith nothing of Love or Duty to our selves as such expressly.