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

Object. But when you have said all that you can, as long as you plead against my nature, I cannot consent to what you say; words are but wind: To persuade me to consent to die, is as much as to persuade me not to feel when I am hurt, or to be hungry or thirsty or sleepy, which are not in my power, because these things are Natural. Answ. 1. Though hunger and thirst and other natural and sensitive appetites or passions, be not in your power, yet a consent of the will to deny these is in your power. As natural as it is to hunger and thirst, your superior faculty of Reason can prevail with you to suffer hunger and thirst in a Siege or sickness, when the suffering of it will save your life. You will be ruled by your Physician to forbear not only many a dish but many a meal which your appetite desireth. And your Reason can persuade you to suffer the opening of a vein, and the drawing out of your own blood, yea or the cutting off a member, when it is to save your life, for all that feeling and self-love is natural to you. And you are not acquainted with the nature of Friendship if you would not suffer much for a friend; nor with humane affections if you would not suffer much for parents, or children, or your Country; so that your will is free, though your sense be not free, nor your natural ⟨p. 242⟩appetite. Though you cannot choose but feel when you are hurt, you might consent to that feeling for a greater good. 2. And according to the tenor of this Objection, you may as wisely and honestly plead for most of the wickedness of the world, and say It is natural to me to lust, and therefore I may play the Adulterer and fulfil it: It is natural to me to desire meat and drink, and therefore I may eat and drink as long as I desire it. It is natural to me to seek to hurt those that I am much angry with, or hate: and therefore I may beat or kill them.] If you must deny the Passions and sensitive appetite, and the inferior faculties of nature in one thing, why not in another? These lower powers were made to be ruled by reason, as beasts are made to be ruled by men, and more. And therefore seeing this Argument from Nature is but from the brutish part of Nature, it is but a brutish Argument. And if yet you say, that for all these words, Death is so great an enemy to you, that you cannot choose it;

Object. But when you have said all that you can, as long as you plead against my nature, I cannot consent to what you say; words are but wind: To perswade me to consent to die, is as much as to perswade me not to feel when I am hurt, or to be hungry or thirsty or sleepy, which are not in my power, because these things are Natural. Answ. 1. Though hunger and thirst and other natural and sensitive appetites or passions, be not in your power, yet a consent of the will to deny these is in your power. As natural as it is to hunger and thirst, your superiour faculty of Reason can prevail with you to suffer hunger and thirst in a Siege or sickness, when the suffering of it will save your life. You will be ruled by your Physician to forbear not only many a dish but many a meal which your appetite desireth. And your Reason can perswade you to suffer the opening of a vein, and the drawing out of your own blood, yea or the cutting off a member, when it is to save your life, for all that feeling and self-love is natural to you. And you are not acquainted with the nature of Friendship if you would not suffer much for a friend; nor with humane affections if you would not suffer much for parents, or children, or your Country; so that your will is free, though your sense be not free, nor your natural