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

2. You can be content that the lives of others, yea that all the world be at Gods dispose: In reason you cannot wish it should be otherwise. You are content that the lives of Emperors and Kings that are greater than you, should be at his Dispose? And is there not the same Reason that he dispose of your life as of theirs? Are you better than they? or more your own? or hath the world more need of you than them? or rather is it not unreasonable selfishness that makes so unreasonable ⟨p. 244⟩a difference with you? If Reason might serve, the case is plain.

3. You are contented that far greater matters than your lives should be at Gods dispose: The Sun in its course, the frame of nature, Heaven and Earth and all therein are at his dispose, and would you wish it otherwise? Days and Nights, and Summer and Winter, and times and seasons are at his dispose; and you dare not murmur that all the year is not Summer or day-light, and that there is any Night or Winter. The Angels of Heaven are at his dispose to do his will, and are content to be used on earth for your service, and they desire not to be from under his dispose? And should you desire it? or rather desire that his will may be done on earth as it is in Heaven! If you would not have the Crowns and Kingdoms of the world at his Dispose, and Heaven and Earth are at his Dispose, you would not have him to be God: But if you would have these greatest things at his dispose, what are you then, that your lives should be excepted?

4. Whom would you have to be the Disposer of mens Lives but God? Is any other fit for the undertaking? No other can give life but he! And no other can preserve and continue it but he! If your life had been in any creatures hand, you had been dead long ago: For no creature is able to uphold it self, much less another also. Is any Creature wise enough to order the world and the affairs thereof? Is any Creature powerful enough, to dispose of the world and all things in it? Is any Creature good enough to do it without the communication of its imperfection which would disorder & destroy all? I know you make no doubt of any of these things. No Creature is fit to be God; and therefore none is fit to undertake the work of God; And therefore