The monster of sinful self-seeking, anatomized together with a description of the heavenly and…The monster of sinful self-seeking, anatomizd together with a description of the heavenly and…

5. Lastly, If when thine own things and the things of Christ come in competition, and thou must either part with the one or the other, if thou choosest as Spyra did, and as the young man in the Gospel did, rather to part with Christ and his Gospel, than with thy profit and preferment, this is a sure note that thou seekest thine own things, before and more than the things of Christ. I read of Tiberius Emperor of Rome, that he sent to the Senate to receive Christ into the number of their Gods, but they refused to do it upon this account, because if they received him, they must reject all their other Gods, and therefore chose rather to renounce Jesus Christ, than to receive him, and part with the rest of their feigned Deities. If thou renouncest and rejectest the Lord Christ and his Truths, rather than thou wilt lose thy creature-enjoyments, thou art a sinful self-seeker of the highest form.

5. Lastly, If when thine owne things and the things of Christ come in competition, and thou must either part with the one or the other, if thou choosest as Spyra did, and as the young man in the Gospel did, rather to part with Christ and his Gospel, than with thy profit and preferment, this is a sure note that thou seekest thine own things, before and more than the things of Christ. I read of Tiberius Emperour of Rome, that he sent to the Senate to receive Christ into the number of their Gods, but they refused to doe it upon this account, because if they received him, they must reject all their other Gods, and therefore chose rather to renounce Jesus Christ, than to receive him, and part with the rest of their feigned Deities. If thou renouncest and rejectest the Lord Christ and his Truths, rather than thou wilt lose thy creature-enjoyments, thou art a sinful self-seeker of the highest forme.

But now on the contrary, If thou pursuest after the things of Christ in the first and chief place; If thou mournest more for Church desolations than personal miseries; If the more wealth thou hast, the more courageous thou art for God, and art glad, that thou hast an Estate to lose for Christs cause; If the seeking of thine own things do not put thee upon lying, vain, frivolous, and unconscionable excuses; If thou art like unto Hormisdas, a Nobleman of Persia, who was deposed from all his Honours because he would not deny his Religion, and afterwards restored again, and a little after solicited again to deny Christ and his truths, but he rent his purple robe, and laid all his honours at the foot of the Emperor, and said, Si propter ista me denegaturum Christum put as, ea denuò accipe. If you think to gain me to deny Christ for the re-obtaining of my honours, take them all back again: If this be the frame of thy heart, it is a certain token that thou prizest, lovest and seekest the things of Christ before, and more then thine own things.