Discourses upon the Existence and Attributes of God

This Carnal self-love is set up in the stead of God as our last end; like the Sea, which all the little and great streams of our actions run to, and rest in.

And this is,

1. Natural. It sticks as close to us as our Souls; it is as natural as sin; the foundation of all the evil in the world: As self-abhorrency is the first stone that is laid in Conversion: So an inordinate self-love was the first in let to all iniquity: As Grace is a rising from self to Centre in God; so is sin a shrinking from God, into the mire of a Carnal selfishness: Since every Creature is nearest to it self and next to God, it cannot fall from God, but must immediately sink into self. ¹And therefore all sins are well said to be branches, or modi•••ations of this fundamental passion. What is wrath, but a defence and strengthening self, against the attempts of some real or imaginary evil? Whence springs envy, but from a self love, grieved at its own wants in the midst of another's enjoyment, able to supply it? What is impatience, but a regret, that self is not provided for at the rate of our wish, and that it hath met with a shock against supposed merit? What is pride, but a sense of self-worth, a desire to have self of a higher Elevation than others? What is drunkenness, but a seeking a satisfaction for sensual self in the spoils of reason? No sin is committed as sin, but as it pretends a self-satisfaction. Sin indeed may well be termed a mans self, because it is, since the loss of original righteousness, the form that overspreads every part of our Souls. the understanding assents to nothing false, but under the Notion of true, and the Will embraceth nothing evil but under the Notion of good; but the rule whereby we measure the truth and goodness of proposed objects, is not the unerring word, but the inclinations of self, the gratifying of which is the aim of our whole lives.