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CHAPTER LVII.

How we must love our Neighbours as ourselves.

Quest. 7. How is it that self-denial requireth us to love our neighbour as ourselves: is it with the same degree of love?'

Answ. I answered this on the by, before: Briefly, 1. The chief part of the precept is negative: thus q. d. "Set not up thyself against the welfare of thy neighbour: draw not from him, or covet not that which is his to thyself, and confine not thy love and care to thyself." 2. And it comprehendeth this positive, and that as to the kind of love, we should love both ourselves and neighbours as means to God, and for the interest of God; and in that respect there is an equality: we must 'appretiative' or estimatively love a better and more serviceable man that hath more of God's Spirit in him, above ourselves; and an equal person equally with ourselves, with this rational love, which intendeth all for God. 3. But natural love which is put into man for selfpreservation will be stronger to self than to another, and alloweth us, cæteris paribus,' to prefer, and first preserve and provide for ourselves. And in this regard, our neighbour must be loved but as a second self, or next ourselves. 4. But this natural love in the exercise of it, at least in imperative acts, is to be subservient to our rational spiritual love, and to be over-mastered by it. And therefore it is that as reason teacheth an heathen to prefer his country before his life, (though the instinct of nature incline us more to life,) so faith teacheth a Christian much more, to prefer God's honour, and the Gospel, church, commonwealth, and his neighbour's good, when it more conduceth to these ends, than his own, before himself, his liberty or life.

CHAPTER LVIII.

Is Self-revenge and Penance Self-denial?

Quest. 8. WHETHER self-denial require us after sin, to use vindictive penance or punishment of the flesh, by fasting, watching, going barefoot, lying hard, wearing haircloth,

or to do this ordinarily? as some of the papists, monks, and friars do?'

Answ. The easiness of this case may allow a brief decision. 1. The body must be so far afflicted, as is needful to humble it, and subdue it to the spirit, and tame its rebellion, and fit it for the service of God. 2. The exercise of a holy revenge on ourselves may be a lower end, subservient to this. 3. It must also be so far humbled as is necessary to express repentance to the church, when absolution is expected upon public repentance. 4. As also to concur with the soul in secret or open humiliation.

But, 1. He that shall think that whippings, or sackcloth, or going farefoot, or other self-punishing, are of themselves good works, and meritorious with God, or satisfy his justice, or are a state of perfection, doth offer God a heinous sin, under the name and conceit of a good work. 2. And he that shall by such self-afflicting unfit his body for the service of God, yea that doth not cherish it so far as is necessary to fit it for duty, is guilty of self-murder, and defrauding God of his service, and abusing his creature, and depriving others of the help we owe them; so that in one word, the body must be so used as may best fit it for God's service. And to think that self-afflicting is a good work, merely as it is penalty or suffering to the body, or that we may go further herein, is to think, 1. That we should use our body worse than our beast; for we will no further afflict him than is necessary to tame him, or serve ourselves by him, and not to disable him for service. 2. And it will teach men to kill themselves; for that is a greater penalty to the body than whipping or fasting. 3. And it is an offering God a sacrifice of cruelty and robbery, which we commit against himself and man.

But I must needs add, that though some friars and melancholy people are apt to go too far in this, and pine their bodies, or misuse them with conceits of merit and satisfaction;`yet almost all the common people run into the contrary extreme, and pamper and please their flesh, to the displeasing of God, and the ruin of their souls. And I know but few that have need to be restrained from afflicting or taking down the flesh too much.

CHAPTER LIX.

Is Self-denial to be without Passion?

Quest. 9. WHETHER self-denial consist in the laying by of all passions, and bringing the soul to an impassionate serenity?'

For,

Answ. The Stoics and some of the Behmenists think so: but so doth not God, or any well-informed man. 1. God would not have made the affections in vain. It is not the passions, but the disorder of them, that is sinful, or the fruit of sin. 2. We are commanded to exercise all the affections or passions for God, and on other suitable objects. We must love God with all the heart, and soul, and might, which is not without affection, or passion. We must love his servants, his church, his word, his ways. We must fear him above them that can kill us. We must hunger and thirst after his righteousness, and pant after him as the hart doth after the water-brooks. We must be angry and sin not. A zeal for God is the life of our graces: we must "always be zealous in a good matter; fervent in spirit, serving the Lord." We must "hate evil," and " sorrow for it," when we are guilty, and grieve under the sense of our miscarriages, and God's displeasure. And all these (expressly commanded in the word) are holy affections or passions of the soul.

3. Yea, it is the work of the Holy Ghost to sanctify all these passions that they may be used for God; and they are called by the names of the several graces of the Spirit. And it is not passion, but disordered passion, that must be

denied.

CHAPTER LX.

How far must we deny our own Reason?

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Quest. 10. How far must we deny our own reason?' Answ. 1. We must not be unreasonable, nor live unreasonably, nor believe unreasonably, nor love, or choose, or

let out any affection unreasonably. We are commanded to be ready to give a "reason of our hopes." It is our rational faculty that proveth us men, and is essential to us; and without it we can neither understand the things of God or man for how should we understand without an understanding?

But yet reason must thus far be denied. 1. We must not think higher of our reason than it deserves, either in itself, or compared to others. 2. We must not satisfy its curiosity in prying into unrevealed things. 3. Nor must we satisfy or suffer its presumption in judging our brethren, or censuring men's hearts or ways uncharitably. 4. Nor must we endure it to rise up against the word or ways of God, or contradict or quarrel with divine Revelations, though we cannot see the particular evidence or reason of each truth, nor reconcile them together in our apprehensions. Though we may not take any thing to be the word of God without reason; yet when we have reason to take it to be his word, we must believe and submit to all that is in it, without any more reason for our belief. For the formal reason of our belief is because God is true, that did reveal this word; and we have the greatest reason in the world to believe all that he revealeth.

CHAPTER LXI.

Must we be content with Afflictions, permitted Sin, &c.?

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Quest. 11. If self-denial require us to content our souls in the will of God, then whether must we be content with his afflictions, or permission of sin, or the church's sufferings; and, 1. How will this stand with our due sense of God's displeasure and chastisements. 2. And with our praying against them. 3. And our use of means for their removal?'

Answ. 1. The will of God is one thing, and the hurt which he willeth us is another; and the good end for which he willeth it, is a third. The afflicting will of God is good, and must be loved as good: and the end and benefit of chastisement is good, and must be loved: but the hurt as hurt, must not be loved. It is not God's will that we must resist, or seek

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to change; nor yet is it the end or benefit of the chastisement; but only the hurt, which our folly hath made a suitable means. And we may not seek to remove this hurt, till the effect be procured, or on terms that may consist with the end of it. And this is not against the will of God, that when the good is attained, the affliction be removed.

2. And you must distinguish between his pleased, and displeased will; his complacency and acceptance, and his displacency and rejecting will. Every act of God's will must be approved and loved as good in God: but it is not every one that we may rest and rejoice in as good to us, and as our felicity. We must be grieved for God's displeasure, and yet love even that holy will that is displeased with us; and we must be sensible of God's judgments, and yet love the will that doth inflict them. But it is only the love of God and pleasure of his will to us, that can be the rest and felicity of our souls.

3. Some acts of God's will are about the means, and have a tendency to a further end; and some are about the end itself. His commanding will we must love and obey: his forbidding will must have the same affections: his threatening will we must love and fear; his rewarding will we must love and rejoice in: his full accepting will, that is, his love and complacency in us, we must rest and delight our souls in for ever. And thus we must comply with the will of God.

CHAPTER LXII.

May God be finally Loved as our Felicity and Portion?

Quest. 12. You tell us that we must seek ourselves but as means to God: how then may we make our salvation our end; or desire the fruition of God, when fruition is for ourselves, of somewhat that may make us happy? Doth he not desire God as a means for himself as the end, that desireth him as his portion, treasure, refuge, and felicity?'

Answ. There are such abundance of abstruse philosophical controversies de anima et fine,' that stand here in the way, that I must only decide this briefly and imperfectly for vulgar capacities. Schoolmen and other philosophers are not so much as agreed what a final cause is. But

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