God, and the common good were the principal end and interest of them all, and selfishness did not prevail.

And this is it that keepeth Christian princes in most ungodly wars, to the shedding of Christian blood, and the weakening of the common interest, and the strengthening of the common enemy, whom they should all join together to

resist.

This also keepeth up so many parties on religious pretences to seek the undermining and ruin of each other, when they should all join together against the common profaneness of the world; and all their conjunct endeavours would be too little. Thus selfishness is the grand enemy that by divisions and subdivisions is still at work for the dissolution and ruin of church and state, and the confusion of the world, and the disturbance and destruction of order and government.

8. Yea, selfishness makes men false and treacherous, so that they are not to be trusted, and are unmeet materials for any society. For whatever they promise, pretend, or seem, they are all for themselves, and will be no further true and faithful to the society, or any member of it, than suiteth with their own ends. Never trust a selfish person, if it be your own brother, further than you can accommodate and please him, and so oblige him to you upon his own account. It is the complication of interests, that makes husband and wife so much agree and love each other; because that which one hath, the other hath: but if their interests fall out to be any whit divided, it is two to one but selfishness will divide their affections. One would think that the bond of nature should be so strong to constrain a son to love his father, that nothing could dissolve it; and yet sad experience telleth us that even here, it is an unity of interest that doth more with many children than either nature or grace: and that when they have no more dependance upon their parents for their commodity, their affections and respects are gone; and if they shall gain much by their death, they can bear it without much sorrow, if not desire it. So potent is selfishness, that it makes not men unfaithful only to their friends, and treacherous to their governors, and false to all they have to do with, but also unnatural to their nearest relations.

And therefore (next to true piety, which leads up all to an unity in God, and therefore is the most perfect polity,)

the chief point of human polity, for the preservation of commonwealths, and all societies, is, a complication of interest : when the constitution makes the governor and the governed as husband and wife, that have nothing dividedly as their own, but all in common, and take each other for better or worse, and know they must stand or fall together, and that the good or hurt of one, is the good or hurt of both, and that there is no manner of hope that either of them should thrive by the ruin of the other. If politicians had the skill and will to make such an union of interests between the sovereign and the subject, and to make it visible that all might understand it, their republics would be immortal, till either the wrath of a neglected God, or the power of a foreign enemy should dissolve them: for nothing else but self could do it; and self will not do it when it sees its own interest lie in the preservation of the present state..

CHAPTER LXIX.

Corrupteth and debaseth all that it disposeth of.

7. ANOTHER aggravation of the evil of selfishness is, that it corrupteth and debaseth every thing that it disposeth of. And on the contrary, it is the excellency of self-denial (as joined with the love of God) that it rectifieth and ennobleth all your actions.

Let the work be ever so holy in its nature, yet. you do it but for yourselves, you make but a profane employment of it; and to you it is not holy. A selfish, carnal person is serving himself even in preaching; and hearing, and praying, and sacraments, and other acts of worship and churchcommunion; much more in the common business of his life. Even when he thinks he is serving God, he is but serving himself of God, and provoking God by his abuse; when he thinks he is very holy because of his services, he is doubly unholy, in that he even profaneth holy things, And as it is not God indeed that he serveth, so from God he must not expect a reward. And as far as a man's self and flesh is below the blessed God, so far, in a sort, is the work of selfish men debased, in comparison of those works of the saints that are performed purely for God. They

make but a low, unprofitable drudgery of that which in the hands of others is the highest and noblest work on earth. For the action can be no better than the end; and therefore is base as it is base.

But on the other side, self-denial makes noble the actions that in themselves seem base. If you are gone out of yourselves, and can truly say, that it is God you serve and seek in your employments, you may be sure that God will take them for his service, and set them on your account among the works that he hath promised to reward (supposing that the matter be such as he alloweth of, and that you think not by good intentions to turn sin into holiness, and make him a service of that which he forbiddeth): O what an honour, what an encouragement, what a comfort is this, to every Christian! The actions of a prince or conqueror are base; if self be their end, and the respect to God do not ennoble them. And the work of the poorest person is honourable that is done for God. It is a great temptation to some poor Christians to grudge at their condition, because they are so unserviceable to God. Alas, thinks a poor tradesman, or ploughman, or servant, What do I but drudge in the world! I have neither parts nor place to do God service with! But such do very much mistake the matter. It is not the parts and place, but the hearty performance of your works for God that makes them such as he will take for service. O, thinks a poor woman, or toiling servant, I can do nothing either for the conversion of souls, or the good of church or commonwealth, but am made unserviceable. But do you not know that any thing is acceptable service which God commandeth, and is heartily intended to his honour and his pleasure it is not the metal, but the stamp of the prince, that makes a piece to be current money. If the king's stamp were put by his appointment on a piece of brass or copper, it would pass for coin. Believe it sirs, if your study be to please the Lord in your callings, and you can but get above yourselves, and do the basest servile works, as commanded you by God, that you may be accepted by him, and offer yourselves and all your labours purely to him, and to his honour, and his will, God will take these for honourable services; and you are as truly at his work, even in your shops and fields, as princes are in ruling, or pastors in teaching

or guiding the flock: you that are poor, and cannot set so much time apart for reading and other holy duties as some others do, see that you neglect no holy opportunity that you can take, and then consider, that if God set you to do him service even by washing dishes, or sweeping channels, or the meanest drudgery, he will accept it; and the more, by how much the more humble submission and self-denial is found in it. Take him as the only Lord and Master of your souls and lives, and all that you have, and when you are called to your daily labour, look but to your hearts that God be your end, and that you can truly say, 'I do not this principally to provide for myself, but as an obedient child in my Father's service, because he bids me do it, and it is pleasing to him through Christ; I do it not principally from self-love, but from the love of God, that commandeth me my work; and as a traveller that laboureth in his way for the love of his home, so I am here at labour in this world, in the place that God hath set me, that I may in his appointed way attain the everlasting glory that he hath promised.' I say, do but see to it, that thus you dedicate your labours to God, and you may take comfort in the daily labours of your lives, even the meanest and most contemptible, as well as princes and preachers may in their more honourable works. Nay, all your labours are honoured and sanctified by this; for all is holy that is heartily devoted to God, upon his invitation. And thus all things are pure to the pure. For it is God's interest in your works, that is the holiness and excellency of them. Were servants and labouring people more holy and self-denying, they might have more true comfort in their daily labour, than the best of the unsanctified can have from their prayers or other worship of God. Not that worship may be therefore neglected; but that a Christian must do nothing at all but for God; and then he may be sure of God's acceptance.

CHAPTER LXX.

Deny Self, or you will deny Christ.

8. MOREOVER, the selfish will never suffer as Christians, but deny Christ in a day of trial; when the self-denying

will go through all; and be saved. Nothing doth so thoroughly try whether self or God be best beloved, as suffering for his cause. In this it is that Christ useth to try men's self-denial; and it is a principal use of persecution. When you hear of coming before rulers and judges, and being hated of all men for Christ's name sake, then self riseth up to plead for its interest, and never maketh more ado than when it seeth the flames. The flesh cannot reason, but it can strive against reason, and draw it to its side. No rea son seemeth sufficient to it, to persuade it to choose a suffering state. If you persuade a carnal man to let go his estate, to be poor and dispised in the world, and to give up life itself, if it be called for, and all this for the hope of an invisible felicity, you lose your labour (till God set in), and all such reasoning seems to him most unreasonable. And what a dreadful case such souls are in, my text and many another passage in Scripture may convince you. If you cannot drink of his cup, and be baptized with his baptism, you cannot be advanced with him to glory. Through many tribulations we must enter into the kingdom of God. The pleasing of the flesh is the high way to misery by displeasing God; and the voluntary submission to the sufferings of the flesh for the cause of Christ, is the high way to felicity; 2 Tim. ii. 11, 12. "It is a faithful saying; for if we be dead with him, we shall also live with him; if we suffer, we shall also reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us;" Rom. viii. 17. "Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution;" 2 Tim. iii. 12. The day of trial is a kind of judgment-day to the selfish, unsanctified man; for it discovereth his hypocrisy, and sheweth him to be but dross, and separateth him from the suffering servants of Christ.

But self-denial maketh suffering light, and will make you wish that you had any thing worth the resigning unto Christ, and any thing by the denial whereof you might serve him. For him you would suffer the loss of all things, and account them dross and dung that you may win him; Phil. iii. 8. He will count us "worthy of the kingdom for which we suffer;" 2 Thess. i. 5. As the " Captain of our salvation was made perfect by suffering, (Heb. ii. 10.) so also must his members, by "filling up the measure," and being "made partakers of his sufferings," and "knowing the