exaltation to hear "Come down lower." O! you that are proud, self-conceited wretches, did you but know what good it doth an humble soul, to feel Christ take him up from the dust, you would soon fall down that you might taste their comforts in his lifting up. O what a blessed feeling it is, to feel one's self in the arms of Christ! Our compassion that makes us run to take up one that falls before us, is a spark of that compassion in Christ. Who meddles with him that walks before us? but a man that falls down in a swoon, we are all ready to lay hands on! O happy fall, that makes us feel the arms of Christ! Though the fall into sin be never the better, that occasioneth it, yet the fall into humiliation is better, that prepareth for it. He that in his agony had an angel to minister to him, will not leave the self-denying humble soul, without his angel, or some way of relief that is suitable to the necessity. Christ himself will not communicate himself to the proud and self-conceited. He is wisdom, but not to them that are wise in their own eyes already. He is righteousness, but not to them that justify themselves. He is sanctification, but not to those that never found their own uncleanness. He is redemption, but to none but those that feel themselves condemned. He hath the white raiment, and the treasures of grace and glory; but it is only for those that penitently feel that they are poor, and miserable, and blind, and naked. Truly sirs, though I have no mind to trouble the well-grounded peace or comfort of any of your souls, yet I would advise you, if you have never so good thoughts of yourselves, suspect lest it should be the fruit of self-conceitedness; and if you should have never so much peace and joy, look well whether it come from God or selfconceit! And if it come not in against self, it is ten to one but it comes from self. If your peace and comfort be not won from Christ, in a way of self-denial, and as the spoils of the flesh, you have it not in the ordinary way of God. Did you come to your joy and peace by humility, and selfdenial, and patience, and mortification, and by becoming little children, and the servants of all, and by learning of Christ to be meek and lowly? If not, take heed lest you nourish a changeling, an imp of hell, and a selfish brat, instead of the fruit of the Spirit, the peace and joy of the Holy Ghost. If you feel no great matter at home to trouble you, you are too righteous to be justified by Christ. If

you groan not under your ignorance and unbelief, you are too wise to be Christ's disciples. If you mourn not under the load and pain of sin, you are too well to be Christ's patients. If you are readier to justify and excuse yourselves, than to condemn yourselves, and had rather hear yourselves praised, than reproved, admonished, or instructed, and like Diotrephes, love to have the pre-eminence, you are too high for Christ to take any acquaintance with you; and too full of self to have any room for his love, and Spirit, and heavenly consolations. He that gave us the parable of the importunate widow (Luke xviii. 2-5.), would have us understand that bare necessity is not enough to fit us for relief (for then the worst of men should be the fittest), but it must be necessity so felt, as to humble us, and drive us to importunity with God. The prodigal was miserable when he was denied the husks; but he never felt his father's embracements till he came to himself by denying himself, and returning to his father. And this the self-conceited will not be persuaded to. The first that must touch Christ after his resurrection, is not a king, nor a lord, no, nor a man, but a woman that had been a sinner. When she held him by the feet, love did begin low in humility, but it tended higher, and ended higher. Christ hath told us that where much is forgiven, there will be much love. For there is most of the fruits of God's love, and least of self, and most to abase self. It is not possible that love to Christ should dwell or work in any but the humble, that feel at the heart that they are unworthy of love, and worthy of everlasting wrath. The proud and self-conceited cannot love him; for they cannot be much taken with Christ's love to them, except as the Pharisee, in a way of self-flattery. But the poor soul that was lost, will heartily love him that sought and found him; and he that was dead, will love when he finds himself alive; and he that was condemned both by God and conscience, will surely love the Lord that ransomed him! And it is the apprehensions that men have of themselves that much causeth all this difference. The self-abhorring, selfjudging, self-denying sinner is melted with the love of God in Christ, because it is to such a worthless, sinful wretch. 'What Lord,' saith he, 'is the blood of Christ, the pardon of sin, the Spirit of grace, the privileges of a child, and everlasting glory for such an unworthy wretch as I, that have so

long offended thee, and so much neglected thee, and lived such a life as I have done, and 'am such an empty unprofitable worm?' O what a wonder of mercy is this! But the full soul loathes the honeycomb. The self-conceited unhumbled sinner looks as mindlessly at Christ, as a healthful man at the physician, or an innocent man at a pardon.

And that good that is in the proud and self-conceited doth seldom do much good to others (much less to themselves). As such do but serve themselves, so ordinarily God doth not bless their endeavours; but as they are perverted, they are the likest to pervert others, and propagate their self-conceitedness: two words from an humble selfdenying man, doth oftentimes more good than a sermon from the self-conceited.

I admonish you therefore in the name of God, that you take heed of this part of selfishness and mortify it. It will else keep out God, and almost all that is good. If you are proud and self-conceited, you will hear a minister rather to cavil with him, than to be edified: and when any thing from God doth cross your foolish wisdom, you will but slight it, or make a jest at it: and if any truth of God do strike at the heart of your selfish interest, you will but fret at it, and secretly hate it, and perhaps, as the devil's open soldiers, publicly reproach it; and as the Jews did against Stephen (Acts vii. 54.), even gnash the teeth at the preacher, or as they did by Paul; "They gave him audience to that word (even that word that made against themselves) and then lifted up their voices, and said, Away with such a fellow from the earth; for it is not fit that he should live;" Acts xxii. 22. This entertainment we still meet with from our hearers, when self hath brought them the next step to hell.

O sirs, suspect your own understandings; think not of them beyond the proportion of your attainments, nor beyond your experience, and the helps, and time, and opportunities which you have had for knowledge, nor beyond the measure of your diligence for the improving of these; for these are God's ordinary way of giving in a ripeness in knowledge. Read and study Heb. v. 12. 14. 1 Tim. iii. 6. Set not up your own conceits too boldly against those of longer standing and diligence in holy studies, much less against your teachers, and much less against a multitude of ministers;

and much less against all the church of God; and least of all, against God himself, as speaking to you by the Holy Scriptures. O take warning by the swarms of heresies and scandals that have been caused by self-conceitedness and pride.

Object. 'If you may think yourself wiser than me and others without self-conceitedness, why may not I think myself wiser than you and such others, without self-conceitedness?'

Answ. I may not do it in the cases before-mentioned. I may not think myself to be what I am not, nor exalt myself above them that are wiser than I, nor against my guides, or the church of God.

Object. But it is but your conceit that you are wise enough to be a teacher, or wiser than others, and why may not I as well conceit it?'

Answ. No man on his own conceits must become a teacher; but the judicious of that calling must call them, and judge of their abilities. And conceits are as the ground of them is. The true understanding of the grace that we have received is a duty, and fitteth us for thankfulness; but the false conceit that we have what we have not, is a dangerous delusion; "For he that thinketh he is something when he is nothing, deceiveth himself;" Gal. vi. 3. What if a blind man should argue as you do with one that sees, and say, 'You say that you see so far off, and why may not I say so too? Would you not answer him,' I know that which I say to be true, and so do not you?' And what if he still go on and say, You think that I am blind, and I think that you are blind; and why may not I be believed as well as you?' Would this kind of talk prove the man to have his eyesight, or should it make me question whether I have mine? He that seeth knoweth that he seeth, whoever question it; and if another make doubt of it, let men that have eyes in their head be judges, but not the blind. But I confess, spiritual blindness hath this disadvantage, that whereas I can easily make any other blind man know that he is blind, and therefore be willing to be led or helped, here the more blind men are, most commonly they are the most confident that they see, and scornfully say, as the Pharisees to Christ, "Are we blind also?" John ix. 40. For pride will not let them know their ignorance. The same light that cureth ignorance must reveal it. Especially when men are born

blind and never knew the saving illumination of the saints, they will not believe that there is any other light than they have seen. But I have been somewhat long on this part; I

pass now to the next.

CHAPTER XV.

Self-will to be denied.

4. THE fourth part of selfishness to be mortified, is selfwill. And this is the fruit of self-conceit, and also a natural corruption of the soul; and a most deep-rooted obstinate vice it is. Every wicked man is a self-willed man, against God, and all that speak for God. And till self be mortified in the will, there is no saving grace in that will.

Quest. But what will is it that is to be called a selfwill?'

Answ. Not that which is from God and for God; but -all the rest. 1. That will that is not fetched from God, and moved by his will, as the lesser wheels in a clock are moved by the first wheel and by the poise, is no better than selfwill. A will that is not dependent on God's will, is an idol, usurping the prerogative of God; for it is proper to him to be dependent upon none, and to have a will that is not ruled by a superior will. Little do the most know how great a sin this is, to be self-willed. You have a will to something or other continually; and it is your will that ruleth the rest of your faculties and actions: but what is it that ruleth your will? whence do you fetch the rise and reason of your desires? Is it from God's will, or is it not? You pray to God, "Thy will be done," and do your own wills answer these prayers? or are they hypocritical, dissembling words? If indeed it be God's will that you would have fulfilled, then will the knowledge of that will of God determine your own wills. your own wills. As a servant dependeth on his master's will, for all the work that he is to do, and doth not what he will himself, but what his master will have him do ; and as a scholar dependeth on his master's will, and learneth only such books and lessons as he sets him; so must we depend on the will of God, and know what is his will, before we give way to any will of our own. The reason why you