maintenance with magistrates, judges and men of other professions). Should I suppose the magistracy epitomized in you, and the ministry in me, I should give you an undue advantage; for I suppose there are far more ministers better than me than there are magistrates better than you; and yet I think you would not judge of me as the ministers are judged of. As there are no such commissioners for ejection of scandalous, insufficient, negligent magistrates as are for the ejection of such ministers, so if there were, I should not doubt but you would quickly see which part were liable to more exceptions. But when I look on the faithful ministers round about me, how many of them could I name, with whom my conscience tells me I am not worthy to be compared in holiness, I am then amazed at the ingratitude of the apostates of this age. How constantly and zealously do they preach in public, at home and abroad, some of them many times a week; how diligently do they instruct the ignorant in private, from house to house; how unblamably, and meekly, and self-denyingly do they behave themselves; and are men that once made profession of religion become the enemies of such a ministry? "O my soul, come not thou into their secret; unto their assembly, mine honour, be not thou united:" Gen. xlix. 6. I had rather be in the case of Turks, yea, of cannibals, than of those men.

I know that many think our very ignorant dividers to have more illumination, and that the pastors of the flocks are carnal, ignorant men; (as the blind man that rushed against another, and asked him whether he were blind, that he could not go out of his way ?) But I have long tried the spirits, and I have found that these camelions have nothing within but lungs and that straw and little sticks may make the quickest and the lightest blaze, but will not make a durable fire as the bigger fuel doth. A bittern hath a louder voice than a swan or eagle; and in some one thing a bungler may excel a better workman; and what if one minister excel in one gift, and another in another, and few in all; is not this like the primitive administration? You be not angry with your apple-tree that it bears not plums, nor with your peartree that it bears not figs.

But I have been too tedious. I beseech you interpret not any of these words as intended for accusation or unjust suspicion of yourself: God forbid you should ever fall from

that integrity that I am persuaded you once had. But my eye is on the times with grief, and on my ancient, dearest friend with love: and in an age of iniquity and temptation my conscience and the world shall never say that I was unfaithful to my friend and forbore to tell him of the common dangers.

Dear friend, take heed of a glittering, flattering world. Remember that greatness makes few bad men good, and few good men better. As Seneca saith, The carcase is as truly dead that is embalmed, as that which is dragged to the grave with hooks.'

And this I say, "The time is short: it remaineth that they that weep, be as if they wept not; and they that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not: and they that buy, as though they possessed not; and they that use this world, as they that use it not; for the fashion of this world passeth away;" 1 Cor. vii. 29-31. And when the soul of the worldly fool is required of him, then whose shall all their dignities, and honours, and riches be? In the meantime, God judgeth not by outward appearance as man judgeth, nor honoureth any for being honoured of men.

'Solus honor merito qui datur, ille datur.'-Juvenal.

These truths (well known to you) I thought meet to set before your eyes, not knowing whether I shall ever more converse with you in the flesh; and also to desire you seriously to read over these popular sermons (persuaded to the press by the importunity of some faithful brethren that love a mean discourse on so necessary a subject). "Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation." I rest, Your Friend,

RICHARD BAXTER.

September 12, 1659.

THE

PREFACE.

READERS,

I HERE present to your serious consideration, a subject of such necessity and consequence, that the peace and safety of churches, nations, families and souls do lie upon it. The eternal God was the beginning and the end, the interest, the attractive, the confidence, the desire, the delight, the all of man in his upright uncorrupted state. Though the Creator planted in man's nature the principle of natural self-love, as the spring of his endeavours for self-preservation, and a notable part of the engine by which he governeth the world, yet were the parts subservient to the whole, and the whole to God; and self-love did subserve the love of the universe and of God; and man desired his own preservation for these higher ends. When sin stepped in it broke this order; and taking advantage from the natural innocent principles of self-love, it turned man from the love of God, and much abated his love to his neighbour and the public good, and turned him to himself by an inordinate self-love which terminateth in himself, and principally in his carnal self, instead of God and the common good; so that self is become all to corrupted nature, as God was all to nature in its integrity. Selfishness is the soul's idolatry and adultery, the sum of its original and increased pravity, the beginning and end, the life and strength of actual sin, even as the love of God is the rectitude and fidelity of the soul, and the sum of all our special grace, and the heart of the new creature, and the life and strength of actual holiness. Selfishness in one word expresseth all our aversion positively, as the want of the love of God expresseth it privatively; and all our sin is summarily in these two, even as all our holiness is summarily

in the love of God and in self-denial. It is the work of the Holy Ghost by sanctifying grace to bring off the soul again from self to God. Self-denial therefore is half the essence of sanctification. No man hath any more holiness than he hath self-denial. And therefore the law (which the sanctifying Spirit writeth on the heart) doth set up God in the first table, and our neighbour in the second, against the usurpation and encroachment of this self. It saith nothing of our love and duty to ourselves, as such, expressly. In seeking the honour and pleasing of God, and the good of our neighbour, we shall most certainly find our own felicity, which nature teacheth us to desire. So that all the law is fulfilled in love, which includeth self-denial, as light includeth the expulsion of darkness, or rather as loyalty includeth a cessation of rebellion and a rejection of the leaders of it, and as conjugal fidelity includeth the rejection of harlots. The very meaning of the first commandment is, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart," &c., which is the sum of the first table, and the commandment that animateth all the rest. The very meaning of the last commandment is, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself;" which is the summary of the second table, and in general forbiddeth all particular injuries to others, not enumerated in the foregoing precepts, and secondarily animateth the four antecedent precepts. The fifth commandment looking to both tables and conjoining them, commandeth us to honour our superiors in authority, both as they are the officers of God, and so participatively divine, and as they are the heads of human societies, and our subjection necessary to common good: so that self-denial is principally required in the first commandment, that is, the denying of self as opposite to God and his interest; and self-denial is required in the last commandment, that is, the denying of self, as it is an enemy to our neighbour's right and welfare, and would draw from him unto ourselves. Selflove and self-seeking as opposite to our neighbour's good, is the thing forbidden in that commandment; and charity, loving our neighbour as ourselves and desiring his welfare as our own, is the thing commanded. Self-denial is required in the fifth commandment in a double respect, according to the double respect of the commandment: 1. In respect to God, whose governing authority is exercised by governors,

their power being a beam of his majesty, the fifth commandment requiring us to deny ourselves by due subjection, and by honouring our superiors; that is, to deny our own aspiring desires, and our refractory minds and disobedient selfwilledness, and to take heed that we suffer not within us any proud or rebellious dispositions or thoughts that would lift us up above our rulers, or exempt us from subjection to them. 2. In respect to human societies, for whose good authority and government is appointed; the fifth commandment obligeth us to deny our private interest, and in all competitions to prefer the public good, and maketh a promise of temporal peace and welfare in a special manner to those that in obedience to this law do prefer the honour of government and the public peace and welfare before their own. Thus charity as opposed to selfishness and including selfdenial, is the very sum and fulfilling of the law; and selfishness is the radical comprehensive sin (containing uncharitableness) which breaks it all.

And as the law, so also the Redeemer, in his example and his doctrine doth teach us, and that more plainly and urgently, this lesson of self-denial. The life of Christ is the pattern which the church must labour to imitate; and love and self-denial were the summary of his life: though yet he had no sinful self to deny, but only natural self. He denied himself in avoiding sin; but we must deny ourselves in returning from it. He loved not his life in comparison of his love to his Father, and to his church. He appeared without desirable form or comeliness. "He was despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. He bore our griefs, and carried our sorrows, and was esteemed stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was laid upon him. The Lord laid upon him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth. He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment. He was cut off out of the land of the living; for the transgressions of his people was he stricken. It pleased the Lord to bruise him. He put him to grief;" Isa. liii. What was his whole life but the exercise of love and self-denial? He denied himself in love to