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SERMON I.

Of SELF-DENIAL.

Matth. xvi. 24.

Then faid Jefus unto his difciples, if any man will come after me, let him deny himself.

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HESE words certainly contain what SERM. is of the greatest importance to all I. Christians, for it is an effential part of the chriftian character. Whatever is particularly meant by a man's denying himself, our Saviour exprefsly declares it, has a ftrict connexion with being his true disciple; the univerfality of the demand, and the indifpenfable neceffity of complying with it, could not be more strongly exprefs'd in words, If any man, any one of mankind however diftinguished, Jew or Gentile, of whatever fort or condition he be, will become a follower of mine, he must deny himself; on no other terms will I acknowledge him for my fincere and approved disciple. Let us therefore apply our minds to the ferious confideration of that VOL. I.

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SERM. felf-denial which the religion of Chrift enI. joyns; and to affift you in it, I will endeavour

in this discourse, first, to explain, and fecondly, to vindicate it from any juft imputation of feverity, and fhew the reasonableness of it.

First; the word denying, in its primary fignification, means either an act of the understanding, refufing its affent to a propofition laid before it; or an act of the will refusing its confent to an application, requeft, or defire which is presented to it. From this last is borrowed the figurative expreffion of denying ones felf. As there are various tendencies in our nature, various appetites, affections, and paffions, prompting us to different actions, when the mind deliberating upon them, comes to a determination of choofing fome, and rejecting others directly oppofite, thofe, which are so rejected, are faid to be denied. And because the motions, however, contrary, are all from within; for though the occafion, or the object, may be foreign, yet the propenfity or the affection, we know is our own; therefore the thwarting and controuling fuch motions, is call'd a denial of ourselves. For example, when the lower appetites and inclinations, which the apostle James calls luft, comprehending them all under one denomination,

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when this, I fay, comes in competition with SER M. conscience, and the virtuous affections; the one, or the other, must be denied ; and they are both comprehended in our felves but it is the former our religion requires us to deny. To fpeak in the stile of the facred writer just now referred to, when the conceptions of luft are entertained and carry the determination of the mind, then fin is brought forth, when confcience prevails, and the practical decifion is on its fide, then an act of chriftian felfdenial is perfected.

This notion of a diverfity of practical principles, or fprings of action in the human heart, is familiar in the scriptures and other moral writings; nor without it can we understand the practice of virtue in our present state, which is a state of trial and discipline. We meet in the ancient moralifts, frequently, with a diftinction between the rational and irrational, the merely fenfitive and the intelligent, the inferior and the füperior part of men. There are fome parts of our conftitution common to us with the brutal kinds; for the animal nature to answer the ends of it's being, and it's prefervation, is mov'd by instincts to pursue its proper objects; but we are capable of reflection, which the brutes are not; of confidering the ends of those inftincts, and thereby judging of 3 2

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SERM. the measures and limits within which their di rection fhall be follow'd; and we are indued with higher faculties and affections, to which the other are fubordinated; and with liberty to pursue the nobler ends of our rational and moral powers. Hence arifes the struggle between the motions and tendencies of thefe different principles, which every man may find in his own experience, as the apoftle expreffes it, the Spirit lufteth against the flesh, and the flesh lufteth against the spirit, and these two are contrary, the one to the other; a virtuous difpofition confifts in the prevalence of the spirit or confcience, and a vicious temper in the predominancy of the lower appetites.

But, I know no author who carries this diftinction farther, and ftates it more clearly, than the apostle Paul in the 7th chapter of his epiftle to the Romans. He gives a very lively defcription, as in his own perfon, of two oppofite interests or principles in one man: one called fin that dwells in him, the body of fin and death, comprehending the whole complex of inward temptations, which take their rife from the body, fo intimately near, that a man finds them often working in his heart, to entice and draw him away the other call'd I more properly the man, the rational felf-judging agent, that has the abfolute fupremacy by the order of nature, the right of restraining the lower

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felf, which the laws of our religion oblige us SER M. to deny. Again, St. Paul diftinguishes these two contrary springs of action, by the names of the law of the mind, and the law in the members, warring against it: they both, in fome fenfe, operate like laws with fanctions upon our hopes and fears of pleasure and pain; but the former only, that of the mind, is the true law of our nature as well as of Christianity: and the other, to be brought into fubjection, or its government to be denied.

It is not neceffary to enumerate the particulars contain❜d in this general head, the felf, to be denied. Every man knows, for he is conscious of them, the appetites of his nature to fenfible objects, and which pursue the pleafures of the external fenfes, they are in fome weaker, in some stronger, even by their diffe rent conftitutions; but all have them in fome degree. We find likewife averfions to bodily pain and other outward uneafineffes of various forts, too many to be mention'd; and we find impulfes of anger, a ftrong inclination, attended with vehement motions in the body, to repel violence offered or harm received from a voluntary invader; which is properly an animal instinct, for it is seen in beasts as well as in men, intended originally by the author of nature, B 3

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