their own minds and humors. Like the Lacedæmonians, that dressed the
images of their gods according to the fashion of their own country,
we would wring Scripture to serve our own designs, and judge the law
of God by the law of sin, and make the serpentine seed in us to be
the interpreter of divine oracles: this is like Belshazzar to drink
healths out of the sacred vessels. As God is the author of his law
{a135} and word, so he is the best interpreter of it; the Scripture
having an impress of divine wisdom, holiness, and goodness, must be
regarded according to that impress, with a submission and meekness of
spirit and reverence of God in it; but when, in our inquiries into the
word, we inquire not of God, but consult flesh and blood, the temper
of the times wherein we live, or the satisfaction of a party we side
withal, and impose glosses upon it according to our own fancies,
it is to put laws upon God, and make self the rule of him. He that
interprets the law to bolster up some eager appetite against the will
of the lawgiver, ascribes to himself as great an authority as he that
enacted it.
9. In falling off from God after some fair compliances, when his will
grateth upon us, and crosseth ours. They will walk with him as far
as he pleaseth them, and leave him upon the first distaste, as though
God must observe their humors more than they his will. Amos must
be suspended from prophesying, because the “land could not bear his
words,” and his discourses condemned their unworthy practices against
God.[233] The young man came not to receive directions from our
Saviour, but expected a confirmation of his own rules, rather than
an imposition of new.[234] He rather cares for commendations than
instructions, and upon the disappointment turns his back; “he was
sad,” that Christ would not suffer him to be rich, and a Christian
together; and leaves him because his command was not suitable to
the law of his covetousness. Some truths that are at a further
distance from us, we can hear gladly; but when the conscience
begins to smart under others, if God will not observe our wills, we
will, with Herod, be a law to ourselves.[235] More instances might be
observed.――Ingratitude is a setting up self, and an imposing laws on
God. It is as much as to say, God did no more than he was obliged to
do; as if the mercies we have were an act of duty in God, and not of
bounty.――Insatiable desires after wealth: hence are those speeches
(James iv. 13), “We will go into such a city, and buy and sell, &c. to
get gain;” as though they had the command of God, and God must lacquey
after their wills. When our hearts are not contented with any supply
of our wants, but are craving an overplus for our lust; when we are
unsatisfied in the midst of plenty, and still like the grave, cry,
Give, give.――Incorrigibleness under affliction, &c.
II. The second main thing: As man would be a law to himself, so he
would be his own end and happiness in opposition to God. Here four
things shall be discoursed on. 1. Man would make himself his own end
and happiness. 2. He would make anything his end and happiness rather
than God. 3. He would make himself the end of all creatures. 4. He
would make himself the end of God.
First, Man would make himself his own end and happiness. As God ought
to be esteemed the first cause, in point of our dependence on him, so
he ought to be our last end, in point of our enjoyment of him. When
we therefore trust in ourselves, we refuse him as the first cause; and
when we act for ourselves, and expect a blessedness from ourselves, we
refuse him as the chiefest good, and last end, which is an undeniable
piece of atheism; for man is a creature of a higher rank than others
in the world, and was not made as animals, {a136} plants, and other
works of the divine power, materially to glorify God, but a rational
creature, intentionally to honor God by obedience to his rule,
dependence on his goodness, and zeal for his glory. It is, therefore,
as much a slighting of God, for man, a creature, to set himself up as
his own end, as to regard himself as his own law. For the discovery of
this, observe that there is a three‑fold self‑love.
1. Natural, which is common to us by the law of nature with other
creatures, inanimate as well as animate, and so closely twisted with
the nature of every creature, that it cannot be dissolved but with
the dissolution of nature itself. It consisted not with the wisdom and
goodness of God to create an unnatural nature, or to command anything
unnatural, nor doth he; for when he commands us to sacrifice ourselves,
and dearest lives for himself, it is not without a promise of a more
noble state of being in exchange for what we lose. This self‑love is
not only commendable, but necessary, as a rule to measure that duty
we owe to our neighbor, whom we cannot love as ourselves, if we do not
first love ourselves. God having planted this self‑love in our nature,
makes this natural principle the measure of our affection to all
mankind of the same blood with ourselves.
2. Carnal self‑love: when a man loves himself above God, in opposition
to God, with a contempt of God; when our thoughts, affections, designs,
centre only in our own fleshly interest, and rifle God of his honor,
to make a present of it to ourselves: thus the natural self‑love, in
itself good, becomes criminal by the excess, when it would be superior
and not subordinate to God.
3. A gracious self‑love: when we love ourselves for higher ends than
the nature of a creature, as a creature dictates, viz. in subserviency
to the glory of God. This is a reduction of the revolted creature to
his true and happy order; a Christian is therefore said to be “created
in Christ to good works.”[236] As all creatures were created, not
only for themselves, but for the honor of God; so the grace of the
new creation carries a man to answer this end, and to order all his
operations to the honor of God, and his well‑pleasing. The first is
from nature, the second from sin, the third from grace; the first is
implanted by creation, the second the fruit of corruption, and the
third is by the powerful operation of grace. This carnal self‑love is
set up in the stead of God as our last end; like the sea, which all
the little and great streams of our actions run to and rest in. And
this is, 1. Natural. It sticks as close to us as our souls; it is
as natural as sin, the foundation of all the evil in the world. As
self‑abhorrency is the first stone that is laid in conversion, so an
inordinate self‑love was the first inlet to all iniquity. As grace
is a rising from self to centre in God, so is sin a shrinking from
God into the mire of a carnal selfishness; since every creature is
nearest to itself and next to God, it cannot fall from God, but must
immediately sink into self;[237] and, therefore, all sins are well
said to be branches or modifications of this fundamental passion. What
is wrath, but a defence and strengthening self against the attempts of
some real or imaginary evil? Whence springs envy, but from a self‑love,
grieved {a137} at its own wants in the midst of another’s enjoyment,
able to supply it? What is impatience, but a regret that self is not
provided for at the rate of our wish, and that it hath met with a
shock against supposed merit? What is pride, but a sense of self‑worth,
a desire to have self of a higher elevation than others? What is
drunkenness, but a seeking a satisfaction for sensual self in the
spoils of reason? No sin is committed as sin, but as it pretends
a self‑satisfaction. Sin, indeed, may well be termed a man’s self,
because it is, since the loss of original righteousness, the form
that overspreads every part of our souls. The understanding assents
to nothing false but under the notion of true, and the will embraceth
nothing evil but under the notion of good; but the rule whereby
we measure the truth and goodness of proposed objects, is not the
unerring Word, but the inclinations of self, the gratifying of which
is the aim of our whole lives. Sin and self are all one: what is
called a living to sin in one place,[238] is called a living to self
in another: “That they that live should not live unto themselves.”[239]
And upon this account it is that both the Hebrew word, חטא, and the
Greek word, ἁμαρτάνειν, used in Scripture to express sin, properly
signify to miss the mark, and swerve from that _white_ to which all
our actions should be directed, viz. the glory of God. When we fell
to loving ourselves, we fell from loving God; and, therefore, when
the Psalmist saith (Psalm xiv. 2), there were none that sought God,
viz. as the last end; he presently adds, “They are all gone aside,”
viz. from their true mark, and therefore become filthy. 2. Since
it is natural, it is also universal.[240] The not seeking God is as
universal as our ignorance of him. No man in a state of nature but
hath it predominant; no renewed man on this side heaven but hath it
partially. The one hath it flourishing, the other hath it struggling.
If to aim at the glory of God as the chief end, and not to live to
ourselves, be the greatest mark of the restoration of the divine
image,[241] and a conformity to Christ, who glorified not himself,[242]
but the Father;[243] then every man, wallowing in the mire of corrupt
nature, pays a homage to self, as a renewed man is biassed by the
honor of God. The Holy Ghost excepts none from this crime (Phil.
ii. 21): “All seek their own.” It is rare for them to look above or
beyond themselves. Whatsoever may be the immediate subject of their
thoughts and inquiries, yet the utmost end and stage is their profit,
honor, or pleasure. Whatever it be that immediately possesses the mind
and will, self sits like a queen, and sways the sceptre, and orders
things at that rate, that God is excluded, and can find no room in
all his thoughts (Psalm x. 4): “The wicked, through the pride of his
countenance, will not seek after God; God is not in all his thoughts.”
The whole little world of man is so overflowed with a deluge of self,
that the dove, the glory of the Creator, can find no place where to
set its foot; and if ever it gain the favor of admittance, it is to
disguise and be a vassal to some carnal project, as the glory of God
was a mask for the murdering his servants. It is from the power of
this principle that the difficulty of conversion ariseth: as there
is no greater pleasure to a believing {a138} soul than the giving
itself up to God, and no stronger desire in him, than to have a fixed
and unchangeable will to serve the designs of his honor; so there is
no greater torment to a wicked man, than to part with his carnal ends,
and lay down the Dagon of self at the feet of the ark. Self‑love and
self‑opinion in the Pharisees waylaid all the entertainment of truth
(John v. 44): “They sought honor one of another, and not the honor
which comes from God.” It is of so large an extent, and so insinuating
nature, that it winds itself into the exercise of moral virtues,
mixeth with our charity (Matt. vi. 2), and finds nourishment in the
ashes of martyrdom (1 Cor. xiii. 3).
This making ourselves our end will appear in a few things.
1. In frequent self‑applauses, and inward overweening reflections.
Nothing more ordinary in the natures of men, than a dotage on their
own perfections, acquisitions, or actions in the world: “Most think of
themselves above what they ought to think” (Rom. xii. 3, 4). Few think
of themselves so meanly as they ought to think: this sticks as close
to us as our skin; and as humility is the beauty of grace, this is the
filthiest soil of nature. Our thoughts run more delightfully upon the
track of our own perfections, than the excellency of God; and when we
find anything of a seeming worth, that may make us glitter in the eyes
of the world, how cheerfully do we grasp and embrace ourselves! When
the grosser profanenesses of men have been discarded, and the floods
of them dammed up, the head of corruption, whence they sprang, will
swell the higher within, in self‑applauding speculations of their
own reformation, without acknowledgment of their own weaknesses, and
desires of divine assistance to make a further progress. “I thank God
I am not like this publican;”[244] a self‑reflection, with a contempt
rather than compassion to his neighbor, is frequent in every Pharisee.
The vapors of self‑affections, in our clouded understandings, like
those in the air in misty mornings, alter the appearance of things,
and make them look bigger than they are. This is thought by some to be
the sin of the fallen angels, who, reflecting upon their own natural
excellency superior to other creatures, would find a blessedness in
their own nature, as God did in his, and make themselves the last
end of their actions. It is from this principle we are naturally so
ready to compare ourselves rather with those that are below us, than
with those that are above us; and often think those that are above
us inferior to us, and secretly glory that we are become none of the
meanest and lowest in natural or moral excellencies. How far were
the gracious penmen of the Scripture from this, who, when possessed
and directed by the Spirit of God, and filled with a sense of him,
instead of applauding themselves, publish upon record their own faults
to all the eyes of the world! And if Peter, as some think, dictated
the Gospel which Mark wrote as his amanuensis, it is observable that
his crime in denying his Master is aggravated in that Gospel in some
circumstances, and less spoken of his repentance than in the other
evangelists: “When he thought thereon, he wept;”[245] but in the other,
“He went out and wept bitterly.”[246] This is one part {a139} of
atheism and self‑idolatry, to magnify ourselves with the forgetfulness,
and to the injury of our Creator.
2. In ascribing the glory of what we do or have to ourselves, to our
own wisdom, power, virtue, &c. How flaunting is Nebuchadnezzar at
the prospect of Babylon, which he had exalted to be the head of so
great an empire! (Dan. iv. 30): “Is not this great Babylon that I
have built? For,” &c. He struts upon the battlements of his palace,
as if there were no God but himself in the world, while his eye
could not but see the heavens above him to be none of his own framing,
attributing his acquisitions to his own arm, and referring them to
his own honor, for his own delight; not for the honor of God, as a
creature ought, nor for the advantage of his subjects, as the duty of
a prince. He regards Babylon as his heaven, and himself as his idol,
as if he were all, and God nothing. An example of this we have in the
present age. But it is often observed, that God vindicates his own
honor, brings the most heroical men to contempt and unfortunate ends,
as a punishment of their pride, as he did here (Dan. iv. 31): “While
the word was in the king’s mouth, there fell a voice from heaven,”
&c. This was Herod’s crime, to suffer others to do it:[247] he had
discovered his eloquence actively, and made himself his own end
passively, in approving the flatteries of the people, and offered not
with one hand to God the glory he received from his people with the
other.[248] Samosatenus is reported to put down the hymns which were
sung for the glory of God and Christ, and caused songs to be sung
in the temple for his own honor. When anything succeeds well, we are
ready to attribute it to our own prudence and industry: if we meet
with a cross, we fret against the stars and fortune, and second
causes, and sometimes against God: as they curse God as well as their
king (Isa. viii. 21), not acknowledging any defect in themselves. The
Psalmist, by his repetition of, “Not unto us, not unto us, but to thy
name give glory” (Psalm cxv. 1), implies the naturality of this temper,
and the difficulty to cleanse our hearts from those self‑reflections.
If it be angelical to refuse an undue glory stolen from God’s throne
(Rev. xxii. 8, 9), it is diabolical to accept and cherish it. To
seek our own glory is not glory (Prov. xxv. 27). It is vile, and the
dishonor of a creature, who by the law of his creation is referred
to another end. So much as we sacrifice to our own credit, to the
dexterity of our hands, or the sagacity of our wit, we detract from
God.
3. In desires to have self‑pleasing doctrines. When we cannot endure
to hear anything that crosses the flesh; though the wise man tells us,
it is better to hear the “rebuke of the wise, than the song of fools”
(Eccles. vii. 5). If Hanani the seer reprove king Asa for not relying
on the Lord, his passion shall be armed for self against the prophet,
and arrest him a prisoner (2 Chron. xvi. 10). If Micaiah declare to
Ahab the evil that shall befall him, Amon the governor shall receive
orders to clap him up in a dungeon. Fire doth not sooner seize upon
combustible matter than fury will be kindled, if self be but pinched.
This interest of lustful self barred the heart of Herodias against the
entertainment of the truth, and caused her {a140} savagely to dip her
hands in the blood of the Baptist, to make him a sacrifice to that
inward idol.[249]
4. In being highly concerned for injuries done to ourselves, and
little or not at all concerned for injuries done to God. How will
the blood rise in us, when our honor and reputation is invaded, and
scarce reflect upon the dishonor God suffers in our sight and hearing!
Violent passions will transform us into Boanerges in the one case, and
our unconcernedness render us Gallios in the other. We shall extenuate
that which concerns God, and aggravate that which concerns ourselves.
Nothing but the death of Jonathan, a first‑born and a generous son,
will satisfy his father Saul, when the authority of his edict was
broken by his tasting of honey, though he had recompensed his crime
committed in ignorance by the purchase of a gallant victory. But when
the authority of God was violated in saving the Amalekites’ cattle,
against the command of a greater sovereign than himself, he can daub
the business, and excuse it with a design of sacrificing. He was not
so earnest in hindering the people from the breach of God’s command,
as he was in vindicating the honor of his own:[250] he could hardly
admit of an excuse to salve his own honor; but in the concerns of
God’s honor, pretend piety, to cloak his avarice. And it is often
seen, when the violation of God’s authority, and the stain of
our own reputation are coupled together, we are more troubled for
what disgraces us than for what dishonors God. When Saul had thus
transgressed, he is desirous that Samuel would turn again to preserve
his own honor before the elders, rather than grieved that he had
broken the command of God (ver. 30).
5. In trusting in ourselves. When we consult with our own wit and
wisdom, more than inquire of God, and ask leave of him: as the
Assyrian (Isa. x. 13), “By the strength of my hands I have done it,
and by my wisdom; for I am prudent.” When we attempt things in the
strength of our own heads, and parts, and trust in our own industry,
without application to God for direction, blessing, and success, we
affect the privilege of the Deity, and make gods of ourselves. The
same language in reality with Ajax in Sophocles: “Others think to
overcome with the assistance of the gods, but I hope to gain honor
without them.” Dependence and trust is an act due from the creature
only to God. Hence God aggravates the crime of the Jews in trusting in
Egypt (Isa. xxxi. 3), “the Egyptians are men and not gods.” Confidence
in ourselves is a defection from God (Jer. xvii. 5). And when we
depart from and cast off God to depend upon ourselves, which is but
an arm of flesh, we choose the arm of flesh for our God; we rob God of
that confidence we ought to place in him, and that adoration which is
due to him, and build it upon another foundation; not that we are to
neglect the reason and parts God hath given us, or spend more time
in prayer than in consulting about our own affairs, but to mix our
own intentions in business, with ejaculations to heaven, and take
God along with us in every motion: but certainly it is an idolizing
of self, when we are more diligent in our attendance on our own wit,
than fervent in our recourses to God.
6. The power of sinful self, above the efficacy of the notion
of God, {a141} is evident in our workings for carnal self against
the light of our own consciences. When men of sublime reason, and
clear natural wisdom, are voluntary slaves to their own lusts, row
against the stream of their own consciences, serve carnal self with a
disgraceful and disturbing drudgery, making it their God, sacrificing
natural self, all sentiments of virtue, and the quiet of their lives,
to the pleasure, honor, and satisfaction of carnal self: this is a
prostituting God in his deputy, conscience, to carnal affections, when
their eyes are shut against the enlightenings of it, and their ears
deaf to its voice, but open to the least breath and whisper of self; a
debt that the creature owes supremely to God. Much more might be said,
but let us see what atheism lurks in this, and how it entrencheth upon
God.
1. It is usurping God’s prerogative. It is God’s prerogative to be his
own end, and act for his own glory; because there is nothing superior
to him in excellency and goodness to act for: he had not his being
from anything without himself, whereby he should be obliged to act
for anything but himself. To make ourselves then our last end, is to
corrival God in his being the supreme good, and blessedness to himself:
as if we were our own principle, the author of our own being, and were
not obliged to a higher power than ourselves, for what we are and have.
To direct the lines of all our motions to ourselves, is to imply that
they first issued only from ourselves. When we are rivals to God in
his chief end, we own or desire to be rivals to him in the principle
of his being: this is to set ourselves in the place of God. All things
have something without them, and above them as their end; all inferior
creatures act for some superior order in the rank of creation; the
lesser animals are designed for the greater, and all for man: man,
therefore, for something nobler than himself. To make ourselves
therefore our own end, is to deny any superior, to whom we are to
direct our actions. God alone being the supreme Being, can be his
own ultimate end: for if there were anything higher and better than
God, the purity and righteousness of his own nature would cause him
to act for and toward that as his chiefest mark: this is the highest
sacrilege, to alienate the proper good and rights of God, and employ
them for our own use; to steal from him his own honor, and put it into
our own cabinets; like those birds that ravished the sacrifice from
the altar and carried it to their own nests.[251] When we love only
ourselves, and act for no other end but ourselves, we invest ourselves
with the dominion which is the right of God, and take the crown from
his head. For as the crown belongs to the king, so to love his own
will, to will by his own will and for himself, is the property of
God; because he hath no other will, no other end above him to be the
rule and scope of his actions. When therefore we are by self‑love
transformed wholly into ourselves, we make ourselves our own
foundation, without God and against God; when we mind our own glory
and praise, we would have a royal state equal with God, who created
all things for himself.[252] What can man do more for God than he
naturally doth for himself, since he doth all those things for himself
which he should do for God? We {a142} own ourselves to be our own
creators and benefactors, and fling off all sentiments of gratitude
to him.
2. It is a vilifying of God. When we make ourselves our end, it is
plain language that God is not our happiness; we postpone God to
ourselves, as if he were not an object so excellent and fit for our
love as ourselves are (for it is irrational to make that our end,
which is not God, and not the chiefest good); it is to deny him to be
better than we, to make him not to be so good as ourselves, and so fit
to be our chiefest good as ourselves are; that he hath not deserved
any such acknowledgment at our hands by all that he hath done for us:
we assert ourselves his superiors by such kind of acting, though we
are infinitely more inferior to God than any creature can be to us.
Man cannot dishonor God more than by referring that to his own glory,
which God made for his own praise, upon account whereof he only hath a
right to glory and praise, and none else. He thus “changeth the glory
of the incorruptible God into a corruptible image;”[253] a perishing
fame and reputation, which extends but little beyond the limits of his
own habitation; or if it doth, survives but a few years, and perishes
at last with the age wherein he lived.