Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

Nor, secondly, does self-denial consist in giving up a less temporal and personal good for a greater personal and eternal good. The most corrupt and selfish men in the world, are willing to give up any or all their temporal and personal interests for the sake of obtaining future and eternal happiness. Micah represents a sinner as expressing this willingness in the strongest terms. "Wherewith shall I come before -the Lord, and bow myself before the high God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my first born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?" What this person is represented as willing to sacrifice for the salvation of his soul, thousands and thousands of maukind have actually done, to obtain future and eternal happiness. All the idolatrous nations round about Judea, sacrificed their dear infants and children in order to obtain the favour of Moloch and their other false and cruel gods. The heathens in East-India and the EastIndia islands make the same cruel and inhuman sacrifices to their false gods and stupid idols. Some idolize the river Ganges, and sacrifice themselves and others to that idol. Thousands and thousands go as pilgrims to sacrifice themselves to the grand idol Juggernaut. Some are voluntarily, and others involuntarily burnt to ashes, for their own or their friends eternal benefit. The Mahometans, who are semi-christians, go long pilgrimages to Mecca, and practice other self-mortifications for the sake of securing future and eternal happiness. And among those, who call themselves christians, there are a multitude of hermits, monks and nuns, and other enthusiastick and superstitious persons, who voluntarily deny themselves the enjoyments of civil society, macerate their bodies, and subject themselves to the extremes of heat and cold, pain, poverty, and reproach, for the sake of obtaining the salvation of their souls. But there is not the least self-denial in such selfish mortifications, sufferings and sacrifices. If a man should gain the whole world, and then give it up

for the sake of escaping eternal misery and obtaining eternal happiness it would be the highest act of selfishness, instead of self-denial, which does not consist in giving up a less temporal and personal good, for a greater temporal and personal good; nor in giving up a less personal and temporal good, for a greater personal and eternal good. In a word, selfdenial does not consist in any thing that gratifies a selfish heart; and therefore it does not consist in giving up our own present good for our own future good, let our own future good be what it may. But, thirdly and positively, self-denial consists in giving up our own good for the good of others. The man who gives up the least personal good for the personal good of another, without any hope of reward, exercises true self-denial. The man who gives up his private good for the good of the publick without any hope of reward, exercises true self-denial. Such self-denial stands in direct contrariety to selfishness. No man, who is entirely selfish, can be willing to give up his own good for the good of another person, or for the good of the publick, or for the glory of God, without a hope of reward, or receiving a greater good than he bestows. Satan knows, there is no self-denial, and consequently no virtue in selfishness, or in any action that flows from selfishness, and on that ground, he denied that Job had any self-denial, or virtue in his ex"The Lord said ercising love and obedience to God. unto satan, hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil. Then satan answered the Lord, and said, Doth Job fear God for nought? Hast thou not made a hedge about him, and about his house, and about all he hath on every side? Thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land. But put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face." Had Job loved and served God, from mercenary motives, he would undoubtedly have felt, if not acted as satan predicted, when God stripped him at once of all his wealth and

66

prosperity. But he blessed God in his sore afflictions and bereavements, which demonstrated his pure selfdenial and disinterested virtue. Christ, in the text, represents self-denial as consisting in mens' giving up private or personal good for the kingdom of God's sake. Verily I say unto you, there is no man that hath left house, parents, &c. for the kingdom of God's sake, who shall not receive manifold more in this present time, and in the world to come life everlasting." This selfdenial which Christ enjoined, he also practised. So says Paul to the Corinthians. "Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be made rich." Paul says to the Romans, "We then that are strong, ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let every one of us please his neighbour for his good-for even Christ pleased not himself." And again, the apostle says, "Let no man seek his own, but every man another's wealth." According to the dictates of scripture, reason, and conscience, all self-denial consists in giving up our own good for the good of others, when our own personal and private good stands in competition with the good of others. We should never find any difficulty in understanding the nature and tendency of self-denial, if we were only willing to practice it; and we should find no difficulty in practising it, if we only possessed pure disinterested love to God and man. For,

II. True self-denial is productive of the highest present and future happiness. Though this may look like a paradox, yet, I trust, it will appear a plain and important truth, if we consider the following things. And,

1. The nature of true self-denial. It consists, as we have seen, in giving up a less private or personal good for a greater publick good; or in giving up our own good for the greater good of others. And this necessarily implies disinterested benevolence, which is placing our own happiness in the greater happiness of others. When a man gives up his own happiness to promote

the greater happiness of another, he does it freely and voluntarily, because he takes more pleasure in the greater good of another, than in a less good of his own. So that though he gives up private and personal good, yet he does not give up all good, for he enjoys all that good of another, for which he gives up his own. And since that good of another is always greater than his own good, which he gives up for it, he becomes happier than he could be without such an act of self-denial. The selfish man who loves his property more than his ease, enjoys more pleasure in labouring, sweating, and toiling, than in spending his time in idleness and ease. So the benevolent man, who gives up his own personal good for the greater good of his neighbour, enjoys all that greater good of his neighbour, for which he gives up a less personal good of his own, and consequently he is happier, than if he had not done that act of self-denial. Or if a benevolent man gives up his private good to promote a greater publick good, he enjoys all that greater publick good, for which he gives up his private good; and of course becomes happier than if he had not given up the private for his publick good. Or if a benevolent man, gives up his house, or his lands, or his children, or any thing that he calls his own, for the kingdom of God's sake, he enjoys that kingdom of God for which he gives up his personal good, and necessarily becomes happier than if he had not done that great act of self-denial. We cannot conceive of any act of true self-denial, which will not be productive of the present, as well as future good of the person who performs it. It is the dictate of every man's reason, that his giving up his own personal good, for the good of others, or for the glory of God, will be productive of greater good in this life and in the life to come. Let a good man labour and suffer ever so much for the good of others, or the glory of God; the good of others and the glory of God will afford him a happiness which will over-balance all his painful labours and sufferings, and certainly be productive of a greater present and future happiness. If this be true, the benevolent must know

[ocr errors]

it to be true, by their own experience. Let me ask you then, whether you ever enjoyed a purer or higher happiness, than you have found in promoting the good of others and the glory of God, by acts of self-denial?

2. Those who have denied themselves the most, have found the greatest happiness resulting from their selfdenial. God the Father denied himself in giving up his only begotten and dearly beloved Son to suffer and die for this guilty and perishing world. But he always has been, and always will be unspeakably more blessed by this astonishing act of self-denial, than by any thing else he has ever done, or ever will do. The Lord Jesus Christ exercised greater self-denial, than any other person in this world, by becoming incarnate, taking the form of a servant, and becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the cross for the salvation of the most guilty and ill-deserving creatures. But he declares, that he delighted to do his Father's will in suffering and dying; and was then and always will be more happy, than if he had never suffered or died. And on this supposition, the apostle urges christians to imitate his example of self-denial, as the way to become the most happy. "Let us run with patience the race set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God." Moses found the greatest happiness in a long series of self-denying obedience and sufferings. It is expressly said, "By faith, Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter; choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt; for he had respect to the recompense of reward." Paul found selfdenial productive of happiness. He says, "I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ's sake." And ranking himself with christians, he says, "We are

« AnteriorContinuar »