Verses 2-5
Men shall be lovers of their own selves.
The nature and kinds of self-love
I. Self-love, considered in the general, abstracting from particular circumstances, is neither a vice nor a virtue. It is nothing but the inclination of every man to his own happiness. A passionate desire to be always pleased and well-satisfied, neither to feel nor fear any pain or trouble, either of body or mind. It is an instinct of nature common to all men, and not admitting of any excess or abatement. Self-love directed to, and pursuing, what is, upon the whole, and in the last result of things, absolutely best for us, is innocent and good; and every deviation from this is culpable, more or less so, according to the degrees and the circumstances of it.
II. When we blindly follow the instinct of self-love, coveting everything which looks fair, and running greedily upon it without weighing circumstances or considering consequences; or when, to get rid of any present pain or uneasiness, we take any method which first offers, without reflecting how dearly we may pay for it afterwards; I say, when we do thus, then it is that our self-love beguiles us, degenerates into a vicious, or at least, silly appetite, and comes under the name of an overweening, excessive, and inordinate self-love. He suffers the natural instinct of self-love to carry him too far after present satisfaction, farther than is consistent with his more real and durable felicity. To understand the nature of this enchantment, and how it comes to pass that those who love themselves so well, can thus consent to ruin themselves, both bodies and souls, for ever; let us trace its progress.
1. To begin with pride. All the happiness of life is summed up in two articles--pleasing thoughts and pleasing sensations. Now, pride is founded in self-flattery, and self-flattery is owing to an immoderate desire of entertaining some kind of pleasing thoughts.
2. Another instance of inordinate, ill-conducted self-love is sensuality. This belongs to the body more than to the mind, is of a gross taste, aiming only at pleasing sensations. It so far agrees with pride that it makes men pursue the present gratification at the expense of the public peace and to their own future misery and ruin.
3. A third instance of blind and inordinate self-love is avarice or self-interestedness. This is of larger and more diffusive influence than either of the former. So great a part of temporal felicity is conceived to depend upon riches, that the men of this world lie under the strongest temptations to this vine of any. If the case be such, that treachery and fraud, guile and hypocrisy, rapine and violence, may be serviceable to the end proposed; the blind self-lover will charge through all rather than he defeated of his covetous designs, or bear the uneasiness of a disappointment. Thus he comes to prefer his own private, present interest, before virtue, honour, conscience, or humanity. He considers not what would be good for him upon the whole and in the last result, but lives extempore, contrives only for a few days, or years at most, looking no farther. The height of his ambition reaches not beyond temporal felicity, and he miscalculates even in that.
III. Considerations proper to prevent or cure it. It is very evident that the self-lovers are not greater enemies to others in intention than they are in effect to themselves. Yet it is not less evident that they love themselves passionately all the time, and whatever hurt they do to their own selves they certainly mean none. They run upon it as a horse rushes into the battle, as an ox goeth to the slaughter, and as a bird hasteth to the snare, and know not that it is for their life. It is for want of thinking in a right way that men fall into this fatal misconduct, and nothing but serious and sober thought can bring them out of it. I shall just suggest two or three useful considerations, and then conclude.
1. We should endeavour to fix in our minds this great and plain truth, that there can be no such thing as true happiness, separate from the love of God and the love of our neighbour.
2. A second consideration, proper to be hinted, is, that man is made for eternity, and not for this life only. No happiness can be true and solid which is not lasting as ourselves.
3. To conclude, the way to arrive at true happiness is to take into consideration the whole extent and compass of our being; to enlarge our views beyond our little selves to the whole creation round us, whereof we are but a slender part; and to extend our prospect beyond this life to distant glories. Make things future appear as if they were now present, and things distant as if they were near and sensible. (D. Waterland, D. D.)
Self-love
1. Self-love is vicious, when it leads us to judge too favourably of our faults.
(1) Sometimes it finds out other names for them, and by miscalling them endeavours to take away their bad qualities.
(2) Sometimes it represents our sins as weaknesses, infirmities, the effect of natural constitution, and deserving more pity than blame.
(3) Sometimes it excuses them upon account of the intent, pretending that some good or other is promoted by them, and that the motive and the end sanctify the means, or greatly lessen the faultiness of them.
(4) It leads us to set our good in opposition to our bad qualities, and to persuade ourselves that wharfs laudable in us far outweighs what is evil.
(4) It teaches us to compare ourselves with others, and thence to draw favourable conclusions, because we are not so bad as several whom we could name; it shows us the general corruption that is in the world, represents it worse than it is, and then tells us that we must not hope, and need not endeavour to be remarkably and singularly good.
2. Our self-love is irregular, when we think too well of our righteousness, and overvalue our good actions, and are pure in our own eyes.
3. Our self-love is blameable when we overvalue our abilities, and entertain too good an opinion of our knowledge and capacity; and this kind of self-love is called self-conceit. One evil which men reap from it is to be disliked and despised. The reason why self conceit is so much disliked is that it is always attended with a mean opinion of others. From self-conceit arise rash undertakings, hasty determinations, stubbornness, insolence, envy, censoriousness, confidence, vanity, the love of flattery, and sometimes irreligion, and a kind of idolatry, by which a man worships his own abilities, and places his whole trust in them. The unreasonableness of this con ceit appears from the imperfections of the human understanding, and the obstacles which lie between us and wisdom.
4. Our self-love is irregular when we are proud and vain of things inferior in nature to those before mentioned, when we value our selves upon the station and circumstances in which not our own deserts, but favour or birth, hath placed us, upon mere show and outside, upon these and the like advantages in which we surpass others. This conceit is unreasonable and foolish; for these are either things which the possessors can hardly call their own, as having done little or nothing to acquire them, or they are of small value, or they are liable to be irrecoverably lost by many unforeseen accidents.
5. Lastly, our self-love is vicious when we make our worldly interest, convenience, humour, ease, or pleasure, the great end of our actions. This is selfishness, a very disingenuous and sordid kind of self-love. It is a passion that leads a man to any baseness which is joined to lucre, and to any method of growing rich which may be practised with impunity. (J. Jortin, D. D.)
Self.love
I. I shall endeavour to trace out more particularly the workings of this noxious principle, as it respects matters of religion; for it is said of these lovers of themselves, that “they have the form of godliness, but deny the power thereof.”
1. Self-love may carry men out in desires after Christ (see Mark 1:37; John 6:26). Many would partake of Christ’s benefits, who reject His government; receive glory from Him, but give no glory to Him. If they can but go to heaven when they die, they care not how little they have of it before; and are unconcerned about the dominion of sin, if they can but obtain the pardon of it; so that their seeking and striving are now over.
2. Self-love may be the sole foundation of men’s love to, and delight in, God. And indeed it is so with all hypocrites and formalists in religion. Many mistake a conviction of mind, that God is to be loved, for a motion of the heart towards Him; and because they see it to be reasonable that He should be regarded by them, they imagine that He is so. But the highest regard that a natural man can have to the Divine Being, if traced back to its origin, or followed to its various actings, will be found to be self-love.
3. Self-love may be the principle that first excites, and then puts fervour and ardency into our prayers. How coldly do some put up those requests, “Hallowed be Thy Name, Thy kingdom come”; but are much more earnest when they come to those petitions in which their present comfort and future happiness are so much inter ested: “Forgive us our trespasses,” and “Give us our daily bread,” “Let me die the death of the righteous.”
4. Self-love insinuates itself into the severer acts of mortification; nay, it often runs through and corrupts the whole course of religious duties. It is like the dead fly which taints the whole box of precious ointment. From this principle some neglect duties as burdensome, and only seek privileges; a reward without labours, victory without fighting.
5. Self-love runs through all their affections, exertions, and actions, with respect to their fellow-creatures. If they rejoice at others’ prosperity, it is because they themselves may be benefited by it. If, on the other hand, they grieve at their calamities, it is because they are likely to be sharers in them, or some way or other injured by them.
II. from what has been said, you see that self-love is an insinuating principle, appearing in various forms, even in the religious world, and under many artful disguises, hard to be discerned, but harder still to be guarded against. To stir you up to this, let me set before you some of the evils resulting from this easily-besetting, and alas, too universally prevailing sin.
1. It is the root of hypocrisy. So far as self-love and self-seeking influence, we are void of sincerity and integrity.
2. It promotes pride, envy, strife, uncharitableness, and an evil temper and conduct towards all with whom we are conversant. A man who loves himself too well, will never love his God or his neighbour as he ought.
3. All evil may, perhaps, be reduced to this one point: All our desires, passions, projects, and endeavours, centred in self. This was the first sin: “Ye shall be as gods”; and it has continued the master-sin ever since. It is the corrupt fountain, sending forth so many impure and filthy streams. (B. Beddome, M. A.)
A sermon against self-love, etc
1. What kind of self-love is it which St. Paul does here so severely censure?
2. By what manner of influence self-love makes times and seasons become perilous.
3. What times the apostle means by the Last Days; and whence it is that self-love operates with such successful prevalence in those days as to render them the Evil Days.
4. What reflections are fit to be made by us, upon occasion of this argument in relation to our age, and to ourselves, and our present affairs, in order to that which all ought to fast and pray, and labour for the stability of our times and the peace of Jerusalem?
I. To consider what kind of self-love St. Paul speaks against as the fountain of public mischief; for there is a self-love which is a very natural and a very useful principle. No man ever yet hated his own flesh; no man, without the loving of himself, does either preserve or improve himself. If Almighty God would not have suffered men to love themselves, He would not have moved them to their duty by their personal benefit, and especially by so great a recompense as is that of life eternal. It would conduce to the felicity of men, even in this world, if they truly loved themselves; for then they would not waste their fortunes by an unaccountable profuseness, nor destroy their bodies by the extravagances of rage, and luxury, and lust. The self-love here condemned by St. Paul is that narrow wicked affection which either wholly or principally confines a man to his seeming personal good on earth. An affection which either opposeth all public good, or at least all that public good which comes in competition with man’s private advantage. Of such lovers of themselves the apostle gives a very ill character in the words that follow the text. He says of them, in 2 Timothy 3:2, that they are covetous; their heart is like the mouth of a devouring gulf, which sucks in all into itself with deep and unsatiable desire. He continues to mark them, in 2 Timothy 3:3, as persons without natural affection, as people who have no bowels for the miserable part of mankind; as such who rejoice at a public wreck, not considering the loss of others, nor the dismal circumstances of it; but minding with their whole intention the profit which they may gather up for their inhuman selves. He adds, in the same verse, that they are despisers of those who are good. They vilify men of a public spirit.
II. This straight and uncharitable affection is of so malignant an influence, that where it prevails no age can be calm, no government stable, no person secure. And that it is of such perilous consequence may be demonstrated on this manner. God, who is good and does good, designed, that whilst man was here on earth, it should be competently well with him in case of his obedience, though He intended not to give him all his portion in this life. He knew that men could not subsist apart with such conveniences as they might obtain by being knit into regular societies. He, therefore, united them in civil and sacred bodies, that by conjoined strength they might procure those benefits which, in a separate state, and by their single selves, they could not come at. For, consider, how void of comfort a life of entire solitude would have been to man; with what a life of fear would they have been crucified who had stood perpetually by themselves on their own defence; with what a life of labour and meanness would men have been burdened if every one of them must have been his own only servant; if every one had been obliged to build and plant, and till the ground, and provide food and physic and garments for himself by his own solitary power. And how could a man serve himself in any of these necessary offices in times of sickness, lameness, delirium, and decrepit old age? To such a perilous and laborious life as I have been speaking of, indiscreet and vicious self-love tends; for as far as men do mind and seek themselves alone, so far they dissolve society and lessen its benefits, being rather in it than of it. So that the soul which animates society, whose advantages are so considerable, is the great and generous spirit of charity. That violates no compacts, that raises no commotions, that interrupts no good man’s peace, that assaults no innocent man’s person, that invades no man’s property, that grinds no poor man’s face, that envies no man, that supplants no man, that submits its private convenience to the public necessities. Concerning this vile affection, St. Paul taught that it would possess the men of the last days.
III. To consider what times he means by those days, and in what sense he speaks of self-love as the distemper of the last days, seeing it has been the disease of every age. By the last days he means the last age of the world, the age of the Messiah, not excluding that part of it in which he himself lived. There were several precedent periods: that of the fathers before the flood, that of the patriarchs before the Law, that of Moses and the prophets under the Law. But after the age of the Messiah, time itself shall be no more. To this age all evil self-love cannot be confined, for that dotage had a being in the world from the very beginning of it. The murder of Cain was so early, that he sinned without example; and from his selfishness his murder proceeded. We therefore misunderstand St. Paul, if we interpret him as speaking, not of the increase, but of the being; of self-love; for it is not its existence, but its abundance, which he foretells. What he wrote has been true in fact, from the times of Demas and Diotrephes, to this very hour. Light is come into the world, a glorious gospel which shines everywhere; and men love darkness rather than light, and shut up themselves in their own hard and rough and private shells. Selfishness cannot be the direct natural effect of the gospel of Christ, which, of all other dispensations, depresseth the private under the public good. The age of the Messiah is the best of ages in His design, and in the means of virtue which He gives the world; and if the men of it be worse than those of other generations, the greater is the aggravation of their guilt, whilst, under a gospel of the widest charity, they exercise the narrowest selfishness. But, however, so it is: whether it be that wicked men, by a spirit of contradiction, oppose charity where they are most earnestly pressed to it; or that the devil, having but a short time, is the more passionately industrious in promoting the interests of his kingdom; or that the further men are from the age of Divine revelations, the less firmly they believe them. It concerns us then--
IV. To make serious reflections upon this argument, and to suffer our selves to be touched with such deep remorse for the guilt of our partiality, that God may be appeased, and our sins pardoned, and our lives reformed, and that perilous times may be succeeded by many prosperous days. And--
1. Let us give glory to God, and take shame to ourselves, upon the account of that selfish principle which hath long wrought among us, and still worketh.
2. May we not only bewail but amend this great defect in our nature, and in our civil and Christian duty.
(1) The regaining of a public spirit is at all times worthy our care. We can do no greater thing than to “follow God, who is concerned for all, as if they were but one man; and for every single person, as if he were a world.” God hath disposed all things in mutual subserviency to one another: the light, the air, the water, are made for common good; and because they are common, they are the less, but they ought, for that reason, to be the more esteemed. There is not an humble plant that grows to itself, or a mean ex that treads out the corn merely for his own service; and shall man be the only useless part of the creation? It is a most unworthy practice, upon the account of self-interest, to multiply the moral perils of the world, whilst there are inconveniences enough in insensible Nature. It is enough that the natural seasons are tempestuous; men’s passions should not raise more storms. It is enough that famine can destroy so many; uncharitableness should not do it. What is it that is worthy the daily thoughts and the nightly studies of a man of under standing, and of an excellent spirit? Is it the supplanting of a credulous friend, or the oppressing of an helpless neighbour? Alas! these are designs so base and low, that he who calls himself a man should not stoop to them. But that which is worthy of a man is the service of his God, his Church, his country; the generous exposing of himself when a kingdom is in hazard.
(2) A public spirit, as it is worthy our care at all times, so at all times it needs it. For it requires the utmost application of our minds, seeing self-love insinuates with great art and subtlety into all our designs and actions. (Thomas Tenison, D. D.)
Self-love odious
Here you see how far self-love is from being proposed to our practice, when you find it standing in the front of a black and dismal catalogue of the most odious and abhorred qualities. That I may contribute, if possible, to the making men less tenacious, and more communicative, I shall make it my present business to set the two characters in an opposite light, and to show--
I. The odiousness of self-love.
II. The amiableness of a generous and public spirit. There is, indeed, a kind or degree of self-love which is not only innocent; but necessary. The laws of nature strongly incline every man to be solicitous for his own welfare, to guard his person by a due precaution from hurts and accidents; to provide food and raiment, and all things needful for his bodily sustenance, by honest industry and labour; to repair as far as he is able, such decays as may attend his bodily constitution, by proper helps and the best means that are afforded him; and much more to make it his grand concern to secure the everlasting happiness of his immortal part. Such a self-love as this goes little farther than self-preservation, without which principle implanted in us the human species would be soon lost and extinguished, and the work of our great Creator be defeated. But that which St. Paul speaks of with abhorrence is a love merely selfish, that both begins and terminates in a man’s single person, exclusive of all tender regards for any one else: this is, in the worst and most criminal sense, taking care of one only. If we will but look into our own nature, and reflect on the end and design of our creation, the reach and extent of our faculties, our subordination to one another, and the insufficiency of every man as he stands by himself alone, we shall soon be convinced, that doing good and affording each other reciprocal assistance is that for which we were formed and fashioned, that we are linked together by our common wants, as well as by inclination, and that tenderness of disposition and natural sympathy that is implanted in us. That we are born and educated, that we enjoy either necessaries or comforts, that we are preserved from perils in our greener, or ever arrive at riper years, next under the watchfulness and protection of Almighty God, is owing to the care of others. And can anything be more just and reasonable than that we, too, in our turn, should give that succour we have received, and do, not only as we willingly would, but as we actually have been done unto? There is a certain proportion of trouble and uneasiness, as well as of pleasure and satisfaction, that must of necessity be borne by the race of men; insomuch that he who will not sustain some share of the former, is unworthy to partake of any of the comforts of the latter. But here the selfling will interpose, and say: “It is true I have occasion for the help of others, and the help of others I have. I have occasion for the attendance of servants, and by servants I am attended. I want to be supplied with those conveniences of life which artificers provide in their respective occupations, and I am supplied accordingly. So long as I am furnished with sufficient store to pay them an equivalent, I am in no danger of being left destitute of anything that money can procure. This is the commerce I carry on in the world; thus I approve myself a social member of the commonwealth. But what have I to do in parting with my substance to them who can give nothing to me in return?” And sometimes we see it does please Almighty God to make examples of this sort: to humble such haughty and self-confiding men, by reducing them from their towering height, and all the wantonness of prosperity, to the extremity of want and misery. And whenever this happens to be the case, who are then so pitifully abjected? But the universal hatred which such a person naturally contracts will not always be suppressed, nor his former aversion to doing good offices be covered by a charitable oblivion, nor be lost under the soft relentings and a melting commiseration of his present sufferings. In short, since every man has an equal right to confine all his care and endeavours to the promoting his own separate interest, that any one man has, what must be the consequence if such a narrow way of thinking and acting should become universal? Love and friendship terminate at once if every man were to regard himself alone, and to extend his care no farther! Such a situation would put an end to all intercourse and commerce; men would be destitute of all confidence and security, and afraid to trust each other. And this may suffice to show that odious and malignant quality of selfishness, or mere self-love. Let us now consider--
II. The amiableness of a generous and public spirit. He who has a heart truly open and enlarged, over and above that reasonable thoughtfulness and contrivance with which every prudent man will be possessed, about providing for his own, and how to proportion his expenses to his revenue, as well as how to obtain more ample acquisitions, if fair and honourable methods of advancing his fortunes present themselves in his way; I say, beyond this domestic care, he will have room enough in his thoughts to let them be employed sometimes in the service of his friends, his neighbours, and his country; which have not only his best wishes and hearty desires for the success of their affairs, but he makes it his study to promote their welfare, and puts himself to a voluntary trouble and expense in order to extricate them from difficulties and free them from dangers. He has the pleasure of reflecting that a beneficial act is done, and that although he has not been able to animate others to promote it in the same degree with himself, he has, however, been instrumental in causing some good to be done, and the receivers are heartily welcome both to his pains and his contributions. This may appear but a poor satisfaction to little and grovelling minds, who have no idea of any joy that can arise from the reflection on anything that is not attended with present profit, and look upon everything as a losing bargain where more is expended than received. But large and capacious souls have far nobler sentiments; they know how to value and enjoy a loss, and find a secret pleasure in the diminution of their fortune when honourably and worthily employed. We are sure that God Almighty, who gives everything, and receives nothing, is a most perfectly blest and happy being; and the nearer we resemble Him in any of our actions, by so much we advance our own happiness. Such a friendly promoter of the good of others may survey the objects of his love with some degree of that satisfaction wherewith God beheld His workmanship when He had finished the several parts of the Creation, and pronounced that they were good. And as for a man’s name and character, who would not rather choose not to have it mentioned at all, than not mentioned with respect? This seems to be the only end that is sought after by those who delight in show and pomp; and yet this very end might be much better compassed by another way than by that which they affect. For does it not give a sweeter fragrancy to a man’s name? And does not every one speak of him with higher expressions of honour and esteem, who has been a common benefactor, and relieved a multitude of necessitous persons? (Andrew Snape, D. D.)
Self-love the great cause of bad times
1. To inquire what this self-love is which the apostle here speaks of, and wherein the nature and evil of it consists.
2. To show that wherever such self-love spreads and becomes general there must needs be perilous or bad times.
3. To use several arguments to prevent men’s being poisoned and over-run with this dangerous and pernicious principle of self-love.
I. Let us inquire what this self-love is which the apostle here speaks of, and wherein the nature and evil of it consists. Now all self-love when taken in an ill sense, as it is plain this is here by the apostle, must come under one or other of these following notions.
1. Self-love may be considered in opposition to a love of God, and a making His glory and the interests of religion the principal and ultimate end of all our designs and actions; to our loving Him with all our hearts, with all our souls, and with all our minds, and our seeking first, or before all other things, His kingdom and righteousness. And then we may be properly said to be self-lovers in this sense, when we are so very intent upon ourselves and our own interests as not to concern ourselves at all, or to be sure not much and chiefly about God and religion.
2. Self-love may be considered in opposition to that honest and commendable self-love which every man oweth to himself, which is a love of our whole beings, soul as well as bodies, and of every part of them in due measure and proportion to the excellence and worth of them; and then it signifieth a love only of one part of ourselves, or at least an immoderate and disproportionate love of one part above any or all the rest. And in this sense it is to be feared most men are guilty of self-love. And, agreeably to this notion, we find the word self used in Scripture to signify the sensual and carnal part of man.
3. Self-love may be considered in opposition to charity or a love of our brethren; and then it signifieth such a stinginess and narrowness of soul as will not suffer us to have any concern, or take any care for anybody but ourselves, such a temper as is the exact reverse of that which the apostle commendeth, which seeketh not its own, but the things of another, and hardly ever thinks, much less acts, but for itself. Nature has implanted in us a most tender and compassionate sense and fellow-feeling of one another’s miseries, a most ready and prevailing propension and inclination to assist and relieve them; insomuch that pity and kindness towards our brethren have a long time passed under the name of humanity, as properties essential to, and not without violence to be separated from, human nature. And then as to reason, what can possibly be more reasonable than that we who are of the same mass, of one blood, members of each other, and children of the same Father, should love as brethren? That we, who live in a very fluctuating and uncertain state, and though rich to-day, may be poor to-morrow, should act so now towards others as we shall then wish others may act towards us?
4. And then, lastly, as to religion, especially the Christian, besides that this doth acquaint us with a new and intimate relation to each other in Christ Jesus, and consequently a new ground and obligation to love and assist each other. Nay, so great a value do the Scriptures set upon this duty of mercy or charity to our brethren, that wherever they give us, either in the Old or New Testament, a short summary of religion, this is sure to be mentioned, not only as a part, but a main and principal part of it. Nay, farther yet, it sometimes stands for the whole of religion, as that universal name of righteousness given to it is said to be the fulfilling of the law.
5. Self-love may be considered in opposition to a love of the public and a zeal for the common good, and then it signifieth a preferring of our own particular and private interests to those of the whole body.
II. To show that wherever such self-love spreads and becomes general there must needs be perilous or bad times.
1. I say, self-love will make men neglect the public and decline the service of it, especially in times of danger, when their service is most needed. And for this reason we always find it a very difficult task, if not impossible, to engage such men in any public service merely upon a prospect of doing public good. They will use a thousand little shifts and artifices to get themselves excused. Nay, and which is rare in self-lovers, who have always a good stock of self-conceit, rather than fail, they will speak modestly and humbly of themselves, and plead incapacity and want of ability for their excuse. But never is this so plainly to be seen as in times of public danger, when there is most occasion for their assistance. For self-love is constantly attended with a very great degree of self-fear, and this makes mere weather-cocks of such people as are acted by it, continually bandying them about, hither and thither, backwards and forwards, and never suffering them to fix any where till the storm is over, the weather begins to clear up, and they can pretty certainly discern the securest side.
2. That though they do pretend to serve the public, yet it is for their own private ends, and consequently their self-love will suffer them to serve it no farther or longer than these shall be advanced by their so doing. And this but a very poor and uncertain service, and even worse than none at all; for their supreme end being their own private interest, all other ends must of course crouch and become subordinate to this.
3. Their self-love will probably turn them against the public, and instead of preserving and securing it, make them undermine and destroy it; and if so, it is still better they should have no concern with it, because the more concern they have with it the greater will be their opportunity of doing mischief to it. Self-love is a very tyrannical and domineering principle, and generally makes perfect slaves of her subjects, and carrieth them on to all such excesses and extravagances as she shall think fit. For, alas! self-love is the blindest, as well as the greediest, and least able to deny itself of all loves, and will very hardly be brought to see any objections against itself; or at least, if it must see them, it will accept of very easy answers to them, and be a wondrous gentle casuist to itself; so, that, if there but come a good lusty temptation in our way, it is too much to be feared that our self-love will close with it, be it attended with never such hard terms, and that, out of eagerness for the bait, hook and all will go down.
III. To use all the arguments we can to prevent men’s being poisoned and overrun with this dangerous and pernicious principle. And--
1. As to ourselves, there cannot certainly be a better argument than the danger which we were brought into by some men’s immoderate love of their private interest in the late reign.
2. Let us consider that this principle of self-love is a very foolish principle, and really defeats its own end. For this, I take it for granted, I may lay down as a maxim, that every man’s private good is best secured in the public, and, consequently, whatever weakens the public, doth really weaken every private man’s security; and, therefore--
3. This self-love is a most base, pitiful, and mean principle, and will certainly make us odious and contemptible in the sight both of God and man. (William Dawes, D. D.)
Sin multitudinous
See here what a concatenation of sins there is, and how they are linked together--self-lovers, covetous, boasters, proud, etc. Sins (especially great sins)seldom go alone. As great men have great attendance, so great sins have many followers; and as he that admits of a great man into the house must look to have all his ragged regiment and blackguard to follow him, so he that admits but one great sin into his heart must look for Gad, a troop of ugly lusts to throng in after. Sin is like a tryant, the more you yield to it, the worse it tyrannises over you. (T. Hall, B. D.)
Self-love foolish
This is, with the silly bird, to mind nothing but the building of our own nests when the tree is cutting down; and to take more care of our private cabin than of the ship itself when it is sinking. (T. Hall, B. D.)
Self-love hereditary
Hereditary diseases are hardly cured. Self-love is hereditary to us; we are apt to have high conceits of ourselves from the very birth; till grace humble and abase us, all our crows are swans, our ignorance knowledge, our folly wisdom, our darkness light, and all our own ways best though never so bad. (T. Hall, B. D.)
Self-love a manifold disease
This is a disease that hath many other diseases included in it, and so is more hard to cure. Hence spring all those errors and heresies which are so rife in these last days. (T. Hall, B. D.)
Self-love self-deceptive
As a man that is in love doth think the very blemishes in his love to be beautiful, so those that are in love with themselves, and dote on their own opinions, think their heresy to be verity, and their vices virtues. This will bring vexation at last; it troubles us to be cheated by others in petty matters, but for a man to cheat himself wilfully, and that in a matter of the highest concernment, is the trouble of troubles to aa awakened conscience. (T. Hall, B. D.)
Self-love odious to God
The more lovely we are in our own eyes, the more loathsome in God’s; but the more we loathe ourselves, the more God loves us (Jeremiah 31:18; Jeremiah 31:20). (T. Hall, B. D.)
Self-love a primary sin
This sinful self-love is set in the front, as the leader of the file, and the cause of all those eighteen enormities which follow: ‘tis the root from whence these branches spring, and the very fountain from whence those bitter streams do issue. (T. Hall, B. D.)
Pious self-love communicative
There is a pious and religious self-love, considered in relation to God and the common good; thus a man may love himself as an instrument of God’s glory, and as a servant for the good of others, else our Saviour would never set our love to ourselves before us as a pattern of our love to our neighbours. Now, upon these grounds, and in relation to these ends, we may not only love ourselves, but seek ourselves too. This love spreads and dilates itself for God and the good of others. The more noble and excellent things, the more communicative and diffusive they are of themselves. The sun is herein a more noble thing than a torch, and a fountain than a ditch. Christ emptied Himself of His glory, not for His own, but for our benefit (Php 23:6); it will make us part with our own right for peace (Genesis 13:8-9; 1 Corinthians 6:7); it will make us condescend to those of the lower sort (Romans 12:16), not seeking our own profit, but the profit of many (1 Corinthians 10:33); yea, and though they be free, yet love will make them servants to all (1 Corinthians 9:19). On the contrary, self-love contracts the soul, and hath an eye still at self in all its undertakings. ‘Tis the very hedgehog of conversation, that rolls and laps itself within its own soft down, and turns out bristles to all the world besides. (T. Hall, B. D.)
On self-conceit
Sometimes in our imagination we assume to ourselves perfections not belonging to us, in kind or degree. Sometimes we make vain judgments on the things we possess, prizing them beyond their true worth and merit, and consequently overvaluing ourselves on their account. There is indeed no way wherein we do not thus impose on ourselves, either assuming false, or misrating true advantages, so that our minds become stuffed with fantastic imaginations, instead of wise and sober thoughts, and we misbehave ourselves towards ourselves.
1. We are apt to conceit ourselves on presumption of our intellectual endowments or capacities, whether natural, or acquired, especially of that which is called wisdom, which in a manner comprehends the rest, and manages them: on this we are prone to pride ourselves greatly, and to consider that it is presumption, hardly pardonable to contest our dictates: yet this practice is often prohibited and blamed in Scripture. “Be not wise in thine own eyes,” saith the wise man; and “Be not wise in your own conceits,” saith the apostle. If we do reflect either on the common nature of men, or on our own constitution, we cannot but find our conceits of our wisdom very absurd; for how can we take ourselves for wise, if we observe the great blindness of our mind, and feebleness of human reason, by many palpable arguments discovering itself? if we mark how painful the search, and how difficult the comprehension is of any truth; how hardly the most sagacious can descry any thing, how the most learned everlastingly dispute, about matters seeming most familiar and facile; how often the most wary and steady do shift their opinions; how dim the sight is of the most perspicacious, and how shallow the conceptions of the most profound; how narrow is the horizon of our knowledge, and how immensely the origin of our ignorance is distended; how imperfectly and uncertainly we know those few things to which our knowledge reacheth. If also a man particularly reflected on himself, the same practice must needs appear very foolish; for that every man thence may discover in himself peculiar impediments of wisdom; every man in his condition may find things apt to pervert his judgment, and obstruct his acquisition of true knowledge. Such conceitedness therefore is very absurd, and it is no less hurtful; for many great inconveniences spring from it, such as gave the prophet cause to denounce “Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes.” It hath many ways bad influence on our souls, and on our lives; it is often our case, which was the case of Babylon, when the prophet said of it, “Thy wisdom and thy knowledge hath perverted thee; for thou hast said in thy heart, I am, and none else beside me.” It is a great bar to the receiving instruction about things; for he that taketh himself to be incomparably wise, will scorn to be taught. It renders men in difficult cases unwilling to seek, and unapt to take advice; hence he undertaketh and easily is deceived, and incurreth disappointment, damage in his affairs. It renders us very rash in judging; for the first show of things, or the most slender arguments, which offer themselves, being magnified, do sway our judgment. Hence also we persist incorrigible in error; for what reason can be efficacious to reclaim him whose opinion is the greater reason? It renders men peevish; also insolent in imposing their conceits on others. Hence they become censorious of those who do not agree with their notions.
2. Again, we are apt to prize highly and vainly our moral qualities and performances, taking ourselves for persons of extraordinary goodness, without defects or blemishes; which practice is both foolish and mischievous. It is very foolish; for such is the imperfection and impurity of all men, even of the best, that no man who strictly searches his heart can have reason to he satisfied with himself or his doings. Every man is in some degree sinful; conceit therefore of our virtue is very foolish; and it breeds great mischiefs. Hence springs a great carelessness of correcting our faults, a contempt of any means conducive to our amendment, such as good advice and wholesome reproof. It breeds arrogance even in our devotions to God, like that of the conceited Pharisee; also a haughty contempt of others: it disposes men to expect more than ordinary regard from others; and as it causes a man to behave himself untowardly to them, so thence he behaves unseemingly towards himself, of whom he becomes a flatterer, and profane idolater.
3. Self-conceit is also frequently grounded on other inferior advantages: on gifts of nature, or of fortune; but seeing that these things are in themselves of little value, and serving no great purpose; seeing they are not commendable, as proceeding from chance; seeing they are not durable or certain, but easily may be severed from us, the vanity of self-conceit founded on them is so notorious, that it need not be more insisted on. (Isaac Barrow.)
On vain-glory
When a regard to the opinion or desire of the esteem of men is the main principle from which their actions do proceed, or the chief end which they propound to themselves, instead of conscience of duty, love and reverence of God, hope of the rewards promised, a sober regard to their true good, this is vain-glory. Such was the vain-glory of the Pharisees, who fasted, who prayed, who gave alms, who “did all their works that they might be seen of men,” and from them obtain the reward of estimation and applause: this is that which St. Paul forbiddeth: “Let nothing be done out of strife or vain-glory.”
1. It is vain, because unprofitable. Is it not a foolish thing for a man to affect that which little concerns him, and by which he is not considerably benefited? Yet such is the opinion of men; for how do we feel the motions of their fancy?
2. It is vain, because uncertain. How easily are the judgments of men altered I how fickle are their conceits!
3. It is vain because unsatisfactory; for how can one be satisfied with the opinion of bad judges, who esteem a man Without good grounds, commonly for things which deserve not regard?
4. It is vain, because fond. It is ugly and unseemly to others, who despise nothing more than acting on this principle.
5. It is vain, because unjust. If we seek glory to ourselves, we wrong God thereby, to whom glory is due: if there be in us any considerable endowment of body or mind, it is from God, the author of our being, who worketh in us to will and to do according to His good pleasure.
6. It is vain because mischievous. It corrupts our mind with a false pleasure that chokes the purer pleasures of a good conscience, of spiritual joy and peace, bringing God’s displeasure on us, and depriving us of the reward due to good works performed out of a pure conscience, etc. “Verily they have their reward.” (Isaac Barrow.)
Some general remedies of self-love
1. To reflect on ourselves seriously and impartially, considering our natural nothingness, infirmity, unworthiness; the meanness and imperfection of our nature, the defects and deformities of our souls, the failings and misdemeanours of our lives.
2. To consider the loveliness of other beings superior to us; comparing them with ourselves, and observing how very far in excellency, worth, and beauty they transcend us.
(1) If we view the qualities and examples of other men, who in worth, in wisdom, in virtue, and piety, do far excel us; their noble endowments, what they have done and suffered in obedience to God, their self-denial, their patience, how can we but in comparison despise ourselves?
(2) If we consider the blessed angels and saints in glory--their purity, their humility, their obedience--how can we think of ourselves without abhorrence?
(3) Especially if we contemplate the perfection, the purity, the majesty of God; how must this infinitely debase us in our opinion concerning ourselves, and consequently diminish our fond affection toward things so vile and unworthy?
3. To study the acquisition and improvement of charity toward God and our neighbour. This will employ and transfer our affections; these drawing our souls outward, and settling them on other objects, will abolish or abate the perverse love toward ourselves.
4. To consider that we do owe all we are and have to the free bounty and grace of God: hence we shall see that nothing of esteem or affection is duo to ourselves; but all to Him, who is the fountain and author of all our good.
5. To direct our minds wholly toward those things which rational self-love requireth us to regard and seek: to concern ourselves in getting virtue, in performing our duty, in promoting our salvation, and arriving to happiness; this will divert us from vanity: a sober self-love will stifle the other fond self-love. (Isaac Barrow.)
Self-centred
Original cause of all wickedness, so that they make their own I the centre of their thinking, feeling, willing and doing. (Van Oosterzee.)
Self-love
Such a love of self as to lead us to secure our salvation is proper. But this interferes with the rights arid happiness of no other persons. The selfishness which is condemned is that regard to our own interests which interferes with the rights and comforts of others; which makes self the central and leading object of living; and which tramples on all that would interfere with that. As such, it is a base, and hateful, and narrow passion. (A. Barnes.)
Selfishness common
How many are there who occupy public places with private spirits? While they pretended to undertake everything for the good of others it has appeared that they undertook nothing but for the good of themselves. Such suckers at the roots have drawn away the sap and nourishment from the tree. They have set kingdoms on fire, that they might roast their own venison at the flames. These drones stealing into the hive have fed upon the honey, while the labouring bees have been famished. Too many resemble ravenous birds, which at first seem to bewail the dying sheep; but, at last, are found picking out their eyes. These people never want fire, so long as any yard affords fuel. They enrich their own sideboard with other men’s plate. There is a proverb, but none of Solomon’s, “Every man for himself and God for us all.” But where every man is for himself, the devil will have all. Whosoever is a seeker of himself is not found of God. Though he may find himself in this life, he will lose himself in death. (T. Seeker.)
Selfishness condemned by philosophy
Plato anticipated one half of a Christian doctrine by saying, “Ye are not your own, but the State’s.” (J. F. B. Tinling, B. A.)
The Divine Nemesis
It is a remarkable revelation of the Divine Nemesis, that they who, with the denial of the faith, begin not seldom with the beautiful phrase, that they are zealous for morality, and wish to maintain the morals of the gospel, while they reject dogma, just upon this road advance gradually to the most decided immorality. He who digs out the tree, cannot also enjoy the fruit. Emancipation from all authority theoretically leads practically to the promulgation of the rights of the flesh. (Van Oosterzee.)
Covetous.
Covetous
If selfshness be the prevailing form of sin, covetousness may be regarded as the prevailing form of selfishness. Entering with the first transgression, and violating the spirit of the whole law, it has polluted and threatened the existence of each dispensation of religion; infected all classes and relations of society; and shown itself capable of the foulest acts. (J. Harris, D. D.)
Covetousness seen in human life
Commerce is covetous; competition is without bounds; rapid fortunes, sudden falls, speculations without end, hazards, excitements for gaining under all forms; such is the new mode of satisfying the old thirst for gold. Industry is covetous: those admirable inventions which are continually succeeding one another aim less at the progress of art than at the making of money; produced by the hope of gain, they hasten toward gain. Ambition is covetous; that solicitude for office which crowds all the avenues to authority aims less than formerly at honour, and more at money. The struggle of parties is covetous. Legislation is covetous: in it money is the chief corner-stone; money chooses the arbiters of our social and political destinies. Marriage is sometimes covetous: the union of man and woman becomes a secondary matter. Literature is covetous; impatient of producing, and more impatient of acquiring, the literature of the present day spends its strength in unfinished, defective, extravagant works, perhaps immoral and impious, which cater for the tastes of the multitude, and pour into the hands of their authors streams of gold unaccompanied by glory. (A. Monod, D. D.)
Covetousness barren of grace
We may as soon expect a crop of corn on the tops of barren mountains, as a crop of grace in the hearts of covetous cormorants. (T. Hall, D. D.)
Covetousness rerealed in talk
“Out of the abundance of the heart doth the mouth speak.” (Matthew 12:34.) What is in the warehouse will appear in the shop, what is in the heart, the tongue tells you. As is the man, such is his language; as we know what countryman a man is by his language; a Frenchman speaks French, etc. So we may guess at men by their language; a good man hath good language, he speaks the language of Canaan; an evil man speaks the language of the world (Isaiah 32:6.), discourse with him of that, and he is in his element; he can talk all day of it, and not be weary: but talk to him of spiritual things, and he is tanquam piscis in arido, out of his element, he hath nothing to say. It is a sure sign men are of the world, when they speak only of the world (1 John 4:5). (T. Hall, D. D.)
Boasters.--
Meanness of boasting
Lord Bacon told Sir Edward Cooke when he boasted, “The less you speak of your greatness, the more I shall think of it.” Mirrors are the accompaniments of dandies, not heroes. The men of history were not perpetually looking in the glass to make sure of their own size. Absorbed in their work they did it, and did it so well that the wondering world saw them to be great and labelled them accordingly. (S. Coley.)
Vain boasting
A gourd had wound itself around a lofty palm, and in a few weeks climbed to its very top. “How old mayest thou be?” asked the new-comer. “About a hundred years.” “About a hundred years and no taller? Only look: I have grown as tall as you in fewer days than you count years!” “I know that very well,” replied the palm; “every summer of my life a gourd has climed up around me, as proud as thou art, and as short-lived as thou wilt be.”
Boasters
This sin is fitly linked to the former; for when men by covetous practices, have gained riches, then they begin to boast and glory in them (Proverbs 18:11; 1 Timothy 6:17), because of the supposed good which they think riches will procure them, as friends, honours, fine clothes, fine buildings. The Greek word is diversely rendered, yet all tend to one and the same thing, and are coincident; for he that is a boaster is usually a vain-glorious, lofty, insolent, arrogant man: it notes one that is inordinately lifted up with a high esteem and admiration of his own supposed or real excellencies; and thereupon arrogates and assumes more to himself than is meet; or, one that boasts of the learning, virtues, power, riches, which he hath not, and brags of acts which he never did. The proud man boasts of what he hath, and the boaster brags of what he hath not. This vice is opposed to verity; and in proper speaking it consists in words, rather than in the heart; for as pride, in exact and proper speaking, hath relation to the heart, rather than the words; so this sin of boasting hath relation to our words, rather than our hearts: so that this sin is the daughter of pride, for when pride lieth hid in the heart, it shows itself by arrogant boastings, and high-flown words. (T. Hall, D. D.)
Boasters discontented
Thus when men set a high rate upon their own parts and perfections, they be very impatient and discontented, if others will not come to their price, and because other men will not, they will canonise themselves for saints. (T. Hall, D. D.)
Boasting of vice
It is dangerous to excuse and defend sin, but to boast of vices, as if they were virtues, is the height of villany. (T. Hall, D. D.)
Boasting no recommendation
When men’s mouths are so full of their own praise, it augurs an emptiness of grace within; full vessels make little noise, when empty ones sound loud. Empty carts make a great rattle, when the loaded ones go quietly by you; your poor pedlars that have but one pack, do in every market show all they have, when the rich merchant makes but a small show of that whereof he hath great plenty within. The worst mettle rings loudest, and the emptiest ears of corn stand highest. Labour therefore for the contrary grace of modesty. (T. Hall, D. D.)
Proud.--
Downfall of pride
A kite having risen to a very great height, moved in the air as stately as a prince, and looked down with much contempt on all below. “What a superior being I am now!” said the kite; “who has ever ascended so high as I have? What a poor grovelling set of beings are all those beneath me! I despise them.” And then he shook his head in derision, and then he wagged his tail; and again he steered along with so much state as if the air were all his own, and as if everything must make way before him, when suddenly the string broke, and down fell the kite with greater haste than he ascended, and was greatly hurt in the fall, Pride often meets with a downfall. (Cobbin.)
Pride abounding
And is not this the master-sin of this last and loose age of the world; when did pride ever more abound in city and country, in body and soul, in heart, head, hair, habit; in gestures, vestures, words, works? (T. Hall, B. D.)
Pride hated by the proud
It is so base a sin, that even the proud themselves hate it in others. (T. Hall, D. D.)
The natural heart full of pride
Naturally we are all as full of pride as a toad is of poison. The sea is not more full of monsters, the air of flies, the earth of vermin, and the fire of sparks, than our corrupt natures are of proud, rebellious imaginations against God. (T. Hall, D. D.)
Pride poisons virtuous actions
It is the poison of virtuous actions; the meat may be good in itself, but if there be poison in it, it becomes deadly. Praying, preaching, alms, are good in themselves, but if pride get into them, it leavens and sours the best performances. It is a worm that devours the wood that bred it. He that is proud of his graces, hath no grace; his pride hath devoured it all. (T. Hall, D. D.)
Blasphemers.--
Gradation in sin
He tells us, men shall be self-lovers, silver-lovers, boasters, proud, insulting over their brethren, and, which is worse, they spare not God Himself, but are blasphemers of Him. (T. Hall, D. D.)
Blasphemy ungrateful
It argues the highest ingratitude in the world for a man, like a mad dog, to fly in the face of his master, who keeps and feeds him, and to Use that heart and tongue which God made for His praise, to the dispraise and disparagement of his Creator, to load Him with injuries, who every day loads us with mercies, and to curse Him who blesseth us. What greater ingratitude? (T. Hall, D. D.)
Unthankful.--
Enormity of ingratitude
Philip, King of Macedonia, caused a soldier of his, that had offered unkindness to one that had kindly entertained him to be branded in the forehead with these two words, Hospes ingratus. Unthankfulness is a monster in nature, a solecism in manners, a paradox in divinity, a parching wind to dry up the fountain of further favour. (J. Trapp.)
Connection of ingratitude with other evils
There be three usual causes of ingratitude upon a benefit received--envy, pride, covetousness; envy, looking more at others’ benefits than our own; pride, looking more at ourselves than the benefit; covetousness, looking more at what we would have, than what we have. (Bp. Hall.)
Ingratitude mars friendship
It is a lump of soot, which, falling into the dish of friendship, destroys its scent and flavour. (Basil.)
Without natural affection.--
Want of affection
Fontaine’s character was such that it seemed incompatible with strong attachments. He married at the persuasion of his family, and left his wife behind him when he went to live at Paris at the invitation of the Duchess of Bouillon. His only son was adopted by Harley, the archbishop, at the age of fourteen. Meeting the youth long afterwards, and being pleased with his conversation, he was told that this was his son. “Ah,” said he calmly, “I am very glad of it.”
Cruelty to children
Twice in six months one father had to be sent to prison whom it seemed a shame to send at all. When he had gone his second time, there was found on his table “The Floating Matter of the Air,” by Tyndall, With his book-mark at page 240, to which he had read. Had you passed him and his wife together in the street, you would have unconsciously felt a certain pride in the British workman; yet was he not ashamed to express openly a desire to be rid of the tasks and limitations his children set to his life, and twice in one night he gave an infant of fifteen months old a caning for crying of teething. His clenched fist could have broken open a door at a blow, and with it, in his anger, he felled a child three years and a half old, making the little fellow giddy for days, and while he was thus giddy felled him again; and because the terrible pain he inflicted made the child cry, he pushed three of his huge fingers down the little weeper’s throat--“plugging the little devil’s windpipe,” as he laughingly described it. He denied none of the charges, and boldly claimed his right--the children were his own, he said. (Contemporary Review.)
Natural affection
A. team was running away with a small child, when a mother, seeing its danger, cried in agony, “Stop that waggon, and save the child!” as loud as she could. A heartless man said, “Silly woman I don’t fret yourself; it isn’t your child.” The woman replied, “I know that; but it’s somebody’s child.”
Truce breakers.--
Covenant proof
They will make no more of a covenant than a monkey doth of his collar, which he can slip off and on at his pleasure. In the last days, men will not only be sermon-proof and judgment-proof, but covenant-proof; no bonds so strong, so sacred, but they can as easily break them as Samson did the bonds of the Philistines. It is not personal, sacramental, or national vows that can keep the men of the last times within the circle of obedience. (T. Hall, B. D.)
How rightly to covenant
Now that we may covenant rightly, we must do it--
1. Judiciously.
2. Sincerely.
3. Unanimously.
4. Affectionately, with--
(1) Fear.
(2) Love.
(3) Joy. (T. Hall, B. D.)
False Accusers.--
Faults invented
If they can find no faults, they will invent some, as the devil did by Job (Job 2:9-11; Job 2:5), and this properly is slandering. (T. Hall, B. D.)
The backbiter
As those buy at one place and sell at another, so these pedling devils make merchandise of their words, hearing a false tale at one house and selling it at another. The back-biter is a mouse that is always gnawing on the good name of his neighbour. Sometimes he whispers in secret, and anon he openly defames, yet subtlely covering all with a deep sigh, professing his great sorrow for such an cue’s fall; when they should delight in the virtues of others, they feed upon their vices. (T. Hall, B. D.)
Actions to be kindly interpreted
It is a rule in heraldry, and it holds good in divinity, that in blazoning arms and ensigns the animals must be interpreted in the best sense, according to their noble and generous qualities--e.g., if a lion or a fox be the charge, we must conceive his quality represented to be wit and courage, not rapine and pilfering. So, and much more, in blazoning my brother’s name, I must find out what is best, and mention that; if I meet with a sin of infirmity and humane frailty, I must conceal it; it is the glory of a man to pass it by (Proverbs 19:11.) (T. Hall, B. D.)
Slander poisonous
It is the custom in Africa for hunters, when they have killed a poisonous snake, to cut off its head and carefully bury it deep in the ground, a naked foot stepping on one of these fangs would be fatally wounded; the poison would spread in a very short time all through the system. This venom lasts a long time, and is as deadly after the snake is dead as before. The Red Indians used to dip the points of their arrows in this poison; so, if they made the least wound, their victim would be sure to die. The snake’s poison is in its teeth; but there is something quite as dangerous, and much more common, in communities, which has its poison on its tongue. Indeed, your chances of escape from a serpent are greater. The worst snakes usually glide away in fear at the approach of man, unless disturbed or attacked. But this creature, whose poison lurks in its tongue, attacks without provocation, and follows up its victim with untiring perseverence. We will tell you his name, so you will always be able to shun him. He is called “Slanderer.” He poisons worse than a serpent. Often his venom strikes to the life of a whole family or neighbourhood, destroying all peace and confidence. (Dictionary of Illustrations.)
Slander, overruled
After reading a slanderous article in an evening paper, an anonymous friend sent to the Church Missionary Society, as a protest, a cheque for £1,000. Livingstone said, “I got two of my best friends through being ill-spoken of.” (J. F. B. Tinling, B. A.)
Incontinent.--Rules to be observed in our feasting:--
1. It must be done seasonably.
2. Soberly.
3. Discreetly.
4. Religiously. (T. Hall, B. D.)
How to know a drunkard
Question: But how shall we know a drunkard? Answer: By his affections, words, and actions. (T. Hall, B. D.)
Preservatives against incontinency
1. Take heed of intemperance in eating and drinking; when men are fed to the full, then, like pampered stallions, they neigh after their neighbours’ wives (Jeremiah 5:9; Ezekiel 16:49). Take away the fuel, and the fire goeth out; take away the provender, and you will tame the beast. Drunkenness and whoring are joined together (Proverbs 23:31; Proverbs 23:33; Hosea 4:11.)
2. Idleness breeds uncleanliness, as standing pools do mud.
3. Take heed of evil company; come not near the house of the harlot (Proverbs 5:8-11). He that would not be burnt, must not come too near the fire.
4. Set a watch over the eyes. The devil gets into our hearts by these windows of the soul. (T. Hall, B. D.)
Fierce.--
The fierceness of sin
This is the thirteenth sin which helps to make the last days perilous. Men will then more especially be of a fierce, rude, savage, barbarous, inhuman disposition. They will be cruelly and bloodily disposed. There will be in them no meekness nor mildness to regulate the passions; but, like brute beasts, they will be ready to slay all such as oppose them. This is a fruit of that self-love and covetousness before mentioned. (T. Hall, B. D.)
Wickedness ferocious
This verity is made one special note of the wicked (Proverbs 12:10; Proverbs 17:3; Genesis 49:7). Hence in Scripture they are compared to lions (Job 4:10); to wolves (Habakkuk 1:8): bears (Proverbs 17:12); horses, which must be restrained from hurting with bit and bridle (Psalms 32:9); serpents (Psalms 74:13-14); dogs (Philippians 3:2; Matthew 7:6); boars (Psalms 80:13); threshers, which bruise and oppress the people of God (Amos 1:3): millers, that grind them with their cruelty; and to butchers, which do not only fleece, but slay the sheep. (T. Hall, B. D.)
Lessons
1. Then let men get grace, that breeds humanity, civility, and candid carriage towards all. Such will not, dare not, hurt their brethren in body, soul, goods, or good name (Psalms 15:3). We need not fear those that truly fear God.
2. As grace will keep you from being fierce against others actively, so it will be a shield to keep you from the rage of fierce men passively (Isaiah 33:15; Isaiah 33:19). It is disobedience which brings fierce men against a people (Deuteronomy 28:50); but when we are obedient, God will restrain their rage, and bound them, as he doth the proud waves of the sea (Job 38:11).
3. Admire the goodness of the Lord, who preserves His lambs in the midst of so many fierce lions. Did not the great Lord, Keeper of the world, watch His vineyard night and day, the boar out of the wood would soon lay it waste. The thorns would soon over-top this lily, and the birds of prey devour God’s turtle. (T. Hall, B. D.)
Despisers of those that are good.--
Antipathy between good and evil
I. If we consider that strong antipathy and enmity which is between the righteous and the wicked, there is an irreconcileable war and hatred between them (Genesis 3:15).
2. In respect of the dissimilitude of their manners. They have contrary principles, practices, ends, and aims.
3. To try and exercise the faith, hope, patience, and constancy of His people (Isa 27:9; 2 Thessalonians 1:4; Daniel 12:10).
4. To wean them from the world. It is easy to love a good man for his riches, learning, parts, gifts; this is but a carnal love, and springs from carnal ends and principles (James 2:1-4). True love is a spiritual love, springing from spiritual considerations; it makes men love the saints for their faith, zeal, etc., and not for any by-respect. (T. Hall, B. D.)
Traitors.--Now of these traitors there are three sorts--
1. Traitors political.
2. Ecclesiastical.
3. Domestical. (T. Hall, B. D.)
Fidelity
Let us be faithful to the truth of God, faithful to the land of our nativity, and faithful in all our relations. Fidelity is the chiefest bond of human society; take away this, and you take away all peace and commerce from amongst men. It is only to the faithful that the promises run (Psalms 31:23). The Lord will preserve the faithful, and make them to abound with blessings (Proverbs 28:10). (T. Hall, B. D.)
William Tyndale’s betrayal
The immediate agent of Tyndale’s troubles is known to have been an English ecclesiastic, Phillips by name, who acted the part of a Judas, by artfully ingratiating himself into the translator’s confidence, and then conspiring with Pierre Dufief, the procureur at Brussels, to arrest him. The martyr’s capture was effected in the street, as Tyndale and Phillips were leaving the house of Poyntz to dine together. Poyntz had expressed to his friend his suspicions of the lurking Englishman; but so adroitly did Phillips act the hypocrite by affecting zeal for the Reformation and love for the Bible, that he found himself courted and trusted, while Tyndale disregarded all warnings. (Sword and Trowel.)
Heady.--In the last days men will be heady, hasty, rash, inconsiderate; they will be carried by the violence of their lusts without wit or reason. They will set upon things too high and too hard for them, like young birds which, flying before they are fledged, fall to the ground, and so break their bones: so much the word implies. They will make desperate adventures; they will be rash in their words and works, precipitate and inconsiderate in all their undertakings; what they do will be raw, rude, indigested, unconcocted. Hence the word is rendered “rash” and unadvised. (T. Hall, B. D.)
Lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God.--
Lovers of pleasure described and warned
I. Who belong to this number.
1. All whose fondness for pleasure leads them to violate the commands of God--
(1) By indulging in forbidden pleasures.
(2) By inordinate pursuit of pleasures not in themselves sinful or expressly forbidden.
2. All who are led by a fondness for pleasure to indulge in amusements which they suspect may be wrong, or which they do not feel certain are right. When we love any person supremely, we are careful to avoid not only those things which we know will displease him, but such as we suspect may do it.
3. All who find more satisfaction in the pursuit of worldly pleasures than they do in God’s service.
4. All who are deterred from immediately embracing the Saviour, and commencing a religious life, by an unwillingness to renounce the pleasures of the world, are most certainly lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God.
II. Their sinful, guilty, and dangerous condition.
1. That the apostle considered them as sinful, in no common degree, is evident from the company in which he has placed them. It is still farther evident from the description which he gives of them in some of the verses succeeding the text. For instance, he there informs us that such are persons of corrupt minds. What can be a more satisfactory proof of a corrupt state of mind in a rational, immortal being, than a preference of unsatisfying, transitory, sinful pleasures to his Creator.
2. In the second place the apostle informs us that they resist the truth. This they must do, for their deeds are evil. Such persons hate the truth, because the truth condemns their sinful but beloved pleasures.
3. Hence they are represented as despisers of good men. They consider such men, whose conduct reproves them, as the enemies of their happiness, and ridicule them as rigid, morose, superstitious, or hypocritical persons, and who will neither enjoy the world themselves, nor allow others to do it.
4. Lastly, the persons we are describing are represented as being dead in trespasses and sins. She that liveth in pleasure, is dead while she liveth. They are dead as it respects the great end of their existence; dead to everything that is good; dead in the sight of a holy God; loathsome to Him as a corpse is to us, and as unfit for the society of the living Jehovah, as the naturally dead are for the society of the living. (E. Payson, D. D.)
The Christian view of amusements
I. Amusement is to be used as recreation. The clerk who has been hours at the desk, the mechanic in his shop, the student with his books, will take exercise and bring the unused muscles into play, and so reinvigorate the frame, or the weary brain will be soothed by the excitement and absorption of some game, or the mind, perplexed with life’s mysteries and sorrows, will wander away into the world of imagination under the spell of some master spirit, while another will plunge into long-hidden secrets of nature revealed by our modern science, and wonderingly learn the Creator’s wisdom, power, and love. But do you observe the assumption underlying this principle? The assumption is, that you are hard at work at your life’s task. But now, supposing you have found, and are engaged in, your life’s work, apply this principle of amusement as recreation. Nothing is lawful which deteriorates any of your powers or hinders the effectual discharge of duty. What is helpful in moderation becomes harmful in excess; amusement begun as a recreation may end in dissipation. If a man spends his holiday in toil some excursions by day and revellings at night, and returns to his work unfitted for his daily calling, he loves pleasure rather than God. Had he loved God supremely, he would have always kept in mired that he was having a holiday to fit himself for the due discharge of his God-given work; but he has thought of amuse ment for its own sake, and has been abusing it. Further, if that is unlawful which dissipates, that which corrupts is still worse. If your recreation brings you necessarily into corrupting companionships, it is thereby condemned, and it is to be renounced,
II. We must observe in our recreations the golden rule of doing to others as we would have them do to us. We must ask at what cost to them selves do others produce what amuses and recreates us. If your amusement demands loss of modesty, it demands what must harm you, as well as injure her who loses modesty. In the old slave days our fathers and mothers denied themselves sugar, refusing to eat the forced produce of their outraged brothers and sisters. But this principle applies still more widely, not only to woman, but to man; not only to human beings, but to animals as well; with regard to all these, we shall require that our recreation involves the shame, suffering, and ruin of none. A word should be said with regard to the waste of time involved in many harmless recreations. (A. N. Johnson, M. A.)
The love of pleasure
The moral effects of this exorbitant and over-mastering love of pleasure are very awful. In cases of the greatest excess, the very body gives way under it. Gluttony, drunkenness, licentiousness, not only eclipse the mental lights, and scorch the moral sensibilities of the soul, but they hasten the body to dissolution; they dig many a dishonoured grave. But apart from these physical consequences, and even in those cases where they do not follow, the moral effects of the love of pleasure are very sad. Take a tree that needs firm rooting and fresh air, and put it in a hothouse, or in some steamy vaporous place where no winds reach it, and where light is dim, and see how weak and how faded it will become. Such is the man who has blotted out the word “duty” from the plan of his life, and written “pleasure” there in its stead; who feels life no longer to be a moral strife, with God and goodness as its end, but only a low and ignoble endeavour to snatch enjoyment and secure comfort. That man must wither even while he seems to bloom; he must fall, however he may appear to rise; to him there are no stirrings of noble impulse, no victories of the will, no clear light of supreme law. Life is a song, a play, a picture, a feast, a superficial shallow thing--for the man is a lover of pleasure more than a lover of God. And when men sink thus far, it is very hard to raise them. The worm is at the heart of the tree--the corrosive stain is beneath the surface--it is eating the metal through and through. “She that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth.” Dead in this sin, the love of pleasure. The noblest things have gone now. There is nothing left to which we can appeal.
I. From such turn away, not only from the wicked men described in the passage, but from pleasure lovers. Turn away from them, from the frivolous, the butterfly race, who find no seriousness in life, who take no time for thought, who have no spirit of prayer, and no love of God. Such people can do you only harm. If they were willing to bless you, they have no means of doing it. Their life is a scanty rill; and if you find that you cannot influence them, then turn from them, lest you put your own soul in peril.
II. We may take this as a guiding rule of invariable and universal application--that duty is to stand morally supreme in our life. It is to be far above enjoyment of every kind. We shall never be safe otherwise. If life is moral, it must be moral all through--from its lowest to its highest things.
III. There must be self-denial in every true human life. We are not safe without that. We shall not keep our life wholesome, green, and growing, without a good deal of self-denial in it. Self-denial is like the pulling of the reins now and again, just to see that we have those fiery coursers, the passions, well in hand. It is like the touching of the helm when the sea runs high, or the tides are treacherous, to make sure that the ship will answer to it if there should be sudden need to turn her course.
IV. The love of God, possessed and cultured, will certainly save us from the degradation and the doom of such a life as that against which we are here warned. The love of pleasure is not put in the text against the love of God, as if they were direct opposites. The sin is to love pleasure more than God; the cure is to love God more than pleasure, and pleasure only in a moderated sense in Him. (A. Raleigh, D. D.)
Amusements
I. The spirit of amusements. Amusements are dangerous things. Can any of you explain how it comes to be that in amusements in general there is such a lack of all reference to God? Where is the party that will more brutally resent the intrusion of religion, or flee more abashed at its mention, than just the party of pleasure? Instinctively there is felt an incongruity between the two. The startled response to Mr. Blackwood in a ball-room, I take to be the outspeaking of the universal feeling--“For goodness’ sake, Mr. Blackwood, don’t introduce that here!” In the lull of a dance, he had spoken to his partner something about the Saviour. This utter absence of God in amusements is an ominous symptom. As a rule they are thoroughly secular. Even when they begin with a mixture of religion, how soon that drops, and the secular takes its place. The natural history of entertainments has been one away from God. The several stages of their course have been religious, semi-secular, worldly, the profane, the lewd. I must ask you Christians to look that fact straight in the face, and ponder it to its full weight, because it is full of import. To me it is a revelation of the spirit of all these amusements, for it is by this means that we can most certainly discern the spirit. Generally speaking, the initial beginning between right and wrong has the form of a narrow fork like the points in a railway line. With the slightest jolt, you are shunted from one track to the other. Can you determine the exact point when you have left the right line? But soon as the divergence grows you know to your pains. Two seeds are before you. Each has within it a hidden germ, the image and ideal of a great tree. Can you determine their species in the seed? You may not be able, and argument will be useless. But plant them, and when one has grown into an ash and another into a maple, then the difference and the kind is patent. Yet these seeds were specifically different. A different germ, a different life principle, resided in each; and they could grow only into what they originally were. Each had a potency to become what they eventually grew into. Your pleasures grow from a germ, a spirit. A life principle pervades the whole. I refuse to argue the matter at a microscopic stage, the seed difference, the narrow railway point. Taking the Master’s great principle, we know them by their fruit. Can that be right which needs the Bible laid aside, prayer neglected, God forgotten, and to which the name of Jesus is a jar?
II. The desire for pleasure a morbid symptom. The healthiest tone in manhood and society is when people are busy, when they are bent on some great ideal, and do not need to be amused. Even a healthy child needs far less to be amused than mothers and nurses think. Its great idea of amusement is to do something. The honest workman, the colonist, say, in a new country, busy in felling timber, reclaiming land--his own now--erecting his homestead, and in other works of homely husbandry, give him the solace of his wife’s society, the prattle of his children, his Bible, a rest in the evening, and the church on Sabbath, and he will live a life above entertainment--a life of such solid satisfaction, that entertainments would be a mockery to it. The kingdom that is at its best, the society that is at its healthiest, and the Church of God at its most useful stage, do not need entertainments. In the old days, when old Rome was slowly climbing the splendid height of mistress-ship of the world, her citizens were sober, frugal, and industrious. Her dictators held the plough, and her matrons the distaff. Then the gladiatorial shows had no existence, and adultery was unknown. The men were freemen, and the women virtuous. It was when the citizens had let themselves be debauched by the games and consented to be amused, that they sank into the position of public beggars, issuing of a morning from their squalid cabins for their daily dole of the public bread, to idle away the livelong day on the benches of the amphitheatre and circus, with an occasional lounge in the public baths, doing no work, all labour being considered degrading as the lot of slaves. Then was the time of Rome’s decay, till at last they lost to the hardier Goths that semblance of liberty they were too effeminate to defend. Drill your minds, steer your course through life with the grand helm of duty, and not let yourselves roll on the wave of self-indulgence and entertainment.
III. What, then, should be the Christian’s attitude towards amusements? In answering this, let me distinguish between Christians in their collective capacity as the Church, and the Christian by himself as an individual. As for the Church of Christ, or Christians collectively, I fail to see that she has got anything to do with amusements whatever. God never instituted the Church to amuse people; so to speak, it is outside her commission. Since Christians cannot go down to the world’s pleasures, all the more sedulously should they cultivate that domain which relates to the pleasant in their own religion; for there is distinctly a pleasurable department in Christianity. The restfulness, the kindness, the sincerity, the readiness to oblige and put one’s self about to please, the unfeigned humility and readiness to commend--yea, and relish for all that beauty so copiously strewed in nature without. The cause of conversion often is said to be, “These Christians seemed so much happier than I was.” Instinctively, somehow or other, the unsaved feel that if you profess religion you belong to another party from them, and ought to be better; and when they see you indulging in the amusements they indulge in, and which they probably have a shrewd idea are not just the right thing, they are the first to feel the incongruity and to wonder at you. Their idea of religion is taken from you, and you are found false witnesses of God. Perhaps the impression your conduct may produce on their minds is utter scepticism of the reality of all vital religion whatever. The Christian that goes down to worldly pleasures is guilty of bringing a slander on his religion.
IV. Amusements and the unsaved. I know that in touching your amusements I am touching the apple of your eye.
1. Let me tell you frankly, then, that your worldly entertainments and amusements are sinful. Sinful, for they are to you the rivals of Christ, and keep you from salvation--yea, even more than ridicule and persecution.
2. They are also unseasonable. There are positions in life in which all acknowledge that anything like jollity or mirth is out of place. If a man has committed a crime, and he is placed in the dock to be tried for his life, frivolity and laughter would be counted exceedingly unbecoming. If you, as the Bible tells you, are a sinner; if you have done things that have angered God that is above, and if His wrath is abiding in your souls, is mirth seemly in your state? Sorrow, repentance, prayer, a turning to Christ, realising that your state is one of sin against the Infinite Jehovah--that is the becoming state for you to be in. (Alex. Bisset, M. A.)
Worldly pleasures
Worldliness is often condemned in the New Testament. It is not, as some seem to think, any particular object or pursuit. It is nothing external, but resides in ourselves. It is a condition of soul, not of circumstance--a mind which is more carnal than spiritual, more earthly than heavenly, more self-seeking than God-fearing. Persons who have no relish for society, or music, or public amusements, may yet be intensely worldly in the prosecution of business, in the gaining and spending or hoarding of money, in the management of a household, in the manner of bearing trials, in excessive care, in intellectual pursuits, and even in the affairs of benevolence and religion. It is especially tested in the selection of our pleasures and the degree in which they are indulged. Pleasure-providing is a trade in which, as in others, there is fierce competition. Many places of amusement are not remunerative, and every effort is put forth to increase the revenue. For this end the lowest tastes must be pandered to, and new excitements must be found. Must not such pleasures tend to corrupt a nation? Christians cannot hesitate as regards their own duty. We do not denounce pleasure as such. Rest as well as labour is from God, laughter as well as tears, recreation as well as toil. Pleasure becomes sin when we are “lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God.” This is always the case when our pleasures are opposed to purity and piety. Besides this, we may love inordinately that which is in itself innocent and useful. Excess in what is lawful may become wrong by violating a higher obligation. Whenever we find that our pleasures are interfering with our piety, that they occupy the chief place in our minds, that we are loving them more than we love God, then we may be sure that we are wrong, whatever the nature of those pleasures may be, or whatever the sanction which they claim. (Newman Hall, LL. B.)
Carnal pleasure ruling in man
Such were those libertines (Jam 5:5; 2 Peter 2:13; Judges 4:18-19). Peradventure they may give God some external worship of cap and knee; but they keep their hearts and best rooms for their carnal lusts and pleasures. (T. Hall, B. D.)
Godly pleasure
Many are so bewitched with their lusts and pleasures, that they do even sacrifice their time, wit, wealth, lives, souls, and all unto them. They are even led by them (2 Peter 2:10), as an ox to the slaughter (Proverbs 7:22-23). They make them their chiefest good, and place their happiness in them. How many spend their precious time in playing, which they should spend in praying and in serving God in some vocation. (T. Hall, B. D.)
The poison of pleasure
1. That sensual pleasures are the very poison and bane of all grace in the soul; they war against the peace and purity of it (1 Peter 2:11); they blind the eye, that it cannot attain to saving knowledge (chap. 3:6, 7); the love of pleasures eats out the love of God and goodness out of the soul.
2. It is these sensual pleasures which stop the ears against God’s call, so that no reason nor religion can work on men. These choke the good seed of the Word, that it cannot grow (Luke 8:14). That is the best pleasure which springs from the knowledge and love of God. We call not upon you to forsake, but to change your pleasures. Change your sordid, sinful, sensual delights, into sublime, spiritual, and noble delights.
3. The better to wean your hearts from carnal pleasures, consider the vanity and shortness of them. They are like a fire of straw--a blast, and gone. Do not, then, for a mite of pleasure, purchase a mountain of misery; for momentary joys, endure eternal sorrows.
4. They do emasculate and weaken the mind. Whoever was made more learned, wise, courageous, or religious by them? They rob man of his reason, and besot him (Hosea 4:11); they take away the man, and leave a swine or beast in his room.
5. This world is a place of weeping, conflicting, labouring, to all the godly, and not of carnal mirth and rejoicing; carnal mirth must be turned into mourning (James 4:9-10); the way to heaven lies through many afflictions.
6. Consider those sensual pleasures end in sorrow. The end of such mirth (what ever the beginning is) is sorrow. Men call them by the name of pleasures, pastimes, delights; but in God’s dictionary their name is Madness (Ecclesiastes 1:17; Ecclesiastes 2:2), Sorrow (Proverbs 14:13), and is attended with poverty. (T. Hall, B. D.)
Voluptas
Voluptas, the goddess of sensual pleasures, was worshipped at Rome where she had a temple. She was represented as a young and beautiful woman, well dressed and elegantly adorned, seated on a throne, and having virtue under her feet. This representation is just enough; the love of pleasure is too often attended with the sacrifice of virtue. (C. Buck.)
Culling pleasure
The world may have many pleasures; but it is culling flowers from the enemy’s land, and we Christians must take care that no nightshade and henbane mix unwittingly with our garland.
Worldly pleasures vain
Pleasures, like the rose, are sweet, but prickly; the honey doth not countervail the sting; all the world’s delights are vanity, and end in vexation; like Judas, while they kiss they betray. I would neither be a stoic nor an epicure; allow of no pleasure, nor give way to all; they are good sauce, but nought to make a meal of. I may use them sometimes for digestion, never for food. (J. Henshaw.)
Pleasure-mongers
Better be preserved in brine than rot in boney. These plea sure-mongers are at last as the worst of all. Such a one was Catullus, who wished all his body was nose, that he might spend all his time in sweet smells. Such was Philoxenus, who likewise wished that his neck was as long as a crane’s, that he might take more delight in meats and drinks. Such was Boccas, the poet, who said that he was born for the love of women. (J. Trapp.)
Pleasure-loving professors
It is always a terrible condemnation of a church member that no one should suspect him of being one. We have heard of a young lady who engaged for many months in a round of frivolities, utterly forgetful of her covenant with Christ. One Sunday morning, on being asked by a gay companion to accompany him to a certain place, she declined on the ground that it was the communion Sunday in her own church. “Are you a communicant?” was the cutting reply. The arrow went to her heart. She felt that she had denied the Lord who died for her. That keen rebuke brought her to repentance and a recon version. Are there not many other professors of Christ who appear to be “lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God”? (T. L. Cuyler, D. D.)
Emblem of worldly pleasure
It was a remarkably hot and sultry day. We were scrambling up the mountain which rises above the east shore of the Dead Sea, when I saw before me a fine plum-tree loaded with fresh-blooming plums. I cried to my fellow traveller, “Now, then, who will arrive first at that plum-tree?” And as he caught a glimpse of so refreshing an object, we both pressed our horses into a gallop, to see which should get the first plum from the branches. We both arrived at the same time, and each snatching a fine ripe plum put it at once into our mouths, when, on biting it, instead of the cool, delicious, juicy fruit which we expected, our mouths were filled with a dry, bitter dust, and we sat under the tree upon our horses, sputtering and “hemming,” and doing all we could to be relieved of the nauseous taste of this strange fruit. We then perceived, to my great delight, that we had discovered the famous apple of the Dead Sea, the existence of which has been doubted and canvassed since the days of Strabo and Pliny, who first described it. (R. Curzon.)
Death of a lover of pleasure
Monsieur de L’Enelos, a man of talent in Paris, educated his daughter Ninon with a view to the gay world. On his death-bed, when she was about fifteen, he addressed her in this language: “Draw near, Ninon; you see, my dear child, that nothing more remains for me than the sad remembrance of those enjoyments which I am about to quit for ever. But, alas I my regrets are useless as vain. You, who will survive me, must make the best of your precious time.”
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