Online Bible 1995 March/ROM-1025.iso/olb/gill/d_500.lzh/D_585.TXT

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CnAp. XV.                                               OF SELF-DENIAL.

             ,,       ,       ,
walk.        7. Humility is the way to preferment, to
honour, grandeur, and happiness; before honour is hu,-
milit3l ; yea, by humility and the fiat of the Lord are
riches, and honour, and life, Prov. xvi. 18. and xviii.
12. and xxii. 4. and this is God's usual way, to abase
those that exalt themselves, and to exalt them that are
humble, Luke xviii. 14.    .8. An inheritance is pro-
mised to the meek and humble; the meek shall inherit
the earth, Psalm xxxvii. 1 I. the same is promised by
Christ, Matt. v. 5. not the present earth, and the things
of it; though good men have the promise of the life
that now is, and are heirs of the world, and the world
is theirs; but the new earth, in which none but righte-
ous men will dwell with Christ a thousand years, 2 Pet.
iii. 13.----9. Such are and shall be saved; and he
(God) shall save the humble person, both temporally
and eterna!ly, Job xxii. 29. he saves such in time, in
a time of temporal judgments on the earth, God then
arises to save all the meek of the earth; and when
Christ comes to judgment with righteousness, he will
judge the poor, and reprove with equity, for the meek
of the earth, Psalm lxxvi. 9. Isa. xi. 4. and he will
save them eternally; for they are the same with the
poor in sph'it, whose is the kingdom of heaven, Matt.

CHAP. XV.

OF SELF-DENIAL.

SELF-DENIAL accompanies humility; where the
one is the other is; a self-denying man is an humble
man, and an humble man is a self-denying man. Proud,
boasters, are lovers of their own selves, and cannot by
any means deny themselves; but the meek and hum-
ble, the followers of the lowly Jesus, deny themselves,
and go after him; If any man will come after me, says
Christ, that is, be a disciple of his, let him deny him-
self, and take up his cross, and follow me, Matt xvi. 24.
this is one of the hardest lessons to be learnt in the
school of Christ, by his disciples; and no man can be
a disciple of Christ without learning it.
I. It will be proper to inquire what self-denial is, or
what it is for a man to deny himself.
I. It is not to deny what a man is or has; what he
truly is, and what he really has; for that would be a
falsehood; in this sense God cannot deny himself, 2 Tim.
ii. 13. not his nature, and the perfections of it; or do,
or affirm any thing contrary thereunto. So a man
ought not to deny himself as a man, nor the rational
powers which he is possessed of; one may indeed,
speaking in the language of another, and as expressing
the meanness and contempt in which he is held by
such, say, I am a worm, and no man, as David the
type, and Christ his antitype, did; a man may also, in
a comparative sense, with respect to others, and as ex-
aggerating his own folly, ignorance, and stupidity',
say, as Asaph did, So.foolish was land ignorant, I was
as a beast; or was a very beast, before thee, in thy sight,
or could not be otherwise reckoned of by thee: and so
Agur; Surely, I am more brutish than any man, and
have not the understanding of a man, in comparison of

others, and having a very low share of it, in his own
opinion, Psalm !xxiii. 22. Prov. xxx. 2. in these senses
such phrases may be admitted; otherwise it would
not be true of a man, nor doing justice to himself, to
say that he was no other than a horse and a mule, which
have no understanding. Nor should a man deny what
he has of the external benefits and blessings of provi-
dence; if God bestows riches and honour upon a man,
as he did on David, he should own them as coming to
him from God, as David did, and bless God for such
benefits, and make use of them for the glory of God,
and the good of his interest; and if God has bestowed
internal endowments on men, gifts and talents, qua-
lifying for 'public service and usefulness, some way or
another, they are to own them, and use them, and not
wrap them up in a napkin, or hide them in the earth,
which is interpretatively to deny that they have them.
Nor should a truly good and gracious man deny what
he is and has; but acknowledge it, and how by grace
he came by it; and say with the apostle, By the grace
of God I am what I am; if a man is a believer in
Christ he should confess his faith in him. Rom. x, 10.
there were some among the Jews, in the times of
Christ, who believed he was the Messiah, and yet con-
fessed him not; because they- loved the praise of men,
were lovers of themselves, and could not deny them-
selves of praise from men; yet such non-confession of
Christ is tacitly a denial of him, and is so interpreted
by Christ, Matt. x. 3 1,32. but especially when a man
has true faith in Christ, has spiritual knowledge of him,
and is a real disciple of his, to deny this is very cri-
minal; this was the sin of Peter, when challenged with
being acquainted with Jesus, and being a disciple of
his, denied that he knew him, and that he was one of
them that belonged to him. And so if a man has faith
in Christ, and good hope through grace, and the grace
of God has been exceeding abundant, with faith and
love, which is in Christ, he ought to be very careful
that he does not deny these things. There is in some
weaker Christians, I do not know well what name to
.call it by, it is an over-modesty, a thinking and speak-
ing over-meauly of themselves; and which they affect
to do, and carry things to too great a length very much
this way, as if they had no faith, nor love, anoscarce
any hope; and are ready to express themselves in sneh
sort as seems to border, at least, upon a denial of the
work of grace upon their souls; and is like a tearing
up by the roots, as much as in them lies, the very prin-
ciples of grace in them; which should never be en-
couraged, but discountchanted; the least measure of
grace should be owned, and men shonld be thankful
for it, and pray for an increase of it.
2. To deny a man's self is not to refuse fayours
conferred on him in a course of providence; nor to
neglect a lawful use of them; nor to take r,o care of
himself and of his affairs.--(1.) Self-denial does not
require that a man should refuse temporal honours
and riches bestowed on him in a providential way; so
Joseph, though a self-denying man, did not refuse the
honours, and the tokens of them, Pharaoh gave him,
when he made him ruler over the !and of Egypt; nor
David, when the tribes made him king over all Israel;
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