The Crucifying of the World, Treatise · Part 1 · Section 10
SECT. X.
IV. I Am next to give you the Reasons of the Necessity of this Crucifixion, the most of which also, for brevity sake, I shall reserve to the Application, and at present only lay down these two or three briefly.
1. The world is every carnal mans Idol, and God cannot endure Idolatry: To see his creature set up in his stead, and rob him of his Esteem and Interest, and be loved, honoured and served before him: and to see such contemptible things be taken as Gods, while God himself stands by neglected, he will not, he cannot endure this. Either Grace shall take down the Idol, or Judgement and Hell shall plague the Idolator, for he hath Resolved that he will not give his glory to another, Isa. 42. 8. & 48. 11. All sin is hateful to God, and none but the cleansed perfect soul shall stand before him, in the presence of his glory; nor any in whom iniquity hath dominion shall stand accepted in the presence of his Grace: But yet no particular sin is so hatefull to him as Idolatry is. For this is not only a trespassing against his Laws, but a disclaiming or rejecting his very Soveraignty it self. To give a Prince unreverent language, and to break his Laws, is punishable; but to pull him out of his throne, and set up a scullion in it, and give him the honour and obedience of a King, this is another kind of matter, and much more intollerable. The first Commandment is not like the rest, which require only obedience to particular Laws in a particular action; but it establisheth the very Relations of Soveraign and Subject, and requires a constant acknowledgment of these relations, and makes it high Treason against the God of heaven in any that shall violate that command. Every Crime is not Treason: Its one thing to miscarry in a particular case, and another thing to have other Gods before and besides the Lord, the only God. Now this is the sin of every worldling: He hath taken down God from the throne in his own soul, and set up the flesh and the world in his stead: These he valueth, and magnifieth, and delighteth in: These have his very heart, while God that made it and redeemed him, is set light by. And do you think that this is a sin to be endured? It is a more horrid thing to wish that God were not God, then to wish that Heaven and Earth were destroyed or turned again to Nothing. He that would kill a man deserveth death; What then deserveth he that would destroy all the world? that would pull the Sun out of the firmament, or set all the world on fire, if it were in his power? Yet is not all this so bad as to wish that God should lose his God-head: And what less doth that man do that would have his prerogative given to the creature? and so would have the creature to be God? If God be not the chief Good, he is not God. And if he be not chiefly to be esteemed and loved, he is not the chief Good. What then doth that man do, but deny God to be God, that denyeth him his highest esteem and love? And certainly he that giveth it to any creature, denyeth it to God. For there can be but one Chief, and but one God. They take him down therefore as much as in them lyeth, that set up another. So also, if God be not the Soveraign Ruler of all, he is not God. And there can be but one Soveraign. What less then do they do, that deny him his soveraignty, then deny him to be God. And he that maketh the flesh or world his soveraign, denyeth God to be his soveraign; because there can be but one, especially seeing also that their commands are contrary. I beseech you therefore Sirs be not so unwise as to think that this Mortification or Crucifying of the world, is only the perfection, or higher pitch of some Believers, and not the common state of all. Do not imagine that your selves, or any other can be true Christians without it. You may as well think that that man should be saved that is a flat Atheist, and denyeth God, and renounceth him, as that a worldling should be saved: And he that is not dead to the world, is a worldling. If any one piece of Reformation be essential to a true Christian, it is this. It is as possible for a Turk, or an Insidel to be saved, as one that is not dead to the world; Yea the case of these is more desperate, if more can be: for they have not the like means of information (ordinarily) as our worldly Professors have: what can any Persecutor or Idolater do more, then set against God, and set up his enemies? And so doth every worldling, while he denyeth God his esteem and chiefest Love, and giveth it to the pleasures and profits of this life. I beseech you be not so weak as to dream, that God is nothing but a bare name or title, or that you deny not God, if you refuse not to call him God; or that none are Atheists that speak God fair, and give him all his titles. Or that none are impious that give him good words. It is the thing, and not the bare words, the description of God (such as we are capable of) and not bare names, that we must enquire of. If you will call your Prince by all his Royal Titles, but will set another in the throne, and give him the rule over you, and obey him alone, which of these is it that you take indeed for your Prince? [If I be a Father, saith God, where is mine honour? If I be a Master, where is my fear?] Mal. 1. 6. Many [profess that they know God, that in works deny him, being abominable and disobedient] Tit. 1. 16. God is not taken indeed for your God, if he be not taken for your chief Good and Happiness, and have not the chief of your desire and Love; and if he be not taken for your absolute Soveraign, and have not the subjection and obedience of your souls. You may easily see then, that it is not meet, it is not possible that an unmortified person, or a worldling can be saved. For if they shall be saved that would have God to be no God, then no man should be damned; for there cannot be a worser man then these. Nay, if he be not God, how should he save them, or how should he make them happy, if he be not their chiefest Good?
If God should cease to be God, the world and all things would cease to be. For if the first cause cease, the effects must all cease. And if the ultimate end cease, the means and all use of means must cease. And as the cessation of God as the first efficient, would destroy all Natural Being, so the cessation of God as the ultimate end, would destroy all Moral Good whatsoever. Other sins destroy some part or branch of Moral Good; but the sin of Idolatry, the violation of the first Commandment, the taking to our selves some other God, this doth at once subvert all goodness, and destroy the very being of morality it self.
Sirs, I am afraid many, yea most among us, have not well considered the nature of worldly mindedness, or the greatness of the sin of valuing and loving the Creature before God. If they did, it would not be a sin of so good repute among us, but would have contracted more odium before this time, then it hath done. There are many sins far smaller then this that men are shamed for, and that men are hanged for. But we must not judge by outward appearances, nor make the judgement of the sinner himself to be the rule by which to discern the greatness or smalness of the sin. A worldling, a fleshly minded man, an unmortified man, that is not dead to the world; all these are terms that are proper to men in a state of damnation, under the curse and wrath of God, and are equipollent terms, with [a Childe of the Devil.] Oh how the Devil hath deluded multitudes, by making them think that this mortification is some higher pitch of grace then ordinary, but not essential to the life of grace it self; and therefore that a man may be saved without it: when they may as well think to be saved, if they defie the God of heaven, if they despise the Lord that bought them, and if they renounce salvation it self, for indeed so they do. It must needs be that God must look first and chiefly to his own interest, in all his works even in the collation of his …reest grace. And therefore he will be glorified in all his Saints, and no man shall have salvation dividedly from his honour. He doth not bring men to heaven to hate and contemn him, but to love and praise him; and he will fit them for that work before they come thither, and make them love and praise him initially on earth, before they come to do it in heaven. And therefore he will make them contemn all those things that stand in competition with him, and hate all that stands against him.