# Our end and purpose and ‘self,’ the enemy thereof



## NaphtaliPress (Jul 3, 2016)

The incomprehensibly great and glorious _JEHOVAH_, the Almighty Creator of heaven and earth, Who is and was and is to come, the First and the Last, _Alpha _and _Omega_, the Beginning and the Ending, the beginning of all without beginning, and the end to which all refer without end, Who has eternally His being only and altogether in and from Himself, without participation with or derivation from any other, and from Whom as the first fountain and original being (the sole-self-being and being of beings) all the creatures inanimate, vegetative, sensitive and rational, whether angels or men, are but derivated [derived] and borrowed bits of being in comparison with whom they are but upstarts of yesterday, and (as it were) time-nothings, _hath_ (as it is highly rational, just, equal and congruous He should) _made all things for himself_ [Prov. 16:4]; and has in a more special manner formed and new-made His own chosen and peculiar people for _himself that they might shew forth his praise, _and _hath bought them with a price, and redeemed them, not with corruptible things, as silver and gold from their vain conversation, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot, slain from the foundation of the world; _who are therefore _not their own_, but infinitely obliged _to glorify God both in their spirits and bodies which are God's; _none of whom beyond all living, ought _to live to himself, nor die to himself, _but living and dying ought to be _the Lord's_. Since _the Lord Christ both died and rose, and revived, that he might_ in a peculiar manner, _be Lord of them both living and dead_, it becomes them _from the constraining power of the love of Christ to judge thus, that they should not live to themselves_,_ but unto him, who _out of love_ died for them_,[1] and to endeavor through Grace to be in a capacity, each of them for him and herself to say, _I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me, and the life that I now live in the flesh_, _is by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me; _and_ to me to live is _ _Christ_ [Gal. 2:20; Phil. 1:21]. 

The very end and scope that I propose to myself in desiring life with any of the conveniences, accommodations and comforts thereof, is the honor and glory of Jesus Christ: as of all persons in the world, it is most unworthy of them, and worst becoming them, to be inordinate self-lovers, self-pleasure[r]s, or self-seekers, so it is highly suitable for them (being singularly and signally obliged thereto) _to deny themselves and to take up their cross and follow _Him [Matt. 16:24]. And yet notwithstanding all these mighty, matchless and marvelous obligations, they, even they, alas! are frequently and not altogether without success, insinuated upon by deceitful corrupt _self_, {which} mixes with their best and most spiritual duties, and in part spoils them—they are the more called and concerned watchfully to guard against it, that it does [not],[2] as a thin, subtle, spiritual humor very secretly, and insensibly diffuse itself through the whole mass and body of the duties of religion, and by its venomous quality, in less or more, tinctures and vitiates them all; the most sovereign antidote against which poison, and the most powerful extractor and sucker out of it, is sincere love to Jesus Christ, flowing from the lively faith of His love.
--------------
[1] See Isaiah 43:21; 1 Peter 1:9; 1 Corinthians 6:20, 7:23; 1 Peter 1:18–19; Revelation 13:8; Romans 14:7, 9; 2 Corinthians 5:14–15. 


[2] There is either a missing negation or perhaps this should be read, “to guard against it, {which} does as a thin, subtle, spiritual humor….” 

John Carstares, Dedicatory Epistle, in James Durham, _The Great Corruption of subtile self_ (1686).


----------

