So that it is as necessary that our lives be a state of regimen, contrary to this variety of disorders, as it is necessary for a man under a complication of distempers, to observe a course of regularity.
For seeing all ill tempers are increased by indulgence, and the more we yield to any, the stronger it grows, ’tis plain we must practise as many sorts of self-denial as we have ill tempers to contend with.
XXV. *When we speak of self-denial, we are apt to confine it to eating and drinking: but we ought to consider, that these are the easiest and smallest instances of it. Pride, vanity, self-love, covetousness, envy, and other inclinations of the like nature, call for a more constant and watchful self-denial, than the appetites of hunger and thirst.
*’Till therefore our self-denial is as universal as our corruption; ’till we deny ourselves all degrees of vanity and folly, as earnestly as we deny ourselves all degrees of drunkenness; till we reject all sorts of pride and envy, as we abhor all kinds of gluttony; till we watch and deny all irregular tempers, as we avoid all sorts of sensuality, we can no more be said to practise self-denial, that he can be said to be just, who only denies himself the liberty of stealing.
And till we do thus universally deny ourselves, our lives will be a ridiculous mixture of I know not what; sober and covetous, proud and devout, temperate and vain, regular in our forms of prayer, and irregular in our passions, circumspect in little modes of behaviour, and careless of tempers the most essential to piety.
XXVI. A little attention to that great principle of reason and religion, that God is our only good, will convince us still farther of the necessity of universal self-denial.
For what can be a greater self-denial, or more contradictory to all our natural sentiments, than to live and govern ourselves by a happiness that is to be had in God alone? A happiness which our senses, our old guides, neither see, nor feel, nor taste, nor perceive: a happiness which gives us neither figure, nor dignity, nor power, nor glory, among one another?
Look at man in his natural state, acting by the judgment of his senses, following the motions of his nature; and you will see him acting as if the world was full of infinite sorts of happiness.
He has not only a thousand imaginary pleasures, but has found out as many vexations; all which shew, that he thinks happiness is every where to be found. For no one is vexed at any thing, unless he thinks he is disappointed of some possible happiness.
A happiness therefore in God alone, is the greatest contradiction to all our natural tempers. Not only as it proposes a good which our senses cannot relish, but as it leads us from all those imaginary enjoyments on which our senses have fixed our hearts.