OF THE DENIAL OF OUR EXTERNAL RELATIONS

We must deny natural self; and this we must deny only conditionally, and upon supposition of God’s call.

1. We are conditionally to deny our external relations; to this purpose saith Christ, “If any man cometh to Me, and hateth not father, and mother, and children, and brethren, and wife, and sisters — he cannot be My disciple.” Not that religion teaches or endures a saint to break the ties of religion or nature; you see it puts in a plea against such unnaturalness, “Honor thy father and mother.”

Relations are the blessings of God; they are God’s gifts, and bestowed on the saints in a way of promise. They are the loving tokens which Christ sends to our souls, that so he might draw our loves to Him again; and hence it is lawful and commendable to rejoice in them in their way, and especially to lift up our souls in thanksgiving to God for them; for every creature of God is good, (much more the children of our loins, and wives of our bosoms), if received with thanksgiving.

Yet we must deny them for God in these cases:

1. If they retard us in the way to Christ, if they entice us to make haltings in our runnings through fire and through water to the Lord Jesus. If our dearest relations should beckon us out of the way, or retard us in the way, to Jesus Christ, we must not respect father or mother, we must not acknowledge our brethren, nor know our own children. And Christ gives the reason: “He that loveth father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than Me, is not worthy of Me.” A man should love father and mother, and a man will love son and daughter, for love descends rather than ascends; but if any man love father, or mother, or son, or daughter, more than Christ, he is not fit to be a disciple of Christ.

2. If they draw contrary ways; Christ drawing one way, and relations drawing another way. In this case, as Christ said, “If a man hate not father, and mother, and wife, and children, brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple.” If any man hate not, i.e. if a man renounce not carnal affections, if a man be not disposed, where these loves are not compatible, to hate father, and mother, and all, for the love of Christ, he cannot belong to Christ. These two cases may be summed up thus: if our relations do either retard our way to Christ, or draw us from Christ, in this sense they ought to be forgotten.

The directions of self-denial, in respect of our relations, are these:

1. Let us have them, as if we had them not; this is the expression of the apostle: “The time is short; it remains that both they that have wives be as though they had none, and they that weep as they that wept not, and they that rejoice as if they that rejoiced not.” 1. The time is short: the apostle here alludes to seafaring men, that have almost done their voyage; and begin to strike sail, and are even putting into the harbor; so it is with us, our time is short, as soon as we begin our voyage, we are ready to strike sail. 2. It remains that both they that have wives, be as though they had none, etc. You that are ready to cast anchor, trouble not yourselves about these things, but rather be ye steadfast, gird up the loins of your minds, let your care be the greatest for heaven; and as for these outward relations, be as if you had none, or think as soon as you are ashore you shall have none; do not glut yourselves, but moderate your hearts in all such comforts as these.

2. Let us resign up all to God. This we have done, and this we must do still. 1. This we have done, in that day when we made our bargain for Christ. Every soul that comes to Christ, parts with all to buy that pearl; and in selling all, he sells not only corruptions and lusts, but his father, mother, wife, children, all relations, conditionally. 2. This we must do still; we must give up all to God; we and they, and all, must be at the command of Christ, at the pleasure of God and Christ; indeed nothing is properly called our own, but God and Christ; all other things are God’s gifts, lent of God, and therefore, as occasion is, we must give up all to God again.

3. Let us imitate them, as occasion is, who for Christ’s sake have actually parted with their dearest relations.

Thus did Galeacius Caracciolus, the noble marquis of Vico. Vico was one of the paradises of Naples; and Naples was the paradise of Italy; and Italy is the paradise of Europe; and Europe the paradise of all the earth. Yet this marquis being brought to hear a sermon of Peter Martyr’s, God pleased so to work upon his spirit, that he began to enter into serious thoughts, whether his way of popery, wherein he was trained, was right or not.

At last, having further light let into his soul, his resolutions were strong to leave the court, and his honors, together with his father, wife, and children, and whatsoever was dear to him. Many grievous combats he had betwixt the flesh and the spirit when resolved on his departure, but the greatest troubles were his relations: for—

1. As often as he looked on his father, which he did almost every hour, so often he was stricken at the heart with unspeakable grief; his thoughts ran thus: “What! and must I needs forsake my dear and loving father? and cannot else have God my Father? Oh! unhappy father of my body, which may stand in competition with the Father of my soul?”

2. No less was he grieved in respect of his wife; for, having no hope that she would renounce popery, and go with him, he resolved also for Christ’s sake to leave her, and to follow Christ; whereupon his thoughts ran thus: “And shall I forsake my wife, the only joy of my heart in this world, and that not for a time, but for ever! How many doleful days, how many waking nights, will she pass over?”

3. There was yet a third care, and that was for his children ; which were six in all. It was the more grief, in that they were so young, as that they could not conceive what it was to want a father. The eldest was scarce fifteen, and the youngest scarce four years old; towards them his thoughts ran thus: “Shall I within these few days utterly forsake these sweet babes, and leave them to the wide and wicked world, as though they had never been my children, nor I their father? Poor orphans, what will become of you when I am gone? Your hap is hard, even to be fatherless, your father yet living! Yet thus must I leave you all, weeping and wailing one with another, and I, in the mean time, weeping and wailing for you.”

Thus resolved, he left his family, and went to Geneva; who was no sooner gone, but his friends and family were so astonished, that nothing was heard or seen amongst them but lamentations. By his father’s command, and his wife’s entreaties, he was persuaded to see them once, and take his journey from Geneva to Vico. Having stayed a while, and now ready to return to Geneva, his father, at his farewell, gave him many a heavy and bitter curse; his wife embraced him, and took him about the neck, beseeching him in a most loving and pitiful manner that he would have care of himself, of his dear wife and children, and not so willingly cast them all away: his young children, all upon their knees, with arms stretched out, and hands holden up, and faces swollen with tears, cried out unto him to have pity on them, his own bowels, and not to make them fatherless before the time: his friends, with heavy countenance and watery eyes looked on him, ( and though for grief they could not speak, yet every look, and every countenance, and every gesture, was a loud cry and a strong entreaty that he would stay, and not leave so ancient and noble a house in such a desolate case. But above all, there was one most lamentable sight: Among his children he had one daughter of twelve years old, who crying out amain, and wallowing in tears, fell down, and catching fast hold about his knees, held him so hard that he could by no means shake her off; and the affection of a father wrought so with him, as he could not offer with violence to hurt her. He labored to be loose, but she held faster; he went away, but she trailed after; crying to him, not to be so cruel to his own child, who came into the world by him. This so wonderfully wrought with his nature, that he thought, as he often reported, that all his bowels rolled about within him, and that his heart would have burst presently, and he should instantly have died. But notwithstanding all this, being armed with a supernatural fortitude, he broke through all those temptations, and for Christ’s sake denied all, and so returned to Geneva.

A glorious self-denial, or a glorious denier of his natural-self!

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