(189) that is made by the
concurrence of some advantages of knowledge and civility, and such like.

The blood of enmity against God gets in about the heart, when it is chased
for fear out of the outward man, therefore, the very first and fundamental
principle of Christianity, is, "Let a man deny himself, and so he shall be
my disciple." He must become a fool in his own eyes, though he be wise,
that he may be wise (1 Cor. iii. 18), he must become as ungodly, though
godly, that he may be justified by faith (Rom. iv. 5), he must forsake
himself, that he may indeed find himself, or get a better self in another,
he must not eat much honey, that is not good, it would swell him though it
be pleasant, he must not search his own glory, or reflect much upon it, if
he would be a follower and a friend of Christ. Look, how much soever you
engage to yourselves esteem, or desire to be esteemed of others, to
reflect with complacency on yourselves, to mind your own satisfaction and
estimation in what you do, so much you disengage from Jesus Christ, for
these are contrary points. This is a direct motion towards Christ. That is
an inverse and backward motion towards ourselves, and so much as we move
that way, we promove not, but lose our way, and are further from the true
end. Ezekiel's living creatures may be an emblem of a Christian's motion,
he returns not as he goes, he makes a straight line to God, whithersoever
he turn him, but nature makes all crooked lines, they seem to go forth in
obedience to God, but they have a secret unseen reflexion into its own
bosom. And this is the greatest act of enmity, to idolize God, and deify
ourselves, we make him a cypher and sacrifice to ourselves his peculiar,
incommunicable property of Alpha and Omega, that we do sacrilegiously
attribute to ourselves, the beginning of our notions, and end of them too.
This is the crooked line, that nature cannot possibly move out of, till a
higher Spirit come and restore her that halted, and make plain her paths.

That which is added, as a reason, explains this enmity more clearly,
_because it cannot be subject_, &c. Truly these two forementioned amities
of the world and of ourselves, do withdraw men wholly from the orderly
subjection that they owe to the law of God. Order is the beauty of every
thing, of nature, of art, of the whole universe, and of the several parts,
kingdoms and republics of it. This indeed is the very beauty of the world,
all things subordina