p. 1 | SELF-FLATTERY by Flavel

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 3, 1858

SELF-FLATTERY.

By Flavel

Section I. ALL flattery, and especially self-flattery, is criminal and injurious; but self-flattery, in regard to the concerns of salvation, is to the last degree dangerous and destructive. To persuade ourselves, or endeavor to persuade others, that we possess goodness of which we are in reality destitute, is shameful and ruinous dissimulation. But of this, Laodiceans, and self-deceivers in every age, are guilty.

My present design is not to shake the well-founded hopes of any man, or to excite unreasonable apprehensions, but to discover the radical and fatal defects in the basis of many men's expectations of future happiness. Men must judge of their religion by examining its foundation; if that fail, the superstructure is perishable and worthless.

There is a laudable spirit of caution cherished by saints, which makes them sensible to the danger of self-deception, and renders them watchful and circumspect; there is also a culpable anxiety and fear, tending only to gloom and despondency, to which they sometimes give way; by the former they are guarded against evil; by the latter they deprive themselves of inward peace.

Sometimes good men, indulging groundless fears of hypocrisy, are blind to the clearest evidences of their gracious state; but more frequently, the merely formal, regardless of consequences, close their eyes upon the proofs of their guilt and jeopardy. This is an evil in regard to both, but less hazardous in one case than in the other. For he that sees not his own graces, and realizes not his privileges, does but deprive himself of quiet and enjoyment for a short time; whereas he that shuts his eyes against the evidences of his sin and condemnation, procures the endless destruction of his soul.

I shall endeavor in this chapter to make it evident, that among professors of religion, many are deceived; to assign the causes of their deception; and to make such inferences and reflections as the subject suggests.

Section. II. That many professors of religion are deceived is evident,

1. From the fact that there are more professors than converts. There are many professors of religion who are christians only by education; who have grown as it were up into the church, but who have never been translated out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of Christ. Others have been induced by the influence of custom, by slavish fear, by ambition, or by more unworthy motives, to profess christianity. Now all such deceive themselves, and while they accelerate their eternal ruin, they greatly increase its aggravations. Let them reflect, that to appear, in the view of men, like christians, is one thing; to be christians indeed, in the sight of God is quite another.

2. Many professors practice only an outward compliance with the commands of God. They know nothing of that inward, vital religion, which is seated in the affections of the heart, which subdues its sinful propensities and purifies its desires. But what will their external conformity avail or what is it but a miserable imitation of that which lives in good men and prepares them for heaven? Surely it can have no better effect than to fit them at last to accuse and condemn themselves. Certain it is, that there are many professors of this class who, like Jehu, take no heed to walk in the way of the Lord God of Israel with their heart; who deceive themselves, or endeavor to deceive others; and who will sooner or later receive the fearful reward of their doings.

3. That many professors are self-deluded, appears from the circumstance that, in severe trials, numbers fall away. They are removed from their steadfastness, as dry leaves are carried away by a tempest. "They go out from us, that it may be made manifest that they were not of us." "When tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, they are quickly offended." Had they been told at first that their professions and zeal would terminate thus, probably their reply would have been like that of Hazael to the man of God: "What, is thy servant a dog, that he should do this thing?" Alas, how unlike in their brilliant and hopeful morning to their dark and gloomy evening! These professors have more of the moon than of the sun; they have little light, little heat, but many changes.

4. Another proof that there are numerous false professors is, that many secretly indulge some beloved lust, which, like a worm at the root, cripples and kills them. Such persons may have excellent gifts, and perform various and difficult duties; but pampering one lust, or allowing one secret sin, will destroy them. To cut off a right hand, or pluck out a right eye; to deny themselves and forsake all for Christ, requires such heart-religion as they do not possess. They study to exhibit a becoming exterior deportment; they refrain from open impieties, and visibly conform to their profession; and hence they acquire great confidence, and display themselves with much assurance; but they secretly love and practice iniquity, they cherish some known sin, and thus flatter, and deceive, and ruin their souls.

5. These professors of religion who are unaccustomed to the daily practice of secret devotion, constitute not a small part of the multitude who are deceived. There are many who attend the public ordinances of religion, and who either statedly or occasionally, engage in social worship with the family, but whose religion does not lead them to the closet, nor incline them to any unobserved intercourse with heaven. These people call themselves children of God, but their piety comprises nothing so personal, or particular, nothing which so much distinguishes them from the heedless world, which renders the hope of salvation so interesting, or the possibility of damnation so horrible, as to give them a relish for prayer, devout meditation, and secret communion with God. They shrink from the idea of retiring by themselves and having their hearts open to that invisible Being, that holy God, whom they profess to love and to worship, they contrive therefore to forget their secret, if not all their sins to be unconscious of their wants, and to impose on themselves by substituting casual outward formality for that godliness which has the promise of the life to come. Reader, if thy heart were right with God, and thou didst not cheat thyself with a vain profession, thou wouldst have frequent occasions for the peculiar duties of the closet, which thou wouldst conceal from thy familiar friend. "Charity vaunteth not itself." True piety can by no means entirely lay itself open to the eyes of men; public actions and appearance may support its credit, but secret exercises must maintain its life, and supply its purest enjoyment.

6. There are many professors who never made religion their chief concern, and who, therefore, though they have a name to live, are dead in sin. While there are those who "give themselves to the Lord;" "whose conversation and treasure is in heaven;" "the end of whose life is Christ;" who give religion the precedence both in their affections and their time; and who are constant and unreserved in the service of God: there are also professors whose religion engrosses not their attention, and occupies little of their time; so far from being the chief object of their solicitude, it is treated as if anything else was more important; and when they pretend to engage in it, their thoughts and hearts are somewhere else. It is not their design, in attending to the duties of religion, to honor or to have fellowship with God, to become conformed to his law, to have their unholy propensities subdued, or the genuineness of their piety tried; they pray as if they prayed not, and hear as if they heard not; and if they derive no benefit from ordinances, if they acquire no animation from their discharge of duties, they are not disappointed, for they anticipated no such effects.

From these considerations it is sufficiently manifest that many professors of religion deceive themselves in regard to their real character.

Section III. There are four principal causes of the delusion and dissimulation of false professors.

1. The deceitfulness of the heart. The hearts of such men, and of all the impenitent, "are deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked." They are so full of sophistry and guile, so changeful and illusive in their operations, and so incurably and perversely inclined to evil, that they will be found at last to have been a sufficient cause of men's ruin. The wicked, when finally cast away, will be sensible that the shame and the blame of their perdition is ascribable wholly to themselves. They will see that the self-adulation, the hypocrisy, the unbelief, the contempt of vital piety, and the bold indifference to the invitations and threatenings of God's word, which they have practiced, were suited to prepare them for eternal death. Verily, "he that trusteth in his own heart is a fool."

2. False professors are eminently exposed to the diabolical arts and influence of the great adversary; they lay themselves open to his foul suggestions, and by their love of error and sensuality they both invite and ensure success to his artifices. Hence it is not to be wondered that he takes them captive at his will. He is the god of this world, that blinds the minds of them that believe not, and decoys the thoughtless into hell; they of all men are most ready to close with his devices and yield to his impostures. With reference to them, Basil represents this apostate spirit as thus insolently addressing Christ: "I have them! I have them! In spite of all thy blood and miracles, thy wooing and beseechings, thy knockings and stirrings, I have cozened thee of them at the very gates of heaven."

3. The effects wrought in many unregenerate professors, the excitements of feeling, the raptures of fancy, the bliss of ideal safety, the pleasure of living as they list, without obscuring their prospects or disturbing their consciences, greatly increase and confirm their delusions: They do not distinguish between the operations and fruits of the Spirit of God in the sanctification of men, and the effects of error, of ignorance, of stupidity, of enthusiasm, or of diabolical influence. Their own experience is the standard by which they judge of themselves; and that not unfrequently is such as to dazzle and infatuate them. They are ready to say, "I am rich and increased with goods, and have need of nothing." Among those who are deceived in this way, some assume the office of religious teachers. Let them consider the words of Him by whom teachers must be judged: "Many will say unto me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name, and in thy name done many wonderful works?" To whom the Judge will say, "Depart from me, I never knew you."

4. The practice of comparing themselves with others, is a cause of deception among many. Thus the Pharisees, by trusting in themselves that they were righteous, and despising others, kept up a high opinion of their own merit. They elevated themselves by depressing those over whom they affected a superiority. Some false professors mentioned by St. Paul, "measuring themselves by themselves," and comparing themselves among themselves, proved, that they were as deluded as they were foolish. Instead of making one man, or one set of men, a test for the trial of another, God has established his word as the only standard of character, and by this those who are saints indeed form an opinion of themselves. But many false professors want a more lax and indefinite rule; they choose to compare themselves with characters that are in some respect subject to reproach. They are sharp-sighted to observe other men's faults, as they are their own supposed excellencies; they contemplate the failings of others with pity or derision, and their own doings with admiration. They bless themselves when they behold the impieties of the wicked: "God, I thank thee that I am not as other men are." A christian may and ought to praise God that he has been made by grace to differ from some other men, but he cannot rake together the enormities of the worst characters, or the infirmities of the best, in order to justify and applaud himself, as these phariseal deceivers do.

Such are some of the causes of that general delusion and imposture under which so many bow down and perish.

Section IV. 1. Let me caution you to beware of inferring from what has been said, that all professors of religion are deceivers, and that there is no truth or integrity in any man; this would be, with intolerable arrogance, to affect the prerogative of God; and with desperate severity to judge the hearts of men.

Some men are as apt to conclude that those are hypocrites whose hearts they measure by their own, as others are to decide that themselves are saints, by comparing their fancied virtues with the vices and crimes of the most abandoned. But, blessed be God, there is some grain amidst the heaps of chaff and rubbish; the Devil hath not the entire piece; a remnant is really and peculiarly the Lord's

2. Let none imagine because so many are deceived, that assurance is unattainable. It is indeed a difficult acquisition, but is far from impracticable; hence all are commanded to "give diligence to make their calling and election sure."

3. I warn you not to conceal the truths of God or the graces of his Spirit, nor to be deterred from openly professing them, because many deceive themselves and others by a vain profession. Ought you to hide what you have, because another pretends to what he has not? The possession of holiness in your own soul is indeed what secures you from perdition; but the profession of it is what honors God, edifies the saints, and sometimes awakens sinners. Ostentation is sinful, but a serious and humble profession is an unquestionable duty.

Section V. Having guarded what has been said from abuse, I hasten to a more direct and special improvement of the subject. And surely I cannot better accomplish this, than by warning you to see to it, that you be not of the number who deceive themselves. Suffer me then to press that great apostolical caution, "Let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall." O look carefully to your foundation! "Be not high-minded, but fear." You may have done and suffered many things for religion's sake; you may have excellent gifts and great comforts, much zeal for God and high confidence of your integrity, and all this may be right; but possibly it may be counterfeit and vain. Perhaps you have sometimes, upon examination, pronounced yourself upright; but remember that the Searcher of hearts has not yet delivered his final sentence; if he weigh you in the balance of truth and find you wanting, how will you be confounded and dismayed? Saints may look upon you with approbation, but they are not as God seeth; you may have a name to live while dead.

You know the fate of apostate professors mentioned in the gospel. Do they not all, as it were, cry to you with one voice, "If you would not come where we are, flatter not yourselves as we did; if you expect a better portion, be sure that you get better hearts; had we been more self-suspicious, we had been more safe."

I would not frighten you with groundless alarms, but would gladly prevent fatal mistakes. Do you not find your heart deceitful in many things? Do you not shuffle over secret duties? Do you not condemn, in others, evils which you scarce reprove in yourself? Are there not many selfish ends in your performances? Do you not find that you are far less affected with a great deal of service done for God by others, than with a little done by yourself? Is it not hard for you to look without envy upon the excellencies of other men, or without pride upon your own? Are you not troubled by a busy Devil, as well as by a bad heart? Has not he that circuits the whole world observed you? Has he not studied your constitutional failings, and discovered the sin that most easily besets you? Has he less malice toward your soul than toward those around you? Surely you are in the very thicket of temptations; thousands of snares are on every side. Alas! how few of the professing and expecting world win heaven at last! With what difficulty are even the righteous saved! Therefore search your heart; and may this caution penetrate your inmost soul: "Let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall." Away with such uncharitable censuring of others, and be more just and severe in rebuking yourself. Away with unprofitable controversies; spend your thoughts rather upon this momentous question, "Am I sound, or am I rotten at heart?" "Am I a new creature, or the old disguised in borrowed clothing?" Let it be your prayer that you may not be deceived. Pray and labor that you may not be given up to a heedless and vain spirit, and then have religious duties for a show to beguile and hush your conscience.

Surely that ground-work upon which your hope for eternal life is built cannot be too safely laid. I dare promise you, that when you come to die, you will not regret having devoted much time and attention to this matter. Whilst others then are panting after the dust of the earth, and crying who will show us any good? do you endeavor after the full assurance of the love of God.

Deceive not yourself with names and notions; they cannot change your heart. If you are still impenitent, if you have not been renewed and sanctified by the Spirit of God, it matters little by what name you are called, or how warmly you advocate the distinguishing doctrines of the gospel; you are in the sight of God a guilty, perishing sinner.

Once more, then, I warn you to examine the foundation upon which you rest; deceive not yourself; behold, the Judge who knows your works standeth at the door.

Section VI. To conclude: If, as we have reason to believe, a great many professors of religion, and others whose hopes are not less sanguine, are fatally deceived, then it becomes those who have good reason to believe that they are indeed the children of God, to praise and glorify him for his mercy as long as they live. There are doubtless many real christians who do not themselves perceive such evidence of their gracious state as fully to satisfy them; but let them not be discouraged; let them resolutely persevere, and constantly live as the grace of God teacheth. And let such as have daily unequivocal evidence of their sanctification, freely enjoy the elevated happiness and the transporting anticipations peculiar to their state of mind.—Flavel.