August 18 — On Self denial

Consider, first, that the capital enemy of the love of God, and of all our good, especially of the resignation and conformity of our will to the will of God, is the vice of self-love or a disorderly inclination to gratify and please ourselves, which is the unhappy consequence of the corruption of man by sin, and the fruitful parent of all our evils. All our vices and passions spring from this poisonous root; all the seven capital sins are but so many branches of this inordinate inclination to ourselves. Take away $elf4ove, and you shall shut up all the avenues of hell, and estab lish every where the reign of the love of God, and a most blessed heaven upon earth. Hence the virtue of self-denial, the business of which is to suppress and root out this dreadful evil of is one of the most necessary of all Christian virtues, and must ever go hand in hand with the great virtue of conformity to the will of God, which can never take root in our souls as long as we are unhappily attached to our own wills, and fond of gratifying our own inclinations. Hence the very first condition the Son of God requires of all that would be his disciples, is to dmy themselvps. Matt. xvi. 24. This self-denial is the great lesson he came down from heaven to teach. Happy we if, by his grace, we can but effectually learn it in practice!

Consider, secondly, that this virtue of self denial is usually called mortifieation, from a word signifying slayings or putting to dt.ath inasmuch as, by this continual fighting against ourselves, and against our own corrupt inclinations and passions, we put to death, as it were, and crucify the old mmi of corruption, (Rom. vi. 6,) with his vices and sins, (according to that of the apostle. Gal. V, 24, that they that are of Christ have crucified their fiesh with its vices and concupiscences,) and so die to ourselves, that we may put on the new man, Jesus.Christ, and live in such manner to him, as to be able to say with the same apostle, I live now not /, but Christ liveth in me, Gal. ii. 20. See, my soul, what this virtue of mortification means, which is much talked of, and but little understood, and less practised; and yet no virtue is more necessary for our true welfare. We may even apply to it, what St. Paul says of charity, (1 Cor. xiii.) that if we speak with the tongues of men and angels — and have the gift of proph ecy, and all knowledge, and all faith, so that we could remove mountains, and are not mortified, we are 7nothing; and that whatsoever other qualifications we may have, or whatsoever good we may do, as long as our passions and corrupt inclinations remain unmortified, we shall still be nothing in the eyes of God.

Consider, thirdly, how this general mortification of our passions and our inordinate inclinations is every where strongly inculcated in the word of God. We are even assured there, that we must hate ourselves in this life, if we hope to be either true disciples of Christ here, or to be eternally happy with him hereafter, (St. h'Uke xiv. 26, and St. John xii. 25;) that, if wc live according to the Jlesh, toe shall die; but if by the spirit toe mortify thi deeds of the flesh, we shall live, (Rom. viii. 13;) and that they who are in the flesh, that is, they who are unmortified, cannot please God, (ver. 8;) besides many other texts, which abundantly demonstrate, that no one can be a good Christian, without waging a perpetual war against his own sensual inclinations, and diligently taking up the cross of daily mortification. Hence the. flesh, with iu passions and lusts, is always reckoned by divines amongst the three great enemies of the soul, and is indeed, of all the three, by far the most dangerous enemy; because tlie world and the devil, with all their suggestions, would not easily draw us into sin and hell, if our own flesh, that is, our corrupt inclinations and passions, did not pave the way, and furnish them with the arms with which they fight against us. The world and the devil b siege us from without, but could never force their way into the soul, if our own evil inclinations did not hold a correspondence with them, and open the gates of the soul to let them in.

Conclude, if thou desirest to overcome the world and the devil, to make it thy business to subdue the flesh, and to bring it under subjection, by wholesome self-denials and mortifications. Without this restraint upon thy passions and inclinations, there will be no soundness in thy soul; the whole head is sick, and the whole heart is sad, Isai. i. 5, 6.