"The more we try our strength, the more insufficient shall we find ourselves; and the better experience we have of our own insufficiency, the more earnestly will we (if we do as we ought for our own good) crave the assistance of God's Spirit; the more faithfully will we rely in Christ, who is our strength, and the Rock of our salvation, and so not presume." Jackson's Works, iii. 163. Deus propitius esto mihi peccatori! PHIL. iv. 13. "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me." Of ourselves, and by nature, the whole human race is weak and powerless, and ready to fall continually. Its best designs are based upon sand for a foundation, and wasting and decay proclaim them mortal-"the work of man's hands." To say, indeed, that anything is weak, is but in other words to say that man is the originator and contriver. But it is to his moral part, and more especially with reference to his soul, that we usually speak of weakness. It is here that the nothingness of natural strength and powers is most apparent. It is here that the everlasting truth is at once declared; "O Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself; it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps '." Only look into the world, only look to our parishes, to our kinsfolk and acquaintances, or nearer still, each one to his own heart, and there, the infirmity of purpose, the unreadiness of the will to persist in what is good, the dulness of the head to devise, and the sluggishness of the hand to perform what is right, all attest the same truth. It is weakness from the beginning to the end. We begin, as we think, well; for awhile we are occupied, as best we may, in following up what is begun; but, ere long, as excitement fails, so does desire also; and but too often we leave undone what we ought to have done, and, by the very fact of so doing, confess ourselves mortal men, and set the seal to the Almighty's testimony, "He that trusteth to his own heart is a fool 2." Now, as to the origin of this weakness, the Bible does not leave us uninstructed; but we are all, so to say, taught of God, that "it is the fault and corruption of every man, that naturally is ingendered of the offspring of Adam; whereby man is very far gone from original righteousness, and is of his own nature inclined to evil, so that the flesh lusteth always contrary to the spirit." And this great truth the Church has laid down in the first of her doctrinal Articles, observing well and wisely the teaching of the Psalmist; "I will acknowledge my sin unto thee, and mine unrighteousness have I not hid. I said, I will confess my sins unto the Lord, and so thou forgavest the wickedness of my sin1." 2 Prov. xxviii. 26. 3 Art. IX. 'Ps. xxxii. 5, 6. "When man fell from God, great was his fall indeed; for he fell from the Creator to the creature; he fell from heaven to earth; he fell from the height of happiness to the depth of misery; for he fell from holiness into sin. And ever since man first fell from holiness into sin, he hath been unable to rise again from sin to holiness. Ever since he first chose the evil before the good, he hath been unable to choose the good before the evil"." And for this reason it is that our Church next proceeds to instruct us thus wise: "The condition of man after the fall of Adam is such, that he cannot turn and prepare himself, by his own natural strength and good works, to faith and calling upon God: wherefore we have no power to do good works pleasant and acceptable to God, without the grace of God by Christ preventing us, that we may have a good will, and working with us, when we have that good will." The exhortation, even of the elder Scriptures, ever points towards our own inability, and our own insufficiency. "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths"." But if this were the burden of the Old, how much more so is it of the New Testament? How is the old and unregenerate man there declared to be "corrupt according to the deceitful lusts?" How is man 3 Bp. Beveridge on the tenth Article of our Church. 6 Art. X. ' Prov. iii. 5, 6. 8 * Eph. iv. 24. |