o pleasant bread, neither flesh
nor wine coming in his mouth, nor anointing himself at all, till those
three weeks were fulfilled. Can any thing more clearly show the duty
of self-denial, even in lawful things, in the case of Christians, when
even God's servants, before Christ came and commanded it, in proportion
as they had evangelical gifts, observed it?

Or again, consider the words of the text spoken by David, who, if any,
had riches and power poured upon him by the hand of God. He says, he
has "behaved and quieted" himself lest he should be proud, and made
himself "as a weaned child." What an impressive word is "weaned!"
David had put away the unreserved love and the use of this world. We
naturally love the world, and innocently; it is before us, and meets
our eyes and hands first; its pleasures are dear to us, and many of
them not in themselves sinful, only in their excess, and some of them
not sinful at all;--those, for instance, which we derive from our home,
our friends, and our prospects, are the first and natural food of our
mind. But as children are weaned from their first nourishment, so must
our souls put away childish things, and be turned from the pleasures of
earth to those of heaven; we must learn to compose and quiet ourselves
as a weaned child, to put up with the loss of what is dear to us, nay,
voluntarily to give it up for Christ's sake.

Much more after Christ came does St. Paul give us this same lesson in
the ninth chapter of his first Epistle to the Corinthians: "Every one
that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things," i. e. has
power over himself, and keeps himself in subjection, as he presently
says. Again, in the seventh chapter, "The time is short; it remaineth
that both they that have wives be as though they had none, and they
that weep as though they wept not, and they that rejoice as though they
rejoiced not, and they that buy as though they possessed not, and they
that use this world as not abusing it." Here the same doctrine of
moderation or temperance in lawful indulgences is strongly enforced; to
weep, to rejoice, to buy, to possess, to marry, to use this world, are
not unlawful, yet we must not use God's earthly gifts to the full, but
in all things we must be self-denying.

Such is Christian self-denial, and it is incumbent upon us for many
reasons. The Christian denies himself in things lawful because he is
aware of his own weakness and liability to sin; he dar