hey keep it in subjection. This,
indeed, is what all men now have in common, a root of evil in them, a
principle of sin, or what may become such;--what they differ in is
this, not that one man has it, another not; but that one lives in and
to it, another not; one subdues it, another not. A holy man is by
nature subject to sin equally with others; but he is holy because he
subdues, tramples on, chains up, imprisons, puts out of the way this
law of sin, and is ruled by religious and spiritual motives. Of Christ
alone can it be said that He "did no sin, neither was guile found in
His mouth." The prince of this world came and found nothing in Him.
He had no root of sin in His heart; He was not born in Adam's sin. Far
different are we. He was thus pure, because He was the Son of God, and
born of a Virgin. But we are conceived in sin and shapen in iniquity.
And since that which is born of the flesh, is flesh, we are sinful and
corrupt because we are sinfully begotten of sinners. Even those then
who in the end turn out to be saints and attain to life eternal, yet
are not born saints, but have with God's regenerating and renewing
grace to make themselves saints. It is nothing but the Cross of
Christ, without us and within us, which changes any one of us from
being (as I may say) a devil, into an Angel. We are all by birth
children of wrath. We are at best like good olive trees, which have
become good by being grafted on a good tree. By nature we are like
wild trees, bearing sour and bitter fruit, and so we should remain,
were we not grafted upon Christ, the good olive tree, made members of
Christ, the righteous and holy and well-beloved Son of God. Hence it
is that there is such a change in a saint of God from what he was at
the first. Consider what a different man St. Paul was after his
conversion and before,--raging, as I just now said, like some wild
beast, with persecuting fury against the Church, before Christ appeared
to him, and meekly suffering persecution and glorying in it afterwards.
Think of St. Peter denying Christ before the resurrection, and
confessing, suffering, and dying for Him afterwards. And so now many
an aged saint, who has good hope of heaven, may recollect things of
himself when young, which fill him with dismay. I do not speak as if
God's saints led vicious and immoral lives when young; but I mean that
their lower and evil nature was not subdued, and perhaps from time to
time broke out a