their own power, their own genius, their
own wisdom, or even their own virtue, they ipso facto sin, and are
justified and just no longer; because they are trying to take
themselves out of their just and right state of dependence, and to
put themselves into an unjust and wrong state of independence. To
assert that anything is their own, to assert that their virtue is
their own, just as much as to assert that their wisdom, or any other
part of their being, is their own, is to deny the primary fact of
their existence--that in God they live and move and have that being.
And therefore Milton's Satan, though, over and above all his other
grandeurs, he had been adorned with every virtue, would have been
Satan still by the one sin of ingratitude, just because and just as
long as he set up himself, apart from that God from whom alone comes
every good and perfect gift.

Settle it in your hearts, young men, settle it in your hearts--or
rather pray to God to settle it therein; and if you would love life
and see good days, recollect daily and hourly that the only sane and
safe human life is dependence on God himself, and that--

Unless above himself he can
Exalt himself, how poor a thing is man.

SERMON III. DAVID'S ANGER

Psalm cxliii. 11, 12. Quicken me, O Lord, for thy name's sake: for
thy righteousness' sake bring my soul out of trouble. And of thy
mercy cut off mine enemies, and destroy all them that afflict my
soul: for I am thy servant.

There are those who would say that I dealt unfairly last Sunday by
the Psalms of David; that in order to prove them inspired, I ignored
an element in them which is plainly uninspired, wrong, and
offensive; namely, the curses which he invokes upon his enemies. I
ignored it, they would say, because it was fatal to my theory!
because it proved David to have the vindictive passions of other
Easterns; to be speaking, not by the inspiration of God, but of his
own private likes and dislikes; to be at least a fanatic who thinks
that his cause must needs be God's cause, and who invokes the
lightnings of heaven on all who dare to differ from him. Others
would say that such words were excusable in David, living under the
Old Law; for it was said by them of old time, 'Thou shalt love thy
neighbour and hate thine enemy:' but that our Lord has formally
abrogated that permission; 'But I say unto you, Love your enemies,
bless them that curse you, and do good to those who despitef