How Shall “I” Overcome?
By J. Clarke
PAUL says that when the commandment came home with force to his conscience, self was slain. I died; I here is the difficulty, I gets in the way of God's good Spirit, and just where Jesus should shine forth, I puts himself in the fore-front. I, is not crucified, slain wholly, but still lingers about the portals of the soul. O how happy for Paul, how happy for all who have felt his influence, that with him I was slain completely, at the outset of his Christian course. No doubt when he held the raiment of Stephen's murderers, when he (clothed with power and authority) persecuted the church from city to city, I held a very high place in his mind: distinction, power, wealth, and honor, all of which were grand inducements for self to aspire after. But a change came, radical and universal in the mind of Paul; and I died. I was taken out of the way. A crucified and risen Saviour took the place, that I had occupied before. Here was the great secret of Paul's success, I was dead, dead, crucified, never more to even gasp or struggle; or if it did, Paul was soon the conqueror; for he gives no account of it; nor does his life furnish any evidence that I ever rose again, after it was slain in his case. I, that mischief-working I! sometimes it must be petted, sometimes justified, sometimes indulged, and so in many cases, I is resurrected, time after time, until he begins to retort, and boast, and assume the helm. And thus many a poor soul is driven madly about, among the quicksands, and perils of the dangerous seas which we are now passing over, and in all cases the great cause is overlooked, that I has got just where the pilot ought to be. Oh God let self be slain, then will we follow in the way of thy commandments.
J. CLARKE.