heavenly Father; his duty to do which none can do instead of him.
Each has his own sins, his own temptations, his own sorrows, which
he must bring single-handed and alone to God his Father, as it is
written, 'The heart knoweth its own bitterness, and a stranger
intermeddleth not with its joy.' There is a world, a flesh, and a
devil, near to us, ready to drag us down, and destroy our personal
and spiritual life, which God has given us in Christ; a flesh which
tempts us to follow our own appetites and passions, blindly and
lawlessly, like the beasts which perish; a world which tempts us to
become mere things, without free-wills of our own, or consciences of
our own, without personal faith and personal holiness; the puppets
of the circumstances and the customs which happen to be round us;
blown about like the dead leaf, and swept helplessly down the stream
of time. And there is a devil, too, near us, tempting us to the
deepest lie of all,--to set up ourselves apart from God, and to try,
as the devil tries, to be persons in our own strength, each doing
what he chooses, each being his own law, and his own master; that
is, his own lawlessness, and his own tyrant: and if we listen to
that devil, that spirit of lawlessness and self-will, we shall
become his slaves, persons in him, doing his work, and finding
torment and misery and slavery in it. Awful thought, that so many
enemies should be against us; yea, that we ourselves should be our
own enemies! But here baptism gives us hope, baptism gives us
courage; we are in Christ; God is our Father, and He can and will
give us power to have victory, and to triumph against the world, the
flesh, and the devil. His Spirit is given to us in baptism--that
Spirit of God who is not merely a force or an influence, but a
person, a living, loving, holy Person. He is with us, to give our
persons, our souls, eternal life from His life, eternal holiness
from His holiness; that so, not merely some part of us, but we our