Nay, not
only has self-love the largest place of any of the passions of our
hearts, but it is out of self-love that all our other evil passions
spring. It is out of this parent passion that all the poisonous brood of
our other evil passions are born. The whole fall and ruin and misery of
our present human nature lies in this, that in every human being self-
love has taken, in addition to its own place, the place of the love of
God and of the love of man also. We naturally now love nothing and no
one but ourselves. And as long as self-love is in the ascendant in our
hearts, all the passions that are awakened in us by our self-love will be
selfish with its selfishness, inhumane with its inhumanity, and ungodly
with its ungodliness. And it is to kill and extirpate our so passionate
self-love that is the end and aim of all God's dealings with us in this
world. All that God is doing with us and for us in providence and in
grace, in the world and in the church,--it is all to cure us of this
deadly disease of self-love. We may never have had that told us before,
and we may not like it, and we may not believe it; but there can be no
better proof of the truth of what is now said than just this, that we do
not like it and will not have it.
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