Man depends on God. Self tells him that he depends on himself.
Man has nothing but what he receives from God. Self tells him that what
he has is his own, and that he has a right to do with it what he likes.
Man knows nothing but what God teaches him. Self tells him that he has
found out everything for himself, and can say what he thinks fit without
fear of God or man. Therefore the proud, self-willed, self-conceited man
must come to harm, like Malvolio in the famous play, merely because he is
in the blackest night of ignorance. He has mistaken who he is, what he
is, where he is. He is fancying himself, as many mad men do, the centre
of the universe; while God is the centre of the universe. He is just as
certain to come to harm as a man would be on board a ship, who should
fancy that he himself, and not the ship, was keeping him afloat, and step
overboard to walk upon the sea. We all know what would happen to that
man. Let us thank God our Father that He not only knows what would
happen to such men: but desires to save them from the consequences of
their own folly, by letting them feel the consequences of their own
folly.
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