Hence also we may learn, why many people not only lose the benefit, but are even the worse for all their mortifications. It is because they mistake the whole nature of them. They practise them for their _own sakes_, as things good in themselves, they think them to be real parts of holiness, and so rest in them, and grow full of self-esteem, and self-admiration for their progress in them. This makes them self-sufficient, morose, severe judges of all those that fall short of their mortification. And thus their self-denials do only _that_ for them, which indulgences do for other people, they withstand and hinder the operation of God upon their souls. There is no avoiding this fatal error, but by deeply entering into this great truth, that all our own working can do no good to us, but as it leads us in the best manner to the light and Spirit of God, which alone brings life and salvation into the soul. _Stretch forth thy hand_, said our Lord to the man, _that had a withered hand_; he did so, and _it was immediately made whole as the other_. Now had this man any ground for pride, for the share he had in the restoring of his hand? Yet just such is our share in the raising up of the spiritual life within us. All that we can do, is only like this man’s stretching out his hand; the rest is the work of Christ, the only giver of life to the withered hand, or the dead soul. When the Virgin _Mary_ conceived the holy Jesus, all that she did towards it herself, was only this single act of faith and resignation: _Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it done unto me according to thy word_. This is all that we can do towards the conception of the new man in ourselves. Now this truth is easily consented to, and a man thinks he believes it, because he does not deny it. But this is not enough, it is to be apprehended in a deep, full, and practical assurance, in such a manner as a man knows that he did not create the stars, or cause life to rise up in himself. And then it is a belief that makes room for the operation of God upon it. His light then enters with full power into the soul, and his Holy Spirit directs all that is done in it, and so man lives again in God as a new creature. For this truth thus firmly believed, will have these two effects: *_First_, It will keep the soul continually turned towards God, in faith, prayer, desire, confidence, and resignation for all that it wants to have done in it, and to it; which will be a continual source of all divine graces. The soul thus turned to God, must be always receiving from him. It stands at the true door of all divine communications, and the light of God as freely enters into it, as the light of the sun enters into the air. _Secondly_, It will fix and ground the soul in a true and lasting self-denial. For by thus knowing our own nothingness and inability, that we have no other capacity for good, but that of receiving it from God alone; no room is left for spiritual pride; we are saved from a Pharisaical