s with love. It is because of this
self that we do not pray and love as naturally as we breathe. The
separated self stands in the way. Therefore it must be overcome. For
divine as well as genuinely human purposes it must be subdued and
eventually left behind. Every real religious practice, whether of
Friends or of others, either directly or indirectly aims to enable human
beings to transcend the separated self in order that we may be united
with the spiritual self or being which is near God because He dwells
therein.

In the light of these facts we can understand the need and the purpose
of certain specific inward practices, such as the practice of contending
with oneself (Isaac Penington called it "lawful warring") and the
practice of gathering silently and waiting upon God. Since the separated
self exists, and is an obstruction, we must contend with it. We contend
with it so as to remove it and, at the same time, activate the spiritual
nature. Gathering in silence and waiting upon God is necessary for the
same reason, and is another means to the same end. More will be said of
this presently.

The early Friends, while proclaiming the good news that there is a
spiritual man in each and all of us, that God dwells in this part of
human beings and is, for this very reason, close even to the earthly
man, regarded the earthly man as unregenerate, sinful, blind and dead to
the things of the spirit. Only by rising above the earthly aspect of
ourselves can we pass from sin into righteousness, from death to life,
from that which exists apart from God into that which exists as part of
God. Only by yielding to God's power can the earthly man be regenerated.
To the degree that this happens, we are unified with our spiritual
natures. Thus we are mended and made whole. What formerly was a
separated and contrary part, becomes the instrument of expression of the
resurrected spiritual being.

If the earthly man is dead to the things of the spirit, then, as long as
he remains so, he obviously can neither truly pray nor truly worship.
Nor can we, as long as we remain identified with him. Should he try to
pray, he but prays according to his own ignorant and faulty notions.
Should he try to worship, he but worships in his own will, not according
to the will of God. Robert Barclay called this kind of worship
"will-worship."

Will-worship was what the Friends condemned and tried to avoid. They
aimed for true spiritual worship. They wante