you
any real hurt. It is your own hell, your own devil, your own beast, your
own antichrist, your own dragon that lives in your own heart's blood that
alone can hurt you. Die to this self, to this inward nature, and then
all outward enemies are overcome. Live to this self, and then, when this
life is out, all that is within you, and all that is without you, will be
nothing else but a mere seeing and feeling this hell, serpent, beast, and
fiery dragon. But, said Theogenes, a third party who stood by, I would,
if I could, more perfectly understand the precise nature of self, or what
it is that makes it to be so full of evil and misery. To whom Theophilus
turned and replied: Covetousness, envy, pride, and wrath are the four
elements of self. And hence it is that the whole life of self can be
nothing else but a plague and torment of covetousness, envy, pride, and
wrath, all of which is precisely sinful nature, self, or hell. Whilst
man lives, indeed, among the vanities of time, his covetousness, his
envy, his pride, and his wrath, may be in a tolerable state, and may help
him to a mixture of peace and trouble; they may have their gratifications
as well as their torments. But when death has put an end to the vanity
of all earthly cheats, the soul that is not born again of the
supernatural Word and Spirit of God must find itself unavoidably devoured
by itself, shut up in its own insatiable, unchangeable, self-tormenting
covetousness, envy, pride, and wrath. O Theogenes! that I had power from
God to take those dreadful scales off men's eyes that hinder them from
seeing and feeling the infinite importance of this most certain truth!
God give a blessing, Theophilus, to your good prayer. And then let me
tell you that you have quite satisfied my question about the nature of
self. I shall never forget it, nor can I ever possibly after this have
any doubt about the truth of it.'

1. 'All my theology,' said an old friend of mine to me not long ago--'all
my theology is out of Thomas Goodwin to the Ephesians.' Well, I find
Thomas Goodwin saying in that great book that self is the very
quintessence of original sin; and, again, he says, study self-love for a
thousand years and it is the top and the bottom of original sin; self is
the sin that dwelleth in us and that doth most easily beset us. Now,
that is just what Academicus and Theophilus and Theogenes have been
saying to us in their own powerful way in their incomparable