PAUL says that when the commandment came home with force to his conscience, self was slain. I died: I here is the difficulty, I gets in the way of God’s good Spirit, and just where Jesus should shine forth, I puts himself in the fore-front.
I, is not crucified, slain wholly, but still lingers about the portals of the soul. O how happy for Paul, how happy for all who have felt his influence, that with him I was slain completely, at the outset of his Christian course. No doubt when he held the raiment of Stephen’s murderers, when he (clothed with power and authority) persecuted the church from city to city, I held a very high place in his mind: distinction, power, wealth, and honor, all of which were grand inducements for self to aspire after. But a change came, radical and universal in the mind of Paul; and I died. I was taken out of the way. A crucified and risen Saviour took the place, that I had occupied before. Here was the great secret of Paul’s success, I was dead, dead, crucified, never more to even grasp or struggle; or if it did, Paul was soon the conqueror; for he gives no account of it ; nor does his life furnish any evidence that I ever rose again, after it was slain in his case.
I, that mischief-working I ! sometimes it must be petted, sometimes justified, sometimes indulged, and so in many cases, I is resurrected, time after time, until he begins to retort, and boast, and assumes the helm.
And thus may a poor soul is driven madly about, among the quicksands, and perils of the dangerous seas which we are now passing over, and in all cases the great cause is overlooked, that I has got just where the pilot outs to be. Oh God let self be slain, then will we follow in the way of thy commandments.
The Advent Review and Sabbath Herald Aug. 5 1862
Deut. 11:22 For if ye shall diligently keep all these commandments which I command you, to do them, to love the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, and to cleave unto him;
2Jn 1:6 And this is love, that we walk after his commandments. This is the commandment, That, as ye have heard from the beginning, ye should walk in it.