Now, what do you say?
was Pascal beyond the truth, was he deeper than the truth or more deadly than the truth when he said with a stab that self is hateful?
I think not.
5.

'Oh that I were free, then, of myself,' wrote Samuel Rutherford from Aberdeen in 1637 to John Ferguson of Ochiltree.

'What need we all have to be ransomed and redeemed from that master-tyrant, that cruel and lawless lord, ourself! Even when I am most out of myself, and am best serving Christ, I have a squint eye on myself.' And to the Laird of Cally in the same year and from the same place: 'Myself is the master idol we all bow down to.

Every man blameth the devil for his sins, but the house devil of every man that eateth with him and lieth in his bosom is himself.

Oh blessed are they who can deny themselves!' And to the Irish ministers the year after: 'Except men martyr and slay the body of sin in sanctified self-denial, they shall never be Christ's.