tion that you are nothing, that you know nothing, that you can do nothing, and that you have nothing of your own but misery and imperfection, and that you deserve nothing but eternal damnation.
Secure and entrench yourself within the bounds of this truth, and never suffer yourself to be drawn aside one single hair's-breadth from it, by any thought or any events which may happen to you, being convinced that such are only so many enemies who want to slay and wound you, if they could only get you into their hands.
If you would exercise yourself well in this field of the knowledge of your own nothingness, use the following rule:—
Whenever you are occupied with the thought of yourself or of your own doings, ever reflect upon what you are of yourself, and not upon what is of God and of His grace; and then estimate yourself, according to that only which you are of yourself.
If you consider the time before you were created, you will see that through all that abyss of eternity you were absolutely nothing, and that you did nothing, and could in no way minister to your own creation.
And now, through the Goodness of God only, having been created, if you leave to Him that which is His—His continual Government,
