whereby He sustains you every moment—what are you of yourself now but still equally nothing?
For it is certain, that, if He were for the slightest moment to withdraw from you, you would return to your original nothingness, out of which His Almighty Hand drew you. It is clear, then, that you have no ground in this natural being, viewed by itself alone, either for thinking highly of yourself, or for wishing others to think highly of you.
As to that blessed gift of grace within you, or the good works you have been enabled to perform, what good or meritorious action could you by your natural strength have ever done, if you had been deprived of Divine assistance?
If, on the other hand, you call to mind the number of your past faults, and the multitude of sins of which, but for the merciful Hand of God holding you back, you would also have been guilty, you will find, by reckoning up the days and years as well as the acts and habits of sin (for one vice draws another after it) that your iniquities will have become, as it were, innumerable, so that you would be changed into another infernal Lucifer. If, therefore, you would not rob God of His Glory, but ever cleave to your Lord, you must learn day by day to think worse of yourself.
Be careful to deal honestly in the judgment
