CHAPTER XI.

_Of the considering the secret judgments of God, lest we be exalted on account of our good deeds._

_Christian._ THOU thunderest forth thy judgments over me, O Lord; thou shakest all my bones with fear and trembling, and my soul is sore afraid.

I stand astonished, when I consider that the heavens are not pure in thy sight.

If thou hast found wickedness in angels, and hast not pardoned them, what shall become of me?

Stars fell from heaven; and am I, who am dust, proud?

2. There is therefore no sanctity, if thou, O Lord, withdrawest thy hand.

No wisdom availeth, if thou ceasest to govern.

No strength helpeth, if thou leavest to defend.

No chastity is secure, if thou dost not protect it.

No vigilance profits, if thy sacred watchfulness be not present.

For if we be left, we sink and perish: but if thou visitest us, we are raised up and live.

We are inconstant, but by thee we are established; we grow cold, but by thee we are inflamed.

3. O how meanly ought I to think of myself! How nothing ought I to esteem it, if I seem to have any good!

O Lord, with what profound humility ought I to submit myself to thy inscrutable judgments: where I find myself to be a very nothing! O unmeasurable height! O unpassable sea, where I find myself to be altogether nothing! Where then is the hiding-place of glory? Where is the confidence I once conceived of my own virtue?

All glorying is swallowed up in the depths of thy judgments over me.

4. What is all flesh in thy sight?

Shall the clay glory against him that frameth it?

How can he be lifted up with vain words, whose heart is truly subject to God?

All the world cannot lift him up whom the truth hath subjected unto itself; neither shall he be moved with the tongues of all his praisers, that hath set his whole hope upon God.

For as for them that speak, behold they are all nothing; they shall pass away, as doth the sound of their words: but the truth of the Lord remaineth for ever.