How we must walk in truth and humility before God
1. "My Son! walk before Me in truth, and in the simplicity of your
heart seek Me continually. He who walks before Me in the truth
shall be safe from evil assaults, and the truth shall deliver him
from the wiles and slanders of the wicked. If the truth shall
make you free, you shall be free indeed, and shall not care for
the vain words of men."
2. Lord, it is true as You say. Let it, I pray You, be so
with me; let Your truth teaches me, let it keep me and preserve me
safe unto the end. Let it free me from all evil and inordinate
affection, and I will walk before You in great freedom of heart.
3. "I will teach you," says the Truth, "the things that are
right and pleasing before Me. Think upon your sins with great
displeasure and sorrow, and never think yourself anything because
of your good works. Verily you are a sinner, liable to many
passions, yes, tied and bound with them. Of yourself you always
tend unto nothing, you will quickly fall, quickly be
conquered, quickly disturbed, quickly undone.You have nothing
whereof to glory, but many reasons why you should reckon yourself vile, for you are far weaker than you are able to
comprehend.
4. "Let, therefore, nothing that you do seem to you great;
let nothing be grand, nothing of value or beauty, nothing worthy
of honor, nothing lofty, nothing praiseworthy or desirable,
save what is eternal. Let the eternal truth please you above
all things, let your own great vileness displease you
continually. Fear, denounce, flee nothing so much as your own
faults and sins, which ought to be more displeasing to you than
any loss whatsoever of goods. There are some who walk not
sincerely before Me, but being led by curiosity and pride, they
desire to know My secret things and to understand the deep things
of God, while they neglect themselves and their salvation.
These often fall into great temptations and sins because of their
pride and curiosity, for I am against them
5. "Fear you the judgments of God, fear greatly the wrath of the
Almighty. Shrink from debating upon the works of the Most High,
but search narrowly your own iniquities into what great sins you have fallen, and how many good things you have neglected.
There are some who carry their devotion only in books, some in
pictures, some in outward signs and figures; some have Me in
their mouths, but little in their hearts. Others there are who,
being enlightened in their understanding and purged in their
affections, continually long after eternal things, hear of
earthly things with unwillingness, obey the necessities of nature
with sorrow. And these understand what the Spirit of truth
speaks in them; for He teaches them to despise earthly things
and to love heavenly; to neglect the world and to desire heaven
all the day and night."
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