This, my friend, will help you to reap where you have not sown, and be a continual source of grace in your soul. This will not only help you to receive good from those prayers, which seem too good for the state of your heart, but will help you to find good from every thing else: for every thing that inwardly stirs in you, or outwardly happens to you, becomes a real good to you, if it either finds or excites in you this humble form of mind: for nothing is in vain, or without profit, to the humble soul; like the bee, it takes its honey even from bitter herbs; it stands always in a state of divine growth; and every thing that falls upon it, is like a dew of heaven to it. Shut up yourself therefore in this humility, all good is inclosed in it. Let it be as a garment wherewith you are always covered, and the girdle with which you are girt; breathe nothing but in and from its spirit; see nothing but with its eyes; hear nothing but with its ears: and then, whether you are in the church, or out of the church; hearing the praises of God, or receiving wrongs from men; all will be edification, and every thing will help forward your growth in the life of God.
_Academicus._ Indeed, _Theophilus_, this answer to my scruple is good. All my desire now is, to live no longer to the world, to myself, my natural tempers and passions, but wholly to the will of the blessed and adorable God.