t, and
to plant all humility in its place. Many and dreadful discoveries shall
I have to make to thee of thy profane and inhuman self-love and
selfishness. Words will fail thee to confess all thy selfishness in thy
most penitent prayer. Thy towering pride of heart also, and thy so
contemptible vanity. As for thy vanity, I shall so overrule it that
double-minded men about thee shall make thee and thy vanity their sport,
their jest, and their prey. And I shall not leave thee, nor discharge
Myself of My work within thee, till I see thee loathing thyself and
hating thyself and gnashing thy teeth at thyself for thy envy of thy
brother, thy envy concerning his house, his wife and his man-servant, and
his maid-servant, and his ox, and his ass, and everything that is his.
Thou shalt find something in thee that shall allow thee to see thine
enemy prosper, but not thy friend. Something that shall keep thee from
thy sleep because of his talents, his name, his income, and his place
which I have given him above thee, beside thee, and always in thy sight.
It will be something also that shall make his sickness, his decay, his
defamation, and his death sweet to thee, and his prosperity and return to
life bitter to thee. Thou shalt have to confess something in
thyself--whatever its nature and whatever its name--something that shall
make thee miserable at good news, and glad and enlarged and full of life
at evil tidings. It will be something also that shall give a long life
in thy evil heart to anger, and to resentment, and to retaliation, and to
revenge. For after years and years thou shalt still have it in thine
heart to hate and to hurt that man and his house, because long ago he
left thy side, thy booth in the market, thy party in the state, and thy
church in religion. As I live, swore Emmanuel, standing up on the step
of His ascending chariot, I shall show thee thyself. I shall show thee
what an unclean heart is and a wicked. I shall teach to thee what all
true saints shudder at when they are let see the plague of their own
hearts. I shall show thee, as I live, how full of pride, and hate, and
envy, and ill-will a regenerate heart can be; and how a true-born man of
God may still love evil and hate good; may still rejoice in iniquity and
pine under the truth. I shall show thee, also, what thou wilt not as yet
believe, how thy best friend cannot trust his good name with thee; such a
sweet morsel to thee shall be the mote i