If I begin with self, there is nothing but ruin. Is there anything to be got out of the ruin? any want felt there of God? Impossible that there could be! I begin with God, not with self. If God uses my sin to show out the- virtues of the blood of His Son, am I to be occupied with Him, or to be saying, My leanness, my leanness!" Your leanness! How came you to be calculating on anything in yourself? If you bring an empty vessel, you can keep it full to overflowing if you put it into a cistern of water, even if there be a crack or flaw in the vessel.
The proper expression of a redeemed soul is -thanksgiving, that such a manifestation of the divine will should have come out-the deepest, highest, brightest, fullest, most blessed counsels of God, having their expression in Him who said, " Lo, I come to do thy will."