If I am occupied with myself, it must be either with my badness or my goodness. The more conscientious I am the more I am occupied with my badness, and in a peculiar and fatal way; it is more engrossing than occupation with my goodness. There is at all times very little in this, but in my badness there are the windings, the twistings, the accountings for this thing, the vexation at the other, the way I was tempted, how I yielded, the shame, the contrition, the purpose to amend; each doing its part like a professed company of diramtatis pegsonte, and thus I am engrossed with self, and my conscience cannot reprove me for it, for it is avowedly to condemn myself. But it being an engrossment of the most exhausting nature to both heart and mind, warns us sedulously to avoid it. One looks at, and pores over one’s prostrate self, horror-stricken, and yet provoked the more to look by that which deepens the pain. What is the good, what is the gain, from this engagement? None whatever. It engrosses and occupies the mind exclusively with visions of what de facto constitute self, an absorbing object by which the heart is corroded, and the mind wasted.
It is not dimply evil which is before you, it is yourself placed before your own tribunal, and there is the prosecution and defense, and though always the verdict is against you, you still like to linger there, as I have said.
If I see myself as Christ sees me, I am made to feel that whatever is seen is necessarily excluded if not of Him, because He is light, not law, which exacts from me; the good of light is to expose things as they are, and hence a very different action goes on when I see myself in the light; I am then sensible of the high and blessed deliverance vouchsafed to me; Christ is made more precious than ever to me; my heart turns to Him, rests in Him, dwells on Him more fixedly than ever, because I see what I am, and it is by Him who exposes me that I know that I am set free from everything exposed. As I feel the smallest atom in my eye, so do, I feel my least evils before Him, but He shows me where it is, and seeing it—it is gone—it is refused, and condemned, and I am liberated, and I rejoice in Him; I know better than ever the righteousness of God to forgive and cleanse me.
In the other case, it was seeing, exploring, and deepening one’s mind in all the tortuous workings of oneself, seeking exculpation, but only partially or occasionally finding any, in order to keep up the detention with self.
When I see with the Lord I see without any questioning, and am at the same time relieved by Him, and He, therefore, engages my heart more deeply than ever. My own badness even fades in the distance, and I delight to dwell on, and abide with Him, whom, as I follow, is to me the Light of Life.