p36 [From the French.] * * * I doubt your having ever been stripped of self, in such a way as to rest with holy humility on a righteousness other than your own, the righteousness of God, but which is yours by faith.

This stripping of self is a deep work wrought by God, and by the revelation of what He is. The personal conviction of sin, and the discovery of our misery in the struggle against it are but the means of reaching it. When I have found that the result of my efforts to attain to holiness - efforts that could not be wanting in a quickened soul - is but the discovery that I do not attain to it, I am compelled (having come in my rags into the presence of God, who desires nothing in us, in His house, but perfect conformity to Christ) to submit that God should be on my neck, and I still in my rags, and that God should clothe me (because that is His good pleasure in His grace) with the "best robe," with Christ Himself, which did not belong to me either before my sin, or since - no more the robe of Adam innocent than of Adam a sinner, but which was and which is in the treasures of God for those who are called by grace. Then I am called to walk as a son of the house, that is to say, as Christ walked. If we fail, we reproach ourselves for it a thousand times more than when we were outside, hoping to enter the house; but the question of knowing whether I belong to the house is not raised; it is because I do, that sin has so horrible a character in my eyes, so unsuitable to what I am, a child of God thus clothed - so horrible, when I think of what Christ has suffered on account of that sin.

God speaks to you now by the circumstances through which He is making you pass. Be assured it is in love that He leads you thus, and because He loves you. Remember that Christ is your righteousness from God, but the righteousness of a soul convinced of two things, first that it has no righteousness, and then that it has need of righteousness, need of being at peace with God - a need produced by the consciousness of its sin, without the hint of a desire that God should be less holy than He is.

This is why I said it is a deep work: it makes the soul simple, but it does not find it so. I do not look that you should be able to give an account of it intellectually, but that the thing itself should be done, and that you should find yourself stripped of self by the discovery of sin, leaning upon the righteousness of God which He has made ours, in giving us Christ, our precious Saviour. Peace be to you then in the name of [Him who shed] that precious blood which cleanses from all sin. Be watchful and look to God, opening all your heart to Him in thorough confidence. This is what puts truth into the soul, and He is worthy of it, through His perfect goodness to us.

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