Our doctrine be tested by this rule and our victory is secure. For what accords better and more aptly with faith than to acknowledge ourselves divested of all virtue that we may be clothed by God, devoid of all goodness that we may be filled by Him, the slaves of sin that He may give us freedom, blind that He may enlighten, lame that He may cure, and feeble that He may sustain us; to strip ourselves of all ground of glorying that He alone may shine forth glorious and we be glorified in Him? These things, and others to the same effect are said by us, they interpose and querulously complain, that in this way we overturn some blind light of nature, fancied preparatives, free will, and works meritorious of eternal salvation, with their own supererogations also; because they cannot bear that the entire praise and glory of all goodness, virtue, justice, and wisdom, should remain with God. The first part is easiest. How many times have I put off all virtue? Over and over I have rolled off virtue and justice and wisdom and goodness like so many pairs of rubber underwear. Then I stand there, naked, perverse, depraved, and wait to be clothed, but no matter how many hours—you can stand there all night—it never happens. I can look back with my perfect memory and there was never one moment, never one, in my whole life where I didn't labor under it. The knowledge of my depravity is the only thing that makes me special—not the bad dreams or how I can leave my body on the roof and fly down the river dipping my hands in the water (and they are wet when I come back) or how I can make time slow down or how I know the future or how I can tell the best souls (and I know mine is small and wrinkled, wizened not wise) or how I can make my eyes change color if I stare in the mirror at them for long enough—that I have always always always known, and have never for a moment been able to forget, that there is something terribly wrong with me.
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