, Work humbly,, be humble, think not to merit by your working. Satan would either keep us from working, or else he would make us proud of our working. God must pardon our works before He crowns them. if we could pray as angels, shed rivers of tears, build churches, erect hospitals, and should have a conceit that we merited by this, it would be as a dead fly in the box of perfume; it would stain and eclipse the glory of the work. Our duties, like good wine, relish of a bad cask: They are but glittering sins. Let not pride poison our holy things; when we have been working for heaven, we should say as good Nehemiah, "Remember me, O my God, concerning also, and spare me according to the greatness of Thy mercy" (Neh. 13:22). Thomas Watson
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