Chapter IV. How we may know whether we are acting with Self-Distrust and Trust in God

ONE who is presumptuous oftentimes imagines that he has gained this spirit of self-distrust and trust in God, when he has really nothing of the kind. You may learn this by the way he takes his falls.

If after a fall you give way to despondency and vexation, and despairingly complain that you can make no progress, such feelings evidently show that you have been trusting in yourself and not in God.

And if your sadness and discouragement is much, then, there can be no doubt, that your trust in self was much, and your trust in God but little. For he who much distrusts himself and trusts in God, when he falls, is not surprised at it, neither does he become sad, bitter, and desponding; because he knows his fall is owing to his own weakness, and the little trust he placed in God.

On the other hand, as he grows in self-distrust, so more and more does he humbly trust in God; and hating intensely his sin and the rebellious passions which caused his fall, and mourning over it with a deep, calm, and meek sorrow, because of the offence against God, he at once resumes his efforts, and pursues his enemies with new resolution and energy even to the death.

I wish that some persons—who think themselves spiritual—would well consider these things; who cannot, or will not, give themselves a moment's peace, when they have committed a fault. Such persons rush off to their spiritual father chiefly to relieve themselves of their anxiety and vexation, which arise from self-love more than from any thing else, although their first concern should be to be cleansed from the stain of their sins, and to be fortified against temptation by the most holy Sacrament.