2. There is then no sanctity, if thou O Lord, withdraw thy hand:
No wisdom avails, if thou cease to govern us:
No strength is of any help, if thou support us not:
No chastity is secure without thy protection:
No guard that we can keep upon ourselves profits us, if thy holy watchfulness be not with us:
For it we are left to ourselves, we sink and we perish; but if thou visit us, we are raised up and we live.
For we are unsettled, but by thee we are strengthened: we are tepid, but by thee we are inflamed.
3. O how humbly and lowly ought I to think of myself! how little ought I to esteem whatever good I may seem to have?
Oh! how low ought I to cast myself down under the bottomless depth of thy judgments, O Lord, where I find myself to be nothing else but nothing and nothing?