Confessions

^58. Shall we, then, account this too among such things as are to be lightly esteemed, or shall anything restore us to hope, save Your complete mercy, since You have begun to change us? And You know to what extent You have already changed me, Thou who first healest me of the lust of vindicating myself, that so You might forgive all my remaining “iniquities,” and heal all my “diseases,” and redeem my life from corruption, and crown me with “loving-kindness and tender mercies,” and satisfy my desire with “good things;” who restrained my pride with Your fear, and subdue my neck to Your “yoke.” And now I bear it, and it is “light” unto me, because so have You promised, and made it, and so in truth it was, though I knew it not, when I feared to take it up. But, O Lord,— Thou who alone reign without pride, because You are the only true Lord, who hast no lord—has this third kind of temptation left me, or can it leave me during this life?

59. The desire to be feared and loved of men, with no other view than that I may experience a joy therein which is no joy, is a miserable life, and unseemly ostentation. Hence especially it arises that we do not love You, nor devoutly fear You. And therefore You resist the proud, but givest grace unto the humble; and You thunder upon the ambitious designs of the world, and “the foundations of the hills” tremble. Because now certain offices of human society render it necessary to be loved and feared of men, the adversary of our true blessedness presses hard upon us, everywhere scattering his snares of “well done, well done;” that while acquiring them eagerly, we may be caught unawares, and disunite our joy from Your truth, and fix it on the deceits of men; and take pleasure in being loved and feared, not for Your sake, but in Your stead, by which means, being made like him, he may have them as his, not in harmony of love, but in the fellowship of punishment; who aspired to exalt his throne in the north, that dark and cold they might serve him, imitating You in perverse and distorted ways. But we, O Lord, lo, we are Your “little flock;” do Thou possess us, stretch Your wings over us, and let us take refuge under them. Be Thou our glory; let us be loved for Your sake, and Your word feared in us. They who desire to be commended of men when Thou blamest, will not be defended of men when You judge; nor will they be delivered when You condemn. But when not the sinner is praised in the desires of his soul, nor he blessed who does unjustly, but a man is praised for some gift that You have bestowed upon him, and he is more gratified at the praise for himself, than that he possesses the gift for which he is praised, such a one is praised while Thou blamest. And better truly is he who praised than the one who was praised. For the gift of God in man was pleasing to the one, while the other was better pleased with the gift of man than that of God.