Confessions

^5. But for what fruit do they desire this? Do they wish me happiness when they learn how near, by Your gift, I come unto You; and to pray for me, when they learn how much I am kept back by my own weight? To such will I declare myself. For it is no small fruit, O Lord my God, that by many thanks should be given to You on our behalf, and that by many You should be entreated for us. Let the fraternal soul love that in me which Thou teachest should be loved, and lament that in me which Thou teachest should be lamented. Let a fraternal and not an alien soul do this, nor that “of strange children, whose mouth speaks vanity, and their right hand is a right hand of falsehood,” but that fraternal one which, when it approves me, rejoices for me, but when it disapproves me, is sorry for me; because whether it approves or disapproves it loves me. To such will I declare myself; let them breathe freely at my good deeds, and sigh over my evil ones. My good deeds are Your institutions and Your gifts, my evil ones are my delinquencies and Your judgments. Let them breathe freely at the one, and sigh over the other; and let hymns and tears ascend into Your sight out of the fraternal hearts— Your censers. And do Thou, O Lord, who takest delight in the incense of Your holy temple, have mercy upon me according to Your great mercy, “for Your name's sake;” and on no account leaving what You have begun in me, do Thou complete what is imperfect in me.

6. This is the fruit of my confessions, not of what I was, but of what I am, that I may confess this not before You only, in a secret exultation with trembling, and a secret sorrow with hope, but in the ears also of the believing sons of men—partakers of my joy, and sharers of my mortality, my fellow citizens and the companions of my pilgrimage, those who are gone before, and those that are to follow after, and the comrades of my way. These are Your servants, my brethren, those whom You wish to be Your sons; my masters, whom You have commanded me to serve, if I desire to live with and of You. But this Your word were little to me did it command in speaking, without going before in acting. This then do I both in deed and word, this I do under Your wings, in too great danger, were it not that my soul, under Your wings, is subject unto You, and my weakness known unto You. I am a little one, but my Father lives for ever, and my Defender is “sufficient” for me. For He is the same who begot me and who defends me; and You Yourself art all my good; even Thou, the Omnipotent, who art with me, and that before I am with You. To such, therefore, whom You command me to serve will I declare, not what I was, but what I now am, and what I still am. But neither do I judge myself. Thus then I would be heard.