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How we can do nothing against our faults without the help of God, and how we should not be puffed up by victories over them.

And that we ought not to be puffed up by victories over them he likewise charges us; saying, “Lest after you have eaten and art filled, hast built goodly houses and dwelt in them, and shall have herds of oxen and flocks of sheep, and plenty of gold and of silver, and of all things, your heart be lifted up and you remember not the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage; and was your leader in the great and terrible wilderness.” Solomon also says in Proverbs: “When your enemy shall fall be not glad, and in his ruin be not lifted up, lest the Lord see and it displease Him, and He turn away His wrath from him,” i.e., lest He see your pride of heart, and cease from attacking him, and you begin to be forsaken by Him and so once more to be troubled by that passion which by God's grace you had previously overcome. For the prophet would not have prayed in these words, “Deliver not up to beasts, O Lord, the soul that confesses to You,” unless he had known that because of their pride of heart some were given over again to those faults which they had overcome, in order that they might be humbled. Wherefore it is well for us both to be certified by actual experience, and also to be instructed by countless passages of Scripture, that we cannot possibly overcome such mighty foes in our own strength, and unless supported by the aid of God alone; and that we ought always to refer the whole of our victory each day to God Himself, as the Lord Himself also gives us instruction by Moses on this very point: “Say not in your heart when the Lord your God shall have destroyed them in your sight: For my righteousness has the Lord brought me in to possess this land, whereas these nations are destroyed for their wickedness. For it is not for your righteousness, and the uprightness of your heart, that you shall go in to possess their lands: but because they have done wickedly they are destroyed at your coming in.” I ask what could be said clearer in opposition to that impious notion and impertinence of ours, in which we want to ascribe everything that we do to our own free will and our own exertions? “Say not,” he tells us, “in your heart, when the Lord your God shall have destroyed them in your sight: For my righteousness the Lord has brought me in to possess this land.” To those who have their eyes opened and their ears ready to hearken does not this plainly say: When your struggle with carnal faults has gone well for you, and you see that you are free from the filth of them, and from the fashions of this world, do not be puffed up by the success of the conflict and victory and ascribe it to your own power and wisdom, nor fancy that you have gained the victory over spiritual wickedness and carnal sins through your own exertions and energy, and free will? For there is no doubt that in all this you could not possibly have succeeded, unless you had been fortified and protected by the help of the Lord.