For now I had begun to wish to seem wise, being
filled with mine own punishment, yet I did not mourn, but rather
scorn, puffed up with knowledge. For where was that charity building
upon the foundation of humility, which is Christ Jesus? or when should
these books teach me it? Upon these, I believe, Thou therefore
willedst that I should fall, before I studied Thy Scriptures, that
it might be imprinted on my memory how I was affected by them; and
that afterwards when my spirits were tamed through Thy books, and my
wounds touched by Thy healing fingers, I might discern and distinguish
between presumption and confession; between those who saw whither they
were to go, yet saw not the way, and the way that leadeth not to
behold only but to dwell in the beatific country. For had I first been
formed in Thy Holy Scriptures, and hadst Thou in the familiar use of
them grown sweet unto me, and had I then fallen upon those other
volumes, they might perhaps have withdrawn me from the solid ground of
piety, or, had I continued in that healthful frame which I had
thence imbibed, I might have thought that it might have been
obtained by the study of those books alone.
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