And now I bear it and it is
light unto me, because so hast Thou promised, and hast made it; and
verily so it was, and I knew it not, when I feared to take it.
But, O Lord, Thou alone Lord without pride, because Thou art the
only true Lord, who hast no lord; hath this third kind of temptation
also ceased from me, or can it cease through this whole life? To wish,
namely, to be feared and loved of men, for no other end, but that we
may have a joy therein which is no joy? A miserable life this and a
foul boastfulness! Hence especially it comes that men do neither
purely love nor fear Thee. And therefore dost Thou resist the proud,
and givest grace to the humble: yea, Thou thunderest down upon the
ambitions of the world, and the foundations of the mountains
tremble. Because now certain offices of human society make it
necessary to be loved and feared of men, the adversary of our true
blessedness layeth hard at us, every where spreading his snares of
"well-done, well-done"; that greedily catching at them, we may be
taken unawares, and sever our joy from Thy truth, and set it in the
deceivingness of men; and be pleased at being loved and feared, not
for Thy sake, but in Thy stead: and thus having been made like him, he
may have them for his own, not in the bands of charity, but in the
bonds of punishment: who purposed to set his throne in the north, that
dark and chilled they might serve him, pervertedly and crookedly
imitating Thee.
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