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3. What then have I to do with men, that they should hear my
confessions, as if they were going to cure all my diseases. A people
curious to know the lives of others, but slow to correct their own.
Why do they desire to hear from me what I am, who are unwilling to
hear from Thee what they are? And how can they tell, when they hear
from me of myself, whether I speak the truth, seeing that no man
knoweth what is in man, "save the spirit of man which is in him
"?,o But if they hear from Thee aught concerning themselves, they
will not be able to say, "The Lord lieth." For what is it to hear
from Thee of themselves, but to know themselves? And who is he that
knoweth himself and saith, "It is false," unless he himself lieth?
But because "charity believeth all things" n (amongst those at all
events whom by union with itself it maketh one), I too, 0 Lord,
also so confess unto Thee that men may hear, to whom I cannot prove
whether I confess the truth, yet do they believe me whose ears charity
openeth unto me.
4. But yet do Thou, my most secret Physician, make clear to me
what fruit I may reap by doing it. For the confessions of my past
sins, which Thou hast "forgiven" and "covered," x that Thou
mightest make me happy in Thee, changing my soul by faith and Thy
sacrament, when they are read and heard, stir up the heart, that
it sleep not in despair and say, "I cannot;" but that it may awake
in the love of Thy mercy and the sweetness of Thy grace, by which he
that is weak is strong? if by it he is made conscious of his own
weakness. As for the good, they take delight in hearing of the past
errors of such as are now freed from them; and they delight, not
because they are errors, but because they have been and are so no
longer. For what fruit, then, 0 Lord my God, to whom my
conscience maketh her daily confession, more confident in the hope of
Thy mercy than in her own innocency, for what fruit, I beseech
Thee, do I confess even to men in Thy presence by this book what I
am at this time, not what I have been? For that fruit I have both
seen and spoken of, but what I am at this time, at the very moment of
making my confessions, divers people desire to know, both who knew me
and who knew me not, who have heard of or from me, but their ear
is not at my heart, where I am whatsoever I am. They are desirous,
then, of hearing me confess what I am within, where they can neither
stretch eye, nor ear, nor mind; they desire it as those willing to
believe, but will they understand? For charity, by which they are
good, says unto them that I do not lie in my confessions, and she in
them believes me.
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