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63. "I am poor and needy,". yet better am I while in secret
groanings I displease myself, and seek for Thy mercy, until what is
lacking in me be renewed and made complete, even up to that peace of
which the eye of the proud is ignorant. Yet the word which proceedeth
out of the mouth, and actions known to men, have a most dangerous
temptation from the love of praise, which, for the establishing of a
certain excellency of our own, gathers together solicited suffrages.
It tempts, even when within I reprove myself for it, on the very
ground that it is reproved; and often man glories more vainly of the
very scorn of vain-glory; wherefore it is not any longer scorn of
vain-glory whereof it glories, for he does not truly contemn it when
he inwardly glories.
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