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AND so, if we wish in very deed and truth to attain to the crown of
virtues, we ought to listen to those teachers and guides who, not dreaming
with pompous declamations, but learning by act and experience, are able to
teach us as well, and direct us likewise, and show us the road by which we
may arrive at it by a most sure pathway; and who also testify that they
have themselves reached it by faith rather than by any merits of their
efforts. And further, the purity of heart that they have acquired has
taught them this above all; viz., to recognize more and more that they are
burdened with sin (for their compunction for their faults increases day by
day in proportion as their purity of soul advances), and to sigh
continually from the bottom of their heart because they see that they
cannot possibly avoid the spots and blemishes of those faults which are
ingrained in them through the countless triflings of the thoughts. And
therefore they declared that they looked for the reward of the future life,
not from the merits of their works, but from the mercy of the Lord, taking
no credit to themselves for their great circumspection of hear in
comparison with others, since they ascribed this not to their own
exertions, but to divine grace; and without flattering themselves on
account of the carelessness of those who are cold, and worse than they
themselves are, they rather aimed at a lasting humility by fixing their
gaze on those whom they knew to be really free from sin and already in the
enjoyment of eternal bliss in the kingdom of heaven, and so by this
consideration they avoided the downfall of pride, and at the same time
always saw both what they were aiming at and what they had to grieve over:
as they knew that they could not attain that purity of heart for which they
yearned while weighed down by the burden of the flesh.
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