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WHEN then holy men feel that they are oppressed by the weight of
earthly thoughts and fall away from their loftiness of mind, and that they
are led away against their will or rather without knowing it, into the law
of sin and death, and (to pass over other matters) are kept back by those
actions which I described above, which are good and right though earthly,
from the vision of God; they have something to groan over constantly to the
Lord; they have something for which indeed to humble themselves, and in
their contrition to profess themselves not in words only but in heart,
sinners; and for this, while they continually ask of the Lord's grace
pardon for everything that day by day they commit when overcome by the
weakness of the flesh, they should shed without ceasing true tears of
penitence; as they see that being involved even to the very end of their
life in the very same troubles, with continual sorrow for which they are
tried, they cannot even offer their prayers without harassing thoughts. So
then as they know by experience that through the hindrance of the burden of
the flesh they cannot by human strength reach the desired end, nor be
united according to their heart's desire with that chief and highest good,
but that they are led away from the vision of it captive to worldly things,
they betake themselves to the grace of God, "Who justifieth the
ungodly," and cry out with the Apostle: O wretched man that I am! Who
shall deliver me from the body of this death? Thanks be to God through our
Lord Jesus Christ." For they feel that they cannot perform the good that
they would, but are ever falling into the evil which they would not, and
which they hate, i.e., wandering thoughts and care for carnal things.
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