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healthfully. Other things of this life are the less to be sorrowed
for, the more they are sorrowed for; and the more to be sorrowed
for, the less men sorrow for them. For behold, Thou lovest the
truth, and he that doth it, cometh to the light. This would I do in my
heart before Thee in confession: and in my writing, before many
witnesses.

And from Thee, O Lord, unto whose eyes the abyss of man's conscience
is naked, what could be hidden in me though I would not confess it?
For I should hide Thee from me, not me from Thee. But now, for that my
groaning is witness, that I am displeased with myself, Thou shinest
out, and art pleasing, and beloved, and longed for; that I may be
ashamed of myself, and renounce myself, and choose Thee, and neither
please Thee nor myself, but in Thee. To Thee therefore, O Lord, am I
open, whatever I am; and with what fruit I confess unto Thee, I have
said. Nor do I it with words and sounds of the flesh, but with the
words of my soul, and the cry of the thought which Thy ear knoweth.
For when I am evil, then to confess to Thee is nothing else than to be
displeased with myself; but when holy, nothing else than not to
ascribe it to myself: because Thou, O Lord, blessest the godly, but
first Thou justifieth him when ungodly. My confession then, O my
God, in Thy sight, is made silently, and not silently. For in sound,
it is silent; in affection, it cries aloud. For neither do I utter any
thing right unto men, which Thou hast not before heard from me; nor
dost Thou hear any such thing from me, which Thou hast not first
said unto me.

What then have I to do with men, that they should hear my
confessions- as if they could heal all my infirmities- a race, curious
to know the lives of others, slothful to amend their own? Why seek
they to hear from me what I am; who will not hear from Thee what
themselves are? And how know they, when from myself they hear of
myself, whether I say true; seeing no man knows what is in man, but
the spirit of man which is in him? But if they hear from Thee of
themselves, they cannot say, "The Lord lieth." For what is it to