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Augustine

"Confessions And Enchiridion"

And it will
please those who are good to hear about the past errors of those
who are now freed from them. And they will take delight, not
because they are errors, but because they were and are so no
longer. What profit, then, O Lord my God -- to whom my conscience
makes her daily confession, far more confident in the hope of thy
mercy than in her own innocence -- what profit is there, I ask
thee, in confessing to men in thy presence, through this book,
both what I am now as well as what I have been? For I have seen
and spoken of my harvest of things past. But what am I _now_, at
this very moment of making my confessions? Many different people
desire to know, both those who know me and those who do not know
me. Some have heard about me or from me, but their ear is not
close to my heart, where I am whatever it is that I am. They have
the desire to hear me confess what I am within, where they can
neither extend eye nor ear nor mind. They desire as those willing
to believe -- but will they understand? For the love by which
they are good tells them that I am not lying in my confessions,
and the love in them believes me.


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