To Donatus 4

So I often said to myself. For I myself was held entangled in very many errors of my former life, from which I did not believe I could be freed: so I was complying with the vices that clung to me, and, despairing of better things, I even favoured my evils as if they were now my own and native to me. But after the stain of my former life was washed away by the help of the water of birth, and light from above poured itself into my cleansed and pure heart; after, having drunk the Spirit from heaven, a second birth restored me into a new man, then in a wonderful way doubtful things at once became firm, closed things opened, dark things shone; what had seemed difficult became possible, what had been thought impossible could be done; so that one could recognize that what had first been born of the flesh and lived liable to sins had been earthly, and that what the Holy Spirit now animated had begun to be of God. You surely know, and recognize together with me, what was taken from us and what was given us by that death of crimes and life of virtues. You know it yourself, and I do not proclaim it: boasting in one's own praise is odious; although what is not ascribed to man's virtue but proclaimed as God's gift can be not boasting but gratitude, so that not sinning now has begun to belong to faith, as sinning before belonged to human error. Of God, I say, of God is all that we are able to do. From him we live, from him we have strength; from him, having received and conceived vigour, while still placed here we foresee the signs of things to come. Only let fear be the guardian of innocence, so that the Lord, who has mercifully flowed into our minds by the inflowing of heavenly mercy, may be kept in the lodging of a delighted soul by righteous conduct, lest the security received beget carelessness and the old enemy creep in again.