2 Corinthians 1:12

"For our glorying is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and sincerity, not in fleshly wisdom, but in the grace of God, we behaved ourselves in the world." Here again he openeth to us yet another ground of comfort, and that not small, yea rather, exceeding great, and well fitted to upraise a mind sinking under perils. For seeing he had said, God comforted us, and God delivered us, and had ascribed all to His mercies and their prayers, lest he should thus make the hearer supine, presuming on God's mercy only and the prayers of others, he showeth that they themselves had contributed not a little of their own. "For our glorying," saith he, "is this, the testimony of our conscience;" that is, our conscience not having whereof to condemn us, as if for evil doings we were persecuted. For though we suffer countless horrors, though from every quarter we be shot at and in peril, it is enough for our comfort, yea rather not only for comfort, but even for our crowning, that our conscience is pure and testifieth unto us that for no evil-doing, but for that which is well-pleasing to God, we thus suffer; for virtue's sake, for heavenly wisdom's, for the salvation of the many. What then is this glorying and what doth our conscience testify unto us? "That in sincerity," that is to say, having no deceitful thing, no hypocrisy, no dissimulation, no flattery, no ambush or guile, nor any other such thing, but in all frankness, in simplicity, in truth, in a pure and unmalicious spirit, in a guileless mind, having nothing concealed, no festering sore. "Not in fleshly wisdom;" that is, not with evil artifice, nor with wickedness, nor with cleverness of words, nor with webs of sophistries, for this he meaneth by "fleshly wisdom:" and that whereupon they greatly prided themselves, he disclaims and thrusts aside: showing very abundantly that this is no worthy ground for glorying: and that not only he doth not seek it, but he even rejecteth and is ashamed of it. "But in the grace of God we behaved ourselves in the world." What is, "in the grace of God?" Displaying the wisdom that is from Him, the power from Him given unto us, by the signs wrought, by overcoming sages, rhetoricians, philosophers, kings, peoples, unlearned as we are and bringing with us nothing of the wisdom that is without. No ordinary comfort and glorying, however, was this, to be conscious to themselves that it was not men's power they had used; but that by Divine grace they had achieved all success.

Praise of a higher kind is bestowed upon Cato, for he says of him "The less he sought glory, the more it followed him." We say praise of a higher kind; for the glory with the desire of which the Romans burned is the judgment of men thinking well of men. And therefore virtue is better, which is content with no human judgment save that of one's own conscience. Whence the apostle says, "For this is our glory, the testimony of our conscience." And in another place he says, "But let every one prove his own work, and then he shall have glory in himself, and not in another." That glory, honor, and power, therefore, which they desired for themselves, and to which the good sought to attain by good arts, should not be sought after by virtue, but virtue by them. For there is no true virtue except that which is directed towards that end in which is the highest and ultimate good of man. Wherefore even the honors which Cato sought he ought not to have sought, but the state ought to have conferred them on him unsolicited, on account of his virtues.