St. Augustine, Exposition of Ps 144 (145).1, trans. Maria Boulding, WSA III/20, 379. Latin from CCSL 40, 2088 ll. 1-8 via CAG via Past Masters. St. Augustine continues as follows: "It cannot, of course, be said to God, as it is to humans, Let not your own mouth praise you (Prv 27:2). If a human being praises himself, it is arrogance, but if God praises himself, he does so out of his mercy. It is to our advantage to love him whom we praise because, by loving the good, we become better. Knowing that it is good for us to love him, God has made himself lovable by praising himself, and in making himself lovable he has our good at heart. He therefore stirs up our hearts to praise him, and he has filled his servants with his own Spirit, to enable them to offer him praise. And if it is his own Spirit, present in his servants, who is praising him, what else can we conclude but that God is praising himself?" Trans. H. Walford, Expositions on the book of Psalms, Library of the Fathers, vol. 6 (1857), p. 314:
in order that the praise which we give Him may be in due order, that it may not by any excess offend Him Whom it praiseth, it is better for us to seek the path of praise in the Scripture of God, that we turn not aside from the way, either to the right hand or to the left. For I venture to say to you, beloved, God hath praised Himself, that He might be properly praised by man: and because He hath deigned to praise Himself, therefore hath man found how to praise Him.
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