Chapter 9, Verse 2. Truly I know that it is so, and that a man is not justified when compared with God. 2. We ought to be subordinated to God, not compared with Him. For a man subordinated to God receives justice, but compared with Him loses it, because whosoever compares himself with the Author of good things deprives himself of the good he had received. For he who arrogates to himself the good he has received fights with his own gifts against God. Whence therefore the despised man is lifted up, it is fitting that, being lifted up, he be thence destroyed. But the holy man, because he beholds that every merit of our virtue is a vice if it be strictly judged by the inward Judge, rightly subjoins: