praised, remain indifferent and unchanged, so that they do not
care for it, nor feel pride and pleasure in it, but remain
entirely free, ascribe all their honor and fame to God, offering
it to Him alone, and using it only to the glory of God, to the
edification of their neighbors, and in no way to their own
benefit or advantage; so that a man trust not in his own honor,
nor exalt himself above the most incapable, despised man on
earth, but acknowledge himself a servant of God, Who has given
him the honor in order that with it he may serve God and his
neighbor, just as if He had commanded him to distribute some
gulden to the poor for His sake. So He says, Matthew v: "Your
light shall shine before men, so that they may see your good
works and glorify your Father Who is in heaven." He does not say,
"they shall praise you," but "your works shall only serve them
to edification, that through them they may praise God in you and
in themselves." This is the correct use of God's Name and honor,
when God is thereby praised through the edification of others.
And if men want to praise us and not God in us, we are not to
endure it, but with all our powers forbid it and flee from it as
from the most grievous sin and robbery of divine honor.

XXIV. Hence it comes that God frequently permits a man to fall
into or remain in grievous sin, in order that he may be put to
shame in his own eyes and in the eyes of all men, who otherwise
could not have kept himself from this great vice of vain honor
and fame, if he had remained constant in his great gifts and
virtues; so God must ward off this sin by means of other grievous
sins, that His Name alone may be honored; and thus one sin
becomes the other's medicine, because of our perverse wickedness,
which not only does the evil, but also misuses all that is good.