livelihood or from the other feared some such losse or first insured thirsted for revenge Would he commit a murder upon no cause taken only with the murder who can imagine this for as for that furious and cruel †Catiline man that was said to be gratuito malus atque crudelis spontaneously wicked and blood-thirsty gratis yet is there a cause assigned ne per otium c. lâ—st his mind or hand through idleness should grow useless And why indeed was he such but * that the City being surprized by his mischievous practises he might possess the honour wealth command thereof * that in so necessitous a fortune so guilty a conscience he might be free from fear of laws and of want Therefore was not Catiline himself in love with his own villanies but with something else for which sake he did them CHAP. VI. BUt O my Theft that wicked night-exploit of my sixteen years age what was it then that wretched I so much loved in thee For nothing fair thou wert because thou wert Theft or indeed wert thou at all any thing that thus I speak unto thee Indeed the fruit we robbed was fair because it was thy Creature thou fairest of all Creator of all my good God God my true and my supream good fair was the fruit but that was not it after which my miserable soul lusted having thereof far better in great plenty of our own But the other rather I liked because so I might steal it which being once gathered as having now sufficiently satisfied my appetite I threw it away enjoying thereof only the pleasure of the sin or if I chanced to tast any of the fruit that which sweetned it unto me was the offence And now O Lord my God fain would I know what it was in this fault that so much delighted me and behold I cannot find the least allurance of any beauty in it I do not mean such beauty as is seen in the divine habits of Justice and Prudence or as in the highest faculties of understanding and memory or as in the subtility of the senses or yet in the vigours of Vegetation nor yet inferiour to these as the stars are glorious and orderly in their Orbs or as the Earth and Sea are beautifull in their kind being alwayes laden with breed a new growth of which in their unexhausted womb still succeeds a former departed But I mean such a gloss at least as there is a faint and painted one in many a deluding vice For both * the sin of pride to be some way like unto thee emulates highness when as thou art only above all the most high God And * Ambition aims at glory and honour when as thou alone art honourable supreamly and eternally glorious And * the cruelty of the great ones desires so to become reverenced and feared and who is to be feared but God alone from whose power what Psal 76.7 or when or where or how or by whom can ever any thing by force or fraud be subducted And * the caresses of the lascivious seek to be loved when as neither is any thing so dearly sweet as thy Love nor so savingly enamouring as thy above-all-beautifull and enlightning Truth And * Curiosity makes semblance of a desire of knowledge when as it is Thou that perfectly understandest all things Also even * ignorance and folly clothes it self with the name of simplicity and innocency because not any thing is found like simple as thy self and what is there innocent like thee whose works are harmfull only to the sinner And * sloth affects as it were quiet but what repose certain besides the Lord * Luxury desires to be called satiety and plenty yet thou art the only fulness and never-failing abundance of uncorrupting dainties * Lavishing hides it self under the shadow of liberality but the most royally overflowing doner of all good things is thy self * Avarice would have much to be in its fruition and it is Thou that possessest all things * Envy contends for pre-eminence and what is so pre-excellent as thy self * Anger pretends just vengeance and who executes it righteously like thee * Fear abhorrs things unusuall surprizing and Enemies to what she loves whilst she is alwayes precautelous of her safety now to thee only it is that nothing comes unacquainted or sudden and who can part what thou lovest from thee and where but with thee ever dwells unshaken security * Sorrow pines for those things lost in whose enjoyment she delighted because she desires that nothing may be taken away from her as nothing can from thee After these the soul goes a whoring when she is departed from thee and seeks besides thee what she never finds pure and clear but when returned unto thee And yet all they in a wrong way imitate and seek likeness unto thee who render themselves far from thee and who pride themselves most against thee And in this their imitating and resembling thee shew thee to be the Creator of all nature and that in it they cannot any-whither recede from thee What therefore in that Theft was it that I loved and in what here though viciously and perversly have I also imitated my Lord Was it that I had a desire to act against the law by sleight where I could not by power and though restrained by it yet would imitate a lame kind of liberty in doing free from punishment what I could not free from guilt out of a fond resemblance of thy omnipotency CHAP VII He laments his offences and praiseth God for the Remission thereof by Baptisme SEe if this were a good Servant thus flying from his Lord and embracing a shadow of him O corruption monstrosity of life profoundness of death could I then lust after what was unlawfull for no other reason but because unlawfull Psal 116.12 What shall I render unto the Lord that whilst my memory now recalls these things my soul doth not dread them I will love thee O Lord my God and give thanks unto thee and confess unto thy name because thou hast forgiven my so great iniquities and detestable deeds To thy grace I depute it Psal 9.2 and to thy mercy that those sins I committed are now dissolved like ice and to thy grace I depute it also whatsoever other sins I have not committed for what one crime would I not have acted who loved such an act for its being criminous Therefore * of all these sins †Being sins committed before his Baptism I confess my self released by thee not only * of those by my own wilfulness effected but * of those by thy guidance avoided And who is he that well-weighing his frailty dares to attribute his chastity or his innocence to his own ability that so he should less love thee as less obliged to that thy mercy by which thou remittest sins to those who return unto thee And whoever he be that called by hee hath straight followed thy voice and hath happily escaped
enlightened my darkness CHAP. II. CHAP. III. Still unsatisfied concerning the cause of evill and why Angels and Men being created by the most good God there should by him be placed in them a power to will evilly BUt although I thus granted thee uncontaminable and unalterable or liable to misery in any part or member of thee from the Manichean-feigned opposition of I know not what Gens tenebrarum or adverse malignant powers arising out of another lump of matter contrary to that which thou hadst made which could it any way have hurt thee thou must then the very name of which all abhorre have been supposed both violable and corruptible as was well pressed by Nebridius long since at Carthage and had then much startled us that heard it And although I also firmly acknowledged thee our Lord the true God that madest not only our souls †Whereas the Manichees supposed the body produced by another evil principle but bodies but all * of us and * of all things notwithstanding as yet I apprehended not clearly and free from scruples the cause of Evil. Yet whatever it were such I saw it must necessarily be as might no way oblige me to believe * thee the immutable God to be subject to change nor * thy substance to suffer evil rather than ours to do any evil lest so my self should become that I sought for And I strained hard to see and discern what I had heard that our own free-will was the cause that we did evil and thy righteous judgements that we suffered it But I was not yet able to behold this clearly But as I endeavoured to raise up the eye of my soul above these deep waters I presently sunk again and often endeavouring it I sunk down again and again On the one side this elevated and buoy'd me up toward thy light that already I knew as well my self to have a will as to live Therefore in willing or nilling any thing I was most certain no other thing but me to will and nill it and I quickly observed also that the cause of my sin was there Again whatever I did unwillingly and with regret I saw my self to suffer rather such evil than to do it and judged it to be not my fault but punishment which also I apprehending thee as just soon confessed not to be unjustly inflicted But then I argued And who made me Did not my God not only good but goodness it self from whom have I then to will evilly and to nill well that so there might be that for what I might be justly punished Who put this thing into me who planted in me this root of bitterness All of me being made by the most sweet Creator If the Devil the author of it whence then the Devil But if he also by a perverse will of a good Angel became a Devil whence came in him this evil will by which he became such since he totally was made by the best God a good Angel And by these thoughts was I plunged again and suffocated yet not so low as that infernal error to believe That thou rather didst forcedly suffer than man do evil CHAP. IV. CHAP. V. Pursuing the same query still Unde malum Yet * his faith of Christ to be our Lord and Saviour remaining in Him firm and unshaken ANd I sought from whence Evil might come and I sought evilly yet saw not this evil in my inquisition And my spirit placed before it the whole Universe both of visibles as the Earth Sea Air Starrs Plants Animals c. and of invisibles as the Firmament of Heaven and all the Angels and spiritual Inhabitants thereof After this I considered thee my God as every way infinite and boundless environing and entirely penetrating this masse as a shoarless sea would fill a sponge of a great but finite magnitude placed within it so conceived I the finite Creature filled with thee the infinite God and I said within my self Behold God and behold all the things God hath created O how good is he and most perfectly and incomparably more excellent and better than they yet being good he created these good and behold how he outwardly encircleth and within replenisheth all his Creation Where then is Evil or whence or what way hath it stoln in hither what is the root and what the seed of it Or indeed is it at all Why fear we then and why avoid we that which is not Or if we vainly fear surely this fear it self is an evil by which our soul is needlesly pricked and tortured Therefore either there is an evil which we fear or this that we should so fear is an evil Whence is it then because God made all these things the good God all things good He the greater and the supreme good made these the lesser but yet both the creating and the created all are good From whence then is Evil or out of what did God make these things Was there some preexistent matter which was bad and he formed and rectified this but so that he left something in it not converted into good But why this then Was he impotent to change it all that so no more evil should remain in it who yet is omnipotent Lastly why would he make any thing at all of it and not rather by the same omnipotence annihilate it and prepare another matter totally good out of which he might produce all things for he were not omnipotent if he could not make any good unless he were first furnished with some matter which himself had not made Such things I agitated in my perplexed breast loaded with corroding cares from fear of death And not finding out the truth yet the faith concerning Christ both our Lord and our Saviour retained in the Church Catholick was irremovably fixed in my heart in many things indeed yet unformed and floating besides the rule of sound doctrine But my mind did never forsake it yea daily more and more sought to imbrace it CHAP. VI. And * the lying divinations of Astrologers foretelling from the starrs future events no way credited by him ALready also I had cast off the lying divinations and impious dotages of the Astrologers Psal 106.8 vulg And for this also let me confess unto thee from the bottome of my soul thy compassions O my God For it was thou thou alone for who else recals us from the death of any errour but the life never dying and the wisdom illuminating our needy minds needing no illumination it self by which the whole world is orderly administred even to the wind-scattered leaves of trees It was thou that procuredst for the remedying of my obstinacy †See l. 4. c. 3. which opposed both Vendicianus an acute old man and Nebridius a youth of an excellent spirit the one vehemently affirming the other somewhat doubtfully yet often repeating That there was no Art at all of foreseeing or divining things future but that mens conjectures had many times a
good time thou wilt return and pitty me And what is it I would first utter unto thee O Lord my God but that my silliness cannot tell how or whence I first came hither into this dying life shall I call it or living death I cannot tell And behold then immediatly the comforts of thy compassionating mercies * attended me as I have been told by the Parents of my flesh out of whose substance thou fashionedst me in thy good appointed time long before the dawning of this my memory and * cherished that my helpless age with the soft nourishment of a Womans milk Neither was it the Providence of my Mother or Nurses that stored their swelling breasts therewith but thou it was that in those Cisterns preparedst an agreeable food for that my tender age according to thinâ— ordinance and the riches of thy bounty descending to the meanest Original of things And thou gavest also * to me to desire that only which thou then gavest me and also * to those who nursed me as willingly to bestow on me what thou didst first bestow on them For they by a heavenly-guided affection took a delight to impart unto me what they abounded with from thee and it was also good for them that I received this good from them which indeed was not from but by them only for from thee O God are all good things Psal 62.1 and from my God cometh my universal salvation as I have well-learned since by the multiplyed expressions of so many blessings heaped upon me internal and external all confessing thee their Author For then I had only the skill how to suck to be still when my flesh was satisfyed and to cry when it was offended and nothing more than this But afterward came-on smiles and laughter first when I was asleep then when awake for this hath been told me of my self and I likewise discover it in the infancy of others though I remember it not in mine own Hence by gentle degrees I advanced to perceive and discern where I was and to have a desire to make known my desires to those that might content them But this in vain at first these longings of mine being * shut up within me and they * without me unable with the eye of sense to pierce so deep into my soul Therefore next I laboured to produce and expose my meaning by several motions of my fluttering limbs and ejaculations of broken words * some few such as I could articulate and bearing * litle resemblance to my mental conceits And when I was not presently obeyed eithâ—r for that my desires were hurtfull or not intelligible I would fall into a ridiculous rage against my Elders not under my power and my betters not owing me service I would take revenge on them with crying Such have I heard other In ants to be and such my Nurses and Tenders report me to have been by those dark conjectures they could make of my infantine inclinations And now behold mine infancy is deceased long ago and notwithstanding I still alive But tell me O Lord thou who livest all ages yet without the defluxe of any because before the first dawn of time and before all that can be said to be before Thou art and art the God and Lord of all which thy self hath created and before thy eye do stand ever-fixed the causes of all the heremost-fleeting events and remain unchangeable the Ideas and patterns of all things here most floating and before thee live eternall the reasons of all things temporall which so often to us seem unreasonable Tell unto me O God thy poor suppliant thou that art mercifull unto me who am miserable tell me whether this my infancy succeeded not also a younger age of mine expired before it that life perchance the revolution of which I passed yet being a prisoner within my Mothers womb for of my abode there also I have understood and seen many Women bear about the like burdens And what before that life again O my God my sweetest dear delight Was I yet then also any where Or any thing Which none can tell me neither Father nor Mother that begot me neither others experience nor my own memory And dost not thou now deride this my curiousity demanding thee such questions Who only requirest my lauding of thee and confessing unto thee concerning things within the circle of my knowledge I confesse therefore unto thee Lord of Heaven and Earth and give thee praiâ—e for that my first conception and that my new-born infancy in which things though beyond our remembrance thou hast given unto us a conjecture of our selves from our experience of others and from the authority of those who then attended us Then had I being and life and cogitation and toward the wane of my infancy invention of expressive signes to make my meanings known to others And whence such a vitall sensitive piece of matter as I was then but from thee O Lord Can any be his own Creator Or can there be derived from any other sourse the smallest vein Psal 100.2 that may stream essence and life into us but only from thee who thus hast made us In whom Being and Living are not a several thing but thou art one and the same highest supremity of both For Ps. 83.18 Psal 102.26 thou art the most-high and thou art not changed Neither doth To-day ever passe-away in thee and yet in thee it is that it passeth away for even these transitories are not but as in thee Nor have they any way of passing away but as conveyed through thee and yet mean while Psal 102.26 because thy years fail not therefore thy years are but a continued to-day And how many dayes of ours and of our forefathers have flowed away through this thy one ever-fixed day and from it received the mould and fashion of their being And how many more yet shall flow and shall so receive the measure of their being Whilst thou art still the same and all the things of to-morrow Psal 102.26 and what ever is beyond it and all the things of yesterday and whatever is behind it in this thy day thou shalt make and in this thy day thou hast made them What doth it import me if any understands not this Let such a one praise thee in saying what meaneth this high mystery Even so let him praise thee and rather chuse in not apprehending to conceive nothing but right of thee †That is that thou art incomprehensible than in apprehending amiss to conceive something below thee CHAP VII And* of its sins And his praising God for its good endowments HEar O God wo wo unto the sins of Men and Man confessing this thou takest compassion of him because thou hast made him but yet madest not sin in him O who can recount unto me the concealed sins of my unknown Infancy from which none is pure in thy sight O Lord not the child that is a day old
straight they decrease again and wither for all of them have their decadency and fade they do all Therefore also when they spring and blossom toward a being look how much more speedily they advance to be the more precipitancy again they make not to be Such their condition and such a lot hast thou bequeathed them because they are parcels of things which are not consistent all together but which by some still retiring and others coming on all of them successively build up that fleeting Universe of which they are parcels In the same manner as our speech is composed of many significant sounds and cannot be perfected unless each word thereof give way and vanish when it hath sounded its part that another may succeed it From all these Creatures O God let my soul raise praises unto thee the Creator of them all but never let my corporeal senses fasten me unto them with the glew of love For they go whither they alwayes did go hastily toward a not-being and then wound and rack the soul with most pestilent longings because she would fain be nothing but what they are and loves to set up her final rest in the thing she loves and in them there is no place of repose for they stay not but pass away And who can with the senses of this flesh either pursue them when gone or comprehend them when at hand For the fleshly sense is slow-paced because it is but the sense of flesh and this is the condition of it And sufficient it is for those ends for which it was made but for this it serveth not to detain and stay things here running their prescribed race and hasting from their beginning appointed to their appointed period For in thy word by which they were created there they all hear their sentence Hinc huc usque Hence and hitherto CHAP. XI The transition of its parts is necessary to make this Vniverse compleat BE no more so vain O my soul nor suffer the tumultuous noise of thy busie vanity to deafen the ear of thy heart Hearken thou also unto the word for it speaks unto thee to return back from these unto it and that there is the seat of un-molested quiet where thy love shall never if it forsake not be forsaken Behold those other things are alway departing that other things yet may succeed and this lower fleeting globe be compleated with all its parts But do I any where depart saith the word of God Isa 40.8 There then fix thine abode thither devote all that thou hast from thence received O my soul at least now after thou hast been out-wearied with impostures Recommend over unto truth what hath been imparted to thee from her and thou shalt so not suffer loss yea thy decayes shall enjoy a fresh spring and thy languors be restored the continual flux of thy materials shall be renovated and re-fashioned and made permanent with thee nor shall they sway thee down also whether they now descend but stand with thee and abide for ever before God who abides and standeth fast for ever To what end therefore dost thou so erroneously pursue the inclinations of thy perverting flesh Rather now let it converted follow after thee For whatever thou discernest by it is only a part of the successive Universe and the whole is yet unknown by thee whereof these are parts and yet so little a part of it delights thee But had thy carnal sense any capacity of comprehending the whole and had it not for thy punishment by reason of its mortality been confined to the prospect only of a small part thereof thou wouldst have wished a speedy transition of these parts which for the present exist that from the whole perfected thou mightst have received a supream content For by the same carnal sense also thou hearest what we speak yet wouldst thou not have one syllable still to sound before thee but sly away by thee and others come till thou maist hear the whole Even so are some of them ever in being which make up one whole yet are they never all together of which that whole is made And these would please more all together than the severall pieces could they be all at once surveyed by thee Yet farr better than all these summed together is he who made them all and this is our God and he hath no transition because he hath no succession If bodies therefore attract thy affection let thy praises from them ascend unto God and thy love wheel about unto their Maker lest in those things which please thee thou displease him CHAP. XII To rest our love upon God and to love other things only for and in him OR if souls delight thee in God let these be loved because these also subject to mutability from him only have their stability else ‖ Alioquin irent perirent pass-on they would and at last pass-away In him therefore let these also be loved And entice with thee to him as many of them as thou canst and say unto them him let us love him let us love He made these things and he is not farr off For he made them not and so left them but being of him they are in him too Lo where he is Where truth is rellished well He is in the heart but alas that heart hath strayed from him Isa 46.8 Vulg. Return O prevaricators unto your heart again and be united unto him that made you Stand with him and ye shall stand fast rest in him and ye shall be at rest Whither go ye into precipices Whither go ye The Good ye court and woo is from Him and so much as it is it is in your tending toward him good and delicious to you But justly then embittered to us when it is once unjustly loved with the desertion of him from whom it is To what purpose still and still tread ye those difficult and toilsome paths Rest is not there where ye seek it seek freely what ye do seek but there it is not where you are seeking it A blessed life ye seek in the region of death and it is not there How life happy there where neither life But life it self descended hither and underwent our death and out of the super-abundance of its life slew it And then with a voice of thunder called out unto us that we should hence return unto him into that secret place from whence he came forth unto us coming into that first pure Virgins womb where he espoused this humane creature of our mortal flesh Ps 19.5 that it might not be ever mortal and thence like a Bridegroom going forth of his chamber he rejoyced as a Giant to run his course But did run all the way here staid not calling out unto us by his words by his deeds by his death by his life by his descension by his Ascension calling out unto us to return unto him and then presently vanished from our eyes that we might return
appearing to our senses couldst notwithstanding hear and relieve our necessities I began therefore when yet a childe to pray unto thee my aid and refuge and then first inured my unskill'd tongue to the invocating of thy holy name and begged of thee though a little one with no little passion that thou wouldest save me from whipping at School And not only thou didst not hear me in that which was inflicted on me for my good but my elders also and even my parents far from wishing me any harm made a jest of those my stripes my then grievous and remediless evil Is there O Lord amongst thine any so great a soul and with so strong a passion adhering to thee Is there any I say who becomes not out of a senseless stupidity but by an inseparable union to thee so transported in his minde as that he can sport at racks and hooks and a thousand such tortures which all the world with so much fear deprecates of thee laughing at those who tremble at these in such a manner as our parents mocked at those torments which we children then suffered from our severe Masters For neither had we less horrour of these than others of greater torments nor importuned we thee less to escape them Though meanwhile we were peccant in writing or reading or conning our lessons less than was exacted of us Nor was this peccancy in us O Lord from want of memory or wit such as thou bestowest on that age but from an importunate lusting which we had after play and they revenged this fault in us who committed much what the same themselves But our Superiors equall toyes are named business and when boys-play is even the like yet these are seourged for it by their overpowring Master and in this miscarriage of things no body pitties the poor Children or them or both For who is he that weighing things well can justify my being beaten when I was a boy for playing at ball when by such play I was only hindred from a speedier attaining those vain arts in which I should play farr more unbeseemingly when I was Flder Nor did he by whom I was corrected meanwhile do any thing better himself who if worsted in any mean criticisme by his fellow-teacher was farr more racked with choler and envy then I was with the same when mastered in a match at ball by my Companions CHAP. X. And* love of Play with an aversion from his Book ANd yet I sinned O Lord God thou Ordainer and Creator of all things of nature and only not the Ordainer of sin O Lord my God I was too blame in doing then contrary to the will of my Parents and of those my Preceptors for I might have put that learning to good use to which they bred me with another purpose But my undutifulnesse arose not out of choice of something better but meerly out of a lust to play proudly aspiring to be a victor in my sports over those that played with me and to have my ears tickled with false applause that they might itch more hotly after it the same still-more and more perillous curiosity now beginning to sparkle through my wanton eyes toward the shews and playes of the more aged The Donors of which flourish afterward in so grand a reputation that almost all the spectators fore-wish the same honour one day to their little ones And yet they are well content they should be whipt if by such shews they are seduced from their study by which studies they desire their sons may one day arrive to present such shews Look upon these things O Lord with thy pitty and deliver us who now call upon thee and deliver them also who do not yet call upon thee that they also may call upon thee and thou maist deliver them CHAP. XI Of his * sicknesse and in it * his desiring Baptism for what reason upon hopes of his recovery deferred by his Mother FOr I had heard somewhat yet a childe of life eternal that was promised unto us by the humility of thy Son our Lord God descending hither because of our pride and I was already signed with the signe of his Cross and was seasoned with his †A custom in primitive times to put salt into the mouthes of the Catechumeni intimating a spiritual pre-seasoning of them for the reception of the grace of Baptisme see 3. l. Con. Carthag 5. can and being a symbol of incorruption See Ezek. 16.4 5. Mark 9.49 in latter times this ceremony was used to the newly baptized salt even from my mothers womb a woman who put much hope in thee And thou sawest O Lord I happening then to be pained at my stomack and suddenly seized with a violent Calenture near unto death thou sawest O my God for even then wast thou my Guardian with what passion of minde and with what faith I importuned the piety of my own mother and of our common mother thy Church for the Baptism of thy Christ my Lord and God And this much-perplexed mother of my flesh who now travailed far more dearly in the womb of her chast heart of the second birth of my eternal salvation by her faith in thee than before she had done of my temporal was taking care that with all speed I should be initiated and purged with the salutary †Eucharist as well as Baptism in those dayes given to Infants Sacraments confessing thee O Lord Jesus for remission of sins But that I had a suddain recovery upon which this my cleansing was for that time deferred although it could not be avoided but that if I lived longer I should be yet more defiled and so the guilt contracted from the renewed pollutions of sins after that holy lavatory would have become greater far and far more dangerous Thus then I believed in thee and she and the whole family excepting my Father who yet could not oversway in me the just power of my mothers piety to make me not believe in Christ as he at that time believed not in him For it was her holy endeavour that thou my God shouldest be my Father more than He and thou assistedst her herein to overcome her husband To whom in other things she though much better yielded all obedience because she was to yield all obedience to thee and this obedience to her husband was commanded by thee †Men baptized in their sickness were by the Canon prohibited sacred Orders because their Baptisme seemed necessitated For what reason O my God I would fain know was this my Baptism at that time delayed and whether for any my greater good were the reins of my sinning longer left loose upon me For if they were not then left loose whence is it that on every side we do still hear it said of such and such Let him alone let him do what he will for he is not yet baptized and yet concerning corporal sanity we say not Let him yet receive more wounds for he is not
because the more I loved him the more I abhorred and dreaded that my cruellest Enemy Death that bereaved me of him fancying it a monster that would soon devour the rest of men because it could destroy him Even thus I well remember stood I then affected Behold my heart O my God Behold and see into me how I remember this very well O thou my hope that now cleansest me from the impurity of such passions guiding my eyes unto thy beauties and plucking my feet out of these snares For I wondred much that the rest of mortals could any longer live when he whom I loved as a thing immortall was now dead And yet more wondred that my self being only another He could live when he was gone Well said one of his friends Animae dimidium mea Half of my soul for I deemed his and mine to be but one soul as it were in different bodies And therefore my life was an horror to me who would not live thus an Half and death yet a greater affright to me lest he should perish all whom I so passionately loved ‖ S. Austin reviewing this work in his Retractations 2. l. 6. c. censures this expression quasi declamatio levis potius quam gravis confessio CHAP. VII He forsakes the place of their acquaintance and goes to Carthage O Fond madness that knows not how to love men men-like O sottish man so impatiently taking to heart accidents only humane such as poor I then was Therefore I stormed and sighed and wept and was distracted bereft both of content and counsel For I carried about a soul all lacerated and gored in blood and impatient longer to be carried by me and where to repose it I found not Not in delightsome groves nor in playes and musick not in fragant odors nor in exquisit banquets not in the pleasures of the chamber or of the bed not in books or poesie took it any rest All things looked gastly even the day And whatever it was that was not He importune it was and loathsome except mourning and tears and in these only it found some small content And when at any time I retired my soul from these I was re-surcharged with the grievous burden of my misery which was only to be lightened by thee O Lord only by thee to be removed And I knew this but yet was so much the less either willing or able to find remedy because thou then to me wast no solid or stable thing when my despairing thoughts fled for support unto thee For it was not thou but an empty Phantasm and my own errour that was my God whereon assaying â—o place my soul that it might find some stay through this inanity it still relapsed and again came rouling back upon me And my self remained the alone unhappy place to my self where I could neither be nor be from thence For whether could my heart from my heart fly away where could I avoid my self and where would not my self follow me And yet farr from my Country I fled for my eyes less missed him where they were not used to see him And thus forsaking Tagaste I went to Carthage CHAP. VIII His wound eured by time and new Friendships TImes do not lose time nor idly rowle away by these our senses but in the mind produce strange operations Behold they came and went day by day and in coming and passing they insinuated into me other images and other remembrances and by degrees repaired me with my formerly known delights to which that my grief at length gave place But there succeeded though no new sorrowes yet the causes only of more sorrowes For whence did that my last grief so easily and so deeply wound me but because I had spilt my soul upon a bed of sand and loved a mortal as if he could not die And that which recovered and repaired me of this were but like solaces of other mortal friends with whom I loved something which was not loved for thee even those fabulous delusions †Manicheisme and long-spun lies by the adulterous touches whereof our lascivient minds through our itching ears became still more defiled Nor did these delusions perish to me when my friends did Besides which there were also many other things cementing together our affections To chat and laugh together civil obsequiousnesse and mutuall compliance together to read merry books to jest together and together be solemn to dissent from one another sometimes without offence and as a Man would do from himself and by this disagreeing in some very few things to season and rellish the more our consentments in the rest to teach one another somewhat or somewhat to learn to expect those absent with impatience embrace their returns with joy It being usual by these and the like expresses and emanations from hearts continually reflecting interchanged loves through the countenance through the tongue through the eyes and through a thousand other charming motions as it were by so much fuell heaped on these fires to melt down souls and to cast many of them into one CHAP. IX Yet these too failing him ANd this is it that is loved in a friend and so loved that the conscience is self-accused in any who continues not to love him who loves him again or who loves not that man again who loves him first requiring nothing from his body but only demonstrations of his affection And for this are those mournings if one dies and nights of sorrowes and a languishing heart having all its sweets converted into bitterness and from the dear loss of the life of those who are dead even the death of those alive But alway-blessed he who loves * thee and in thee * his friend and for thee * his Eenmy For he alone loseth nothing dear to whom all are dear only in him whom he never loseth And who is this neverlost but our God the God that made and filleth Heaven and Earth Jer. 23.24 Ps 119.142 Jo. 17.71 and that even by filling them made them Thee none loseth but who leaveth and who so leaveth thee whither goeth he or whither doth he flie but from thee gracious back again to thee offended For in what place finds he not the presence of thy law in his punishment And thy law is truth and Truth is thy self CHAP. X. All things loved besides God pass away and leave the lover to embrace sorrowes Ps 80.19 TVrn us unto thee O God of power shew us the beauty of thy countenance and we shall be whole For which way soever the soul of man turns it self it is consigned unto sorrowes unless only toward thee yea though it seize upon all those other beauties that are out of it self and out of thee which yet could be none at all unless they were from thee All which have their rise and their setting their spring and their fall and in their springing they begin as it were to be and then grow on to attain perfection perfected
away she departed into Africk vowing unto thee never to know any other man and leaving with me the Son I had by her But unhappy I not able to imitate a woman impatient of the two yeares delay in which time I might not enjoy her I made suit to and being not so much a lover of marriage as a slave of lust got me another though no Wife that so by the continuance of the same custome with her I might sustain and preserve in its vigour or also augment that disease of my soul till it might arrive to the kingdom of marriage And thus was the wound that was made in me by the cutting off of my former Concubine not now cured at all but after most acute and burning torments grown more putrified and corrupt and under a colder and less violent pain a more desperate sore CHAP. XVI Yet his lusts somewhat restrain'd from the fear he had * of death and * of the soules immortality and * of future judgements TO thee be praise To thee be glory Fountain of mercies thou camest still more near as I became more wretched And even very now was thy right hand ready when I was quite sunk to pull me out of this mire and to wash me clean and I knew nothing thereof Nor was there any thing that stayed me from yet-a-deeper stream of carnal voluptuousness save the fear of death and thy judgement to come which terrour by all my various opinions could never be quite defaced in my soul And often I reasoned with my friends Alipius and Nebridius * of the ends of good and wicked persons and * that Epicurus above all men with me should carry away the prize but that I believed the soul after death still lived and was treated according to its meritâ— a thing which Epicurus credited not And I asked whether if so be we might be immortal and might live in the perpetuated pleasures of the body without any fear at all of losing them any more whether I say this were not enough to be happy or whether some thing else were desirable to it not knowing that this also was a great part of my misery that so deeply plunged and blinded I could not cast my thoughts upon the fair light of vertue and honesty and that soveraign beauty interiorly by the soul discerned though not by the eye of flesh which is imbraced gratis and without any bodily pleasure issuing from it Neither considered I so wretched from what Principle it came that this was to me a great pleasure sweetly to confer with my friends even concerning these filthy pleasures and that without friends also I could not be happy according to my then opinion though in never so much affluence of those carnal delights Yet which friends I loved gratis without any interest of my corporal pleasure and so perceived my self gratis also of them beloved O crooked paths Wo to the audacious soul that departing from thee foolishly hopes elsewhere to find something better and when she hath turned and returned her self on back and sides and belly she finds all things hard and uneasie and thee only Rest And yet behold thou patiently stayest by us and freest us from these our miserable wandrings and puttest us into thy way and encouragest us and sayest Run and I will sustain you and I will conduct you through whither you desire to go and at your journeys end also I will sustain you LIB VII CHAP. I. His entrance now being thirty years old into mans estate His apprehension of God as inviolable incorruptible immutable every way infinite but yet corporeal * DEceased now was my youth so evil and so profane and I * entred into the state of manhood advancing in vanity as in age and imagining no substance but only such as with these our eyes we usually behold I indeed never thought thee O God to bear an humane shape since the time I had heard any thing of wisdom I alwayes avoided so grosse a conceit and was much joyed when I found the same also to be the faith of our spiritual Mother thy Catholick Church but what other thing I should think thee to be was not easily resolved And I a man and such a man yet endeavoured to know and apprehend thee the supreme and the only and the true God and from the bottom of my soul I believed thee to be incorruptible and inviolable and immutable because how and whence I know not but I plainly saw and was assured Ex l. 7. c. 4. â–³ that that which cannot be corrupted nor injured and hurt nor changed was doubtless more perfect and more excellent than what is capable of corruption or violation or mutation And then again â–³ that no soul ever was or shall be able to imagin any thing which should be something better than thee who art the very best and chiefest Good But since the incorruptible is most truly and certainly preferrable before the corruptible I could with my thought have ascended unto something that would have been better than my God unless thou wert incorruptible But still I was forced to imagin thee though not figured like a man yet as something corporeal having a certain space of being either infused into and through all the world or also diffused infinitely beyond it because what I abstracted from being in such space seem'd to me not to be at all I therefore conceived thy greatness O Life of my life to be such as to penetrate by an extension through an infinite space on every side the whole masse of the world and to flow to all immensity beyond it without any limit so that thee the earth had the heavens had thee all things had thee and they were bounded in thee but thou no where And as this body of air which floats above the earth hinders not the darting of a sun-beam through it which beam penetrates it not by cutting or breaking the parts but by filling the whole in such manner I conceived the bodies not only of the heavens or of the air or water but of the thicker earth also transpassable by thee and in all her least as well as greatest parts pierceable to receive every where thy presence thus with thy secret inspiration both intrinsecally and extrinsecally actuating and managing all those things which thou hast created So I conceited not able to think of any other way Though this was false For thus a greater part of earth would receive a greater part of thy essence and a lesser a lesse And in such a sense would all things be full of thee that the body of an Elephant would contain a greater quantity of thee than that of a Sparrow by how much it is bigger and possessing a greater space and so thou shouldest apply thy presence to the parts of the world by parcels a greater part of thee to the large and a lesser to the small But thou art nothing so Notwithstanding as yet thou hadst not so farre
mind that I had any where heard the like Whereupon suppressing the course of my teares I rose up interpreting it to be nothing else but a divine Admonition that I should open the book and read the place I first light upon For I had heard of Antonius * that entring by chance into a Church when the Gospel was reading he took himself to be admonished as if that was particularly addressed to him what was then read Mat. 19.21 Go and sell that thou hast and give to the poor and thou shalt have treasure in heaven and come and follow me and * that by this Oracle he was out of hand converted unto thee So getting up hastily I returned to the place where Alipius was sitting for there when I arose I had left the Apostles book I catched it up opened it read in silence the piece of the Chapter on which I first cast mine eyes Not in rioting and drunkenness Rom. 13.13 not in chambering and wantonness not in strife and envying but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ and make not provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof I would read no further nor was there need For at the end of these lines as it were with a new light of confidence and security streaming into my soul the darkness of all former doubting and hesitancy was dispelled Then putting my finger or I know not what other mark between I shut the book and now with a serene and untroubled countenance related all to Alipius Who also thus discovered what should be done likewise in him which I observed not He requested to see what I had read I shewed him the place then He looking attentively further than I had read who knew not what followed there found these the next words Him that is weak in the faith receive ye Which words he applied to himself and so shewed them to me But this very admonition sufficiently confirmed him and streight without any afflicting delayes did he joyn himself to me in this good and holy resolution so pleasing and agreeable to his former manners in the vertuous inclinations of which he alwayes aforetime had far surpassed me Thence we go in to my Mother We relate our resolution to her she rejoyceth we tell her all the circumstances thereof she exults and triumphs and fell a blessing thee who art able to do above that which we ask or think because she saw so much more granted her by thee concerning me than ever she had petitioned thee for with all those her miserable and lamentable groans For in such a full manner didst thou convert me unto thee that I sought now no more after wife nor after any other hope of this world standing now with her upon that rule of faith †See 3. l. 11. c. as thou hadst in a vision represented me unto her so many yeares before Psal 30.11 And thus thou turnedst her mourning into gladness into a gladness much more plentiful than that she had aspired to and much more precious and chast than that she had promised her self from her grand-children of my body LIB IX CHAP. I. Doxology and Thanksgiving for this his freedom from his former lusts aad the great joy and content he presently received therein Psal 116.16 O My Lord I am thy servant I am thy servant and the son of thine handmaid thou hast broken my bonds insunder I will offer to thee the sacrifice of praise Let my heart and let my tongue praise thee Psal 35.10.3 and let all my bones say O Lord who is like unto thee Let them say this and do thou answer me and say thou again unto my soul I am thy Salvation Alas who and what a one was I What evil was not I evil either my deeds or if not deeds my words or if not words my will But Thou O Lord wert good and mercifull and thy right hand sounded the profundity of that my death and drew out of the bottom of my heart that abysse of corruption summed up in this To nill all that thou wouldest and to will all that thou wouldest not But where was all this while during so many yeares and out of what low and deep retreat of my soul didst thou thus in a moment call forth that my now indeed Free-will wherewith I should submit my neck unto thy easie yoke and my shoulders unto thy light burden O Jesus Christ my helper and my Redeemer How sweet on a sudden became it now unto me to want the sweets of those toyes and what before it was my fear to lose how was it now my joy to dismiss For thou the true and the supreme sweetness didst expell them from me Thou expelledst them and thy self enteredst into me instead of them more delicious than all delights but not to flesh and blood more bright and glorious than all light but to the inward hidden man exalted above the heights of all honour but not to those who exalt themselves Now was my mind freed from those consuming-cares of seeking honour and of getting wealth and of weltring in pleasure and scratching the tickling and itchy scabs of my lusts And now my infant-tongue began to converse with thee my ambition and my riches and my salvation my Lord God CHAP. II. His purpose to relinquish his profession of teaching Rhetorick but the thing deferred till the Vintage-vacation ANd it seemed good to me before thee not tumultuously to break off but yet gently to withdraw any further service of my tongue in those Faires of loquacity that the young men who meditated not thy Law not thy Peace but lying fooleries and forensick warrs might no longer buy from my mouth armes for their madness And now there remained but a few dayes to the vacation of the vintage which I resolved patiently to endure that I might relinquish my School at an accustomed season and being now purchased by thee might return no more to be thus exposed to sale This was then my purpose agreed on before thee and amongst our selves but not thought fit to be divulged to others abroad Although thou hadst given unto us ascending from the valley of teares and singing unto thee in this our ascent a song of degrees and of joy Psal 120.3 4. sharp arrows and hot burning coals against the deceitful tongue which under pretence of advising our good averts us from it and as it useth its meat in loving consumes us But thou hadst shot through our hearts with the love of thee and we carried the arrows of thy words sticking in our entrals And the examples of others thy servants as hot burning coals whom thou hadst made of once black and dead now lively and lucid being thrown into the bosom of our serious cogitations fired and consumed our former heavy stupidities that our motion like that of fire should point no more downward to low things which examples had kindled such a flame in us that all the blasts of contradiction
from a deceitful tongue could only more increase but not extinguish it Nevertheless because that by reason of thy name now so glorified through the world such our purpose and vow must needs find many commenders it seem'd * that it might appear to have some relish of vain-glory in me not to have patience till a vacation so near but to desert a Profession so publick and eyed by all before it and * that the mouths of all men reflecting on this my act and how near a breaking-up school I would yet prevent might say many things as if I affected to magnifie my self and seem some great one and yet what mattered it to me that men should divine and dispute my intentions Rom. 14.16 or that our good should be thus evil-spoken of But besides the opportunity of the Vintage-vacation so it was that in the heat of Summer my lungs began * to fail under the too much toil of my School difficultly * to fetch breath and by the pains of my breast to signifie their hurt and now * to refuse any very loud or long speaking which thing at the first had much troubled me because it would force me either they being incurable upon necessity to give o're so burdensome a profession or if curable yet to intermit it But after that a resolute will to attend only on thee and to see how that thou art the Lord was raised and confirmed in me thou knowest O my God my joy that I had this also no false excuse to sweeten the discontent of those men who for their childrens benefit envied my liberty Full of such joy I patiently therefore endured that interval of time till it should be run out I know not whither they were about some twenty dayes but they were endured not without some patience for I was already rid of those ambitions which formerly helped me to bear that heavy burden with which now therefore I should have been overlaid had not patience took their place Some of thy Servants my brethren may blame me for this that having a heart now fully resign'd to thy service I should any longer though but for an hour sit down in the chair of lies And for my part I do not oppose them But thou O Lord so full of mercy hast thou not pardoned and remitted this sin also unto me amongst many others so horrible and deadly in the holy water of my Baptism CHAP. III. Verecundus a Citizen of Millain offers his country-house for their retirement The death of Verecundus and of Nebridius not long after S. Austin's conversion being both first made Christians †See l. 8. cap. 6. VErecundus was much afflicted concerning this our purpose because thus he saw himself by reason of the many bonds wherewith he was most straitly tyed deprived of our society Himself not yet a Christian though his wife a baptized Professor of the faith and yet was he * retarded by her as one of his straightest fetters from following our intended course * and did deny to become a Christian upon any other termes than these he could not perform Truly he very courteously offered and lent us for the time of our abode in that place the use of his country-house Thou O Lord shalt recompense him at the resurrection of the righteous since the lot of the righteous is already happened to him Who though in our absence after we had removed to Rome being seized by a corporal sickness was in it made a Christian and a Fidelis and so departed this life In which thing thou hadst mercy not only on him but on us lest considering the great courtesies of this friend toward us and not able to number him amongst thy flock we should have been tormented with too disconsolate a sorrow Thanks be to thee our God thy care we are all thy exhortations and thy consolations sufficiently shew it faithful in all thy promises Thou shalt return to Verecundus for that his house at Cassiacum where from the tumults of the world we quietly reposed in thee Psal 68.15 16. Vulg. in in monte incascato monte tuo monte ube i. the amenity of thy eternally-green and flourishing Paradise because thou hast remitted unto him his sins here on earth in the mountain of fat pastures the Hill of God that fruitful Hill Thus was Verecundus afflicted but Nebridius as much joyed for although he not as yet a Christian had formerly fallen into the pit of that most pernicious errour to believe the flesh of thy Son only an empty apparition yet now reclaimed from it he was a most earnest inq isitor of truth though not as yet initiated in any Sacraments of thy Church Whom becoming also not long after our conversion and regeneration by thy baptism a faithful Catholick and serving thee in all continency and chastity amongst his Kindred in Afri k and having converted all his family to Christianity thou hast loosed from the flesh and now he lives unto thee in Abraham's bosom Whatever it is that is signified by that bosom there my Nebridius lives my sweet friend and thy adopted Son there he lives For what other place can receive such a soul In that place he lives concerning which he asked of me a poor unexperienced man so many questions He now layes his ear no more to my mouth but his spiritual mouth to thy fountain and there drinks wisdom to his fill endlesly happy Yet cannot I imagin him so inebriated therewith that he forgets me since thou also O Lord whom he drinketh art mindful of me Thus therefore it was with us at that time we comforting Verecundus much grieved yet without diminution of friendship for such our conversion and * exhorting him to a profession of the faith suting with his condition namely with a married life And * attending for Nebridius when he would run the same course of life with us which he might presently and was upon the point to do it every moment when behold those dayes were at last run out which seemed so long and many from the affection I had of a vacant liberty That I might sing from the innermost marrow of my soul Tibi dixit cor meum Psal 27.2 My heart hath said unto thee I have sought thy face and thy face O Lord will I seek CHAP. IV. His retiring in the Vacation after his School dissolved to the country-house of Verecundus His meditations on the fourth Psalm and his several writings there and the miraculous cure of his violent tooth-ach after he was rendred thereby speechless ANd now was the day come wherein I should actually be released from my Professorship in Rhetorick from which I was released before in affection And it was done and thou now freedst my tongue from what thou hadst before freed my heart And I blessed thee with much rejoycing and so retired to the Country Villa †At Cassiacum with all my nearest friends Where * what I did in my writings now
innermost part of my soul and * to I know not what sweetness which were it once perfected in me I know not what blisse that is which such a life would not enjoy But then with certain cumbersome weights hanging upon me I presently am pressed down again to these things below and am re-ingulfed and detained by former custom and much I bewail my self and yet much still I am detained so greatly hath the burden of a bad custome overloaded me And in this estate I can abide still but would not and in the other I would willingly abide but cannot both wayes very miserable CHAP. XLI ANd in this condition I proceeded to consider the remaining languors of my sins in a threefold concupiscence and have invoked the help of thy right hand to deliver me For I beheld thy brightness with a sick and wounded spirit and beaten back and dazled by it I said who can ever attain thither I am utterly cast away from the sight of thine eyes Thou art the truth who presidest above all things And I out of my covetousness was not willing to loose thee but yet greedily desired also to possess what was a lie together with thee as no man desireth so to speak lies as to be ignorant what is truth and therefore I lost thee because thou vouchsafest not to be enjoyed together with a lie CHAP. XLII His recourse for a remedy to all these his maladies not * to evil Angels or Demons with the Platonists or others practising evil Arts as Mediatours between God and man because sinners like men spirits like God ANd now whom could I find who might reconcile and reduce me unto thee Was that office to be undertaken by some Angel for me upon what devotions upon what sacraments performed unto him Many endeavouring to return unto thee and of themselves unable as I hear have attempted such wayes and fallen into the desire of curious visions and so deserved to be exposed to many delusions For being high-minded they sought thee with the pride of learning exalting rather than beating their swollen breasts and so have allured unto rhem from the likeness of their affections spirits associated with them in pride Eph. 2 2. the powers of this air by whom through magical operations they might be deceived whilst they were seeking a Mediatour by whom they might be purged But it was none such they light on 2 Cor. 11 14 but the Devil it was transforming himself as an Angel of light And this much allured proud flesh to repair unto him because he had no body of flesh For they were mortals and sinners and thou O Lord with whom they sought reconciliation wert sinless and immmortal Now the mediating Person between God and men it was meet he should have something like to God something like to men lest in both like to men he should be at too great a distance from God or in both like to God he should stand too remote from men Therefore also this conterfeit Mediatour by whom according to thy secret judgement our pride deserves to be deluded had one thing common with men that is sin and would seem to have the other thing common with God whilst not cloathed with the mortality of flesh he vaunts himself as immortal Rom. 6.23 But since the certain wages of sin is death and this sin he hath common with man he hath also that common with man to be sentenced unto death CHAP. XLIII But * to Christ who is the only true Mediatour mortal like man righteous like God through whom else desperate he confidently hopes a perfect cure of all his diseases BUt the true Mediatour whom in thy secret mercy thou hast manifested to the humble and hast also sent him amongst them 1. Tim. 2.5 that they might by his example learn humility that Mediatour of God and men the man Christ Jesus between these mortal sinners and the immortal righteous one hath appeared mortal together with men righteous together with God that because the wages of righteousness is life and peace he by his righteousness which was allied to God might evacuate death to justified sinners which death he was pleased to have common with men And this true Mediatour was also made known to the Saints of old that they by the faith of his passion to come as we by the faith of it past might attain salvation And it was as he was man that he was Mediatour but as he was the Word so he was no midling person because equall to God and God with God and Phil. 2.6 Joh. 1.1 together with the Holy Spirit one God How far hast thou loved us O thou good Father who sparedst not thine only Son but deliveredst him up for us ungodly How far hast thou loved us for whom he Rom. 8.52 Phil. 2.6 8. who thought it no robbery to be equal to thee was made subject even to death even to the death of the cross only he free amongst the dead having power to lay down his life John 10.18 and power likewise to take it up again becoming unto thee for us both a Victor and a Victim and therefore a Victor because he had been a Victim becoming unto thee for us both the Priest and the Sacrifice and therefore the Priest because a Sacrifice making us unto thee of Servants Sons by being born thy Son and becoming our Servant And therefore do I justly repose strong hope in him that thou wilt heal all my diseases by him who sitteth at thy right hand and intercedeth unto thee for us Else should I despair for many and great are these my diseases many and great they are but greater is the cure which thou hast provided And well might we have imagined thy Word to have been too remote from having any alliance with us and so have despaired of our selves had it not thus been made flesh and dwelt amongst us Affrighted with these my sins and with the load of my misery I had once a thought and a design of retiring my self into some desert solitude but thou didst prohibit it unto me and confirmedst me saying That therefore Christ died for all 2 Cor. 5.15 that they who live should not henceforth live unto themselves but unto him who died for them Behold O Lord I cast all my care upon thee let me live and I will consider the wonderful things of thy law Psal 119.18 Thou knowest my ignorance my infirmities Teach me Heal me He thy only One in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge redeemed me with his own blood Let not the proud my spiritual enemies falsly accuse me For I meditate on this my ransom Col. 2.3 and I eat it and drink it and communicate it to others and being poor I desire to be satisfied therewith amongst those who eat and are satisfied and they shall praise the Lord that seek him CHAP. XLIV The end and purpose of these his Confessions O Lord since thou art eternally art thou ignorant o these things I now say unto thee or seest thou no till a certain time what is done in time Why then have I ordered a narration of so many several matters unto thee Surely not that thou shouldest learn such things from me but only that I might the more excite my affection and love towards thee and theirs also who reaâ— these things that we may all say together Magnus Dominus lauâ—abilis valde Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised I have already said it and let me say it again Out of my love of thy love to me it is that I do this As also we continue to pray nevertheless that the truth hath said Your heavenly Father knoweth what things yâ— have need of before ye ask him Mat. 6.8 We only publish the affections we have towards thee while we confess to theâ— our miseries and thy mercies that thou mayest compleaâ— our freedom as thou hast already begun it and that a length we may perfectly cease to be miserable in our selves and may arrive to beatitude in thee because thoâ— hast graciously called us that we should be poor in spirit and meek and mournful and hungry and thirsty after righteousness and merciful and pure in heart and peace makers See I have rehearsed before thee a many things such as I had ability and such as I had also a will to relate because thou first hadst so willed that I should confess unto thee Psal 118.1 the Lord my God Because that Thou arâ— good and thy mercy endureth for ever FINIS