he that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much nor can that possibly be spoken to no purpose which came from the mouth of thy Truth If ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous Mammon who will commit to your trust true riches and if ye have not been faithful in that which is another mans who shall give you that which is your own He then such a man as I haue described adjoyned himself to me and with me laboured in the same uncertainty of what course of life were fittest to be prosecuted by us Nebridius likewise leaving * his own Country not farre from the principal City Carthage and * Carthage also it self where his residence most usually was leaving his Fathers Lands and his House an excellent seat and his Mother desolate who would not follow his travels as mine did He also came to Millain for no other cause but to live and joyn with me in the same zealous quest after Verity and Wisdom and such likewise was his suspiring such his fluctuation an ardent Inquisitor after a beatifical life and an acute Discusser of the most difficult questions And here now were the famished mouths of three necessitous persons breathing their spiritual poverty and wants one to another gasping towards and waiting on thee until thou shouldest give them their meat in due season Psal 145.15 And in that bitterness and anguish of spirit which by thy great mercy followed our secular employments when we examined the end why we should suffer such ungrateful labours we discovered nothing but darkness and we turned away our faces with grief and said How long will this be and this we often said yet saying so did not leave such things because there appeared elsewhere nothing certain to which these forsaken we might confidently adhere CHAP. XI S. Austin's reasoning with himself concerning his past and present condition and the disposal of his future life the misery he apprehended to be in a single life AND I wondered extremely when I considered what a long time it was since the nineteenth year of my age when I began first to be enflamed with the pursuite of Wisdom resolving upon discovery thereof to quit all other empty hopes and deceiving frenzies of vanishing desires and now behold me thirty years old still sticking in the same mire covetous after the fruition of things * present * drawing me hither and thither and * then flying from me whilst I said to my self To morrow I shall find it out it will clearly discover it self and I shall embrace it and Behold Faustus will come and will expound all to me O wise Academicks then said I in whose opinion there is nothing certainly knowable for the regulating of humane life Nay said I then But let us not despair but more diligently search on Behold there are not those absurdities in the Ecclesiastical Books that we imagined but they may be otherwise and rationally interpreted Finally let me remain in those notions of Religion wherein my childhood was instructed by my parents till clear truth be found out But where or when shall we seek it Ambrose is not at leisure nor have we the leisure to read books Where shall we seek these books with what or in what time procure them upon whose recommendations take them Nay but let us set some times apart let us contribute some certain houres for the salvation of our soul Great hope appears the Church Catholick teacheth not what we thought and whereof vainly we accused her Her learned condemn it as blasphemous to think God terminated with an humane shape and doubt we to knock that the rest may be opened My Schollars employ my forenoon houres for the rest of my time what do I why not do this But when then visit our greater friends whose favours we must use when prepare the matter we sell to our Schollars and when repair our spirits in relaxing our mind from this intention of cares Perish all and let these vain and empty solicitudes be dismissed and let us now set our selves only to this inquisition of truth The life we live is wretched death uncertain if it should suddenly seize on us in what a case go we hence and where ever shall we learn what here neglect or more shall not this our neglect then be punished But yet what if death deprive the soul of all its sense and its cares together Then is this also worthy to be sought out But God forbid it should be so Sure 't is no vain no empty matter that the authority of the Christian faith should thus o're spread all the world with so great pre-eminence and renown and surely the divine hand would not have operated so great things for us if together with the death of the body were also wasted and extinguish'd the life of the soul Why delay we then the hopes of the present age forsaken to give up our selves wholly to the search of God and happiness But deferre a while these things are also pleasant and have in them no little sweetness Let us not call off our intentions from them too hastily because after this done it will be dishonourable to return to them see how little we want of acquiring some place of honour in the world and this obtained we may then set up our rest Great store of friends we have very potent if nothing else be got and our hast will not stay for a better place yet we may soon attain a Presidentship And then a Wife also must be gotten with a reasonable dowry that she may not be a charge And here shall my secular desires take up Many great and imitable persons have bestowed themselves in the study of wisdom being married Whilst I discoursed such things and these contrary winds drove my heart to and fro the times ran on and I foreslowed to be converted to the Lord God and deferred from day to day to live in thee though I deferred not daily more and more to die in my self In love with a beatifical life yet I feared to find it where it was and sought after it by flying from it For I thought I should be in too wretched a condition if deprived of the embraces of a woman and I imagined not the medicines of thy mercy to cure this infirmity because I had not tryed them and supposed continency an effect of our own ability in which I found mine too weak For I was so uninstructed that I knew it not to be written Wisd 8.21 vulg That none is continent but from thy gift But that thou wouldest give it if I did with hearty sighs and groanes knock at thy eares and with a solid faith cast upon thee my cares CHAP. XII The disputes between Him and Alipius most chastly disposed concerning marriage and single life INdeed Alipius much disswaded me from marrying alledging we could no way with any secure leisure attend upon our long purposed search of Wisdom if I ran this
didst unto me * by vain men only taken with the things of this dying life by some on one side doing mad things and some on the other side promising vain * and thus to reform my present ill courses thou secretly madest use of both their and my own faulty inclinations For both those who thus disturbed my quiet were blinded with a sottish madness and those who invited my removall favoured only Earthly advantages and my self who loathed my present misery yet courted elsewhere but a false felicity But another end why I should leave this place and go to that thou then well knowest my God neither shewedst thou it to me nor to my mother who miserably lamented my departure and followed me to the Sea-side that either she might yet reduce or else her self also accompany me And I feigned that my design was only to accompany a friend till he had a favourable wind for his embarquement and should put to Sea and thus I lied to my mother and to such a mother and got away from her Nevertheless thou in thy great mercy didst not instantly revenge this fault upon me but savedst me from the waters of the Sea a soul so stained with execrable filthiness unto the baptismall waters of thy grace with which I being once washed and made clean those rivers also of my mothers eyes might be dryed up which from her sad face daily watered the ground under her feet poured out unto thee in my behalf There she refusing upon any terms to return back without me I with much ado perswaded her for that night to take some rest in a place that was very near to our ship being †An Oratory dedicated to S. Cyprian where were conserved some of his Reliques a memoriall of St. Cyprian's but that same night I stole away to sea and she was left there praying and weeping And what was it that with so many tears she begged of thee but that thou wouldst put a let to that voyage but thou deep in thy counsels and yielding then also unto her in the sum of her desires regardedst her not in the particular she then requested of thee that so in an higher manner thou mightest accomplish it in the main thing for which she alwayes petitioned thee The wind blew fair and swel'd our sails and the shore withdrew it self from our sight whither my Mother being returned next morning to seek me was now overwhelmed with grief and filled thine ears with groans and complaints thine ears that despised her moan whilst by the the means of my lusts thou hurriedst me away to put an end to those very lusts and chastisedst this her too carnal affection to me with a just scourge of sorrow For she as other Mothers do but much more than many do loved and desired my corporal presence with her and knew not how much joy thou wert preparing for her out of that my absence She knew it not then and therefore mourned and wept and shewed the Reliques of Eve in her seeking thus with sorrow what with sorrow she had brought forth At last after a sad accusation of that my cosenage and cruel behaviour toward a Mother returning again to her prayers to deprecate Thee for that my fault she went about her accustomed affairs and I towards Rome CHAP. IX Coming to Rome he is stricken with a dangerous fever the recovery from which he imputes to his Mothers prayers ANd lo there presently I am smitten with a rod of corporal sickness and now am going post to the place below carrying with me all those evills I had committed against Thee and my self and others many and grievous besides the chain of Original guilt by which we all dye in Adam For as yet Thou hadst remitted nothing unto me in Christ nor had he yet slain that enmity by his Crosse which by my sins I had incurred with thee For how could he take them away by that only-phantastical Crosse of his which I believed How false therefore at that time the death of his flesh seemed to me so true was the death of my soul and how true the death of his flesh was indeed so false was the life of my soul which then did not credit it And thus my fever much increasing I now approached to the very point of dying and of dying eternally For whither had I gone if I had dyed then but into flames and torments sutable to my deeds according to the setled truth of thy ordinance concerning us And my poâ—r mother knew nothing of this yet did I absent enjoy her prayers and Thou omnipresent where she was gavest ear unto her and where I was hadst pity on me in restoring me again to the health of my body though still sick and much distempered in a sacrilegious mind For neither did I so much as desire thy baptism in that my great peril and much better affected I was when I was yet a child and earnestly requested it of my mothers piety as I have before recited and confessed But as I grew bigger so I grew worse and madly derided the prescription of this thy medicine who yet permittedst me not when in such a case so to dye a double death Which had it happened my mothers heart also would have received a wound incurable For I cannot expresse the great affection she bare me nor with how much more sorrow and pain she travelled-again of me to bring me forth * in the spirit then she had formerly done at her child-bearing * in the flesh I see not therefore how ever she should have been cured if these bowels of her love had been once pierced with such a sad end of my life And then what would have become of so many and so passionate prayers without intermission †Nusquam insi the same as nusquaÌ„ non see M. Wats his annotations in all places made by her unto thee Couldst thou a God of mercies despise the contrite and humble heart of a desolate widdow so chast and so sober so abounding in almes-deeds so dutiful and officious to thy saints no day omitting her oblation at thine Altar twice in the day Morning and Evening without intermission coming to thy Church not for vain chat and idle tales but that she might hear Thee in thy words thou her in her prayers by thee then could the tears of such a one wherewith she begged of thee neither silver nor gold nor any mutable or fading good but only the safety of the soul of her poor son could the tears of such a one by thee who madest her such be neglected and contemned and fail of thy help No Lord yea thou wert present and heardst and didst her requests according to the order of thy own predesignments of them to be done Farr was it from thee that thou shouldst deceive her in those visions of hers or answers of thine some already related some omitted by me which pre-engagements from thee she treasured up in a believing
26. after without thee insert these words left out by the Printer But my own guide to a precipice Or when the best what am I. ERRATA Pag. 2. lin 33. read whither p. 6. l. 5. r. and would p. 14. l. 35. r. farr p. 21. l. 43 r. rejoyce p. 23. marg 2 Cor. 12.7 p. 35. l. 35. r. to be approved p 40. l. 3. r. heavenly p. 42. l. 42. r. and I. p. 53. l. 8. r. baked l. 17. r. reconvertest us p. 54 l. 35. r. last p. 61. l. 29. r. also to be p. 64. l. 12. r. his false p. 72 l. 12. dele he p. 80. l. 42. r. the litle p. 85. l. 7. r. me p. 89. l. 42. r. discovered p. 90. l. 14. r. Manichean's p. 99. marg r. Pandect lib. 1. T. 12. p. 114. l. 17. r. well-rivetted p. 121. l. 10. r. substance Thee p. 127. l. 10. r. brakest p. 132. l. 8 r. sanctified p. 141. l. 12. r. thing I said p. 144. l. 37. r. recoile p. 161. l. ult r. care p. 162 l. 34. r. she p. 170. l. 36. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 174. l. 27. dele then p. 176. l. 14. dele which p. 177. l. 27. dele and. LIB I. INvocation and praises of God so great so incomprehensible and yet so near and intimate to his creatures and requiring of man so vile a thing by sin to love to invocate to praise and to confesse unto him This in the five Chapters following An Account * of S. Austins infancy nourished and sustained by the Divine Providence Cap. 6 And*of its sins And his praising God for its good endowments Cap. 7 An account of his Childhood and of his learning to speak Cap. 8 Of*his going to School Cap. 9 And* love of play with an aversion from his Book Cap. 10 Of his * sicknesse and in it * his desiring Baptisme for what reason upon hopes of his recovery deferred by his Mother Cap. 11 Of his sins and errorus at school and of theirs that instructed him Cap. 12 Of his hating Greek and other necessary learning and affection to Poetry and Fables Cap. 13 14 His offering up to God the fruits of his learning Cap. 15 Inveighing-against * lascivious Fables Cap. 16 And* the mis-use of his Wit Cap. 17 Mis-guided by vicious example and more ashamed of the breach of Grammar-rules than of Gods law Cap. 18 Of his lies to his Governours thefts from his Parents cheating of his Play-fellows Cap. 19 His praising God for the many good endowments of his childhood Cap. 20 LIB II. AN account of his Youth Cap. 1 And of the unruly lusts thereof in the 16th year of his Age Cap. 2 Advanced by his living idly at home by the ill example of his Companions and by his Parents neglect to marry him though his Mother much dehorting him from fornication and more especially from adultery Cap. 3 Of his Theft * done onely out of wantonnesse Cap. 4 And * void of excuse when as most sins pretend some good to the sinner Cap. 5 6 He laments this offence and praiseth God for the remission thereof by Baptism Cap. 7 Yet that he should not have done that Theft without company Cap. 8 LIB III. OF his journey to Carthage to finish his studies and his amorous passions there Cap. 1 Of Stage-Playes much affected by him and of the faulty passions they caused in him Cap. 2 His concupiscence in the Church the Ambition of his studies and Conversation amongst the jeering and abusive Wits Cap. 3 In the 19. year of his age his reading of Cicero's Hortensius invites him from affectation of eloquence to the search of Wisdome Cap. 4 Not finding our Saviour in Phoilosophy he turnes to the Scriptures whose humble stile in comparison of Tully's gives him distast Cap. 5 In quest of Wisdome he falls into the society and errours of the Manichees absurd pernicious Cap. 6 Their questions that stumbled him and the solutions of them Cap. 7 8 9. The Manichees opinion of the parts of God imprisoned in the creature Cap. 10 His weeping Mother comforted * by a Vision concerning his Conversion Cap. 11 And* by the answer of a Bishop who notwithstanding refused to reason with him as yet too self-conceited LIB IV. FRom the 19. to his 28. year continuing addicted to the Manichees Cap. 1 Of his teaching Rhetorick in Thagaste the City where he was borne his having a Concubine yet true to her bed his playing a prize of Poetry on the Theater and refusing the assistance of the art of a Magician Cap. 2 Yet addicted to Astrology and by a learned Physitian diswaded from it Cap. 3 His anxieties for the death of his dearest friend by him entangled in the same errours but before his death baptized Cap. 4 Why mourning so pleasant to the Afflicted Cap. 5 His wounded soul for his deceased Friend not finding any consolation Cap. 6 He forsakes the place of their acquaintance and goes to Carthage Cap. 7 His wound cured by Time and new friendships Cap. 8 Yet these too failing him Cap. 9 All things loved besides God passe away and leave the lover to embrace sorrows Cap. 10 The Transition of its parts is necessary to make this Vniverse compleate Cap. 11 To rest our love upon God and to love other things only for and in Him Cap. 12 Much exercised in love he writes a book De Pulchro Apto Cap. 13 Dedicated to Hierius a Roman Rhetorician much admired by him only upon report Cap. 14 His false imaginations concerning these being not yet enlightned by the Scriptures Cap. 15 Of his strange acuteness of wit acquiring all the Liberal Sciences without a teacher and yet so grossly erring in Religion Cap. 16 LIB V. OBlation of his Confessions to God their end being to set forth his praise Cap. 1 Invitation of all other strayed sinners to return to the Omnipotent God by confession Cap. 2 The passages of the twenty ninth year of his Age. The comming of Faustus an eloquent Manichean Bishop to Carthage The Philosophers tenents in the sciences found much more probable than the Manichean's Cap. 3 Sciences not beatifying Cap. 4 Yet the Mani hee s ignorant also in them Cap. 5 Faustus naturally eloquent but very ignorant in those Arts wherein he was reputed to excell Cap. 6 S. Austines affection to the Manichean Doctrines much abated upon the Discovery of Faustus his ignorance whom he instructs in the art of Rhetorick Cap. 7 Much offended with the unrulynesse of his Schollars in Carthage he removes from thence beyond sea to Rome to professe Rhetorick there extreamly against his mothers will Cap. 8 Coming to Rome he is stricken with a dangerous fever the recovery from which he imputes to his Mothers prayers Cap. 9 Recovered he still consorts with the Manichees retaining many of their errours the chief of which was his imagining God a corporeal substance but with much more remissenesse than formerly Cap. 10 Especially finding the Manichees not clearly to
answer to the objections of Catholicks made out of the scriptures Cap. 11 Having set up a Rhetorick school at Rome his schollars there defraud him of their stipends Cap. 12 Recommended by Symmachus he removes from Rome to teach Rhetorick at Millain where he is favourably received by S. Ambrose their Bishop whose sermons he frequents only for the fame of his eloquence Cap. 13 And is by litle and litle taken with his Doctrine whereupon he resolves abandoning the Manichean sect to remain a Catechumenus in the Church Catholick till some further discovery of truth Cap. 14 LIB VI. HIs Mother Monica passing many dangers at sea comes to him to Millain Her vision at sea Cap. 1 Her great piety sobriety obedience to Bishop Ambrose prohibiting feastings at the tombs of Martyrs then anâ— usuall custom in Africk Cap. 2 S. Ambrose his employment S. Austin finds no opportunity of private discourse with him yet learns from his sermons that Catholicks held not the doctrines charged on them by the Manichees Cap. 3 Confuted he blames his former too much caution and jealousy * in assenting to the Catholick tenents Cap. 4 And* in acknowledging the Divine Authority of the Scriptures as they are delivered by the Church Cap. 5 His Ambition and the cares attending it His great solicitude being to speak a Panegyrick before the Emperour much envying the secure mirth of a poor beggar seen in the street Cap. 6 Of his friend Alipius his schollar at Carthage whom he there reclaimed from the vainsports of the Circus but infected him with Manicheism Cap. 7 Alipius before S. Austins coming thither a student of the Law at Rome how seduced there though very averse to behold and then to delight in the bloody shews of the Gladiators Cap. 8 Of his being apprehended when S. Austins Schollar at Carthage for a thief His going to S. Austin to Millain where he practiseth in the law Cap. 9. A memorable example of Alipius his integrity Concerning his other Friend Nebridius deserting his Country for S. Austin's society and the study of Wisdom Cap. 10 S. Austin's reasoning with himself concerning his past and present condition and the disposal of his future life the misery he apprehended to be in a single life Cap. 11 The disputes between him and Alipius most chastly disposed concerning marriage and single life Cap. 12 S. Austin Suiter to a young Maid with whom marriage is intended but she as yet two years too young His Mother seeks but cannot obtain any revelation from God concerning this marriage Cap. 13 Their living a many together and having all things common in a married condition designed but soon laid aside Cap. 14 His former Concubine of whom see 4 l. 2. c. being removed as an impediment to his marriage and leaving with him the Son he had by her returns into Africk vows continency instead of whom he privately takes another Cap. 15 Yet his lusts somewhat restrained from the fear he had * of death and* of the souls immortality and* of future judgement Cap. 16 LIB VII HIs entrance now being thirty years old into mans estate His apprehension of God as inviolable incorruptible immutable every way infinite but yet corporeal Cap. 1 Still unsatisfied concerning the cause of evil 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 Cap. 2 3 Pursuing the same Querie still Unde Malum yet * his faith of Christ to be our Lord and Saviour remaining in him firm and unshaken Cap. 4 5 And* the lying divinations of Astrologers fore-telling from the stars future events no way credited by him Cap. 6 Prosecuting the same Querie Unde Malum Cap. 7 Vpon recommendation he falls to reading the books of the Platonists and discovers in them much concerning the Divinity of the Eternal Word but nothing of the Humility of his Incarnation Cap. 9 He now more clearly discovers divine matters That something might have a being and this not corporeal or extended in place Cap. 10 That the Creatures may be said in some sense to have in another not to have a Being Cap. 11 That all natures even the corruptible are good though not the supreme Good Cap. 12 That there can be nothing in the world simply but only relatively evil Cap. 13 That Sin is no substance but the perversity of an irregular will declining from its Maker Cap. 16 That he began now to have a right opinion of God Cap. 17 But had not yet a right opinion of the Incarnation of the Lord Jesus the only way to salvation Cap. 18 Though from the Platonick writings he became assured of many divine Truths yet these books breeding pride in him and not humility Cap. 20 He lastly betakes himself to reading of the Scriptures especially those of S. Paul where he finds the advancement of Gods Grace and salvation through Jesus Christ to the penitent and humble Cap. 21 LIB VIII HE goes to consult Simplicianus an holy man and the spiritual Father of S. Ambrose about the future ordering of his life remaining still passionately bent on marriage Cap. 1 Vpon mention of Victorinus a famous Roman Rhetorician Simplicianus relates the story of Victorinus his conversion to Christianity Cap. 2 Why more joy for men converted than had they been alwayes Professors Cap. 3 Why more joy in the conversion of men eminent or noble Cap. 4 What operation the story of Victorinus had upon him and his great captivity under former ill customs Cap. 5 After this Pontitianus an African and an Officer in the Court giving him and Alipius a visit occasionally relates the story of S. Anthony and how two of his fellow-Courtiers upon the reading thereof in the same moment renounced the world though both engaged to Mistrisses and betook themselves to a solitary life Cap. 6 The tumults of his spirit upon Pontitian's discourse Cap. 7 In this anguish of soul his retiring into a garden Alipius following him Cap. 8 The fierce combat there between the flesh and the spirit and his sad complaint of the gaeot difficulty the Will hath to command it self when it so easily commandeth the other members Cap. 9 10 11 His total Conversion by reading upon the hearing a voice from heaven a passage of S. Paul where the book first opened Cap. 12 LIB IX DOxology and Thanksgivings for this his freedom from his former lusts and the great joy and content he presently received therein Cap. 1 His purpose to relinquish his profession of teaching Rhetorick but the thing deferred till the Vintage-vacation Cap. 2 Verecundus a Citizen of Millain offers his Country-house for iheir retirement The death of Verecundus and of Nebridius not long after S. Austin's conversion being both first made Christians Cap. 3 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
yet cured of the former How much better had it been for me to have been so early healed and that with my own and my friends strict care the health of my soul thus restored might have been ever after kept entire by thy preserving what thou hadst restored This surely had been much the better But that my good Mother already foreseeing how many and how great billows of temptations after my childhood spent were ready to assault and to ore-set my more unbridled youth chose rather to expose to their blows me now before baptism as yet a lump of rude clay which by it afterward might be new moulded than me when by the Sacraments thy new-formed image which so perchance might happen to be defaced CHAP. XII Of his sins and errours at School and of their's that instructed him YEt in this my childhood far less feared for miscarriage than more head-strong youth I hated study and yet more to be pressed to it and yet I was forced to it and well that I was so but in that forced studying I did not well who learned only from constraint for none doth well what he doth unwillingly though it be well what he doth But neither did those that urged me so in it do well but it was thou only O my God in it that didst well unto me for they who so earnestly urged me unto it saw not to what good use I might employ it save only to go about to satisfie the unsatiable desires of wealthy poverty and ignominious glory Mat. 10 3. But thou by whom the very hairs of our head are all numbred meanwhile didst make good use of all our errours â–³ of their errour in forcing me * to my profit and â–³ of mine in being averse from it * to my punishment which I well deserved being so little a childe and so great a sinner So thou didst well unto me by those who did not well and didst as justly take revenge on me in that very thing wherein I did amisse For thou hast appointed and so it is that every inordinate affection should be to it self it s own torment CHAP XIII Of his hating Greek and other necessary learning and affection to Poetry and fables BUt why at that time I should so much hate Greek I do not yet well understand for Latine I liked very well I mean not that which our first Masters spell unto us but that which the Grammarians teach for that first learning to Read and Write and cast up an Account I thought as afflicting and vexatious as the Greek And whence this also but from sin and the vanity of this life Because I was flesh and a wind that passeth away and cometh not again Psal 78.39 For that first learning was for the better because truer and more certain which enriched me with a faculty necessary and as easily retained whereby I both read now what I finde written and write my self what I have a minde than this other in which I learnt and was enjoyned to remember the errors and wandrings of I know not what Aeneas forgetful of my own errors and shed tears for the death of one Dido who killed herself for love when meanwhile I beheld my self in these amorous toyes perishing from thee O God my life with dry eyes miserable Creature as I then was for what is more miserable than one that is in misery and yet hath no commiseration of himself sadly bewailing wanton Dido's death caused by excesse of love to Aeneas and never deploring his own death caused by want of love to thee O God the glorious light of my heart and delicate food of the inner mouth of my soul and celestiall power that now espouseth my mind possessing the bosome of my thoughts I did not then love thee and went a whoreing from thee and to this my fornication it was ecchoed on every side Euge Euge well-done well-done for the friendship of this world is fornication against thee Jam. 4.4 And they cry well-well-done that a shame to-be-ashamed-of may possess him who is not such a one as they commend And these things I lamented not but lamented despairing perishing Dido Didonem extinctam ferroque extrema secutam Aeneid 6. lib. My self following the same extremities even the lowest of thy creatures and forsaking thee earth tending toward earth and when I was forbiden to read these things I was grieved because I read not what might make me grieve And yet such foolery as this was accounted by me farr more gentile and polite Science â—han that whereby I learnt to write and read But now let my God say unto my soul and let thy truth tell me 't is otherwise and the former learning is far the better of the two for I shall sooner and had rather forget Aeneas his travells and all such like toyes than to write and read I therefore when a boy did sin in preferring in my fond affection these empty things before those useful or rather in hating the one whilst I doted on the other For then One and one makes two two and two four was an odious repetition to me Whilst the wooden Horse lined with armed men and the flaming funeralls of Troy and lost Creusa's ghost were most ravishing Idols of my vanity CHAP. XIIII WHy then hated I the Greek tongue presenting me with the like fictions for learned Homer hath likewise curiously woven such like pleasant-tales and is in his poems wost sweetly-vain but yet was very bitter to me when a school boy and so is Virgil I believe to the youth of Greece when forced to learn him with so much difficulty as I did the other For the hardness of attaining a forreign-tongue did as it were oresprinkle with gall all the sweets of such fabulous stories For I knew not the words of that language and meanwhile was frighted with cruell terrors and tortures to learn to know them 'T is true also that once in my Infancy I understood no Latine But this tongue I easily learned by observation only without fear or stripes amidst the flatterings of my nurses and the chat of my play-fellows And so I learned that tongue without the penall task of constraint my surcharged heart sufficiently pressing me to a speedy delivery of its conceptions in the like expressions which I learned not from those that taught but that talked with me in whose ears I did also bring-forth whatever my mind preconceived Whence it appears that such things are better learnt from a free unspurred curiosity than from a timorous necessity But yet the one well qualifies and bridles the over-loosness of the other in the wise restraint of thy good laws O God upon us which from the Masters ferula to the tryals of Martyrs do intermix and infuse those wholsom bitternesses which may reduce us still unto thee from the infectious sweets that allure us to depart from thee CHAP. XV. His offering up to God the fruits of his learning O Lord hear my
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
same Faustus For the rest I had met with unable to solve my doubts still promised him to me a little of whose conference should easily clear to me not only those but any harder queries When he came therefore I found him a person indeed of very agreeable and compleasant discourse and much more charmingly delivering the same things which they had said before But what was my thirst relieved by having so decent a minister of such pretious but empty cups My cars had been long since cloyed with such dainties nor did any thing seem better to me because better said nor therefore any thing true because elegant nor the soul wiser for a comely mine and a graceful utterance Neither were those who promised him to me good weighers of such things to whom he seemed prudent in his judgment because pleasing in his words Whereas I have also found others of a contrary humour that suspect truth it self and suspend their assent to it so often as presented in compt and elegant expressions But Thou hadst then already taught me O my God by wayes secret and admirable for I presume that it was Thou that taughtest it me because I now know it to be true and there is no other Doctor of truth besides thee where or howsoever it shines forth unto us then had I already learnt from Thee both these that neither any thing should therefore seem spoken truly because eloquently nor therefore falsly because the signification thereof from the lips is somewhat inharmonious Nor again therefore a thing be true because plainly and nakedly spoken nor therefore false because much painted and adorned but the truth and falshood wisdom and folly are like wholsom and hurtful meats both of which may be served up either in rich or mean language as these may in courtly or country dishes CHAP. VII S. Austins affection to the Manichean Doctrines much abated upon discovery of Faustus his ignorance whom he instructs in the Art of Rhetorick WHen therefore he also after much tryal made of him appeared sufficiently ignorant of those arts in which I presumed him excellent I despaired of receiving from him any solution of those doubts which so much perplexed me Though yet in the ignorance of those arts I grant he might have retained still the truths of piety supposing he had not been a Manichean For their books are full of tedious fables of the Heaven and the Starrs and the Sun and the Moon which now I had no longer a conceit that he could evidence unto me by shewing out of the Manichean writings reasons better or at least equal to those I had formerly read Which reasons when I proposed to be examined and discussed he modestly durst not undertake the controversy and well knowing his ignorance neither was he ashamed to acknowledg it not like to those I before met with who undertook to teach me and said nothing But he had a soul though not upright towards thee yet not also treacherous to himself not altogether ignorant was he of his ignorance and not willing in a rash dispute to run himself into those straits out of which he could neither find an issue nor a fair retreat And herein his carriage much took me the modesty of his soul in confessing its defects having much more beauty and worth in it then his science could have had in solving my doubts And in all difficulter and subtler questions which I proposed on this manner I found him My affection therefore which I formerly had to the Manichean opinions was now much abated and despairing of their other Doctors skill after the trial of one so much famed I began a new conversation with him in those studies of Rhetorick which he much affected and I then taught at Carthage reading with him such books as he desired or I thought sutable for such a wit and to such a purpose But all design of further advancing my self in that Sect after his acquaintance now fell to the ground only I continued to be what by chance I then was untill I should discover something more eligible Thus this Faustus to so many the fetters of death became the first looser of my chaines and that neither witting nor willing it himself For thy hand O my God out of the secret of thy providence never let go my soul whilst my Mother did sacrifice even her hearts blood unto thee by her continual tears day and night in my behalf and thou proceededst with me all this while by wayes very wonderful and secret and undiscoverable 'T was thou didst this O my God For mans steps are directed by the Lord and he it is that disposeth his way Psal 37. â—3 And what efficient of safety can there be save thy hand which only can repair what it at first builded CHAP. VIII Much offended with the unrulinesse of his Schollers in Carthage he removes from thence beyond Sea to Rome to profess Rhetorick there extreamly against his Mothers will THerefore by the conduct of thy providence it was now so brought about that I should be perswaded rather to go to Rome and to teach there what I did at Carthage And here how I became so resolved I will not omit to confess unto thee because also in these things thy most secret workings and alwayes most present mercies toward us ought ever to be considered and professed My intent for Rome was not so much for greater profit or honour though both these were promised by my friends and then not a little swayed my inclinations but the chief and almost the only reason thereof was because youth was there said to be more orderly in the School and quiet and under stricter discipline the Schollers of one School not without leave rushing in and disturbing the Government of another contrary to the wicked and licentious custom of those of Carthage who impudently without leave of the Master and to the disturbance of the Schollers rush into his School whom they do not learn of and there commit such outrages as are punishable by the laws were they not against these patronized by custom yet in this they so much the more unhappy that they do as a thing lawfull what thy eternall commands have prohibited and that they conceit they do it with all impunity to whom the cecity by which they do it is a great punishment and the mischief which they suffer themselves incomparably worse then that they act on others Therefore those wicked fashions which I hated my self to do when I was a student being now forced to suffer when a Master from others I resolv'd rather to remove to a place Ps 142.5 where I was told were no such insolencies But thou O my hope and my portion in the land of the living to make me change my station for the changing of my life and for the safety of my soul both administredst discouragements at Carthage to chase me thence and proposedst allurements at Rome to draw me thither and this thou
whither the thing were demonstrable though all not capable thereof or whither it were not before the Manichean proceedings where first with a temerarious promising of certain science such credulity was derided and next so many fables and absurdities which could never be demonstrated were imposed to be believed But afterward by little and little thou O Lord with a gentle and mercifull hand touching my sores and composing my soul didst throughly perswade me in this matter after that I had well considered how many things I not seeing and farr absent when they were acted yet firmly believed As so many things in secular histories so many things of Countries and Cities never viewed by me so many things heard from my friends from my Physitian from many others which if not credited an end must be put to all humane soci ty and commerce Lastly whâ—n I â—sâ—â—erâ—d how firmly I believed that I was born of such parents a thing not known to me but by crediting anothers relation Thou at last perswad dst me I say That not so much those who believed thy books which with so grâ—â—t authority thou hadst established almâ—st thrâ—â—ll Nations as those who believed them not were blameworthy Nor were any such to be hearkened to who should say How knowest thou that these books were by the Holy Spirit of the true and truth-communicating God delivered to mankind For this point of all the 〈◊〉 is most rationally credible For first no sophistry nor â—â—villing questions that I had read in the contradicting Philosophers could ever stagger this faith in me That thou art though I were ignorant what thou art and that the Government of humane affairs belongs unto thee Though I confess this faith in me was sometimes stronger sometimes weaker yet alwayes I believed that thou were and that we also were a care unto thee though I knew not what to think of thy substance nor of the way of thy guiding and reducing man unto thee Again since our too great weakness to find out clear and evident truth had need also of the revelation of some divine writings I began now to believe that thy care over us would never suffer such a swaying authority throughout all the World to be given to these writings unless it had also been thy good pleasure that acccording to them we should believe in thee according to them seek thee For now the seeming absurdities which offended me in thy Scripture after a many of them so probably expounded were imputed by me to the altitude of its mysteries and the authority thereof seemed to me so much the more venerable and worthy of a religious credit in that it yielded it self to be read by all in an humble stile and yet preserved the honour of its secrets in a more profound meaning stooping to every one in the plainness of its words and lowness of its phrase and yet exercising the best observance of those who are not light of heart that it might with a displayed bosom receive all though through its narrow passages it transmits but few unto thee yet many more transmitted thus than if it either had not reached so high in the top of its mysterious authority or not invited such multitudes into the lap of its venerable humility CHAP. VI. His ambition and the cares attending it His great solicitude being to speak a Panegyrick before the Emperour much envying the secure mirth of a poor beggar seen in the street THese things I mused and thou wast with me I sighed unto thee and thou heardest me I wav'd to and fro and yet thou didst steer me I walked in the broad and trodden way of this World yet thou didst not desert me I pursued after Honours Wealth Marriage and thou smiledst at me And I underwent in these my lusts most bitter crosses and thou wast the more kind to me the more unsweet thou mad'st all that to me which was not thee See my heart O Lord thou whose pleasure it is I should now recollect theâ—e things and confess them before thee and let my soul now adhere unto thee after it hath been from that tenacious birdlime of death so rescued by thee In what a miserable condition was it at that time and thou continuedst to prick and chafe the sensibleness of its wound that leaving all things it might return unto thee who art above all things and without whom all things would be nothing at all that it might return and so be healed How miserable was I then and how didst thou advance the sense of that my misery upon a time when preparing in praise of the Emperour a Panegyrick full of lies and yet applauded by those who knew them to be so my heart trembling with restless care and burning in a fever of consuming thoughts as I passed through a certain street of Millain I happened to cast my eye upon a poor beggar with his belly well filled as I suppose who was very jocund and full of mirth Whom seeing I fetched a great sigh and began to discourse with my friends then with me the many sorrowes and sufferings of our vain follies For we sought no more with all our labours such as that I then travail'd with whilst pricked forward by the goad of my ambibitions I drew after me a heavy load of my own infelicity and in drawing it on still augmented it we sought I say no more than to arrive at a secure mirth void of care * in which that poor beggar had already prevented us and * to which perhaps we should never attain For what he had already gained with a few pence and those got by begging that was I still toiling for through so many winding and difficult paths namely the pleasure of a temporal felicity It is granted that this was no true pleasure which he had but yet I in my ambitions pursued a much falser And surely merry he was whilst I perplexed he in security whilst I in fear and the question being asked which were the better mirth or fear I should have answered mirth doubtless Yet being demanded again which I would rather chuse his or my own condition I should have elected my own laden with cares and fears as it was but this only out of a perverseness for was there any true reason for it For neither was I at all in this my choice to be preferred because the more learned since I joyed not in it but in pleasing men with it and not in teaching them also with it but only in pleasing them and therefore meanwhile thou didst most justly thus break my bones with the sâ—affe of thy severe discipline Away with those therefore from my soul who say unto it That there is great difference what thing it is that one secularly joyes in Drink was the cause of the beggars mirth Glory was the obiect of mine And what a glory is it O Lord that is not in thee For as his was no true joy so neither was mine true glory and much
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
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
of instantly taking up the same life and of forsaking his seâ—ular service to entertain thine He was one of those whom they call Agentes in rebus Agents in the Prince's affairs †Their office to gather the Emperours Tributes apprehend Delinquents make provisions for the Court c. Then suddenly filled with a holy zeal and a sober shame and anger at himself he cast his eyes upon his friend and said to him Tell me I pray with all these our labours and pains what doth our ambition reach at what seek we what is it we serve for in this our employment Can we have any greater hopes in the Court than to arrive to be Favorites to the Emperour and in being so what is there in that condition not brittle and full of perils and through how many dangers ascend we to this much greater danger and how long will it last and how long ere we attain to it But the Friend and Favourite of God I am if I please now presently and so for ever Thus he said and labouring in the birth-throws of a new life cast his eyes again upon the paper and read and became changed within where thou sawest and his mind emptied and stripped of the World as soon appeared for whilst he reads and suffers a tempest in his fluctuating breast and now and then casts out some sighs and groans at last he concluded and resolved upon those better things and now wholly thine said to his Friend I have now bidden a finall adieu to that our former hope and am fully purposed for the service of God And this from this hour in this place I will begin to put in practise But you if you do not like to imitate this my retreat do not oppose it Then answered the other that he would alwayes adhere to the companion of so noble a warfare and so high a reward And thus now both thine having first cast up the charges they built that Tower of * their leaving all that they had Luk. 14.28 and following thee By this time Pontitianus and the other that walked with him through another quarter of the Garden were arrived at the same place and having found them minded them of returning homeward because it grew late But they acquainting them with their holy purpose and the manner how such inclination was raised and confirmed in them requested that if they pleased not to joyn with them in the same resolution they would give no disturbance to it Hereupon they being nothing altered from their former selves yet lamented as he said their own worldly condition and congratulated the others piety and recommended themselves to their prayers and so with a heart pointing downward toward the earth returned into the Palace and the other with a heart erected to heaven continued in that little habitation And both of them had their Spouses to whom they were contracted who so soon as they heard of it in imitation of them consecrated likewise their virginity unto thee These things Pontitianus related to us CHAP. VII The tumults of his spirit upon Pontitian's discourse BUt thou O Lord amidst his discourse didst turn me about towards my self and tookest me from behind my back where I had placed me whilst I had no mind to observe my self and settest me before my face that I might see how crooked how ugly and deformed a thing I was covered over with scabs and ulcers and I beheld and abhorred and no way there was to fly or run away from my self and if I endeavoured to turn away my sight from so loathed a spectacle still as he proceeded in his story thou didst again bring me before my self and thrust me before my eyes that so I might discover mine iniquity and hate it Not that I had not known it before but I dissembled it and conniv'd at it and forgot it And now the more ardently I loved these persons who so piously and absolutely resign'd themselves into thy hands to receive their total cure from thee the more detestably hated I my self when compared with them Because a many years were now run out with me about some twelve years since in the nineteenth year of my age the reading of Cicero's Hortensius had excited me to the study of wisdom and I had thus long deferred by the contempt of earthly felicities to set my self at liberty for the search of it whereof not the finding but the very search was farr to be preferred before all the found treasures and Crownes of the World and before all the freely-flowing pleasures of the body But I then a wretched very wretched young man had also in the first dawning of that my youth begg'd of thee chastity and had said Give me chastity and continency but yet a while do not give me it For I feared that thou shouldest hear me too soon and shouldst presently heal me of that disease of concupiscence which I wished rather might be satiated than extinguished And I had taken very wicked courses in a sacrilegious superstition not as fully assured in it but yet as preferring it before some other things taught in thy Church which were not by me reverently examined but prejudicately opposed And I had also with preâ—ences cosened my self that therefore I deferred the contemning and renouncing of secular hopes to follow thee alone because as yet there appeared not to me any certain truth to which I might steer my course And now was the day come in which I was laid naked to my self and my conscience began thus to reproach me Where art thou Tongue thou that only professedst this that thou wouldst not lay aside thy pack of vanity for truth or happiness whilst yet uncertain Lo now certain it is and assured unto thee and yet thy burden still presseth thee whilst those with lightened shoulders take wings and soar upwards who have not tired themselves as thou in the search of it nor for ten years and more meditated such things Thus was I inwardly corroded and extremely confounded with an horrible shame all the while Pontitianus was telling these stories And so his talk being ended and the business for which he came away he went And I being returned to my self what did not I now say against my self with what spurring and lashing words did not I whip forward my soul that it might readily follow me striving to go after thee and it still hung back and refused and refused now without excuse All its arguments and reasons were spent and confuted Only there remained a mute and speechless cowardise and trembling whilst it feared like death to be bound from that flux of former custom which wasted it unto the death CHAP. VIII In this anguish of soul his retiring into a garden Alipius following him AMidst this great controversie within which I hotly disputed with my soul in the closet of my heart troubled as well in countenance as in mind I turn to Alipius and exclaim What is this we suffer what is
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