it is * no object of sense * no part of the visible world abroad no part or faculty within himself ANd first not with a doubting but a certain conscience I may confess O Lord that I do love thee Thou hast wounded my heart with thy Word and it is enamoured upon thee Yet also besides my heart the Heavens and the Earth and all the things which are in them on every side cry out unto me that I should love thee neither cease they to say the same to all that they may remain without excuse But yet in a higher way of revelation thou hast mercy on whom thou wilt have m rcy and shewest compassion on whom thou wilt shew compassion otherwise these Heavens and Earth do speak thy praises only to the deaf And what is it I love now in loving thee certainly not the beauty of bodies nor the decent order of times not the splendour of light so gladsom to this corporal sight not the melody of all sorts of song and musick not the fragant sents of floures oyles and spices not delicious Manna ard honey not fair limbs alluring to carnal embraces None of these things love I now when I love my God And yet I confess I love also a certain light and melody and fragrancy and deliciousness and embraces when I love my God who is the light melody fragrancy grateful sustenance and amorous embracements of my inward man where to my ravisht soul shines what is not terminable by place and sounds what is not measurable by time and smells what is not dissipable by expiring and tasts what no edacity diminisheth and is embraced what no satiety separateth Such thing is it I love when I love my God And what thing is this I demanded it of the Earth and it said I am not it And all things in the same they confessed likewise the same I asked the Sea and the Abysses and the living movables therein and they answered We are not thy God Seek thou higher than us I asked the fleeting air above and its vast region with all the guests thereof replyed Anaximenes is mistaken I am not God I enquired of the heavens the Sun the Moon and the Starrs neither are we said they God whom thou seekest Then I said unto all these things encamping round about my senses the doors of my flesh Ye have said unto me of my God ye are not Heâ— Tell me at lest some tidings of him And they all cryed out with a loud voice It is He that made us My asking was my observing of them and their answer was what I discovered in them At last I reflected my eye upon my self and said to my self And what art thou And I answered a Man And in this compound there presented themselves unto me a body and a soul the one more exteriour the other more retired And which of these should it rather be where I ought to seek my God Whom I had searched already through bodies from the earth even to heaven so farr as the raies of my eyes my spies abroad could make any discovery Certainly of the two Much the better part of man is that which is more interiour For all those corporeal Nuncio's returned their intelligence to this sitting on the tribunal and judging of all those answers from Heaven and Earth and from all things in them whilst they said We are not God but He it is that made us 'T is only the Inner man that knows these things by the Ministry and service of the Outer 'T is I within only that understand these things I the Mind by the senses of my Body Therefore thou art much my better part O my Soul who dost also Vegetate the lump of thy Body and who givest it life which no one body can conferr on another But yet thy God is also the Life of this thy life unto thee CHAP. VII Neither the Vegetative nor yet the Sensitive WHat therefore love I when I love God What is he who is advanced so high over the Head of my Soul By my soul it self will I ascend and climbe up unto Him And here I will passe beyond that Power by which I adhere to this Body and vitally replenish the model thereof For by this power I find not my God Else a Horse and a Mule which have no understanding would also find him since by the same vertue their Bodies also live Psal 32.9 A second power there is in me giveing not life but sense unto my flesh which the Lord hath variously organized for me commanding the eye not to meddle with hearing nor the ear with seeing but ordering the one only to see by the other only to hear with and so assigning their properties distinctly to the rest of my senses in their own seats and Offices which being very diverse are all acted in them by me one Soul But this power also I will dismisse for this also the Horse and Mule have being sensitive Creatures no lesse than my self CHAP. VIII Nor yet the more interiour and most admirable faculty of the memory The many wonders of which to the glory of the Maker thereof he most subtilly discourseth unto the 26. Chapter I Will passe over this Power also of my nature ascending by degrees to him that made it and me and next I come into the large fields and pallaces of my memory the Treasury of numberlesse formes and images conveied thither from such things as are perceived by sense as also the repository * of all our own cogitations and fancies which augment or diminish or any other way vary the discoveries of sence and * of what ever thing besides these enters in thither which is not as yet swallowed up and buryed in oblivion And when I have recourse thither I command to be produced whatever I please And â–³ some things appear presently â–³ others are searched for longer and as it were fetcht out from some more abstruse and remote corner â–³ some boult out of themselves and when another thing is searched and looked for start forth unto us as it were saying is it us perhaps you demand And these I put by with the hand of my soul from before the face of my remembrance untill that which I desire be unclouded and come forth into my sight out of those dark and misty Cells â–³ Other things are suggested as they are demanded in a facile and undisturbed order what goeth before still giving place to what follows and being reposed again as it thus gives place to be forthcomming another time when called for at my pleasure which is usually done when I repeat a thing by heart And there are all these things laid up distinctly and by their several kinds entering also in thither every one by their proper gate Lights and colours and forms of bodies through the glass of the eyes and through the vaults of the ears all kinds of sound all smels by the pipe of the nostrils and all savours by the
into our heart Isa 46.8 and might there find Him For he so withdrew himself as that here he is still he would not stay long with us and yet he hath not left us As also thither he departed whence he never parted Because the World was made by him and in this World he was and yet came into this World to save sinners To whom my soul now also confesseth that he may heal it for it hath sinned O ye Sons of men Ps 4.4 how long so heavy hearted And is it possible after this descent of life it self to you that ye will not ascend to it and live But whither ascend ye then when ye set up your selves on high and turn your face against Heaven first descend that so ye may ascend and ascend to God who fell before by ascending against Him These things tell the souls thou lovest that they may deplore their misery in this vally of tears and be carried up with thee towards God for t is from his Spirit also that thou tellest them this if thou saist it from a heart enflamed with the fire of true charity CHAP. XIII Much exercised in Love he writes a book De Pulchro Apto THese things then I knew not and I was enamoured of these lower beauties sinking still deeper in the pit and saying to my Friends Love we any thing but what is fair What is that which is fair then And what is the fairness of it What is that inveigles us so and chaines our affections to the things we love For unless there were gracefulness and beauty there they could by no means thus attract us And I marked narrowly and perceived that in the bodies themselves the whole feature as it were of them was one thing from which they were called fair and another thing their decency and fitnesse namely as they were aptly suting to some other thing as a part of the body is to the whole or a shoe to the foot and the like And these speculations springing still more in my mind from the multiplicity of thoughts I composed certain books De pulchro apto Of Fair and Fit as I remember two or three God thou knowest for I have forgot For I have them not by me but they are straggled abroad I know not whither CHAP. XIV Dedicated to Hierius a Roman Rhetorician much admired by him only upon report BUt what was it that moved me O Lord my God to addresse these Books to Hierius a Rhetorician in Rome not known to me by face and yet loved by me for the same of his learning which was very eminent And some speeches of his likewise I had heard and they had pleased me but pleased me far the more because they pleased others who much admired and magnified the man that he a Syrian by Nation first trained up in the Grecian Eloquence had become so admirable a Master also in the Latine and so knowing in Philosophy A man is * praised and presently upon it though never seen * loved Enters this love then into the heart of the hearer from the mouth of the commender Nothing so But from one lover another is incensed to love For hence is he loved that is commended when he that praiseth is supposed to extoll him with an undissembling heart that is when one that loves commends him For so I then loved men according to the estimation of men and not thine O my God Which is never deceived But yet why loved I him not as I did some others a famous Chariotier or Huntsman c. that are much extolled by popular applause but with a farr different and more serious affection and so as my self also desired the same commendation For neither could I endure that my self should be so commended or loved as Stage-players are whom yet I both commended and loved yet would I chuse my self rather to be obscure than in such a manner noted and even rather to be hated than in such a manner loved Where are the plummets that give motion to so many heterogeneous and divers loves disposed-of in one soul What is it that I love in another man Which same thing again unless I hated I should not loath it in my self and repell it from me though in a like condition both of us are men Indeed a good horse is loved by one who yet would not be the thing he loves but we cannot say so of an Actor communicating with us in nature Can I then love in a man something I would not be though I am a man Man himself is a great deep The very hairs of whose head are all numbred by thee O Lord nor is any of them wanting unto thee and yet those hairs can more easily be numbred than can his affections and the motions of his heart But this Rhetorician was of those whom I so loved as that I wished also the like who strayed thus Ephes 4.14 swolne with ambition and whirled about wiâ—h every wind yet all the while was steered by thee though extream secretly And whence know I this and whence so confidently confess I unto thee that I loved him more from the love of those who commended him than from the things for which he was commended From hence Because had the same men disparaged him to me and related the same things they commended in Him with contempt and scorn I had not been so taken with Him Yet certainly those things had neither been another man's nor the man another from himself but only another the affecâ—ion of the Relaters See in what a condition lies the feeble soul that is not yet fixed upon the Basis of Truth As the unconstant Gales of tongues blow from the breasts of the opinative so is she carried and turned driven forward and driven back again and her eyes are beclouded and the truth not discerned And yet behold it standeth before us And it seemed to me a matter of great importance if my stile and my studies might be known to such a man Which if by him they were approved I should have been still more enflamed if dis-esteemed my heart had been grievously wounded being altogether void and empty of thy solidity Yet that Pulchrum Aptum of which I writ to him was not conceived by me without much delight and the subtilties of those contemplations I my self admired before they had another to praise them CHAP. XV. His late imaginations concerning these things being not yet enlightned by the Scriptures BUt the causes and hinges of such a weighty business I had not as yet studied in that thy sacred science O thou omnipotent Psal 136.4 who alone workest all these wonders and my mind ranged through corporeal formes and Fair I defined and with corporeal instances illustrated * that which is so absolutely of it self Fit * that which is decent and gracefull from application to another And I cast my thoughts also upon the nature of the mind and there the false opinion
of the Manichees and indeed found the other of the two much more probable By whom in some measure the course of nature was rightly weighed though the Lord thereof undiscovered by them Ps 138.6 Because Great art thou O Lord and thou regardest the lowly but the proud thou knowest a farr off neither dost thou approach save to the contrite in heart neither art thou discovered by the high-minded though their curious search numbereth the stars of the Heaven and the sands of the Earth and though they quarter out all the celestiall regions and describe the various courses of the planets For indeed by the light of understanding they do find out all these things and by the wit which thou hast given them they have many years before both discovered and foretold the eclipses of the great lights the Sun and the Moon in what day what hour and in how many digits they should happen and their calculation hath not faild but the event punctually answered their prescription And by the rules which they have delivered men still prognosticate in what year month day hour and in what portion of its light the Sun or Moon shall be darkned and what is said is done And these things the ignorant admire and stand amazed at the knowing exult in and glory of and yet being by their wicked pride put in this opposition to thee their Sun and ecclipsed of thy light they that do so long before discover the Sun or Moons defects cannot though present discern their own For they do not religiously search in the first place from whence they have that wit by which they search out other things and again when finding that thou art he that madest them they do not restore themselves unto thee that thou maist keep that in them which thou hast made Nor slaughter and sacrifice unto thee that which they have made themselves and offer up unto thee their exalted and soaring imaginations as the fouls of the Heavens their diving curiosities with which they walk through the paths of the deep as the fishes of the Sea and their sensuall luxuries as the beasts of the field that thou O God as a purging fire maist consume in them there their former dead cares and recreate them anew into immortality But these poor souls knew not the way unto thee namely Thy word by which were made all those things they number and themselves also that number them and the reason by which they know how to number of which thy wisdom there is no number Ps 147.5 1 Cor. 1.30 Which only-begotten of thine was made unto us Wisdom and Righteousnesse and Sanctification and descended so low as to be numbred amongst us and amongst us to pay Caesars tribute This humble way they knew not Mat. 17.27 by which they should descend first from themselves unto Him that afterward by the same they might ascend unto him This way they knew not and fancying themselves as illustrious and exalted amongst the starrs which they numbred Rev. 12.4 Rom. 1.21 behold they fell upon the Earth and their foolish heart became darkned And many truths indeed concerning the Creature are vented by them and yet the Truth that formed these Creatures remains to them undiscovered because not piously by them inquired of or if found yet knowing God they do not own him as God neither are thankfull but become vain in their imaginations and say they are wise Rom. 1.21 c. Thus attributing to themselves what is only thine and attributing to thee by a most obstinate cecity what is theirs namely forging lies of thee who art truth and changing the glory of an incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man to birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things they do also convert thy truth into a lye and worship and serve the Creature before the Creator Yet many truths learned from the Creature I received from these men and saw some reason thereof from calculations and the successions of times and the visible revolutions of the stars and these I conferred with the dotages of Manicheus who had written much foolish stuffe of the same subjects and therein I could discover no reason neither of the solstices and aequinoctialls nor of the ecclipses nor of any other part of secular knowledg Only there I was required to believe things contrary to my experience CHAP. IIII. Sciences not beatifying ANd now is he such a one O Lord the God of truth as knowes all these things therfore a favorite to thee Surely unhappy man he who knowes all these and knows not thee and blessed the man who knows thee though none of these and who so knows both them and thee happy he is not for them but for thee if knowing thee he as God glorifie thee and be thankfull unto thee and become not vain in his own imaginations For as he is in a farr better case that hath the possession of a tree and for the fruits thereof gives thee praise though he knows not how tall the trunk thereof is or how many the branches than another who hath exactly measured it and counted every sprig but neither owes it nor knows nor loves its maker even so the faithfull whose the whole World is and who as having nothing yet possesseth all things by inhering in thee 2 Cor. 6.10 who owest all things though he knows not so much as the short revolution of Charles Wain yet it were silly to doubt that he were not a much better person than the surveyer of the Heavens and the calculatâ—r of the stars and the poiser of the Elements and meanwhile one careless of thee who art he that ordered all those things in their exact number and weight and measure CHAP. V. Yet the Manichees ignorant also in them BUT yet what needed I know not what Manicheus to trouble himself to write so much on these subjects without the science of which true piety might well be learnt And thou hast said that piety and the fear of Thee Job 28.28 this is wisdom of which he might possibly be ignorant still though perfectly knowing all those things but in this most impudent presumption of his to teach such things when he knew them not must needs be ignorant of it For 't is but a vanity to make much shew and profession of such secular things when never so well known by us and piety to be making our humble confessions unto thee But he very deficient in this therefore by thy just permission spent much discourse on the other that so discovering his errors in things so well known men might hence judge how to value his opinions in things more hidden and obscure CHAP. VI. Faustus naturally eloquent but very ignorant in those Arts wherein he was reputed to excell THerefore for almost all those nine years in which with an unsatisfied opinion I had been a Disciple to those Doctors I impatiently expected the long longed-for coming of this
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
all which are good the acting of all which may concurr upon the same point of time and all may be equally affected but cannot be all at once effected Which therefore struggle amongst themselves until some one thing be chosen to which may be totally carried that one will which before was divided towards many So when Eternity delights us above and the pleasure of a temporal good re-tempts us here below it is the same soul not with a full will willing the one or the other and therefore it remains suspended with a tormenting distraction whilst from the Truth it preferrs one and from its acquaintance cannot quit the other CHAP. XI THus sick of mind and thus tormented I was accusing my self much more severely than formerly and tumbling and winding to and fro in my chain till I had wholly broken it off a small piece only of which now held me yet held me still And thou O Lord pressedst sore upon me in my inner parts with a severe mercy redoubling the lashes of fear and shame * that I might not give over stretching and * lest I should not break off that thin piece which only remained and it should grow again upon me and bind me faster than ever For now I said within to my self Come let it be done presently just now let it be done and already in word I began a league with thee and already I almost did it but quite did it not Neither relapsed I again into former wonts but stood and took breath being very near it and then set on again and was arrived almost at it and almost now and now touched and laid hold on it and yet I was not quite there nor yet touched nor held it demurring a while to die unto death and to live unto life and the worse long used being farr more prevalent in me than the better untried And the point of time in which I was to become another man how much it approached nearer struck in me so much more horrour Yet did it not make me to reconcile or quite turn away but only to stand in a suspense There hung still upon me those trifles of trifles and vanities of vanities my old Mistresses and plucking me by the vesture of the flesh softly whispered unto me Will you then thus forsake us and from this moment no more for ever shall we accompany you and from this moment shall not this nor that be lawful for you to do any more for ever And what things were they that these suggested unto me under the words which I call This and That What kind of things were they that these promoted to me O my God Let thy mercy ever avert the remembrance of them from the soul of thy Servant What filthiness what infamies did they suggest and I heard them now much more than half none of theirs not as boldly affronting me or freely contradicting me to my face but as lowly muttering behind me and secretly pulling me when going away only to look once more back upon them Yet they somewhat retarded me that I made not due speed to catch away my self and shake them off and to spring from them whither thy Grace called me whilst a strong custom of them said unto me Thinkest thou that thou canst for ever henceforth live without such things But now it said this but very faintly For there appeared unto me on that part where I had already turned my face but whither I yet trembled to passe Continency with a maiestick modesty serene and un-dissolutely cheerfull and honestly tempting me to come forward and to fear nothing and extending towards the receiving and the embracing of me those charitable armes of hers so full of societies of good examples There were entertained so many children boys and girles so much flourishing youth and all other ages grave widdows and aged virgins And in all these Continency not barren but a fruitful mother of children namely of celestial joyes begotten by thee O Lord her most dear Husband And she with a perswading derision laughed at me as if she had said And art not thou able to do what those youths and those maidens are Or are those and those able in themselves and not in the Lord their God the Lord their God gave me unto them Why standest thou upon thy self and therefore dost not stand throw thy self upon him and fear nothing he will not withdraw himself to let thee fall Cast thy self upon him securely for he will catch and will save thee And I blushed exceedingly that I yet continued to hear the former whisperings of those Toyes and to hang in suspense And again she seemed to say to me Col. 3.5 Stop thine eares against those thy unclean members which are on the earth that they may be mortified They tell thee of some certain delights but not of such as the Law of the Lord thy God proposeth Such was the contest acted within in my heart only between me and my self whilst Alipius who sate close by me silent expected the event of such an unusal commotion CHAP. XII His totall Conversion by reading upon hearing a voice from Heaven a passage of S. Paul where the book first opened BUt as soon as more profound meditation had drawn out from the very bottom of this sink and laid on an heap all my misery before the view of my soul there arose in me a mighty tempest bringing with it great showres of teares Which that I might more freely pour forth with their proper words and expressions I rose from Alipius conceiving solitude more suitable to a business of weeping and removed so farr off as where neither his presence might be burdensome unto me Thus it was with me and he perceiving something I know not what from my words when I arose in which the change of my voice shewed me big with tears stayed still where he sate much amazed I under a certain fig-tree threw down my self I know not how and gave liberty to my teares and the rivers of my eyes ran apace being an acceptable sacrifice unto thee And not indeed in these words but to this purpose I said many things unto thee And thou O Lord how long Psal 79.5.8 how long wilt thou be angry for ever Remember not our former iniquities For I well perceived I was still possessed and withheld by them and therefore call out such miserable complaints How long how long to morrow and to morrow Why not presently why not this very hour an end to my filthiness These things I uttered as I wept with a most bitter contrition of spirit And behold I heard a voice as from a neighbouring house as of a Boy or Girle I know not whether in a singing note saying and often repeating Tolle Lege Tolle Lege Take up and read And presently my countenance being altered I began with much intention to consider whether Children were wont in any kind of play to sing any such words nor could I call to
indeed dedicated to thy service but yet as it were panting after and somewhat relishing of the School of pride so lately left is witnessed by my books ‖ His books written there are reasoned partly with those who were present before me and partly with my self alone before thee and * Contra Academicos Lib. 3. De vitâ beatâ l. 1. De Ordine l. 2. Soliloquiorum l. 2. what I acted with absent Nebridius is testified by my Epistles O! when shall I find sufficient time for commemoration of those thy so many and so great benefits toward us in that time especially I hastening to yet greater matters For my remembrance calls me back to those times and it is a sweet thing to me O Lord to confess now unto thee * with what inward rods thou then tamedst me and * in what manner thou levelledst and plainedst me humbling the mountains and banks of my vain and towring thoughts straightening my crookedness and smoothing my roughness and also * in what manner thou subduedst Alipius the brother of my soul to that blessed name of thy only begott n Son Jesus Christ our Lord Which name at first he disdained to have inserted in our writings which he desired might rather rellish △ of the lofty Cedars of the Philosophy-school Psa 29.5 which the Lord hath broken than △ of the humble and low medicinal herbs of ecclesiastical knowledge salutary for nourishment preservative against poisons O! what passionate voices sent I up onto thee then when I read the Psalmes of David those faithful Hymns and those Aires of piety not to be sung by any swoln spirit then when I was but yet a novice in the School of thy Love and only Catechumenus solacing my self in that Villa in the society of Alipius a Catechumenus also my Mother still adhering to us in a female habit but with a manly faith the security of old age the affection of a Mother the piety of a Christian O what passionate expressions I say made I unto thee in the reading of those Psalms and how much was I enflamed towards thee by them and how was I incensed to have sung and proclaimed them if I could all the world over to the confusion of the swelling and pride of men Though verily all the world over are they sung and there is none that can hide himself from thy heat With what bitter indignation and grief did I storme against the Manichees Psa 19.6 and then again pittied them that they were * ignorant of those Sacraments of those Medicines and * mad also against the Antidote from which they might have received the cure of their madnesse How did I wish that they had been somewhere near me and might I ignorant of their presence or hearkning have * observed my countenance and * heard my ejaculations when I read the fourth Psalme and * seen what things in that my retirement were wrought on me by this Psalme Cum invocarem When I called upon thee thou heardest me O God of my righteousnesse in my distress thou hast enlarged me Have mercy upon me O Lord and hear my prayer That I say they might have heard without my knowledge that they heard lest they might think that for them I said so what things I uttered on those words for indeed neither should I say the same things nor in such manner say them supposing them to have seen or over-heard me nor if I should have said the same would they have so entertained them as when I said them only with and to my self before thee in the familiar and native affections and expressions of my mind How did I now tremble with fear now again burn with hope and with exultation in thy mercy O Father and how did these issue forth by my eyes and voice my tears and sighs when thy good spirit turning unto us saith in the words following O ye sons of men how long dull of heart Psal 4.3 Vulgar Filii hominum usque quo gravi corde Scirote quoniam mirificavit Dominus Sanctum suum How long will ye love vanity and seek after a lye Know ye that the Lord hath magnified his holy one For I had loved vanity and sought a lye And thou Lord hadst already long since magnified thy Holy one raising him from the dead and setting him at thy right hand Whence also he should send from on high his promised Comforter the Spirit of truth And he had also sent him already but I knew it not He had sent him already because he was already magnified rising from the dead and ascending into heaven †Joh. 7.39 For till then the H. Ghost was not given because Jesus was not yet glorified And for these things it is that the Prophet cries out How long dull of heart How long love ye vanity and seek a lye And know ye that the Lord hath glorified his holy One He cries out How long He cri s out Know ye And I so long not knowing had loved vanity and sought after a lie and therefore I heard and stood in awe because this was spoken to such as I remembred I had been For in those phantasmes which I had held for Truth there was vanity and a lie And I burst forth into many serious and vehement expressions in the bitternesse of my remembrance Which I wish they might have heard who even until now love that vanity and seek after that lie Perhaps they would have been pain'd and have emptied themselves of that poyson Ver. 4. and so thou wouldst hear them when they cried unto thee For not in a vain and lying appearance but by a true death of his flesh he died for us who now intercedes and cries unto thee for us and thou hearest him I further read there †Ver 5. Irascimini nolite peccare Rom 2.5 Be angry and sin not And how was I moved therewith O my God! Who had already learnt to be angry with my self for my past sin that I might for the future forbear sinning and with good reason angry because it was not any other nature of the Nation of darknesse that sinned in me as they say who therefore are not angry with themselves for it and so treasure up anger against the day of anger and of the revelation of thy just judgment Neither were now my ‖ Allusion to verse 6. Quis ostendet nobis bona good things as theirs placed abroad and without me nor sought with my carnal eyes by the light of that Sun For those who seek their joy in something abroad do easily become vain and are spilt upon those things which are seen and which are temporal and with hunger-sterved cogitations continue still licking the images thereof And Oh that they might once grow weary of and loath such an hunger and say quis ostendet nobis bona Who will shew us any better good And that we might answer again they might hearken unto it
experience discovers it â—ob 8.1 Vulgar and no man may be secure in this life which is wholly called a temptation that as he might have been made of worse better so he may not become from better worse the only hope the only confidence the only secure promise to rely on is thy mercy O Lord. CHAP. XXXIII 4. His remaining infirmities concerning the temptations of the ears in Musick Where whether Musick be useful in Churches THe pleasures of the ear had more strongly insnared and captiv'd me but thou hast dissolved these bonds and hast set Me at Liberty I confesse I do now still a little repose and acquiesse in the melody of those sounds which are animated with thy sacred himnes when these are sung with a sweet skilful voice yet not so adhereing to them but that I can disingage my self at pleasure Yet these airs by reason of the divine matter which ushers them in and procures their admittance do seek some respectful entertainments also in My soul and I find some difficulty to give them one exactly sutable For I seem to My self sometimes to allow them more honour than is meet upon experience * that our soules become more religiously and fervently raised into a flame of devotion with those holy oracles when sung in such a manner than when not sung at all and * that all the affections of our spirit according to their manifold variety do find answerable notes in Musick with a secret harmony and acquaintance of which they are much excited But yet the delight of My flesh to which we ought not to yield-over the soul to be effeminated doth often deceive Me whilst my sense doth not so wait upon reason as patiently to follow it for whose benefit only it is made use of but in seeking its own contentment strives to run before and to lead it Thus in these things I offend yet do not then but afterward discover my fault And sometimes again immoderately aware of this fallacy I err on the otherside in too much severity but this very seldom so that * I would have all the melody of those sweet Tunes in which Davids Pralter is usually suâ—g banished from my ears and also from the Churches too and * that course seems to me the more safe which I have often heard told of Athanasius Bishop of Alexandria who caused the Reader to speak the Psalmes with so small a variation of tone that it might seem nearer to pronouncing than singing Yet again when I call to mind those tears I shed in the singing of the Church-hymnes at the first beginning of My conversion to the faith and now also * my being much more moved not with the singing but the things sung when tuned with a clear voice and a most convenient note I again acknowledg great benefit of such institution Thus I float between the peril of being pleased and the experiment of being profited and am rather inclined yet not with an irrevocable judgment to approve the custom of singing in the Church that by the delight of the ear a weaker soul may raise it self into an affection of piety Yet whenever so it happens that the singing it self more moves Me than the Matter sung I confess I sin penally and then had I rather hear no singing at all Behold the present condition I am in Weep ye with Me and for Me weep ye who within your selves have the like good purposes with Me from which purposing flows well-doing as for you who have none such things as these trouble not you and thou O Lord my God look back upon Me and hear and see and pity and heal me in whose sight I am thus become a question and a doubt unto My self this is My present Malady CHAP. XXXIV 5. His remaining infirmities concerning the temptations of the eyes in splendid fair and well-proportioned objects THere remains yet the pleasure of these eyes of my flesh of which I will now make my confessions to be heard by the pious ears of My brethren thy Temple that so we may conclude the temptations of the lust of the flesh which as yet assault Me groaning earnestly and desiring to be cloathed upon with My house from heaven My eyes yet love fair and varied figures bright and clear colours Oh let not them possess my soul but let God possess it who made them very good indeed but yet is he my good and not they Gen. 1.31 And these things accost me when awake all the day long neither do I find any respit from them as I do from Musical and sometimes from all other sounds as it happens in a perfect silence For the very light it self the Queen of colours in its overspreading all things which we behold pleasantly with a various influxe flatters and inveigles Me even when doing somthing else and not observing it and so strongly doth it insinuate it self that if suddenly withdrawn it is straight impatiently desired and if long missed it contristates My spirit But O that light * which Toby beheld when with his eyes closed Tob. 4. he directeth his son the way to life and himself walked before him with the feet of charity which swerved not at all from the right way Or * which Isaac beheld Gen. 27. when his carnal sight being closed with old age he blessed not his sons by knowing them but by blessing came to know them Gen. 49. Or * which Jacob beheld â–³ when he also by great age having lost his sight with an illuminated soul viewed and foresignified the conditions of the several peoples descending from his sons And â–³ when he imposed his hands Gen. 48. mistically crossed upon Joseph's children not as their Father outwardly directed but as he inwardly discerned That is the true light and one it is and unchangeable it is and one also are all they who see and who love it But that other corporeal light of which I have been speaking seasoneth and relisheth this present life to its blind lovers with a most ensnaring and perillous sweetness But those who know also how from it to give thee glory O God All-Creator spend it in thy Hymnes and prevent it in their vigilance and such I desire to be These seducements of My eyes I now fight against lest My feet wherewith I walk in thy way should happen any way to be ensnared and to thee I lift up My invisible eyes that thou wouldst pull My feet out of the snares and thou art ever and anon loosing them for often are they fettered these nets being spread for Me on every side but thou delayest not to pluck them out again who art the keeper of Israel that never slumberest nor sleepest For what innumerable inventions by divers arts and Manufactures in attires utensiles furnitures buildings and in pictures also and several sorts of statues and images those surpassing all necessary or moderate use these any pious significatson have Men accumulated to the former
it you have heard The unlearn'd start up and take heaven by force whilst we with all our Science cowardly and heartless see how we wallow still in flesh and blood What because they have out-stript and are gone before us are we ashamed to follow and are we not more ashamed at least not so much as to follow them Some such thing said and straight my rage flung away from him who stood silent and beheld me with much amazement For neither did I speak language usual and besides my eyes forehead cheeks colour the accent of my voice more spoke my passion than my words did There was a little garden belonging to our lodging which we had use of as of the whole house our hospitable friend the Master thereof dwelling elsewhere Thither this tumult in my breast carried me away where none might hinder the hot contention which I had engaged with my self until it concluded in that issue which thou already knewest but not yet I. Only I was in a sober rage and suffering a death that would beget life well knowing what evil I then was not knowing what good within a little while I was to be Thus away I went into the garden and Alipius followed close after me for I counted my privacy not the lesse for his presence nor indeed would he forsake me whom he saw in such disorder We sate us down as remote as might be from the houses I fretred in my spirit and raged with most implacable indignation that I did not goe into a strict league and covenant with thee O my God whilst all my bones cried out that I should enter into it and extolled it to the heavens unto me And thither I needed not go either in Ships or in Coaches or on my feet no not so farr as I went from the house to this seat in the garden For not only to go but to come to the end of such a journey was nothing else but only to consent and to be willing to goe that is to be resolutely and entirely willing and not to turn and tosse a will maimed one half of it sometimes on one side and sometimes on another in one part raising it self up and strugling with another part that hangs down And yet how many things in these conflicts of my lingring will did I effect as I pleased in my body which yet those who would alwayes cannot do as if perchance they have not such members or theâ—e be tied with bands or dissolved with sickness or some other way restrained For example if then I tare off my hair or smote my forehead or clasped my hands about my knee as soon as I pleased presently I did it Yet was it possible in all these to have willed them and not have done them if the unpliantness of my joynts could not serve my purpose So many things therefore did I then where to will them only was not to do them and yet did I not that which incomparably more contented me and which as soon as I would I might do because as soon as I would I might will it for here the ability was the same that the will and to will only was to do it and yet it was not done and the body yielded a more easie obedience to the smallest willing of the soul to bend its limbs according to the others beck than the soul it self did to it self and that for its greatest joy and pleasure and this to be perfected and accomplished only by willing it CHAP. IX The fierce combate there between the Flesh and the Spirit and his sad complaint of the great difficulty the will hath to command it self when it so easily commandeth the other members FRom whence such a monster and how can this be let thy mercy enlighten me and let me enquire if perhaps in these great secrecies of mens punishments for sin and the most obscure judgements of the sons of Adam any thing may appear that may afford me some answer whence such a monster and how can this be The mind commands the body and is presently obeyed the mind commands it self and is opposed the mind commands the motion of the hand and so speedily is it executed as the obedience is scarce distinguishable from the command and yet the mind is a spirit and the hand a body the same mind commands the mind to will a thing the very same essence with it and yet it doth it not Whence such a monster and how can this be It commands I say that it should will a thing which could not command it unless it willed it first and yet that is not done which it commands Indeed it is not wholly willing therefore neither doth it wholly command for only so farr it commands as it wills and so farr what it commands is not done as it wills not that it should be done Because the will commands that there should be a willing and nothing else commands this but only it self upon it self therefore it doth not wholly command it and therefore that which it commands that it may be is such a thing as is not already for if the will were already wholly inclined to such a thing it would not command that such inclination should be because it was already Both to will and yet to nill in part therefore is no monster But a sickness and infirmity of the mind which cannot entirely arise when lifted up by the truth because 't is counterpoised by vitious custom And therefore only there are two willings because one of them is not total and so what is wanting to the one makes up and fortifieth the other CHAP. X. LEt them perish from before thy face O God as the speakers of lies and imposters do perish who when they observe in our deliberating two wills do affirm two distinct minds in us of a different nature the one good and the other bad For when I thus deliberated at last to enter upon the service of my Lord God as I had long design'd iâ— was I that willed and I also that nilled it It was the â—â—me I who as yet neither fully willed nor fully nilled it and therefore was in contention with my self and divided and rent from my self and this rent in me indeed was made against my will yet it signified not in me the inhabitancy of some forreign mind but the punishment of my own and therefore it was no more I that wrought this distraction but sin that dwelled in me from the punishment of that first more freely-committed offence inasmuch as I am a son of Adam And certainly if there were so many contrary natures in us as there are in us contrary desires there will not be two principles only one of our good inclinations the other of our bad But must be many also of the bad and many of the good Since we have many wills and desires opposing and hindering one another and yet all of them bad and many repugning also one to another yet