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
heard do excite the heart of those who are such like not to sleep on in despair saying I cannot but to awaken themselves through a sense of the love of thy mercy and of the sweetness of thy grace by which whoever is weak becomes strong so soon as first by it he is made conscious to himself of his own weaknesse And again good men who are not such-like are also delighted to hear of the forepast ills of those who are now freed from them are delighted not because such evills were but because they have been only and now are not But now what fruit may there be O Lord my God to whom my conscience maketh confession daily much more secure in the hope of thy mercy than in the confidence of its own innocency What fruit I pray thee of this my confession also before men in this my writing what a one for the present I am not what a one in time past I have been For some fruit of that I have discovered and related But this also what a one I am now at this instant of my writing these my confessions many are desirous to know both of those who have been acquainted and who have not been acquainted with me of those who have heard any thing from or concerning me but yet their ear cannot be laid to my heart where I am what ever I am and therefore they desire to hear my outward confession of what I am within where neither their eye nor ear nor soul can penetrate And this they desire as ready to believe where they cannot know because that charity whereby themselves are honest perswades them also that I am no deceiver in these things I speak of my self and this charity in them gives credit to me CHAP. IV. BUt yet what fruit still of this their desires Is it because they would * congratulate me when they shall hear how far I proceed towards thee by thy Gift And again * pray for me when they shall hear how much still I am retarded in this journey by my own weight Surely to such will I freely reveal my self For this is no small fruit O Lord my God that thanks be given to thee by many cotcerning us and that prayer be made unto thee by many for us Let such a brotherly affection freely * love in me whatever thou instructest it ought to be loved and again * deplore in me what thou instructest it is to be deplored But let the mind of a brother do this not of a forreigner not that of strange children whose mouth is talking of vanity Psal 144.8 and whose right hand is a right hand of iniquity but that of a brother which where it approves me joyes concerning me and where it dislikes grieves for me because such whether in approving or in disallowing continues to love me Willingly to such will I reveal my self Let them utter praise in my good things sighs in my evils My good things are thy commands and thy gifts my evil things are my faults and thy judgements In those let them rejoyce and let them mourn in these and let such Hymnes and Elegies ascend up into thy sight from the censers of the hearts of those my brethren And thou O Lord well-pleased with this Incense out of those thy holy Temples have mercy on me according to thy great mercy and for thy names sake and not forsaking what thou hast begun consummate in me what is yet imperfect This fruit then there is of the confessions not of my past but present condition which moves me to confess the various things of it not only * before thee in a secret exultation with fear and again in a secret mourning with hope but also * in the eares of believing sons of men companions of my joy co-partners of my mortality my fellow-Citizens and my fellow-pilgrims who happen to go before or to come behind or to pace along with me in the road of this life These are thy Servants my Brethren whom thou wouldst have to be thy Sons therfore to be my Masters whom thou hast charged me to serve in what I am able if I would live with and on thee Nor had the command of thy Word to me been sufficient had it by speaking only directed me and not also by doing it self gone before me And now I also indeavour the same service both by my deeds and by my words I endeavour this under the shelter of thy wings in too much extremity of peril were it not that I am sheltered under thy wings My soul hangeth upon thee and my weakness is known unto thee I am but yet a little child but my Father now and alwayes liveth and my Governour is all-sufficient for me for it is the same who before begat me and who now governeth me and it is Thou thy self O Lord that art all my good thou the Omnipotent who wer 't with me also before I was with thee I will therefore now declare to those to whom thou commandest this my service in all things not what I have been only but what I now am and what only yet I am CHAP. V. Yet not able to see or confess all of himself which God seeth in him YEt do I not here undertake to judge aright concerning my self For thou O Lord art he that judgeth me For although no man knows the things of a man but the spirit of man which is in him 1 Cor. 4.3 yet something of a man there is which neither that spirit of man which is within him knoweth But thou knowest the total of him thou who madest him And I also though I abhor my self before thy presence and consider my self but dust and ashes yet may say that I know concerning thee something Job 42.6 which yet concerning my self I am ignorant of For notwithstanding I see thee yet as through a glass darkly not face to face and so long as I sojourn here so farr from thee 1 Cor. 13 12. I am more present to my self than to thee yet well know I concerning thee that thou canst by no meanes nor from no agent receive any hurt but for my self what temptations and assaults from abroad I am able or not able to resist I know not But my hope is that thou art faithful and wilt not suffer us to be tempted above that we are able but wilt with the tempation also make a way to escape that we may sustain it Let me confess therefore both what of my self I know and what things they are I yet know nor of my self because both what concerning my self I know I know from thy illumination and what I know not I shall so long be still ignorant of till my darkness be made noon-day from the light of thy countenance CHAP. VI. Description of his present condition in the state of Grace That he now truly loveth God Concerning whom he proceeds to examine what it is he loveth when he saith that he loveth God That
great mystery of the Incarnation of thy Son and by the ministery of thy Preachers of it CHAP. II. YEt how may I call upon or invoke my God my God and my Lord Since to invoke him is to call him into me And what Mansion within me where my God may reside God within me that made Heaven and Earth Is there then O Lord my God any room so spacious in me that can receive thee Nay can the vast Globe of Heaven and Earth things that thou hast made and me a small point within their womb can these in any wise receive thee Or is it so that since nothing that is could Be without thee therefore whatever is must needs receive thee Since then I also am in Being what need I intreat thy accesse into me who therefore am because thou art in me Who am not yet a thing so low and remote as Hell or the Grave and yet thou art present there For If I go down into Hell Thou art there also Psal 139.7 Therefore I should not be O my God not be at all but only by thy being in me Or rather I should not be but by being in thee of whom and by whom and in whom Rom. 11.36 all things be 'T is so Lord even so Whether then may I invoke thee seeing I am already in thee Or from whence thou draw-near unto me For whither can I retire beyond the utmost limit of Heaven and Earth to invite from thence my God into me Who hath said I fill the Heaven and the Earth Jer. 23.24 CHAP. III. BUt do the Heavens and Earth thus filled by thee therefore contain thee Or dost thou replenish these and yet overflow because they cannot wholly receive thee And where then dost thou effund these vessells running over the remainder of thy self Or hast thou no need of any thing at all to contain thee who thy self conteinest all things For in thy filling them thou dost also contain them and they are full of Thee by being received into thee For the vessels that are replenished with thee add to thy fluxure no consistency because thou art not shed at all when they are broken and when thou art powred out upon us thou art not spilled Act. 2.18 but we are conserved nor thou dissipated but we by thee recollected and kept from effusion But thou who thus fillest all things fillest thou each with all thy self Or they not capable of thee wholly do they only receive some part and then do they all receive the same or several parts of thee The greater taking more the lesser a lesse And is there then some part of thee greater and some lesse Or Art thou every where totally yet no where totally received CHAP. IV. O What art thou therefore my God What can I say art thou but the Lord God For who is God Ps 18.31 but the Lord or who is God save our God O Thou most highest most good most potent most omnipotent most mercifull and most just most present and most retired the fairest and the strongest stable and yet not comprehensible unchangeable and yet all-changing never new nor never old and all-renewing only withering and bringing to nothing the proud and gallant before they are aware Alwayes in action and alwayes in repose still gathering and nothing lacking supporting filling and over-spreading all things their Father nurse and accomplisher still in chase of what is possest A lover without affection jealous without fearing a rival repenting thee without any sorrow angry yet still most calmly serene changing oft thy works never thy designe finding and receiving again what was never lost never needy yet fond of gain not covering yet exacting use men supererogate unto thee that thou becomest their debter and yet who hath any thing not thine Thou payest debts yet owest nothing forgivest them and losest nothing And what is all this that I say O my God my life my sacred sweet-delight or what amounts it unto that any one saith when he assayes to speak of thee and yet wo to them who in thy praise are silent though in it they are no more then mute who are most eloquent ‖ Or Whereln the very dumb say somthing and such as say most say nothing CHAP. V. O What shall I do that I may for ever repose and acquiesce in thee What shall I do to have my soul wholly-possest with and inebriated by thee so to enjoy an eternall oblivion of all past evills and the perpetuall embraces of thee my only Good And in this so much on both sides longed-for union what good art thou to me let thy mercies indulge me to speak unto thee Or what good am I to thee That thou exactest of me that I should love thee and if I do it not art highly displeased and threatnest to bring on me the greatest misery is this then so small a misery for me not to love thee Ah! By thy mercies tell me O Lord my God what is that great thing that thou art unto me Say unto my soul I am thy salvation Psal 35.3 Exo. 33.20 Or with longing to see it But say it so as it may hear thee say it Behold the ears of my heart are before thee open them and say unto my soul there I am thy salvation Then will I hasten after thy alluring voice and catch fast hold on thee O hide not thou thy face from me Let me see it though I dye lest otherwise I dye so as never to see it The Mansion of my soul is too narrow to entertain thee O let it be enlarged by thee 'T is very ruinous be thou pleased to repair it The sordid furniture thereof must be very offensive to thy holy eyes I know and confess it but who can purge and cleanse it besides thee Psal 19.12 Psal 116.10 Psal 32.6 Psal 26.12 vulg or to what other besides thee shall I cry Cleanse me O Lord from my secret sins and from my presumptuous wickednesses deliver thy Servant I believe thou hast and wilt forgive them and therefore do I speak and confess them O Lord thou knowest Have not I Confessed against me my sins unto thee O my God I hope thou hast forgiven the wickedness of my sin I do not contend in judgment with thee for thou art the truth nor will I be deceived in hearkning to excuses whilst perhaps mine iniquity tells lyes unto me Therefore do I not contend in judgment with thee For if thou Lord shouldest marke iniquities Psal 130.3 O Lord who shall abide it CHAP VI. An Account* of St. Austins Infancy nourished and sustained by the divine providence YEt suffer me thy justice laid aside to speak unto thy mercy Gen. 18.27 me dust and ashes yet suffer me to speak being it is unto the mercies of my God I speak and not to Man so apt to scoffe at me and perhaps thou also for the present lâ—â—â—liest at me Psal 25.16 but in
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
departs full of anger and disdain but if it be otherwise stayes attentive and sheds joyful tears Love we sorrows then and tears Surely every one desires joy rather Or is it that when as we desire that none should be miserable yet we are pleased that our selves should be pitiful and this pity not being at all without some grief therfore becomes grief it self also affected And all this proceeds from a certain vein and source of friendship in us But whither goes that source Whither runs it Wherefore falls it at length into that torrent of boyling pitch those vast whirlpools of stinking lusts into which it becomes wilfully changed and transformed being precipitated and degraded from its own celestial purity Must all affection and pity then be abandoned by no means and hence sometimes grief also may be loved But beware of any uncleaness in these O my soul under the tuition of my God the God of our Fathers and through all ages to be praised and superexalted beware of any uncleanesse in them For now also am I not void of compassion and pity But whereas then in those theaters I co-rejoyced with lovers when enjoying their unchast desires though these imaginary only in the play and out of pity to them grew as sad when they lost one another and yet both these passions afforded me delight I now contrary more pity one when triumphing in his obtained wickednesse than when despairing in the missing of that pernicious pleasure and in the loss of that miserable felicity This certainly is the truer compassion but in it the heart is not joyed For though he is commended for doing an office of charity that condoles anothers misery yet had he alwaies rather that thing had not been which he condoles whosoever is truly compassionate For if good-will could be thus ill-wishing which cannot be then he that truly and sincerely pities might desire another should be miserable to the end that himself so might be merciful Some grief then is to be approved none to be loved yet is it sometimes too approved for this belongs to thee only Lord God that whilst thou lovest souls farr more purely then we and more incorruptibly hast pity toward them yet no manner of sorrow for them can wound thee And who is sufficient for such things besides thee But I then poor wretch Loved to grieve and searched what might cause it when in another mans and this only a personated disaster that action of the player delighted more and stronglier bewitched me that drew tears from me And what marvel was it that I an unfortunate sheep strayed from thy flock and impatient of thy discipline should be overspread with such a nasty scab And hence was that affection to sorrow not such as pierced me inwardly for neither did I love to suffer what I loved to see but such as being related only and feigned but razed as it were the skin of my soul yet like the scratching of an envenomed nail an enflamed tumor and impostumation and putrefaction followed upon it Such was the life I led But indeed was that then to be called a life O my God CHAP. III. His Concupiscence in the Church the Ambition of his studies and conversation amongst the jeering and abusive Wits ANd then thy mercy ever faithfull to me hovered still afar off over me Whilst I was dissolved into all impiety pursuing a sacrilegious curiosity which brought me having forsaking thee to low and treacherous vanities and to the circumventing service of maligning Devils to whom I sacrificed my villanies though in them all I was still scourged by thee Then I dared even in the celebration of thy solemn feasts within the walls of thy sanctuary to exercise my concupiscence and to drive the trade of procuring the fruits of death for which thou scourgedst me with grievous pains but nothing comparable to my crimes O thou my exceeding great mercy my God thou who wert also my refuge from those terrible mischievous †The Eversores persons amongst whom I gadded here and there with an outstretched neck a run-away from thee loving my own wayes and not thine and loving that my fugitive Liberty Those studies which were counted of great repute had a strong influence upon me as fitting us for pleading in the publick Courts of Justice and I had an ambition to be excellent in them thus to become so much the famouser how much by my eloquence more deceiving so great is the blindness of Men glorying also in their blindness And by this time I was grown a head-Scholler in the Rhetorick-school pleased with self-conceit and swollen with pride though much more modest O Lord thou knowest than some others were and far removed from those Eversions the †The bafling Wits of the school Eversores made for this cruell and diabolical name is as it were a badge of their witty urbanity Amongst these I lived with a shameless bashfulness because my self was not the like and with these I conversed being taken with their society whose actions I ever abhorred I mean those eversions of theirs with which they wantonly persecuted the modesty of new-comers gratis and unprovoked abusing and disgracing them and therewith feeding their malicious mirth An act so like to those of Devils that what could they be more truly called than Eversores being everted first and perverted themselves by those maligning Spirits who first deceive and deride them in this very thing that they delight to deride and to deceive others CHAP. IV. In the nineteenth year of his age his reading of Cicero's Hortensius invites him from affectation of Eloquence to the search of Wisdom AMongst this company then a youth I learned books of Eloquence in which I desired to be eminent but out of a faulty and ambitious end and a fond affectation of humane vanities and in the usual course of study I then was to read a certain book of one Cicero whose tongue almost all Men admire not so his heart Which Treatise of his conteined an exhortation to Philosophy called Hortensius And this book it was that first altered my affections and turned my addresses unto thee O Lord and rendred my purposes and desires clean of another mould than formerly Suddenly all other vain aspirings were slighted by me and with incredible ardency I lusted after the immortality of wisdom and began already to rise up that I might again return unto thee Now not to sharpen my tongue which thing I came thither to purchase with the exhibition my Mother then allowed me I being now nineteen years old and my Father deceased two years before no more now 〈◊〉 my tongue made I use of that book nor did the how but what was said in it affect me Now how did I burn O my God how did I burn to re-mount up from things terrene toward thee not then knowing what thou wouldst act with me For with thee only is wisdom and the love of wisdom called Philosophy was it with
which those writings so enflamed me There are those that seduce through Philosophy with this smooth and noble and vertuous name palliating and colouring ore their errors and almost all who in those or in former times were such are in that book noted and set down And there likewise was expressed that salvifical admonition of thy spirit by thy pious and devout Servant Col. 2.8 Beware lest any Man spoil you through Philosophy and vain deceit after the tradition of Men after the rudiments of the World and not after Christ for in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily And I for thou O Light of my soul knowest that the Apostolical advice was then unknown to me was much pleased with this in that exhortation of Cicero's that it excited and kindled and enflamed me not to this or that sect but to the affecting and pursuance and apprehending of wisdom it self whatever it were And in this great ardency of mine this one thing only cooled me that the name of Christ was not there Because this name according to thy mercy O Lord this name of my Saviour thy Son my tender heart with my very Mothers milk had piously imbibed and deeply apprehended and whatsoever wanted this name though never so learned polite or veritable yet did not wholly sway me CHAP. V. Not finding our Saviour in Philosophy he turns to the Scriptures Whose humble stile in comparison of Tullie's gives him distast THerefore now I designed my studies to the holy scripture to see what a writing it was And behold I find it not intelligible to the proud nor yet discovered and naked to Children but in its stile lowly lofty in its sense and veiled with mysteries Nor was I such as could enter into it or stoop my neck unto its humble pace for not as I judge now so fancied I then when I first looked upon that sacred book But to me altogether unworthy it seemed to be once compared to Tully's lofty stile for my swollen tumor abhorred its sober temper and my sight pierced not the inside thereof Yet such it was as would still have grown up higher together with those who were litle ones as they should grow higher but such a little one I scorned to be and swelled with pride me thought I was some great one CHAP. VI. In quest of wisdom he falls into the society and errors of the Manichees absurd pernicious ANd even therefore I fell among the proudly doting †The Manichees and too too carnal and yet great Talkers in whose mouths were laid the snares of Satan and a catching birdlime compounded of the commixture of the syllables of Thy name and also of that of our Lord Jesus Christ and of the Comforter the Holy Spirit In their mouth were all these very rife but in the sound only and noise of the tongue with a heart void of truth And they spoke of Truth and Truth and many they were that named it unto me and no where was it in them but false things they spoke not of thee only who art the true Truth but also of those elements of the World thy Creatures Of which I found the Philosophers speaking truth yet those also I ought to have passed by for the transcending love of thee my Father the highest good and the beauty of all that 's beauteous O Truth Truth how intimately then did the very marrow of my soul suspire towards thee when they noised thy name unto me often and variously but in words only and in many and voluminous writings †Note that all that which follows thus marked the Reader if he please may omit as lesse pertinent to the Story And those were their dishes wherein to me hungring after thee were served up instead of thee the Sun and the Moon splendid works of thine but thy works though and not thee nor those the primest of them for thy spirituall works precede those corporeal though glorious and celestial But neither was it those thy primest Creatures but thy self Thou O Truth ‖ Jam. 1.17 in whom is no change neither shadow of turning whom I hungred and thirsted after In stead of whom those tables presented me yet with other glittering phantasmes when far worthier had it been to have pitched my admiration upon the sun to my eyes a real thing then on those other falsities wherein my mind through my eyes was deceived And yet taking them to be thee I fed upon them not so greedily indeed for what rellish had these like unto thee with which I then was fed or emptied rather Meat in a dream though not feeding us resembles that which we feed on waking but that food did not the least resemble thee as thy sweetness hath now appeared unto me for they were but corporeal phantasmes the counterfeits of bodies more real than which are those true ones which with our fleshly sight we contemplate whether Heaven or Earthly We together with the beasts and fouls gaze on these more real therefore they are than those we only imagine yet again more reasonably do we imagine those than conjecture and derive again from them yet more vast and infinit-nothings With which emptinesses I was then fed or rather was not fed at all But thou O my Love into whose arms I faint that I might there gain strength art neither those bodies above which we see though from Heaven thou comest nor art thou those we there see not for all them hast thou framed neither countest thou them the chiefest of thy works How much more remote then art thou from being those my phantasms the phantasies of bodies which are not more reall than which are the images of those bodies that are and yet the bodies themselves more certain than these which real bodies yet thou art not Neither yet art thou the soul which is the life of these bodies and this life of bodies is better stabler than the bodies but thou art the life of the souls the life of these lives living alwayes from thy self and never varying O thou life of my soul Where wert thou at that time and at how great a distance And I sojourned far from thee being deprived even of the husks of those swine whom I then fed with husks For how much better were the fables of the Grammarians and the Poets than these cheats For making a verse and a sonnet and a Medea flying in the air c. were more to purpose than five Elements colourably diversified to sute the five caves of darkness which are meer nothing in themselves yet mortal to those who believe them But my verses and my poetry I exercise on the Elements that truly are so And for Medea's flying I neither believe it sung nor sing it to be believed but the other I believed Alas alas by what stairs was I conveyed into the depths of hell Prov. 9.18 For toiling and sweating in quest of still-wanted truth whilst I sought thee O my God for to thee
quickness of apprehension and subtility of reasoning is thy gift though I did not sacrifice my due acknowledgments thereof unto thee therefore served it not for my use but my perdition rather Luke 15.12 because I desired to have that so liberal a part of my portion in my own hands and did not preserve my strength for thy service but went farr from thee into a remote Country that I might wast it upon meretricious delights For â–³ what profited it me so good a thing not rightly employed For I perceived not that thâ—â—â— arts â—ven by the studious and ingenious were so difficultly uâ—â—erstood till afterward I went about to teach these unto them when he was accounted most excellent amongst them that was lesse-slowly capable of those my expositions But yet â–³ what did this profit me meanwhile imagining that thou O Lord my God who art the truth wert only a lucid and immense body and that my self was a piece of that lump Perversness too great but so it was with me Nor will I now blush to confess unto thee my God thy mercies toward me and to call upon thee who then blushed not to profess to men my blasphemies and to bark against Thee â–³ What then profited me * that my wit in all those sciences so nimble and * so many knotty books without any humane assistance so easily unfolded by me when I so foully and sacrilegiously erred in the doctrine of piety Or what hindrance was a farr slower capacity to those thy little ones that never strayed far from thee but within the nest of thy Church securely feathered themselves and had the wings of their charity nourished with an Orthodox faith O Lord our God let us ever trust in the overspreading of thy wings cover thou us with them and bear thou us upon them Isa 46.3 4. Bear us both when thy young ones and when never so aged carry us on them still Because our infirmity when thou art with it is strength and our strength when t is only our own is infirmity And all our good lives alwayes only with thee and because we turned away from thee we lost it Let us now return unto thee O Lord that we may repossess it For with thee lives our good still without any decay thereof For thou thy self art it And we need not fear lest at our return our former habitation should be ruined and demolished For we indeed in departing from thence fall and come to ruine but our house in this our absence which is thy Eternity can never fall LIB V. CHAP. I. Oblation of his Confessions to God their end being to set forth his praise ACcept O Lord the sacrifice of these my Confessions offered unto thee from the hand of my tongue Psal 35.10 made and moved by thee to confess unto thy name And heal Thou all my bones that they may say O Lord who is like unto thee It is not at all to teach thee that which is done within him when any one confesseth it unto thee for the closeness of the heart excludes not thy eye nor the hardness of it repels thy hand but that Thou dost often in pity and otherwile also in vengeance melt and dissolve it at pleasuâ—â— And there is nothing hid from thy heat Psa 19.6 But yet let my soul be still praising and speaking good of Thee that for this it may love Thee and let it be confessing thy mercies unto Thee that for them it may praise Thee The whole Creation ceaseth not nor resteth from praising Thee both every spirit by their own mouths turned immediatly upon Thee and all corporeals also living or inanimate by the mouth of those who in them contemplate thy wisdom That so our wearied and sick soul may thus erect it self and move toward Thee and leaning on the things which Thou hast made may by them be conducted unto Thee who madest them all so admirably and there find refection and true strength CHAP. II. Invitation of all other strayed sinners to return to the Omnipotent God by Confession THe wicked discontented and restless may depart and fly from thee but still thou seest them and dividest the darknesse Gen. 1.4.31 and behold all things round about them are still fair and lovely in thy sight only themselves deformed For alas in thus abandoning thee how have they hurt or frustrated Thee at all Or any way discomposed thy absolute empire from the highest heaven to the lowest abysse just and entire For whither fled they when they fled from before thy face Or where are they not discovered by Thee They fled only Gen. 4.16 * that themselves might not see thee when seeing them and might yet blindfold still run against Thee who never departest from any of the things made by Thee * that they being unjust might run against Thee and so be justly hurt by Thee withdrawing from thy lenity and softness and so dashing against thy uprightness and falling upon thy sharpness ignorant that Thou who art circumscribed by no place are yet in every place and the only He that art present to those who are farr from Thee Let them then return and let them seek thee because though they have left Thee their Creator yet hast not Thou left thy creature Let them then return only and seek Thee and lo Thou art present in their hearts in the heart of all those who make Confession unto Thee and cast themselves upon Thee and in Thy bosom deplore their former vexatious deviations And then how wilt Thou indulgent wipe off again such tears from their eyes and this wiping also provoke more tears and make them to joy in these sorrowings because Thou O Lord and not man flesh and blood but thou O Lord that createdst them dost thus recreate and comfort them Where was I then when I sought for Thee For Thou wast just before me but I was strayed from my self and not able to finde my self much less could I find Thee CHAP. III. The passages of the 29th year of his age The coming of Faustus an eloquent Manichean Bishop to Carthage The Philosophers tenents in the sciences found much more probable than the Manicheans I Will now recount before my God the story of the tweny-ninth year of my age there was then come to Carâ—haâ—e a Mani hâ—an Bishop called Faustus a great snare of the Devil 's and many were caught by the sweet bait of his smooth tongue which though I also much rellished in him yet could I well distinguish it from the verity of the things which I desired to learn of him examining only what nourishing provision of science he set before me and not in how rich a dish of language he served it up For fame had before reported him most knowing in all excellent learning and exquisitly skilled in the liberall Arts. And I having read formerly and still retaining in memory much of the Philosophers tenents began to compare those with these long fables
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
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
unto thee He related therefore after what manner that most learned old man and most expert in al the Liberal sciences who had read digested and explained the works of so many Philosophers the Tutor to so many noble Senators that for a monument of his excellencies had erected his statue in the Forum Romanum which among the Citizens of this World is accounted a great honour having been even to that age a worshipper of Idols and a partaker of those Sacrilegious devotions to which most of the Roman Nobility were so zealously addicted that they now worshiped and numbred amongst their Gâ—ds Barking †An Egyptian God worshipped in the shape of a Dog Anubis and those other monstrous blood of Deities which once were enemies to the Roman State and which took up armes against Neptune and Venus and Minerva her Protectors Rome now supplicating and serving those deities also whom she had conquered of all which aged Victorinus had for so many years been a most powerfully eloquent patron and defender he related I say in what manner after all this that old man was not ashamed to become a Child of thy Christ and an Infant at thy Font submitting his neck to the yoak of thy humility and forcing his proud forehead to the reproach of the crosse Psal 18.9 O Lord Lord who bowest the Heavens and comest down who touchest the Mountains and they smoak with what sweet and secret attractions didst thou insinuate thy self into that breast and becamest Master of it He attentively read as Simplicianus said the holy Scripture and all the Christians writings he carefully sought out and examined and then said to Simplicianus not publickly but secretly as to a friend Know that I am now a Christian And he replyed I will not believe it nor repure you such untill I shall see you within the Church of Christ And the other in derision answered him again And is it walls then that make Christians And often he said this that already he was a Christian and Sâ—mpliâ—ianus often iterated the same reply and as often was the jest of the walls returned by him For he was affraid to displease his great friends those proud worshippers of Divels from the high top of whoâ—e Babilonâ—sh power Psal 29.5 as from Cedars of Libanus whom the Lord had not yet broken he foresaw great storms of wrath would fall upon him But afterward by continual reading and meditating he gathered more firmnesse and fearing to be denied by Christ before his holy Angels if he feared to confesse him before men Mat. 10.33 and appearing to himself guilty of a grievous crime if he should be ashamed of the Sacraments of the humility of thy eternall Word and not ashamed of that sacrilegious worship of those proud devills of whom being first a proud imitater he became also a worshipper he began to be shame-free for abandoning such vanity and to blush for not professing the Truth and all on a sudden and unexpectedly said to Simplicianus as he told me Let us go to Church there I will be made a Christian And so he transported with joy immediately accompanied him thither where when he had been ‖ Admitted a Catechumenus initiated in the first Sacraments of instructions he not long after gave in his name to receive regeneration by Baptisme Rome wondering the Church exulting The proud saw it and were grieved they gnashed with their teeth and consumed away Psal 112 10. Psal 31.6 As for thy servant O Lord God was his hope and he no more regarded lying vanities Lastly when the time came of professing his faith which profession at Rome by those who are about to receive thy grace in Baptism is wont to be made in a set form of words learnt by heart from a higher place before all the Faithful he said it was offered by the priests to Victorinus that he should performe it if he pleased in private as the custom was to indulge this to some whose bashfulnesse in publick was apt to be timoâ—ous But that he chose rather to professe the matter of his salvation in the presence of all the holy congregation For that there was no matter of salvation in the Rhetorick he had taught and yet he had professed that publickly Why therefore should not he lesse fear thy meek and humble flock in pronouncing thy word than he had feared formerly in delivering his own words a more rude and censorious multitude As soon then as he ascended publickly to repeat it every one as they knew him whispered his name to others with much congratulation and who was there almost that knew him not And every ones joyful mouth in a low murmur sounded Victorinus Victorinus Such noise they suddenly made in exultation to see him and as soon were they silent again out of attention to hear him And so he pronounced the orthodox faith with a wonderful confidence whilst every one strove with the arms of his love and joy to embrace and to seat him in the chiefest place of his heart and affections CHAP. III. Why more joy for men converted than had they been alwayes Professors †A digression till the 5. Chapter Luk. 15.7 GOod God how comes it to passe in man that he rejoyceth much more in the safety of a soul despair'd of or delivered out of some extream peril than where his hopes of him were always great or the danger escaped but little And so thou also Father of mercies rejoycest more over one penitent than over ninety nine just persons who need no repentance And with much consolation we hear it when we hear in thy word how the over-joyed shepheard brought home on his own shoulders the strayed sheep And how the lost groat was brought back into thy treasures with the great joy * of the woman that found it and also * of her neighbours And the solemn gladness of thy whole house hath forced tears from us when in thy Church it is read concerning thy younger son that he had been dead and was alive again had been lost and was found But this thy extraordinary rejoycing is properly in us only and in thy Angels satisfied with holy charity whilst thou art alwayes the same who knowest all those things alwayes after the same manner which neither abide alwayes nor on the same manner How then comes it to passe in a soul that it is more delighted in things found again or restored than in those alwayes possest For many other things witness this and all places are full of testimonies that so it is The conquering Emperour solemnizeth a triumph but first undergoes a battel and how much his peril is greater in the fight so much is his joy in the triumph A tempest ariseth at sea and threatens shipwrack all grow pale with the fright of approaehing death The heaven and sea become serene and calme and their joy is now excessive because before their fear was so A dear friend falls sick and his
it yet he would chuse there were no such thing for him to suffer In adversities I long for prosperity in prosperities I apprehend and dread adversity And what midle station can there be found between these two where this Life may not be a Temptation to us There is a Woe to the prosperities of this World once and again 1. For the many fears in them of adversity 2. And for the many miscarriages and misbehaviours in them of our joyes And there is a Woe to the adversities of this World once again and a third time 1. From the impatient longing we have in them after missed prosperity 2. From the pain and sufferings of the adversity it self 3. And from the frequent shipwrack therein of patience Is not mans life therefore upon Earth a continuall Temptation without any remission CHAP. XXIX Not having yet a perfect continency in respect of all other objects besides God but extending some undue attention and affection unto them ANd now is all my hope no where but in thy very great mercy O Lord God Give me but grace to do what thou commandest and command what thou wilt Tho commandest me continency Wisd 8 21. Vulg And I know saith one that no man can be continent unlesse God giveth it and this is also a point of Wisdom to know whose gift it is For by this continency we are united and recollected unto that one thing truly amiable from which we have faultily dissipated and spilt our selves upon many things For lesse doth he love thee who loves any thing else with thee which he loveth not for thee O thou Love that alwaies flamest and that art never extinguisht Charity My God fire me also with thy flames Thou commandest continency and recollection towards thee Give what thou commandest and command what thou wilt CHAP. XXX He examineth himself and confesseth his present infirmities in the severall branches of Concupiscence 1 John 2.16 1. The lust of the flesh 2. The lust of the eyes 3. The pride of life And here he confesseth 1. His remaining infirmities concerning the temptations of the lust of the flesh And amongst these 1. His infirmities concerning the temptations of the Touch relating to carnall concubinage THou commandest me Continency Both from the Lust of the flesh and from the lust of the eyes and from the ambition of this life And first thou hast commanded me Continency from illicit carnall copulation and also concerning Wedlock it self thou hast counselled something better than that which thou hast indulged and because thou gavest that thy Command hath been observed by me even before I I was made Priest and a dispenser of thy Sacrament But yet there live still in my memory of which I have spoken so much the former images of such things which my long evil custome of them hath fixed there and these haunt me still when I am awake they void of strength but in sleep prevailing not only even to delectation but also even to consentment and to fact very like unto them And so much power hath the delusion of this image in that inferiour part of my soul and in my flesh that those false visions perswade me when a sleep to what true sights when awake can no way entice me And is it not then also the same I O Lord my God And yet so much difference there is between my self and my self in such a moment of time when resigned up to sleep and when returned to Vigilancy Where then is my reason by which when awake my mind resisteth any such suggestions And though the things themselves present themselves before me remaineth unshaken is it then clasped up with my eyes is it lull'd asleep with my corporeal senses And whence then in our sleep also do we many times resist and remembring our former resolution and chastly persevering therein yield no assent to such lustful allurements And yet when in sleep it happens otherwise this difference there is of it from the acts of reason that awaking we return to the peace of conscience and by the distance of parties discover that we have not really done what we lament to have been after some sort done in us Is not thy hand powerful O God Omnipotent to heal also these yet remaining langours of my soul And with a more abundant measure of thy grace to extinguish also these lascivious motions of my sleep And thou I trust O Lord wilt increase in me more and more thy Gifts that my soul utterly disingaged of the birdlime of concupiscence may obediently follow me towards thee that it may no more be such a Rebell against it self and that in sleep also it shall be freed not only from acting such impurities and filthinesses provoked by seducing phancies even in the flux of the flesh but also from yielding any consent unto them For that no listening or inclination toward them not so much as that which the least check can master shall harbour any more in the chast affections of me refreshing my self with sleep not only in some time of this present life but in this yet vigorous age is no great matter to thee the Almighty who art able to do above all that we ask or think But here I have related to my good Lord what a one as yet I am in this sort of my evil rejoycing with fear for that which herein thou hast given and mourning for that wherein I am yet imperfect with hope that thou wilt consummate in me thy mercies until the time of that full harmony and peace which both my interiour and exteriour then shall enjoy with thee when death shall be swallowed up in Victory CHAP. XXXI 2. His remaining infirmities concerning the temptations of the Tast in eating and drinking THere is another evil of the day †Besides the former night evill Mat. 6.34 1 Cor. 6.13 1 Cor. 15 53. 1 Cor. 9.27 and I wish the day were sufficient for it For here we must by eating and drinking repair the daily ruines of the Body untill the time thou shalt destroy both the meats and the belly and shall slay this my indigency with a miraculous satiety and shalt cloth this corruptible with an eternal incorruption But now this my necessity is very pleasant and sweet unto me and against this sweetnesse I now fight that I may not be inveigled with it and I wage a daily warr against it bringing my body into subjection by freequent fastings and behold these pains are removed with pleasure For hunger and thirst are pains and they burn up and kill like a fever unlesse cured with the phisick of our nourishment Which cure because it is still ready at hand from the abounding Comforts of thy Gifts with which both the land and the Water and the air serve our infirmities these our calamities are called by the name of dainties Now thou hast taught me that I should come to receive this my food as I do phisick But whilst I am passing from
temptations of the eye Abroad doting on what they have made within deserting him by whom they were made and defacing that which they were made But I O My God and My Glory concerning all these do now sing an hymne and do sacrifice praise to thee My sanctifier For all these beautiful pieces of art which are transferred first from an idea in the soul into the work of a skilful hand are derived originally from that beauty * which is above the soul and * after which my soul languisheth day and night And the drawers and admirers of these exteriour beauties do learn from the first beauty a worthy estimation of them but learn not from it a right use of them And there also the true beauty is and they see it not that they should seek no further Psal 58.10 Vulg. but should preserve the flowre of their strength for thee and not shed it abroad on such tiring pleasures And behold I even whilst I discourse of and estimate these beauties do a little entangle My steps in them but thou pluckest them out O Lord thou loosest them again because thy mercy is before My eyes I fall into these snares through my misery and thou liftest me out again through thy Mercy somtimes without My perceiving it when I step only upon them sometimes with My pain when I stick fast in them CHAP. XXXV 2. His remaining infirmities concerning the temptations of the lust of the eyes or curiosity of vain science TO this first is joined a second sort of temptation more variously perillous For besides the lust of the flesh which lyes in the delectation * of all the senses Psal 73.27 and * of those pleasures after which they go a whoring who are farr from thee there dwels in the soul a certain vain and curious desire not of delighting her self in the flesh but of making vain experiments by the flesh through the means of the same corporeall senses masked under the name of learning and science which being seated in the appetite of knowing and amongst the senses the eyes being the principal instruments of knowledge is in scripture-expressions called the lust of the eyes For though properly seeing belongs only to the eyes yet we apply this word also to the other senses when we employ them in searching after knowledge So we say not only See how it shineth but see how it soundeth how it smelleth or tasteth or how hard it is And therefore the general experience of all the senses is called the lust of the eyes Now what is done by our senses for pleasure and what for curiosity is thus evidently discerned in that their pleasure seeks after obiects beautiful melodious fragrant sweet to tast gentle and soft to touch but their curiosity often tries the contraries not for the sufferance from things so offensive but for the lust of experiencing and knowing them For what pleasure is there to behold in some mangled corps that which strikes us only with horrour and trembling And yet if such a spectacle lies any wh râ— people flock to see it till even they grow sad look pale and straight become affraid that they shall see it again in their sleep as if some body had forced or any report of its beauty had invited them before to look upon it when awake And the like it is in the other senses too long to instance in From this disease of curiosity it is that strange and wonderful sights are presented to us in publick shews and theaters Hence men proceed to search the concealed things of nature which she hath wrought not for us and the knowledg of which no way profits us nor is there other design in our search save only the knowing them Hence come those inspections into arts Magical only for a culpable science sake and hence in true religion it self is God often tempted when signes and miracles are begg'd of him where not our health or our benefit but only the experiment is the end of our desires In this so vast a wood full of snares and dangers behold O Lord how many I have already cut and shaken off from My soul even as thou hast enabled Me to do this O God of My salvation Yet when dare I at any time say so many things of this kind on every side daily importuning this present life when dare I say that no such thing at all makes me intent and earnest * to behold it or also with a vain study * to consider it Indeed now the theaters draw Me not unto them I care not to know the courses of the Stars my soul hath never sought after intelligence with ghosts and all sacrilegious sacraments and compacts I detest But O Lord My God to whom I owe all humble and single-hearted homage with how many devised suggestions doth the enemy deal with me that I would seek a sign from thee But by our King Jesus I beseech thee and by our Country Jerusalem so pure so chast that as yet the consent to any such †Desiring out of meer curiosity to see some miracle done thing is far from me so it may alwayes be further and further For when I do petition thee for any ones health or safety I have a much different intention from this and whilst thou dost what thou wilt in it thou givest and I hope will ever give unto me most willingly to acquiesce in what thou dost Neverthelesse in how many petty and contemptible things is our curiosity daily tempted And who can recount how often we fall How often when people are talking of vain discourse at first do we tolerate them as it were so to give no offense to the weak and then afterward by litle and litle yield a willing ear unto them I do not now go to see a dog's coursing a hare when shewed in the Circus bur yet in the field as I casually paâ—s by such a course presented perhaps averts me from some thought of great moment and converts me towards it not making Me turne aside with the body of My horse but with the inclinations of My soul And unless thou beest pleased by shewing presently My infirmitie to admonish me either to ascend unto thee by some meditation upon such a sight or totally to contemn and neglect it I stupidly confirme in such a diversion What when at home sitting in my chamber a Stellio catching of flies or a spider fâ—tâ—â—ring them falne into her nets sixeth My intention upon them Is not the same curiosity acted because these animals are small I proceed indeed from thence to the praising of thee the wonderful creator and disposer of all but my first observing of them had no such design and it is one thing to rise up quickly and another thing not to fall at all And of such falls as these My life is full and My only hope in thy exceeding great mercy For since our heart is the continuall receipt of such things as these and bears
innermost part of my soul and * to I know not what sweetness which were it once perfected in me I know not what blisse that is which such a life would not enjoy But then with certain cumbersome weights hanging upon me I presently am pressed down again to these things below and am re-ingulfed and detained by former custom and much I bewail my self and yet much still I am detained so greatly hath the burden of a bad custome overloaded me And in this estate I can abide still but would not and in the other I would willingly abide but cannot both wayes very miserable CHAP. XLI ANd in this condition I proceeded to consider the remaining languors of my sins in a threefold concupiscence and have invoked the help of thy right hand to deliver me For I beheld thy brightness with a sick and wounded spirit and beaten back and dazled by it I said who can ever attain thither I am utterly cast away from the sight of thine eyes Thou art the truth who presidest above all things And I out of my covetousness was not willing to loose thee but yet greedily desired also to possess what was a lie together with thee as no man desireth so to speak lies as to be ignorant what is truth and therefore I lost thee because thou vouchsafest not to be enjoyed together with a lie CHAP. XLII His recourse for a remedy to all these his maladies not * to evil Angels or Demons with the Platonists or others practising evil Arts as Mediatours between God and man because sinners like men spirits like God ANd now whom could I find who might reconcile and reduce me unto thee Was that office to be undertaken by some Angel for me upon what devotions upon what sacraments performed unto him Many endeavouring to return unto thee and of themselves unable as I hear have attempted such wayes and fallen into the desire of curious visions and so deserved to be exposed to many delusions For being high-minded they sought thee with the pride of learning exalting rather than beating their swollen breasts and so have allured unto rhem from the likeness of their affections spirits associated with them in pride Eph. 2 2. the powers of this air by whom through magical operations they might be deceived whilst they were seeking a Mediatour by whom they might be purged But it was none such they light on 2 Cor. 11 14 but the Devil it was transforming himself as an Angel of light And this much allured proud flesh to repair unto him because he had no body of flesh For they were mortals and sinners and thou O Lord with whom they sought reconciliation wert sinless and immmortal Now the mediating Person between God and men it was meet he should have something like to God something like to men lest in both like to men he should be at too great a distance from God or in both like to God he should stand too remote from men Therefore also this conterfeit Mediatour by whom according to thy secret judgement our pride deserves to be deluded had one thing common with men that is sin and would seem to have the other thing common with God whilst not cloathed with the mortality of flesh he vaunts himself as immortal Rom. 6.23 But since the certain wages of sin is death and this sin he hath common with man he hath also that common with man to be sentenced unto death CHAP. XLIII But * to Christ who is the only true Mediatour mortal like man righteous like God through whom else desperate he confidently hopes a perfect cure of all his diseases BUt the true Mediatour whom in thy secret mercy thou hast manifested to the humble and hast also sent him amongst them 1. Tim. 2.5 that they might by his example learn humility that Mediatour of God and men the man Christ Jesus between these mortal sinners and the immortal righteous one hath appeared mortal together with men righteous together with God that because the wages of righteousness is life and peace he by his righteousness which was allied to God might evacuate death to justified sinners which death he was pleased to have common with men And this true Mediatour was also made known to the Saints of old that they by the faith of his passion to come as we by the faith of it past might attain salvation And it was as he was man that he was Mediatour but as he was the Word so he was no midling person because equall to God and God with God and Phil. 2.6 Joh. 1.1 together with the Holy Spirit one God How far hast thou loved us O thou good Father who sparedst not thine only Son but deliveredst him up for us ungodly How far hast thou loved us for whom he Rom. 8.52 Phil. 2.6 8. who thought it no robbery to be equal to thee was made subject even to death even to the death of the cross only he free amongst the dead having power to lay down his life John 10.18 and power likewise to take it up again becoming unto thee for us both a Victor and a Victim and therefore a Victor because he had been a Victim becoming unto thee for us both the Priest and the Sacrifice and therefore the Priest because a Sacrifice making us unto thee of Servants Sons by being born thy Son and becoming our Servant And therefore do I justly repose strong hope in him that thou wilt heal all my diseases by him who sitteth at thy right hand and intercedeth unto thee for us Else should I despair for many and great are these my diseases many and great they are but greater is the cure which thou hast provided And well might we have imagined thy Word to have been too remote from having any alliance with us and so have despaired of our selves had it not thus been made flesh and dwelt amongst us Affrighted with these my sins and with the load of my misery I had once a thought and a design of retiring my self into some desert solitude but thou didst prohibit it unto me and confirmedst me saying That therefore Christ died for all 2 Cor. 5.15 that they who live should not henceforth live unto themselves but unto him who died for them Behold O Lord I cast all my care upon thee let me live and I will consider the wonderful things of thy law Psal 119.18 Thou knowest my ignorance my infirmities Teach me Heal me He thy only One in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge redeemed me with his own blood Let not the proud my spiritual enemies falsly accuse me For I meditate on this my ransom Col. 2.3 and I eat it and drink it and communicate it to others and being poor I desire to be satisfied therewith amongst those who eat and are satisfied and they shall praise the Lord that seek him CHAP. XLIV The end and purpose of these his Confessions O Lord since thou art eternally art thou ignorant o these things I now say unto thee or seest thou no till a certain time what is done in time Why then have I ordered a narration of so many several matters unto thee Surely not that thou shouldest learn such things from me but only that I might the more excite my affection and love towards thee and theirs also who reaâ— these things that we may all say together Magnus Dominus lauâ—abilis valde Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised I have already said it and let me say it again Out of my love of thy love to me it is that I do this As also we continue to pray nevertheless that the truth hath said Your heavenly Father knoweth what things yâ— have need of before ye ask him Mat. 6.8 We only publish the affections we have towards thee while we confess to theâ— our miseries and thy mercies that thou mayest compleaâ— our freedom as thou hast already begun it and that a length we may perfectly cease to be miserable in our selves and may arrive to beatitude in thee because thoâ— hast graciously called us that we should be poor in spirit and meek and mournful and hungry and thirsty after righteousness and merciful and pure in heart and peace makers See I have rehearsed before thee a many things such as I had ability and such as I had also a will to relate because thou first hadst so willed that I should confess unto thee Psal 118.1 the Lord my God Because that Thou arâ— good and thy mercy endureth for ever FINIS