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
sing the Psalme Psal 101. Misericordiam judicium cantabo tibi Domine the Responses being made by all us of the family And many Christian brethren and religious women out of the town hearing what the matter was came to us and whilst those whose office it was after the usual manner took care of the corps and funerall I going aside in a place where most conveniently I might discoursed to those who thought it not fit to leave me then alone such things as were sutable to the occasion and with that balme of thy truth sought to mitigate my grievous pain well known to thee but hid from them who diligently hearkned to what I said and thought me to be without sense of sorrow Whilst I O Lord mean-while in thy ears where none of them could hear me much chid the softnesse of my affection and forced back the flux of my grief and sometimes it yielded to me for a little and then again with great violence reflowed upon me yet not so farr as to the bursting out of tears or changing my countenance But very sensible I was of this pressure I suffered within And then again because this extreamly displeased me that humane things should have such power upon me which according to the lot of our mutable condition and the appointed method of their succession must needs fall out with yet another sorrow I lamented this my sorrow and so became afflicted with a double grief When also the Body was carried to buriall I went I return'd without tears Neither in those prayers we poured forth unto thee when the sacrifice of our ransom was offered unto thee for Her the body being set down by the grave side before the interrment thereof as the custom there is neither in those prayers I say shed I any tears But all the whole day was I notwithstanding in secret grievously sad and with a troubled spirit begg'd of thee to heal my sorrow and thou wouldest not do it I suppose to shew me even by this one experiment the strong bond of any thing we are long accustomed to even against all the force of a mind which now was no more fed with any of these deceiving consolations It then also seemed good unto me to go the Bath and wash my self having heard that this name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was given it by the Greeks from its helping to drive away the anxieties of Spirit yet I confesse unto thee Father of Orphans such was I when washed as before neither had the sweat of my body carried away with it the grief of my mind After this I slept and awaked and found now my sorrows not a little mitigated and as I was alone in bed I called to mind those most true verses of thy servant Ambrose Tu es enim Deus Creator omnium Polique Rector vestiens Diem decoro lumine Noctem soporis gratiâ Artus solutos ut quies Reddat laboris usui Mentesque fessas allevet Luctusque solvat anxios O God the great world's Architect Who dost Heavens rowling Orbs direct Cloathing the day with beautious light And with sweet slumbers silent night When stretch'd forth limbs new vigour gain From rest new labours to sustain When anxious minds dismisse their care And gnawing griefs forgotten are But by and by the former remembrance returned afresh into my mind * of this thy handmaid and * of all her conversation so religious and holy towards thee so affectionate and observant toward us of which I was now all on a sudden destitute And I had a mind now to weep in thy sight concerning her and for her and concerning my self and for my self and I gave a free course to the tears which I had suppressed to run out as much as they pleased bathing my heart with them and solacing my self in them because thou only heardest and not man who might perhaps proudly mis-interpret those my laments And now O Lord I confesse these things unto thee in writing Read them that will and interpret them as he pleaseth And if such shall discover it a fault in me that I thus wept for my Mother some small part of an hour for my Mother lately dead from my sight who wept for me so many years that I might live in thy sight let him not deride me for it but rather if he abound in charity assist me himself with his tears for this my sin unto thee the common Father of us all Brethren in thy Christ CHAP. XIII His Prayer for his deceased Mother Monica and Father Patricius ANd now O our God I with a heart perfectly healed of that wound in which a carnal affection perhaps might seem too much engaged do powre out before thee in behalf of that thy servant another sort of tears flowing out of a troubled spirit from the consideration of the perils of every soul dying in Adam although she revived in Christ even before her releasement from this sinfull flesh had so lived as that thy name was much praised both in her faith and vertues Yet dare I not affirm from the time that thou didst regenerate her by baptism that no word fell from her mouth contrary to thy Commands and I find it pronounced by the Truth thy Son If any one shall say unto his Brother Fool he shall be in danger of hell-fire Mat. 5.22 and woe be even to the praisable life of men if thou shouldest examine it with mercy laid aside But because thou makest not strict enquiry after sin therefore we have a confident hope to find some place of indulgence with thee And on the other side whosoever he be that can reckon up his true merits unto thee what accounts he unto thee but thy own gifts Oh then that men would know themselves 1 Cor. 1.31 and that he that glorieth would glory in the Lord I therefore O Thou my Praise and my Life God of my heart setting aside here her good deeds for which with much rejoycing I render thee thanks now become a petitioner to thee for the sins of that my Mother Hear thou me I beseech thee by that cure of our wounds that hung upon the Crosse and that now sitting at thy right hand intercedeth unto thee for us I know that she dealt mercifully and from her heart forgave to her debters their trespasses do thou likewise remit her debts to her if she hath also contracted some in those many years which she lived after baptism Forgive them O Lord forgive them I beseech thee Enter not with her into judgement Jam. 2.13 Mat 5.7 Rom. 9.15 But let thy mercy rejoice against judgment because thy words are true and thou hast promised mercy to the merciful and yet that such were merciful thou gavest it unto them who hast mercy on whom thou wilt have mercy and shewest compassion on whom thou wilt shew compassion And I believe Psal 119 108. thou hast already done this which I beg of thee But let these
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
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
answer to the objections of Catholicks made out of the scriptures Cap. 11 Having set up a Rhetorick school at Rome his schollars there defraud him of their stipends Cap. 12 Recommended by Symmachus he removes from Rome to teach Rhetorick at Millain where he is favourably received by S. Ambrose their Bishop whose sermons he frequents only for the fame of his eloquence Cap. 13 And is by litle and litle taken with his Doctrine whereupon he resolves abandoning the Manichean sect to remain a Catechumenus in the Church Catholick till some further discovery of truth Cap. 14 LIB VI. HIs Mother Monica passing many dangers at sea comes to him to Millain Her vision at sea Cap. 1 Her great piety sobriety obedience to Bishop Ambrose prohibiting feastings at the tombs of Martyrs then anâ— usuall custom in Africk Cap. 2 S. Ambrose his employment S. Austin finds no opportunity of private discourse with him yet learns from his sermons that Catholicks held not the doctrines charged on them by the Manichees Cap. 3 Confuted he blames his former too much caution and jealousy * in assenting to the Catholick tenents Cap. 4 And* in acknowledging the Divine Authority of the Scriptures as they are delivered by the Church Cap. 5 His Ambition and the cares attending it His great solicitude being to speak a Panegyrick before the Emperour much envying the secure mirth of a poor beggar seen in the street Cap. 6 Of his friend Alipius his schollar at Carthage whom he there reclaimed from the vainsports of the Circus but infected him with Manicheism Cap. 7 Alipius before S. Austins coming thither a student of the Law at Rome how seduced there though very averse to behold and then to delight in the bloody shews of the Gladiators Cap. 8 Of his being apprehended when S. Austins Schollar at Carthage for a thief His going to S. Austin to Millain where he practiseth in the law Cap. 9. A memorable example of Alipius his integrity Concerning his other Friend Nebridius deserting his Country for S. Austin's society and the study of Wisdom Cap. 10 S. Austin's reasoning with himself concerning his past and present condition and the disposal of his future life the misery he apprehended to be in a single life Cap. 11 The disputes between him and Alipius most chastly disposed concerning marriage and single life Cap. 12 S. Austin Suiter to a young Maid with whom marriage is intended but she as yet two years too young His Mother seeks but cannot obtain any revelation from God concerning this marriage Cap. 13 Their living a many together and having all things common in a married condition designed but soon laid aside Cap. 14 His former Concubine of whom see 4 l. 2. c. being removed as an impediment to his marriage and leaving with him the Son he had by her returns into Africk vows continency instead of whom he privately takes another Cap. 15 Yet his lusts somewhat restrained from the fear he had * of death and* of the souls immortality and* of future judgement Cap. 16 LIB VII HIs entrance now being thirty years old into mans estate His apprehension of God as inviolable incorruptible immutable every way infinite but yet corporeal Cap. 1 Still unsatisfied concerning the cause of evil and why Angels and men being created by the most good God there should by him be placed in them a power to will evilly Cap. 2 3 Pursuing the same Querie still Unde Malum yet * his faith of Christ to be our Lord and Saviour remaining in him firm and unshaken Cap. 4 5 And* the lying divinations of Astrologers fore-telling from the stars future events no way credited by him Cap. 6 Prosecuting the same Querie Unde Malum Cap. 7 Vpon recommendation he falls to reading the books of the Platonists and discovers in them much concerning the Divinity of the Eternal Word but nothing of the Humility of his Incarnation Cap. 9 He now more clearly discovers divine matters That something might have a being and this not corporeal or extended in place Cap. 10 That the Creatures may be said in some sense to have in another not to have a Being Cap. 11 That all natures even the corruptible are good though not the supreme Good Cap. 12 That there can be nothing in the world simply but only relatively evil Cap. 13 That Sin is no substance but the perversity of an irregular will declining from its Maker Cap. 16 That he began now to have a right opinion of God Cap. 17 But had not yet a right opinion of the Incarnation of the Lord Jesus the only way to salvation Cap. 18 Though from the Platonick writings he became assured of many divine Truths yet these books breeding pride in him and not humility Cap. 20 He lastly betakes himself to reading of the Scriptures especially those of S. Paul where he finds the advancement of Gods Grace and salvation through Jesus Christ to the penitent and humble Cap. 21 LIB VIII HE goes to consult Simplicianus an holy man and the spiritual Father of S. Ambrose about the future ordering of his life remaining still passionately bent on marriage Cap. 1 Vpon mention of Victorinus a famous Roman Rhetorician Simplicianus relates the story of Victorinus his conversion to Christianity Cap. 2 Why more joy for men converted than had they been alwayes Professors Cap. 3 Why more joy in the conversion of men eminent or noble Cap. 4 What operation the story of Victorinus had upon him and his great captivity under former ill customs Cap. 5 After this Pontitianus an African and an Officer in the Court giving him and Alipius a visit occasionally relates the story of S. Anthony and how two of his fellow-Courtiers upon the reading thereof in the same moment renounced the world though both engaged to Mistrisses and betook themselves to a solitary life Cap. 6 The tumults of his spirit upon Pontitian's discourse Cap. 7 In this anguish of soul his retiring into a garden Alipius following him Cap. 8 The fierce combat there between the flesh and the spirit and his sad complaint of the gaeot difficulty the Will hath to command it self when it so easily commandeth the other members Cap. 9 10 11 His total Conversion by reading upon the hearing a voice from heaven a passage of S. Paul where the book first opened Cap. 12 LIB IX DOxology and Thanksgivings for this his freedom from his former lusts and the great joy and content he presently received therein Cap. 1 His purpose to relinquish his profession of teaching Rhetorick but the thing deferred till the Vintage-vacation Cap. 2 Verecundus a Citizen of Millain offers his Country-house for iheir retirement The death of Verecundus and of Nebridius not long after S. Austin's conversion being both first made Christians Cap. 3 His retiring in the vacation after his School dissolved to the Country house of Verecundus His meditations on the fourth Psalm and his several writings there and the miraculous cure of his violent
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
straight they decrease again and wither for all of them have their decadency and fade they do all Therefore also when they spring and blossom toward a being look how much more speedily they advance to be the more precipitancy again they make not to be Such their condition and such a lot hast thou bequeathed them because they are parcels of things which are not consistent all together but which by some still retiring and others coming on all of them successively build up that fleeting Universe of which they are parcels In the same manner as our speech is composed of many significant sounds and cannot be perfected unless each word thereof give way and vanish when it hath sounded its part that another may succeed it From all these Creatures O God let my soul raise praises unto thee the Creator of them all but never let my corporeal senses fasten me unto them with the glew of love For they go whither they alwayes did go hastily toward a not-being and then wound and rack the soul with most pestilent longings because she would fain be nothing but what they are and loves to set up her final rest in the thing she loves and in them there is no place of repose for they stay not but pass away And who can with the senses of this flesh either pursue them when gone or comprehend them when at hand For the fleshly sense is slow-paced because it is but the sense of flesh and this is the condition of it And sufficient it is for those ends for which it was made but for this it serveth not to detain and stay things here running their prescribed race and hasting from their beginning appointed to their appointed period For in thy word by which they were created there they all hear their sentence Hinc huc usque Hence and hitherto CHAP. XI The transition of its parts is necessary to make this Vniverse compleat BE no more so vain O my soul nor suffer the tumultuous noise of thy busie vanity to deafen the ear of thy heart Hearken thou also unto the word for it speaks unto thee to return back from these unto it and that there is the seat of un-molested quiet where thy love shall never if it forsake not be forsaken Behold those other things are alway departing that other things yet may succeed and this lower fleeting globe be compleated with all its parts But do I any where depart saith the word of God Isa 40.8 There then fix thine abode thither devote all that thou hast from thence received O my soul at least now after thou hast been out-wearied with impostures Recommend over unto truth what hath been imparted to thee from her and thou shalt so not suffer loss yea thy decayes shall enjoy a fresh spring and thy languors be restored the continual flux of thy materials shall be renovated and re-fashioned and made permanent with thee nor shall they sway thee down also whether they now descend but stand with thee and abide for ever before God who abides and standeth fast for ever To what end therefore dost thou so erroneously pursue the inclinations of thy perverting flesh Rather now let it converted follow after thee For whatever thou discernest by it is only a part of the successive Universe and the whole is yet unknown by thee whereof these are parts and yet so little a part of it delights thee But had thy carnal sense any capacity of comprehending the whole and had it not for thy punishment by reason of its mortality been confined to the prospect only of a small part thereof thou wouldst have wished a speedy transition of these parts which for the present exist that from the whole perfected thou mightst have received a supream content For by the same carnal sense also thou hearest what we speak yet wouldst thou not have one syllable still to sound before thee but sly away by thee and others come till thou maist hear the whole Even so are some of them ever in being which make up one whole yet are they never all together of which that whole is made And these would please more all together than the severall pieces could they be all at once surveyed by thee Yet farr better than all these summed together is he who made them all and this is our God and he hath no transition because he hath no succession If bodies therefore attract thy affection let thy praises from them ascend unto God and thy love wheel about unto their Maker lest in those things which please thee thou displease him CHAP. XII To rest our love upon God and to love other things only for and in him OR if souls delight thee in God let these be loved because these also subject to mutability from him only have their stability else ‖ Alioquin irent perirent pass-on they would and at last pass-away In him therefore let these also be loved And entice with thee to him as many of them as thou canst and say unto them him let us love him let us love He made these things and he is not farr off For he made them not and so left them but being of him they are in him too Lo where he is Where truth is rellished well He is in the heart but alas that heart hath strayed from him Isa 46.8 Vulg. Return O prevaricators unto your heart again and be united unto him that made you Stand with him and ye shall stand fast rest in him and ye shall be at rest Whither go ye into precipices Whither go ye The Good ye court and woo is from Him and so much as it is it is in your tending toward him good and delicious to you But justly then embittered to us when it is once unjustly loved with the desertion of him from whom it is To what purpose still and still tread ye those difficult and toilsome paths Rest is not there where ye seek it seek freely what ye do seek but there it is not where you are seeking it A blessed life ye seek in the region of death and it is not there How life happy there where neither life But life it self descended hither and underwent our death and out of the super-abundance of its life slew it And then with a voice of thunder called out unto us that we should hence return unto him into that secret place from whence he came forth unto us coming into that first pure Virgins womb where he espoused this humane creature of our mortal flesh Ps 19.5 that it might not be ever mortal and thence like a Bridegroom going forth of his chamber he rejoyced as a Giant to run his course But did run all the way here staid not calling out unto us by his words by his deeds by his death by his life by his descension by his Ascension calling out unto us to return unto him and then presently vanished from our eyes that we might return
that I entertained of things spiritual permitted me not to discern truth And there was still flashing in my eyes the very power of truth and yet I averted my timorous mind from the cogitation of any thing incorporeal to lineaments and colours and swelling magnitudes And when I could not see these in my mind I thought that neither could I see or discern my mind And whereas I loved the harmony that is in vertue and loathed the discord of vice I noted an unity in the one and in the other a kind of division And I conceived the rational soul and the nature of truth and of the Summum Bonum the Chiefest Good to consist in this unity But in that division I sillily supposed that there was I know not what substance of an irrational vitality and the nature of summum malum which was not only a substance but also animate and yet was not at all from thee O my God from whom are all things And the one I stiled a Monade or Unity as if it were a soul void of all sex the other a Dyade or Duality namely the faculty * irascible in all malicious actions * concupiscible and lusting in all impure affections Not knowing what I said For I neither knew then nor had learnt that no substance at all was evill nor that our very soul was not the supream and incommutable good †The Manichean opinion that souls are particles of the Divine nature or of God Psal 18.28 Joh. 1.9 16. Jac. 1.17 For as our actions are Facinorous if that faculty of the soul which commands our force be vicious and behave it self insolently and unruly and again Flagitious if that affection of the soul wherewith carnal pleasures are entertained become intemperate so errors and false opinions are likewise a contamination of our life if so be the rational soul it self be any way vitiated As it was then in me not knowing that it was to be illuminated with another ray than its own to partake of Truth for that it self was not the very nature of Truth Because 'T is thou that shalt light this my candle O Lord my God thou shalt enlighten my darkness And of thy fulness have we all received For thou art the true light that enlightneth every man that cometh into the World for that in thee there is no variableness nor returning shadow But I aspired toward thee and was repelled from thee and confined unto the shadow of death Because the proud are alwaies resisted by thee And what thing prouder than I who by a strange madness maintained that my self was naturally what thou art For when I was a thing mutable which was from this apparent to me that I in coveting wisdom sought from somthing worse to become something better yet I had rather conjecture thee mutable also than my self not to be the same which thou wert Therefore was I repelled by thee and thou didst resist my stiff-swoln neck and I somniated corporeal forms and being flesh I notwithstanding accused the flesh Psal 78.39 being a wind that paseth I returned not unto thee but passing I passed unto those things which have no being nether in thee nor in me nor in any body else Neither were they created for me by thy truth but by my vanity devised out of a body And I said to the little ones thy faithful my now fellow-Citizens from whom then I lived an exile I said to them as arrogant as silly Why therefore erâ—s that soul which God had made Yet could I not endure it should be said to me again Why then errs the soul being God And I rather contended that thy immutable substance was necessitated to err than confessed that mine so mutable was spontaneously either erring or in danger of errour And I was of the age of six or seven and twenty when I penned those Volumes revolving within my self those corporeal fancies that continually buzzed about the ears of my heart which ears of mine were intent O thou sweetest Verity unto that interior melody of thine all the while I meditated on this Fair and Decorous subject longing indeed to stand quiâ—t and hear thee and with joy to rejoyce at the voice of the Bridegroom Jo. 3.29 and I could not because by the call of my errour I was with-drawn from thee and with the weights of my pride sunk down into the dungeon Psal 51.8 Nor didst thou then give to this my hearkning joy and gladness nor did the bones exult which had not yet been humbled CHAP. XVI Of his strange acuteness of Wit acquiring all the Liberall Sciences without a Teacher and yet so grosly erring in Religion ANd â–³ what did it profit me that being scarce twenty years old I read and understood alone a work of Aristotle's that fell into my hands called the Ten Categories which my Master a Rhetorician of Carthage and others accounted learned had commented on to other schollers with checks even bursting with pride and I also had with much admiration longed after as I know not what profound and divine piece And I afterward conferring with others who professed that they had much ado to comprehend these things though instructed by most learned Tutors not only expounding but in Sand-Tables demonstrating them they could add nothing to my former self-acquired knowledg â–³ What did this profit me Nay did it not harm me When likewise thou O my God so wonderfull simple and un-accidental whilst I thought whatever was was comprehended in these Ten Praedicaments Thou also wert so conceived by me as if thou also wert the subject to thy greatness or to thy beauty and that they inhered in thee as they do in bodies When as thy greatness and thy beauty are thy self but body is not by that great or fair by which it is a body For were it less great or less fair nevertheless a body it were For a falsity it was which I imagined of thee and not truth and those were figments of my wretchedness not the firmaments and stabilities of thy blessednesse For thou commandedst and so it came to pass unto me Gen. 3.18 that this my Earth should bring forth thorns and briars unto me and with labour I should earn my bread And again â–³ what profited it me that all the books I could procure of the Arts called Liberal my self mean-while being a slave to Lust were read over by me and by my self alone throughly understood And I took great delight in them for the Truth and certainty I found there yet knew not whence it was For I had my back upon the light and my face upon the things enlightned whence my face that beheld the things illustrated it self was not illuminated at all And whatsoever was said in them concerning the Art of speaking or of reasoning whatsoever of the Measures of figures of notes Musical or of numbers without much difficulty I understood and without any Teacher as thou knowest O Lord my God For both
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
pulse indicates some danger all that long for his recovery become sick in mind as he in body he becomes somewhat better and walks a little about yet not restored to his former strength and there is already such mirth upon this as was not before when he went about healthful and lusty And so all the pleasures of this humane life arise from some precedence of pain and that not only casual and undesired but many times purposely and industriously procured Eating and drinking are no delight without the foregoing molestation of hungâ—r and thirst And drunkards by eating salt things provoke that biting heat which drinking may afterward with the more pleasure quench and allay And between contracts and nuptials 't is ordered some time should intercede lest when once married he should lesse value her being possessed whom he first longed not for being after espousals deferred This holds in wicked and prophane this in lawful and allowed joyes this in the sincerest love and friendship this in him who had been dead and was alive had perished and was recovered Every where greater joy is preceded with greater anxiety What is this O Lord my God that whenas thou art an eternal joy to thy self and when as some-things also that are from thee rejoyce perpetually about thee How is it that this inferiour part of thy creature so alternately ebbs and flows is grieved and contented displeased and reconciled Is this the limited measure of their being and the set proportion thou wouldst allot to them when from the highest heaven to the lowest parts of earth from the beginning to the end of times from the Angel to the Worm from the first motion to the last the several sorts of thy good creatures were placed by thee every one in their proper seats and all thy just and upright works were acted by thee every one in their proper seasons Woe is me How high art thou in the highest how profound art thou in the lowest of them never departing from us and yet we hardly attaining unto thee CHAP. IV. Why more joy in the conversion of men eminent or noble INspire O Lord and operate excite and restrain enflame and elevate us breath forth thy fragrant odour and lustill thy delicate tast make us in love with thee and let us run after thee How many are there who do out of a more profound hell of darkness than Victorinus return toward thee and come to thee and are illuminated by thee and receive that thy light John 1.12 which who so receive have power also given them to become thy sons But yet as such happen to be lesse known abroad so even those who know them joy less for them For where more men rejoyce there every one hath more joy because they hear and are enflamed from one another Again those Converts known by more are guides to more in the way to salvation and go before many others that will follow and therefore men rejoyce also more for these that go before because they rejoyce not for them single Otherwise farre be it that in thy tabernacle the persons of the rich should be accepted before the poor or the noble before the ignoble when as rather 1 Cor. 1.27 28 1 Cor. 15 9. Acts 13.9 Thou hast chosen the weak things of the world to confound the mighty and base things of the world and things that are despised hast thou chosen yea and things which are not that thou mightest bring to nought things that are And yet the same least of thine Apostles by whose tongue thou spakest these words when as the Proconful Paul being conquered of his pride and greatness by his arms and being brought under the gentle yoke of thy Christ became now a Subject of the great King he himself from his former name Saul delighted to be called Paul in memory of so great a Victory For the enemy is much more conquered in such a one whom he more possesseth and by whom he possesseth more and the proud are by him more possessed from the title of their nobility and by them many more others from the name of their authority By how much higher therefore * the breast of Victorinus was esteemed in which the Devil had held and fortified himself as an impregnable for t and * the tongue of Victorinus with which great and keen weapon so many souls had been slain so much greater must needs be the exultation of thy children Mat. 12.29 2 Tim. 2.21 when our King had thus bound the strong man and when they saw his vessels taken from his service and made clean and fitted for thy honour and serviceable unto to the Lord for every good work CHAP. V. What operation the story of Victorinus had upon him and his great captivity under former ill Customs WHilst Simplicianus thy servant told these things of Victorinus I was enflamed to imitate them which was his design also in telling them And when he had added also that in those dayes of Julian the Emperour a Law was enacted prohibiting all Christians to teach any humane literature and particularly Oratory which Law Victorinus most welcomly entertaining chose rather to forsake his own lâ—quacious school than thy word which makes even the tongues of Infants eloquent Psal 8.2 he seemed to me in this not more valiant than happy in gaining so an occasion of a total vacancy and attendance on thee Which thing I also aspired-to and sigh'd-after but was fast bound not with anothers irons but those of my own hard and iron will The enemy possest my perverse desires and of them had made a chain and fast-tied me with it For of a perverse will there was made lust and in serving that lust there was made custom and not resisting that custom it became necessity with which as with certain links fastened one within another this cruell servitude held me close shackled And the new Will but now beginning to grow in me by which I desired disengaged of all other loves freely to serve thee and by which I wished to enjoy thee O my God the only certain pleasure was not yet able to master the former will strengthened with age So these two wills of mine the one old the other new one carnal the other spiritual combated one another and in their disagreeance rent and divided my soul Thus I understood my self being the experiment that which I had read How the flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the spirit against the flâ—sh and it was I that was in them both but more I in that which in me I now allâ—wed than in that Rom. 7.20 which in me I disallowed For in this it was more not I because in a great part I rather suffered it against my mind than willingly acted it But yet this custome now so eagerly warring against me was contracted by me and willingly it was that I came thither whither now I will'd that I had never come And who could justly reprehend this tyranny
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
from a deceitful tongue could only more increase but not extinguish it Nevertheless because that by reason of thy name now so glorified through the world such our purpose and vow must needs find many commenders it seem'd * that it might appear to have some relish of vain-glory in me not to have patience till a vacation so near but to desert a Profession so publick and eyed by all before it and * that the mouths of all men reflecting on this my act and how near a breaking-up school I would yet prevent might say many things as if I affected to magnifie my self and seem some great one and yet what mattered it to me that men should divine and dispute my intentions Rom. 14.16 or that our good should be thus evil-spoken of But besides the opportunity of the Vintage-vacation so it was that in the heat of Summer my lungs began * to fail under the too much toil of my School difficultly * to fetch breath and by the pains of my breast to signifie their hurt and now * to refuse any very loud or long speaking which thing at the first had much troubled me because it would force me either they being incurable upon necessity to give o're so burdensome a profession or if curable yet to intermit it But after that a resolute will to attend only on thee and to see how that thou art the Lord was raised and confirmed in me thou knowest O my God my joy that I had this also no false excuse to sweeten the discontent of those men who for their childrens benefit envied my liberty Full of such joy I patiently therefore endured that interval of time till it should be run out I know not whither they were about some twenty dayes but they were endured not without some patience for I was already rid of those ambitions which formerly helped me to bear that heavy burden with which now therefore I should have been overlaid had not patience took their place Some of thy Servants my brethren may blame me for this that having a heart now fully resign'd to thy service I should any longer though but for an hour sit down in the chair of lies And for my part I do not oppose them But thou O Lord so full of mercy hast thou not pardoned and remitted this sin also unto me amongst many others so horrible and deadly in the holy water of my Baptism CHAP. III. Verecundus a Citizen of Millain offers his country-house for their retirement The death of Verecundus and of Nebridius not long after S. Austin's conversion being both first made Christians †See l. 8. cap. 6. VErecundus was much afflicted concerning this our purpose because thus he saw himself by reason of the many bonds wherewith he was most straitly tyed deprived of our society Himself not yet a Christian though his wife a baptized Professor of the faith and yet was he * retarded by her as one of his straightest fetters from following our intended course * and did deny to become a Christian upon any other termes than these he could not perform Truly he very courteously offered and lent us for the time of our abode in that place the use of his country-house Thou O Lord shalt recompense him at the resurrection of the righteous since the lot of the righteous is already happened to him Who though in our absence after we had removed to Rome being seized by a corporal sickness was in it made a Christian and a Fidelis and so departed this life In which thing thou hadst mercy not only on him but on us lest considering the great courtesies of this friend toward us and not able to number him amongst thy flock we should have been tormented with too disconsolate a sorrow Thanks be to thee our God thy care we are all thy exhortations and thy consolations sufficiently shew it faithful in all thy promises Thou shalt return to Verecundus for that his house at Cassiacum where from the tumults of the world we quietly reposed in thee Psal 68.15 16. Vulg. in in monte incascato monte tuo monte ube i. the amenity of thy eternally-green and flourishing Paradise because thou hast remitted unto him his sins here on earth in the mountain of fat pastures the Hill of God that fruitful Hill Thus was Verecundus afflicted but Nebridius as much joyed for although he not as yet a Christian had formerly fallen into the pit of that most pernicious errour to believe the flesh of thy Son only an empty apparition yet now reclaimed from it he was a most earnest inq isitor of truth though not as yet initiated in any Sacraments of thy Church Whom becoming also not long after our conversion and regeneration by thy baptism a faithful Catholick and serving thee in all continency and chastity amongst his Kindred in Afri k and having converted all his family to Christianity thou hast loosed from the flesh and now he lives unto thee in Abraham's bosom Whatever it is that is signified by that bosom there my Nebridius lives my sweet friend and thy adopted Son there he lives For what other place can receive such a soul In that place he lives concerning which he asked of me a poor unexperienced man so many questions He now layes his ear no more to my mouth but his spiritual mouth to thy fountain and there drinks wisdom to his fill endlesly happy Yet cannot I imagin him so inebriated therewith that he forgets me since thou also O Lord whom he drinketh art mindful of me Thus therefore it was with us at that time we comforting Verecundus much grieved yet without diminution of friendship for such our conversion and * exhorting him to a profession of the faith suting with his condition namely with a married life And * attending for Nebridius when he would run the same course of life with us which he might presently and was upon the point to do it every moment when behold those dayes were at last run out which seemed so long and many from the affection I had of a vacant liberty That I might sing from the innermost marrow of my soul Tibi dixit cor meum Psal 27.2 My heart hath said unto thee I have sought thy face and thy face O Lord will I seek CHAP. IV. His retiring in the Vacation after his School dissolved to the country-house of Verecundus His meditations on the fourth Psalm and his several writings there and the miraculous cure of his violent tooth-ach after he was rendred thereby speechless ANd now was the day come wherein I should actually be released from my Professorship in Rhetorick from which I was released before in affection And it was done and thou now freedst my tongue from what thou hadst before freed my heart And I blessed thee with much rejoycing and so retired to the Country Villa †At Cassiacum with all my nearest friends Where * what I did in my writings now
what vast astonishable thing O my God a profound and infinite multiplicity and this is my soul and this is I my self What a thing therefore is my self What a nature am I A various and multiforme life and exceedingly immense in the extent of its power And behold through these innumerable fields and caves and sellars of My memory innumerably full of innumerable sorts of things by so many several wayes conveighed in thither through all those things I fly I run I dive this way and that way as farr as I am able and nowhere can I find an end So great is the power of Memory so great the power of this life in man even whilst he is yet mortal What shall I do then O thou my true life My God I will also passe beyond this power of mine called Memory that I may arrive yet closer unto thee that sweet light after which I seek Lo I ascending by this my soul unto thee who remainest unto me elevated above it I will passe beyond that My faculty called Memory desirous to attain thee so farr as thou art attainable and to inhere in thee so farr as I am capable of union to thee For a Memory I find also in the Beasts and Fouls Otherwise neither their former Dens nor Nests could be repaired to nor many other things done wherein we discover their constant customs but nothing is accustomed to without Memory I will therefore passe o're this memory that so I may arrive at him who hath made me otherwise then the fourfootedbeast and wiser than the winged foul I will leave the Memory but then where shall I find thee O true Good and secure pleasure but then where shall I find thee CHAP. XVIII For if I find thee besides or out of My Memory I must have forgotten thee and how then shall I find thee if I have no remembrance of thee When the woman had lost her groat and sought it with a candle if she had not remembred it how could she have found it for when she had found it how could she know whether that was it of which she had no remembrance CHAP. XXIV FArr have I travelled in memory seeking thee O Lord and I have not found the at all out of it For since I first learned thee thou abidest in my Memory and there I find thee whenever I recall thee to mind and enjoy delight in thee In this place are those my holy pleasures which thy charity and thy mercy hath bestowed upon me taking pity upon my poverty CHAP. XXV BUt where art thou resident in my Memory Thou the Lord What lodging hast thou made there for thee What Sanctuary hast thou built I passed by the lower parts thereof common with beasts because in My remembring thee I found thee not there amongst the images of corporeal things And I came to the parts thereof where are stored the affections of my soul neither yet there found I thee and I have entred into the very seat and lodging of my mind it self which seat also is there in my Memory because the mind remembers also its self and neither wast thou there For as thou art no image of a body nor no affection of the Mind so neither art thou the mind or soul it self but the Lord God of this soul Thou art And all these things are subject to change but thou remainest for ever unchangeable high above all things And yet hast thou vouchsafed to dwell in My Memory since the time I have learned thee CHAP. XXVI That God whom he loves is * something within but yet above his Soul * not confind by place omnipresent c. BUt then where found I thee that I might learn thee For neither wast thou already in my Memory before I learned thee Where then found I thee O my Lord that I might learn thee but in thy self above me Yet nowhere having any place or space between us and thee And we go farr from thee and come near unto thee and yet no where hast thou any place But thou the Truth art in every place present and giving audience to all consulting thee and at the same time thou givest answer unto all consulting thee things never so many or diverse And clearly thou answerest unto all but all do not clearly hear thee All consult thee about what they please but not alwaies hear from thee what pleaseth them And amongst them he is thy best servant who desires not so much to hear from thee what shall be conformable to his will but rather to conform his Will to whatever he shall hear from thee CHAP. XXVII That though he now truely loveth God abstracted from and farr above all other creatures and olso above Himself TOO too late have I found and begun to love thee O beauty so ancient and yet so new too too late begun I to love thee And behold thou wast within me and I abroad and there I sought thee and so deformed a wretch hotly courted those beauties which thou hast made Thou wast with me but I was not with thee And even those things kept me a great distance from thee which have no being but that they have in thee But thou hast called Thou hast cryed out and peirced my deafnesse Thou hast lightned thou hast streamed forth and dispelled my blindnesse Thou hast sent forth thy fragrant perfumes and I have scented thy odours and do pant after thee I have tasted thy sweets and do hunger and thirst after them Thou hast touched me and I am all-inflamed after thy fruition CHAP. XXVIII Yet he enjoyeth not as yet a perfect union unto him but hath a perpetual combat with many other false joyes and griefs and fears WHen once I shall be united to thee and inhere in thee with all my self then shall I no more suffer any sort of these greifs and labours and then my life shall be truely alive when totally full of thee But now since all that are filled with thee are also elevated by thee therefore am I still such a burden to my self because I am not yet full of thee My vain joyes to be deplored contend still in me with my wholesome sorrows to be much joyed in and to what side the victory inclines I know not Wo is me My Lord Have thou pitty on me Again my evill sorrows contend within me with my holy joyes Job 7.1 old Vulgar and to which side the victory inclines yet I know not Wo is me my Lord have thou pitty on me Wo is me Behold I conceal not my wounds from thee Thou art a Phisician I am sick Thou art full of mercy I of misery is not mans life upon the earth a continuall temptation And who is there that can be in love with such troubles and difficulties Thou commandest that they should be suffered but not that they should be loved No Man loves what he suffers though he loves to suffer For though he joyes that he can tollerate and suffer
misery I presently meet with an excuse for it whether a iust one thou knowest O Lord for I do suspect it For because that thou * hast commanded us not only continency that is from what things we are to withdraw our love but also justice that is where we are to place it and * willest that not only thy self but also our neighbour be loved by us I often seem to My self * to be pleased with his proficiency or with the good hopes I have thereof when I am delighted with the commendations of one understanding things a right and again * to be grieved in his behalf when I hear one blaming what he is ignoraat of or what is praise worthy For indeed I find my self afflicted also with my own praises when either such things are commended in Me wherein I displease my self or when small or light good things in Me are more valued than they ought But yet on the other side how know I whether I am not thus affected for that I would not have another entertain an opinion concering me or concerning any thing mine different from My own and this not because his good or benefit moves me thereto but because those good things in me which please me please me much more when they also please another For in some sort it is not I that am commended when my judgment also concerning my self is not commended as when those things in me are commended which dislike me or those things more commended which less like me Am I not therefore in this ignorant of my self In thee O Truth I see and learn that not for my own sake but for my neighbours good I ought to take content in my praises But whether indeed it be so I am ignorant and less do I know of my self than of thee in this matter therefore I beseech thee O my God reveal thou my self unto me that I may confesse my discovered wounds unto my brethren who may pray to thee for me Let Me yet more diligently question my self in this matter If it be in respect of my neighbours benefit only that I am so touched with my own praises why than am I lesse moved in the injurious disparagement of another than if it were of my self And why am I much more netled with a contumely thrown upon My self than when it is so upon another in my presence with the same injustice Psal 141.5 Can I also plead my ignorance and uncertainty for this Or shall I endeavour here also to delude my self and nor confesse the truth before thee both in heart and tongue Lord such a folly put thou farr from me and let not mine own mouth go about to anoint and perfume my head with the flattering Oyl of sinners I am poor and needy and the best when with secret laments displeasing my self and invocating thy mercy until these my deficiencies be repaired and perfected into a full repose and peace a peace hidden from the eyes of the arrogant and self-conceited CHAP. XXXVIII â–³ Incurred also from the contemning of Praise as this also being a thing praise-worthy CHiefly speech that is eloquent and good actions that are publick and eminent cause in us a most perillous temptation from this our love of praise which subtility assayes to procure the applause of others to the advancing of my own private excellency even then also when such love of praise in me is censured by me and for that very reason because it is so censured and often doth a man more vainly glory of the very contempt of vain-glory and therefore now in truth the contempt of vain-glory is not gloryed-of by him For he utterly contemns it not so long as within himself he reteins still some glorying CHAP. XXXIX Incurred also from self-love and self-conceit without regard to praise from others THere is yet within us another disease in the same kind of temptation namely a vanity in men of self loving and pleaâ—â—ng themselves in themselves * whether it happen that they please or that they displease abroad and* wherein they affect not the pleasing of others But these men whilst thus pleasing themselves much do they displease thee not only in glorying in some things not good as in good but also in thy good things as if in their own or also in glorying in them as thine but as conferred on them for some merits of their own or also as in thine without any their meriting but yet not sociably joying in them but as envying the same graces of thine to others In all these and the like perils and travels thou seest the fears and tremblings of my heart and I rather perceive such wounds to be by thee continually cured within me than not to be at all received CHAP. XL. A recapitulation of the things formerly spoken in this Book S. Austin's sometimes extraordinary transportments in the contemplation and love of God O Truth where hast not thou walked along with me and been instructing me what I should avoid and what affect when I recounted unto thee my mental discoveries such as I was able to make and consulted thee concerning them I surveighed the world abroad with the senses serving me for that purpose and after this I reflected * upon the vegetable life of my own body and * upon those my senses From hence I entered further into the inner chambers of my memory those manifold capacities filled with an innumerable store of wonderful things I considered them and remained amazed at them and none of them could I discern without thee and yet I found none of them to be thee Neither yet wer 't Thou Me the discoverer himself who travelled over all these and endeavoured to distinguish and value each one according to their several dignity * receiving some from the messages of my senses * questioning about others more intimate and not ushered in by them whence they were and * numbring the several messengers whence I received them and then after thus having displayed in my memory all its treasure * handling and examining some part * laying-up-again others examined and * drawing-out others to be perused Neither I say was I my self who wrought all this that is my faculty by which I wrought it neither was this Thou my Lord For Thou art a light alway permanent and immutable which light I still consulted concerning all these whether and what and of what worth they were And I listened unto its instructing me and commanding me and this I still continue to consult This is my great delight and so often as I can be released from other necessary affairs I repair to this pleasure Neither find I in all these things which I run through and wherein I consult thee any place of settlement for my soul save only in thee whither all my dissipations finally may be recollected and from whence nothing of me may eyer again be strayed And sometimes thou dost admit me * into an affection very unusual within the
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