If ye have not beene faithfull in the unrighteous Mamman who will commit to your trust true riches And if ye have not beene faithfull in that which is another mans who shall give you that which is your owne Such a man as I have described did at that time adjoyne himselfe unto me and wavered in his purpose as I did what course of life was to be taken Nebridius also who having left his native Countrey neere Carthage yea and Carthage it selfe where for the most part he lived leaving his Fathers lands which were very rich leaving his owne house and a Mother behinde who meant not like mine to follow after him was by this time come to Millan and for no other reason neither but that he might bestow himselfe with me in a most ardent desire after Truth and Wisdome Together with mee hee sighed and with me he wavered still continuing a most ardent searcher after happinesse and a most acute examiner of the difficultest Questions Thus were there now gotten together the mouthes of three Beggars fighing out their wants one to another and waiting upon thee that thou mightest give them their meat in due season And in much anguish of spirit which by the disposing of thy mercie still followed our worldly affaires looking towards the end why wee should suffer all this darknesse beelouded us whereupon wee turned away mourning to our selves saying How long will things continue at this stay This wee often said but in saying so wee yet forsooke not our errours for that wee yet discovered no certainty which when wee had forsaken them we might betake our selves unto CHAP. 11. Hee deliberates what course of life he were best to take 1. ANd I admired extremely pondering earnestly with my selfe and examining of my memory what a deale of time I had consumed since that nine and twentieth yeere of mine age in which I began first to be inflamed with the study of wisdome resolving that when I had found that to let passe all those empty hopes and lying phrenzies of vaine desires And behold I was now going of my thirtieth yeere still sticking in the same clay still possest with a greedinesse of enjoying things present they as fast flitting and wasting my soule I still saying to my selfe To morrow I shall finde it out it will appeare very plainely and I shall understand it and behold Faustus the Manichee will come and cleere every thing O you great men of the Academikes opinion who affirme That no certaine course for the ordering of our lives can possibly be comprehended Nay let us rather search the more diligently and not despaire of finding for behold those things in the Ecclesiasticall Bookes are not absurd to us now which sometimes seemed so for they may be otherwise yea and that honestly understood I will hence-forth pitch my foot upon that step on which being yet a child my parents placed mee untill such time as the cleere Truth may be found out 2. But where-abouts shall it be sought for When shall it be sought for Ambrose is not at leasure nor have we our selves any spare time to reade But where shall we finde the Books to reade on Whence or when can we procure them or from whom borrow them Let set times be appointed and certaine houres distributed for the health of our soules We now begin to conceive great hopes The Catholike Faith teaches not what we thought it had whereof we vainely accused it The learned men of that Faith hold it for a detestable opinion to beleeve God to be comprehended under the figure of our humane body and do we doubt to knocke that the other mysteries may be also opened unto us All the forenoones our schollers take up what shall we doe the rest of the day Why goe wee not about this But when then shall we visite our greater friends of whose favours we stand in need What time shall wee have to compose some discourses to sell to Schollers When shall wee recreate our selves and unbend our mindes from those cares they are too earnest upon Let all these thoughts perish let us give over these vaine and empty fancies and betake our selves solely to search out the Truth Life is miserable Death uncertaine if it steales upon us on the sudden in what case shall wee goe out of the world where shall we then learne what wee have here neglected Or rather shall we not there suffer the due punishment of our negligence If it be objected That Death will quite cut off both care and sense of all these things and there 's an end of them Rather let that bee first inquired into But God forbid that we should be of that mind It is not for no purpose 't is no idle toy that so eminent a heighth of authority which the Christian Faith hath is diffused all the world over Should then such and so great blessings be by the divine providence wrought for us if so be that together with the death of the body the life of the soule should bee brought to nothing also Wherefore then delay we time any longer that giving over our hopes of this world we might give up our selves wholly to seek after God a happy life 3. But stay a while Even these worldly things are sweet and they have some and that no small pleasure We are not too lightly to divorce our purposes from them for that it were a foule shame to make love againe to them See 't is no such great matter to obtain some Office of honour and what should a man desire more in this world We have store of potent friends though we had nothing else let us put our selves forward some place of preferment or other may be bestowed upon us or a Wife at least may be had with a good portion to ease our charges and this shal be the full point of our desires Many great persons and those worthy of our imitation have addicted themselves to the study of wisdome in the state of mariage 4. Whilest these things wee discoursed of and these winds of uncontainties changed up and downe and drove my heart this way and that way the time still passed on but I was slow to bee converted to my Lord God and from one day to another I deferred to live in thee but deferred not daily to dye within my selfe Being thus in love with an happy life yet feared I to finde it in its proper place and fleeing from it I sought after it I thought I should be too miserable should I bee debarred of the imbracements of a Woman as for that medicine of thy mercie which should cure that infirmity I never thought of it and all because I had no experience of it As for continency I supposed it to bee in the liberty of our owne power of which I for my part was not guilty being so foolish withall that I knew it not to be written That no man can preserve his
I had entered against my selfe untill it came to a good issue but which way God thou knowest I doe not Onely I was for the time most soberly madde and I dyed vitally sensible enough what piece of misery for the present I now was but utterly ignorant how good I shortly was to grow Into that Garden went I and Alipius followed mee foot by foot for I had no secret retiring place if hee were neere or when did he ever forsake me when he perceiv'd me to be ill disposed Downe wee sate us as farre yet from the house as possibly we could I fretted in the spirit angry at my selfe with a most tempestuous indignation for that I went not about to make my peace and league with thee my God which all my bones cryed out upon me to doe extolling it to the very skies A businesse it is which we goe not about carried unto in Shippes or Chariots or upon our own legges no not so small a part of the way to it as I had comen from the house into that place where wee were now sitting 3. For not to goe towards onely but to arrive fully at that place required no more but the Will to goe to it but yet to Will it resolutely and throughly not to stagger and tumble downe an halfe wounded Will now on this side and anon on that side setting the part advancing it selfe to struggle with another part that is a falling Finally in these vehement passions of my delay many of those things performed I with my body which men sometimes would doe but cannot if either they have not the limbs to doe them withall or if those limbs bee bound with cords weakened with infirmity or be any other waies hindered If I teare my selfe by the haire beate my forehead if locking my fingers one within another I beclasped my knee all this I did because I would But I might have willed it and yet not have done it if so be the motion of my limbs had not beene pliable enough to have performed it So many things therefore I now did at such time as the Will was not all one with the Power and something on the other side I then did not which did incomparably more affect mee with pleasure which yet so soone as I had the Will to doe I had the Power also because so soone as ever I willed I willed it throughly for at such a time the Power is all one with the Will and the willing is now the doing and yet was not the thing done And more easily did my body obey the weakest willing of my soules in the moving of its limbs at her beck then my soule had obeyed its selfe in this point of her great contentment which was to receive perfection in the Will alone CHAP. 9. Why the soule is so slow to goodnesse 1. VVHence now is this monster and to what purpose Let thy mercy enlighten mee that I may put this question if so be those concealed anguishes which men feele and those most undiscoverable pangs of contrition of the sonnes of Adam may perhaps afford mee a right answer Whence is this monster and to what end The soule commands the body and is presently obeyed the soule commands it selfe and is resisted The soule gives the word commanding the hand to be moved and such readinesse there is that the instant of command is scarcely to be discerned from the moment of execution Yet the soule is the soule whereas the hand is of the body The soule commands that the soule would Will a thing nor is the soule another thing from the soule and yet obeyes it not the command Whence is this monster and to what purpose The soule I say commands that it selfe would Will a thing which never would give the command unlesse it willed it yet is not that done which it commanded 2. But it willeth not entirely therefore doth it neither command entirely For so farre forth it commandeth as it willeth and so farre forth is not the thing done which is commanded as it willeth it not Because the Will commandeth that there be a Will not another will but the same Because verily it doth not command fully therefore is not the thing done which it commanded For were the willing full it would never command there should be a Willing because that Willing was extant before T is therefore no monster partly to Will and partly to Nill onely an infirmity of the soule it is that it being overloaded with ill custome cannot entirely rise up together though supported by Verity Hence is it that there be two Wills for that one of them is not entire and the one is supplied with that wherein the other is defective CHAP. 10. The will of man is various 1. LEt them perish out of thy sight O GOD as those vaine bablers and those seducers of the soule doe perish who when as they did observe that there were two Wills in the act of deliberating affirmed thereupon that there are two kindes of natures of two kinds of soules one good and the other bad Themselves are truly bad when as they beleeve these bad opinions and the same men shall then become good when they shall come to beleeve true opinions and shall consent unto the true that the Apostle may say unto them yee were sometimes darkenesse but now are ye light in the Lord. But these fellowes would be light indeed not in the Lord but in themselves imagining the nature of the soule to bee the same that God is Thus are they made more grosse darkenesse for that they went backe farther from thee through a horrid arrogancie from thee the true light that enlightneth every man that cometh into this world Take heed what you say and blush for shame draw neere unto him and be enlightned and your faces shall not bee ashamed My selfe when sometime I deliberated upon serving of the Lord my God I had long purposed it was I my selfe who willed it and I my selfe who nilled it I was I my selfe I neither willed entirely nor yet nilled entirely Therefore was I at strife with my selfe and ruinated by mine owne selfe Which ruining befell me much against my minde nor yet shewed it forth the nature of another mans minde but the punishment of mine owne I therefore my selfe was not the causer of it but the sinne that dwelt in me and that as a punishment of that farre spreading sinne of Adam whose sonne I was 2. For if there bee so many contrary natures in man as there be Wills resisting one another there shall not now be two natures alone but many Suppose a man should deliberate with himselfe whether he should goe to their Conventicle or goe see a Play presently these Manichees cry out Behold here are 2 natures one good which leades this way and another bad which drawes that way For whence else is this mammering of the wills thus thwarting one another But I answer that
bee some corruptible substance which unlesse it were some way or other good it could not be corrupted I perceived therefore and it was made plaine unto me that all things are good which thou hast made nor is there any substance at all which thou hast not made And for that all which thou hast made are not equall therefore are they all good in generall because all good in particular and all together very good because thou our God hast made all things very good CHAP. 13. All created things praise God 1. ANd to thee is there nothing at all evill yea not onely in respect of thee but also not in respect of thy Creatures in generall because there is not any thing which is without thee which hath power to breake in or discompose that Order which thou hast settled But in some particulars of thy Creatures for that some things there bee which so well agree not with some other things they are conceived to be evill whereas those very things sute well enough with some other things and are good yea and in themselves good And all these things which doe not mutually agree one with another doe yet sute well enough with this inferiour part which we cal Earth which hath such a cloudy and windie Region of Ayre hanging over it as is in nature agreeable to it 2. God forbid now that I should ever say that there were no other things extant besides these for should I see nothing but these verily I should went the better And yet even onely for these ought I praise thee 〈◊〉 that thou art to be praised 〈◊〉 things of the 〈◊〉 doe 〈◊〉 Dragons and all 〈…〉 Haile Snow â—ee and 〈◊〉 Wind which fulful thy 〈◊〉 Mountaines and all 〈◊〉 fruitfull Trees and all Cedars Beasts and all Cattell creeping things and flying Fowles Kings of the Earth and all people Princes and all Iudges of the Land Yong men and Maidens Old men and Children let them praise thy Name Seeing also these in heaven praise thee let them praise thee O our God in the heights Let all thy Angels praise thee and all thy Hosts Sunne and Moone all the Starres and Light the Heaven of Heavens and the Waters that be above the Heavens let them praise thy Name I did not now desire better because I had now thought upon them all and that those superior things were better than these inferior things but yet all together better than those superiour by themselves I resolved upon in my bettered judgement CHAP. 14. To a sober minde none of Gods Creatures are displeasing 1. THey are not well in their wits to whom any thing which thou hast created is displeasing no more than I my selfe was when as many things which thou hadst made did not like me And because my soule durst not take distaste at my God it would not suffer that ought should bee accounted thine which displeased it Hence fell it upon the opinion of two substances and no rest did it take but talkt idlie And turning from thence it fancied a God to it selfe which tooke up infinite measures of all places and him did it thinke to be thee and him it placed in its heart so that it became once againe the Temple of its own Idoll which was to thee so abominable But after thou hadst refreshed my head I not knowing of it and hadst shut up mine eyes that they should no more behold vanity I began to bee quieted a little within my selfe and my mad Fit was got asleepe out of which I awaked in thee and then discerned thee to be infinite another manner of way But this sight was not derived from any power of my flesh CHAP. 15. How there is truth and falshood in the Creatures 1. ANd I looked after this upon other things and I saw how they owed their being to thee and that all finite things are in thee but in a different manner not as in their proper place but because thou containest all things in thine hand of truth All things are true so farre forth as they have a being nor is there any falshood unlesse when a thing is thought to bee which is not And I marked how that all things did agree respectively not to their places onely but to their seasons also And that thou who onely art eternall didst not beginne to worke after innumerable spaces of times spent for that all spaces of times both those which are passed already and those which are to passe hereafter should neither goe nor come but by thee who art still working and still remaining CHAP. 16. All things are good though to some things not fit 1. ANd I both found and tryed it to bee no wonder that the same bread is lothsome to a distempered palate which is pleasant to a sound one and that to sore eyes that light is offensive which to the cleere is delightfull and that thy Iustice gives disgust unto the wicked yet not so much but the Viper and smallest vermine which thou hast created good but are fit enough to these inferiour portions of thy Creatures to which these very wicked are also fit and that so much the more fit by how much they be unlike thee but so much liker the superiour Creatures by how neerer resembling thee And I enquired what this same Iniquity should be But I found it not to bee a substance but a swarving meerely of the will crookt quite away from thee O God who art the supreme substance towards these lower things which casts abroad its inward corruption and swels outwardly CHAP. 17. What things hinder us of Gods knowledge 1. AND I wondred not a little that I was now come to love thee and no Phantasme instead of thee nor did I delay to enjoy my God but was ravisht to thee by thine owne beauty and yet by and by I violently fell off againe even by mine owne weight rushing with sorrow enough upon these inferiour things This weight I spake of was my old fleshly customes Yet had I still a remembrance of thee nor did I any way doubt that thou wert he to whom I ought to cleave but yet I was not the partie fit to cleave unto thee for that the body which is corrupted presseth downe the soule and the earthly tabernable weigheth downe the minde that museth upon many things And most certaine I was that thy invisible workes from the creation of the world are cleerely seene being understood by the things that are made even thy eternall power and Godhead 2. For studying now by what reasons to make good the beauty of corporeall things eyther celestiall or terrestriall and what proofe I had at hand solidly to passe sentence upon these mutable things in pronouncing This ought to be thus and this must be so plodding I say on this upon what ground namely I ought to judge seeing I did thus judge I had by this time found the unchangeable and true eternity of truth residing upon this
the earth all that is in them behold they bid me on euery side that I should loue thee nor cease they to say so vnto all to make them inexcuseable But more profoundly wilt thou haue mercy on whom thou wilt haue mercy and wilt haue compassion vpon whom thou wilt haue compassion for else doe the heauen and the earth speake forth thy prayses vnto the deafe What now do I loue whenas I loue thee not the beauty of any corporall thing not the order of times not the brightnesse of the light which to behold is so gladsome to our eyes not the pleasant melodies of songs of all kinds not the fragrant smell of flowers and oyntments and spices not Manna and honey nor any fayre limbs that are so acceptable to fleshly embracements 2. I loue none of these things whenas I loue my God and yet I loue a certaine kinde of light and a kind of voyce and a kinde of fragrancy and a kinde of meat and a kind of embracement Whenas I loue my God who is both the light and the voyce and the sweet smell and the meate and the embracement of my inner man where that light shineth vnto my soule which no place can receiue that voyce soundeth which time depriues me not of and that fragrancy smelleth which no wind scatters that meate tasteth which eating deuoures not and that embracement clingeth to mee which satiety diuorceth not This is it which I loue when as I loue my God And what is this I askt the Earth and that answered me I am not it and whatsoeuer are in it made the same confession I asked the Sea and the deepes and the creeping things and they answered me We are not thy God seeke aboue vs. I asked the fleeting winds and the whole Ayre with his inhabitants answered me That Anaximenes was deceiued I am not thy God I asked the heauens the Sunne and Moone and Starres Nor say they are wee the God whom thou seekest 3. And I replyed vnto all these which stand so round about these dores of my flesh You haue answered me concerning my God that you are not he And they cryed out with aloud voyce He made vs. My questioning with them is my intention their answer is their figure and species And I turned my selfe vnto my selfe and sayd Who art thou And I answered A man for behold here is a soule and a body in me one without and the other within By which of these two am I to seeke my God whom my body had inquired after from earth to heauen euen so farre as I was able to send these beames of mine eyes in ambassage But the better part is the inner part vnto which all these my bodily messengers gaue vp their intelligence as being the President and Iudge of all the seuerall answers of heauen and earth and of all things that are therein who all sayd Wee are not God but He made vs. These things did my inner man knâ—w by the intelligence giuen him by the outer man And I the inner man knew all this I the soule by meanes of the Sences of the body 4. I asked the whole frame of the world concerning my God and that answered mee I am not He but Hee made me Doth not this corporeall figure guidently appeare to all those that haue their perfect sences why then speakes it not the same things vnto all The creatures both small and great doe see this corporeall figure well enough but they are not able to aske any questions of it because Iudge Reason is not President ouer their Sences which are to giue vp intelligence vnto him But Men are well able to aske that so they may clearely see the inuisible things of God which are vnderstood by the things that are made But by inordinate loue of them they make themselues subiects vnto them and slaues are not fit to be Iudges Nor will the creatures answere to such as aske of them vnlesse the askers be able to iudge nor so much as alter their voyce that is their out-ward appearance if so bee one man onely lookes vpon it and another seeing it withall enquires of it so as it may appeare one way to this man and another way to that man but it appearing the same way vnto both is dumbe to this man but makes answere vnto that Yea verily it speakes vnto all but they onely vnderstand it who compare that voyce receiued from without by the Sences with the Truth which is within For Truth sayes vnto me Neyther heauen nor earth nor any other body is thy God This their very Nature sayes vnto him that lookes vpon them There is lesse bulke in the part of a thing then in the whole Now vnto thee I speake O my soule Thou art my better part for thou quickenest this bulke of my body by giuing life vnto it which no body can giue vnto a body but thy God is the life of thy life vnto thee CHAP. 7. God is not to bee found by any ability in our bodies 1. VVHat is it therefore which I loue when as I loue my God who is Hee that is aboue the top of my Soule By this very soule will I ascend vp vnto him I will so are beyond that faculty of mine by which I am vnited vnto my body and by which I fill the whole frame of it with life I cannot by that faculty finde my God for so the Horse Mule that haue no vnderstanding might as well finde him seeing they haue the same faculty by which their bodies liue also 2. But another faculty there is not that onely by which I giue life but that too by which I giue sence vnto my flesh which the Lord hath framed for me when namely he commands the eye that it should not heare and the care that it should not see but orders that for mee to see by and this for mee to heare withall and assignes what is proper to the other Sences seuerally in their owne seates and offices which being diuers through euery sence yet I the soule being but one doe actuate and gouerne I will I say mount beyond this faculty of mine for euen the Horse and Mule haue this seeing they also are sensible in their bodies CHAP. 8. The force of the Memory 1. I Will soare therefore beyond this faculty of my nature still rysing by degrees vnto Him who hath made both mee and that nature And I come into these fields and spacious palaces of my Memory where the treasures of innumerable formes brought into it from these things that haue beene perceiued by the sences be hoarded vp There is layd vp whatsoeuer besides wee thinke eyther by way of enlarging or diminishing or any other wayes varying of those things which the sence hath come at yea and if there bee any thing recommended to it and there layd vp which forgetfulnesse hath not swallowed vp and buried To this treasury when
were then inlarged or that they should not have bin inlarged at all whence therefore comes it that my eares are on all sides so beaten with this noise Let him alone let him doe what he will for hee is not yet baptized whereas upon any doubt of bodily health we doe not say let him be more dangerously wounded for he is not yet cured How much better had it beene for mee to have beene speedily cured that by my friends diligence and my owne so much might have bin wrought in me that my soule having received health might have beene safe under thy protection who hadst given it This verily had beene the better course But how many and what violent waves of temptation did seeme to threaten me after my childhood those my Mother full well knew and desired to commit both those temptations by which I was afterward to be new moulded as me also the worke it selfe unto thy disposing CHAP. 12. He is forced to his Booke which God turned to good purpose 1. BVt in this my childhood wherein there was lesse feare of me than in my youth I loved not my Booke and I hated to be forced to it yet was I held to it notwithstanding wherein they did very well for me but I did not well for my selfe for I would never have taken my learning had I not beene constrained to it For no man does well against his will though that which hee does bee good Nor did they that forced mee to it very well but it was thou my God that didst the good to me For they that held-mee to my learning did not understand to what I would apply it unlesse to satiate the insatiable desires of a rich beggary and a dishonourable glory 2. But thou before whom the very haires of our heads are numbred didst convert the common errour of them all who pressed me to learning to mine own benefit and my errour who would not learne didst thou make use of for my punishment of which I being then so little a Boy and so great a sinner was not unworthy Thus by their meanes who did not well by me didst thou well for me and upon me who was a sinner thou inflictedst a deserved punishment For thou hast appointed it and so it proves Every mans inordinate affection shall be his owne affliction CHAP. 13. With what studies he was chiefly delighted 1. BVt what was the reason why of a Childe I should so naturally hate the Greeke Tongue when it was taught me I cannot yet understand Latine I loved very well not that part which our first Masters enter us in but that which the Grammarians teach us For those first rudiments to reade to write and Cipher I accounted no lesse painefull and troublesome than the Greeke But whence should this proceed but from the sinfulnesse and vanity of this life For I was but flesh a wind that passeth away and commeth not againe For those first rudiments were better because more certaine seeing by them that skill was and is wrought in me that I am able to reade what I finde written and of my selfe to write what I wil than these latter by which I was inforced to commit to memory the wandrings of I know not what Aeneas while I forgate mine owne and to bewaile dead Dido because shee kil'd her selfe for love when in the meane time wretch that I was I with dry eyes endured my selfe then dying towards thee O God my life For what can be more miserable than a wretch that pitties not himselfe one bemoaning Didoes death caused by loving of Aeneas and yet not lamenting his own death caused by not loving of thee 2. O God thou light of my heart thou bread of the internall mouth of my soule and thou firmest knot marrying my soule and the bosome of my thoughts together I did not love thee and I committed fornication against thee while in the meane time every one applauded mee with Well done well done But the love of this world is fornication against God which so applauds and encourages a spirituall fornicator that it is even a shame for a man to be otherwise But I bemoan'd not all this but dead Dido I bewailed that kil'd her selfe by falling upon the Sword I my selfe following these lower creatures of thine forsaking thee and my selfe being earth hastening to the earth But if I were forbidden to reade these toyes how sorry would I be for that I might not reade that which would make mee sorry Such madnesses were esteemed to bee more commendable and fluent learning than the learning to write and reade 3. But let my God now cry unto my soule and let thy truth say unto me It is not so it is not so that first kinde of learning was farre better for behold I am readier to forget the wandrings of Aeneas and all such toyes than I am to write and reade True it is that there are Curtaines at the entrance of Grammer-schooles but they signifie not so much the Cloth of State to privacie as serve for a blinde to the follies committed behinde them Let not these Masters now cry out upon mee whom now I am out of feare of whilest I confesse to thee my God what my soule delights in and rest contented with the reprehension of mine owne evill wayes that I may love thy good ones Let not those buyers or sellers of Grammar exclaime upon me for that if I aske them whether that of the Poet bee true that Aeneaes ever came to Carthage the unlearned will answer They know not and the learned will deny it to bee true 4. But if I aske them with what letters Aeneas name is written every one that hath but learned so sarre will pitch upon one truth according to the agreement and will whereby men at first made Rules for those Characters If I should aske againe which of the two would bee most incommodious to the life of man to forget to write and reade or these Poeticall fictions who sees not what any man would answer that had not quite forgotten himselfe I offended therefore being but a Boy when in my affection I preferred those vaine studies to these more profitable or rather indeed I utterly hated these and was in loue with those But then One and one makes two and two and two makes foure was a harsh Song to me but The woodden Horse full of armed men and the burning of Troy and the Ghost of Creusa was a most delightfull spectacle of vanity CHAP. 14. Of the Greeke and Latine tongues 1. BVt why then did I hate the Greeke Grammarians that chant of such things For Homer himselfe was skilfull in contriving such fictions and is most delightfully wanton but yet very harsh to mee being a schoole boy I beleeve that Virgill is no lesse to Grecian children when they be compelled to learne him as I was to learne Homer for to say troth the difficulty of learning a strange language did sprinkle as
my soule is not affrighted at it I will love thee O Lord and thanke thee and I will confesse unto thy Name because thou hast forgiven mee this crime and these hainous deeds of mine unto thy grace and mercie doe I ascribe that thou hast dissolved my sinnes as it were Ice yea unto thy grace doe I ascribe whatsoever evils I have not done For what evill was not I apt enough to commit who loved the sinne for the sinnes sake Yea all I confesse to be forgiven me both what evils I committed wilfully and what by thy guidance I have not committed 2. What man is he who upon consideration of his owne infirmity dares so farre to ascribe his chastity and innocency to his owne vertue as that he thereupon should love thee the lesse as if thy mercy by which thou forgivest those that turne unto thee had beene lesse necessary for him Who soever now being effectually called by thee hath obeyed thy voice and declined those transgressions which hee here reades me remembring and confessing of my selfe let him not laugh at me who am now cured by that same Physician who ministred unto him such preservatives that he might not be sicke at all or but a little distempered rather but let him take occasion thereupon to love thee so much yea so much the more since by that Physician he hath observed mee to have beene recovered out of such deepe consumptions of sinfulnesse by the same hand he perceives himselfe not to have beene incumbred by the like CHAP. 8. What hee loved in that his theft 1. VVHat fruite had I wretched man heretofore in these things of the remembrance whereof I am now ashamed In that piece of theeverie especially wherein I loved nothing but the very Theft it selfe whereas that was nothing of it selfe but I much the more miserable by it Yet by my selfe alone I would not have committed it so well I now remember what my disposition then was that alone I would never have done it Belike therefore it was the company that I loved who were with me at it And even therfore I loved nothing but the theft it selfe yea verily nothing else because that circumstance of the company was indeed a very nothing 2. What is this verily who is it that teacheth me but even he that inlightneth my heart and discovers the darknesse of it What is that which came into my head to enquire into and to discusse and consider better of For had I then loved those Peares which I stole I might have done it by my selfe had it beene enough barely to commit the The every by which I might attaine my pleasure nor needed I have provoked that itch of mine owne desires by the rubbing of those guilty consciences But because the pleasure I tooke consisted not in those Peares it must needes therefore bee in the very pranke it selfe which the company of us offenders joyntly committed together CHAP. 9. Bad company is infectious 1. VVHat kinde of disposition was that then For it was too bad plainly and woe to me that I had it But yet what was it Oh wh◠can understand his errours We laught heartily till wee tickled againe that wee could beguile the owners who little thought what wee were a doing and would never have indured it Yet againe why tooke I delight even in this that I did it not alone Is it for that no man doth so readily laugh alone ordinarily indeed no body does but yet a fit of laughter sometimes comes upon men by themselves and singly when no body else is with them if any thing worthy to be laught at comes eyther in their eye or fancies Yet I for my part would not have done this alone I should never have done it alone verily 2. See here my God the lively emembrance of my soule set beforethee Alone I would never have committed that Theft wherein what I stole did not so much content me as because I stole it which would never have pleased me so well to have done alone nor would I ever have done it O friendship too unfriendly thou inveigler of the soule thou reasonlesse greedinesse to doe mischiefe all out of a mirth and wantonnesse thou thirst to doe wrong to others though upon no pleasure of gaine or revenge unto our selves but even because when one cryes Let 's goe let 's doe this or that 't is ashame not to be shamelesse CHAP. 10. Whatsoever is good is in God 1. VVHo can picke out that crooked and intricate knottinesse 'T is filthy I will never give my mind to it I will not so much as looke towards it But thee I desire O Righteousnesse and Innocency most beautifull and comely to all chaste eyes yea with an insatiable satiety I desire to behold thee With thee is Rest assured and a life never to bee disturbed Hee that enters into thee enters into his masters joy and hee shall have no cause of feare and shall be well in him who is the best 〈◊〉 a way from thee and I went astray O my God yea too much astray from thee my stay in these dayes of my youth and I became to my selfe as it were that far Country of misery SAINT AVGVSTINES Confessions THE THIRD BOOKE CHAP. 1. He is caught with love which he hunted after TO Carthage I came where a whole Frying-pan full of abominable Loves crakled round about me and on every side I was not in love as yet yet I loved to be in love with a more secret kind of want I hated my selfe having little want I sought about for something to love loving still to be beloved safety I hated and that way too that had no snares in it and all because I had a famine within me even of that inward food thy selfe my God though that famine made mee not hungry For I continued without all appetite towards incorruptible nourishments not because I was already full but the more empty the more queasie stomackt For this cause my soule was not very well but miserably breaking out into botches had an extreme itch to be scratcht by the touch of these sensible things who yet if they had not a life could not deserve to be beloved It was very pleasurable to me both to love and to be beloved but much more when I obtained to enjoy the person whom I loved 2. I defiled therefore the Spring of friendship with the filth of uncleannesse and I be fullied the purity of it with the hell of lustfulnesse But thus filthy and dishonest as I was with a superlative kind of vanity I took a pride to passe for a spruce and a gentile companion I forced my selfe also into love with which I affected to be insuared My God my Mercy with how much sowrenesse didst thou out of thy goodnesse to me besawce that sweetenesse For obtayning once to be beloved againe and secretly arriving to the bond of enjoying I was with much joy bound with sorrow-bringing
at all no being such empty huskes as these was I then fed with yet not a whit nourished 3. But thou my Love after whom I pine that I may gather the more strength art not these bodies which we see though froÌ„ heaven appearing nor art thou any of those which wee see not there for all those hast thou created nor yet in these chiefest pieces of thy workmanship art thou farre absent How farre then art thou from those fond fantasies of mine the phantasies of those bodies which have at all no being than which the Images of those bodies which have reall existence are farre more certaine and yet the bodies themselves more certaine than their owne Images yet these bodies thou art not No nor yet art thou the Soule which is the life of those bodies though better and more certaine be the life of those bodies than the bodies themselves are But thou art the life of soules the life of lives yea the very living life itselfe nor art thou altered O life of my soule Where therefore how neere wert thou then unto me and how far from me Very far verily had I stragled from thee being even barr'd from the huskes of those swine whom with huskes I was set to feed How much better then are those fables of the Poets and Grammarians than these fooletraps For their Verses and Poems and Medea flying are more profitable surely than these mens Five elements odly devised to answer the Five Dens of darknesse which have at all no being and which slay the beleever For verses and Poems I verily can referre to the true Elements But Medea flying although I charted sometimes yet I maintaind not the truth of and though I heard it sung I beleeved it not But these phantasies I throughly beleeved 4. Alas alas by what degrees was I brought into the very bottome of hell when as toyling and tunnoyling my selfe through want of Truth I sought after thee my GOD to thee I now confesse it who hadst mercy on me when I had not yet confessed not according to the understanding of the minde wherein thou madest mee excell the beasts but according to the sense of the flesh But thou at the same time wert more inward to me than my most inward part and superiour then unto my supremest I chanced upon that bold woman who is simple and knoweth nothing that subtilty in Salomon sitting at the doore of her house and saying Eate yee bread of secrecies willingly and drinke yee stolne waters which are sweete This harlot seduced me because she found my soule without doores dwelling in the eye of my flesh and chewing the cud by my selfe upon such bayts as through her inticement I had devoured CHAP. 7. The absurd doctrine of the Manichees 1. FOr I knew not that there was any other truth and was as it were through mine owne sharpe wit perswaded to give my consent to those foolish deceivers when they put these questions to me Whence cometh evill and whether God were made up in a bodily shape and had haires and nayles and whether those were to be esteemed righteous men who had many wives at once and did kill men and offered sacrifices of living creatures At which things ignorant I was much troubled and while I went quite from the truth I seemed to my selfe to be making towards it because I yet knew not how that evill was nothing else but a privation of good having of it selfe at all no being Which how should I come to see whose sight pierced no further than to a Body with mine eyes and with my soule no deeper than to a meere phantasie 2. Nor did I yet know God to be a Spirit who hath not any parts extended in length and breadth or whose Being was to bee a bulke for that every bulke is lesser in his part than in his whole and if it be infinite it must needs be lesse in some part that is limited in a certaine space than that which is not limited and cannot so bee wholly every where as a spirit as God is And which part in us that should be by which we were like to God and how rightly in the Scriptures we may be said to be made after the Image of God I was altogether ignorant Nor was yet acquainted with that true and inward righteousnesse which judgeth not according to custome but out of the most rightfull Law of God Almighty by which the fashions of severall places and times were so desposed as was fittest both for those times and places it selfe in the meane time being The same alwaies and every where not another thing in another place nor otherwise upon another occasion According to which righteousnesse both Abraham and Isaac and Iacob and Moses were righteous yea and all those other commended by the mouth of GOD but they were judged unrighteous by unskilfull people judging out of humane judgment and measuring all mankinde in generall by the model of their owne customes just as iâ— in an Armory a man being ignorant what peice were appointed for what part should clap a boote upon his head draw an headpeice upon his leg and then murmur because they would not fit him or as if upon some â—â— day when the course of Iustice 〈◊〉 publikely forbidden in the afternoone a shopkeeper should stomacke at it that he may not have leave to sell his wares which it was lawfull for him to doe it the forenoone or when in some house he observeth some servant to passe that kinde of businesâ— through his hands which the Butcher is not suffered to medle withall or some thing done behinde the stable which is forbidden in the dyning-roome or as if he should bee angry that where there is one dwelling house and one family the same equality of distribution is not observed every where and to all alike in it 3. Of the same humor bee those who are fretted to heare something to have beene lawfull for righteous men in the former age which is not so for just men now adayes And because GOD commanded them one thingthen and these an other thing now for certaine temporall respects and yet those of both ages to be servants to the same righteousnesse whereas they may observe that in one man and in one day and in one house one thing to bee fit enough for one member and one thing to bee lawfull now which an hower hence is not so and some thing to be permitted or commanded in one corner which is forbidden and punished in another Is Iustice thereupon various or mutable No but the times rather in which Iustice governes are not like one another for they are times But men now whose life is but short upon the earth for that in their owne apprehensions they are not able to compare together the causes of those former ages and of other nations which they have had no experience of with these which they have had experience of
about these senses of ours but they cause strange operations in our minds Behold they went aâ—â— same day by day and by going and comming to and againe they brought into my minde other notions and other remembrances and by little and little prec'd mee up againe with my old kind of delights unto which my present sorrow gave some way And yet to that againe there succeeded though not other griefes yet the causes of other griefes For how came that former griefe so easily and so deepely to make impression in me but even from hence that I had spilt my soule upon the sand in loving a man that must once dye as if he never had beene to dye For the coÌ„fortings of other friends did mostly repaire and refresh me with whom I did love what for thy sake I did not love and this was a great Fable and a long lye by the impare repetition whereof our soule which lay itching in our eares was wholly corrupted 2. But that Fable would Not yet dye with me so oft as any or my friends dyed But there were some other things which in my friends company did take my minde namely to discourse and to laugh with them and to doe obsequious offices of courtesie one to another to reade pretty bookes together sometimes to be in jest and other whiles seriously honest to one another sometimes so to dissent without discontent as a man would doe with his owne selfe and even with the seldomnesse of those dissenting season our more frequent consentings sometimes would we teach and sometimes learne one of another wish for the company of the absent with impatience and welcome 〈◊〉 the new commers with joyâ—â—â—nesse With these and the like expressions proceeding out of the hearts of those that loved and repaired one anothers affections by the countenance by the tongue by the eyes and by a thousand other most pleasing motions did we soder or runne as it were our soules together and made but one out of many CHAP. 9. The comparing of humane friendship with divine 1. THis is it now which a man loves in our friends and so loves it that he must in conscience confesse himselfe guilty if he should not love him that loves him againe or not love that man againe that loves him first expecting no other thing from him besides the pure demonstration of his love Hence is that mourning when ever a friend dyes yea those overcastings of sorrowes that steeping of the heart in teares all sweetnesse utterly turn'd into bitternesse hence too upon the losse of the life of the dying comes the death of the living But blessed is the man that loves thee and his friend in thee and his enemy for thee For he alone loses none that is deare unto him to whom all are deare in him that can never bee lost And who is this but our God the God that made heaven and earth and who filleth them because in filling them he created them Thee no man loses but he that lets thee go And he that lets thee goe whither goes hee or whither runnes he but from thee well pleased backe to thee offended For where shall not such a one finde thy Law fulfilled in his owne punishment And thy Law is truth and Truth is thy selfe CHAP. 10. All beauty is from God who is to be praysed for all 1. TUrne us O God of Hosts shew us the light of thy countenance and wee shall bee whole For which way soever the soule of man turnes it selfe unlesse towards thee it is even rivetted-into dolours Yea though it settles it selfe upon beautifull objects without thee and without it selfe which beauties were no beauties at all unlesse they were from thee They rise and set and by rising they beginne to have Being they grow up that they may attaine perfection which having attained they waxe old and wither for grow old all must and all must wither too Therefore when they spring up and tend towards a Being looke how much more hast they make to Be so much the more they also make not to Be. This is the law of them Thus much hast thou bequeath'd them because they are parcels of things which are not extant all at one time but which by decaying and succeeding doe altogether play the part of the whole universe whereof they are the parcels And even thus is our speech delivered by sounds significant for it will never be a perfect sentence unlesse one word gives way when it hath sounded his part that another may succeede it 2. And by them let my soule prayse thee O God Creator of things but yet let not my soule bee fastned in to these things with the glew of love through the senses of my body For these things goe whither they were purposely to go that they might no longer Be and they cleave the soule in sunder which most pestilent desires even * because the soule earnestly desires to be one with them and loves finally to rest in these things which shee loves But in those things shee finds not settlement which are still fleeing because they stand not ever at the same stay and who is he that can follow them with the senses of his flesh yea who is able to overtake them when they are hard by him 3. For the sense of our flesh is slow even because it is the sense of our flesh and it 's selfe is it's owne measure Sufficient enough it is for the end it is made for but it is not sufficient for this namely to hold at a stay things running of course from their appointed starting place to their Races end For in thy Word by which they were created they heare this signall from hence and even thus farre CHAP. 11. All things are created mutable in themselves and immutable in God 1. BE not foolish O my soule and make not the care of thine heart deafe with the tumult of folly But hearken now the Word it selfe calls to thee to returne for there is the place of quiet not to be disturbed where thy love can never be forsaken if it selfe leaves not off to love Behold these things give way that other things may come in their places that so this lower would may at last have all his parts But doe I ever depart saith the Word of God There set up thy dwelling trust there whatsoever thou hast left O my soule especially since thou art at length tired out with these uncertainties Recommend over unto truth whatsoever thou hast left of truth and thou shalt lose nothing by the bargaine yea thy decaies shall reflourish againe and all thy languishments shall be recovered thy fadings shall be refreshed shall be renewed and shall be made to continue with thee nor shall they put thee downe to the place whither themselves descend but they shall stay with thee and stand fast for ever before that God who himselfe stayes and stands fast for ever 2. Why now my perverse
turne towards thee but went nuddling on and on towards those fancies which have no being neither in thee nor in mee nor in any body For they were not created for me by thy Truth but devised meerely by mine owne vaine conceipt fancying out a body And I demanded of thy faithfull little ones my fellow-Citizens from whom unbeknowing to my selfe I stood exiled I put the question to them I say prating and foolish man that I was Why therfore doth the soule erre which God hath created But I would endure upon no termes any one should demand of me Why therefore doth God erre And I stiffly maintained that thy vnchangeable substance rather did erre upon constraint than be brought to confesse mine owne changhable substance to have gone astray voluntarily or gone any thing neere it 4. I was at that time perchance sixe or seven and twenty yeere old when I composed those Volumnes canvassing up and downe with my selfe these corporeall fictions which were still buzzing in the eares of my heart which eares I intended rather O sweet Truth to hearken after thy inward melody plodding all this time upon my Faire and Fit and desiring to stay and to hearken to thee and to rejoyce exceedingly at the voice of thy Spouse but could not bring my selfe to it for by the cals of mine owne errours I was drawne out of my selfe and opprest with the weight of my owne proud conceipt I sunke into the lowest pit For thou didst not make me to heare 〈◊〉 and gladnesse that the 〈…〉 which thou hadst not yet enough broken might rejoyce CHAP. 16. The admirable aptnesse to Learning and the great understanding S. Augustine had 1. ANd what was I the better for it when scarce twenty yeeres old that Booke of Aristotles Praedicaments falling into my hands of which my Rhetoricke-master of Carthage and others esteemed very good Schollers would be cracking with full mouthes I earnestly and with much suspence gap't upon it at first as upon I know not what deepe and divine peece but read it over afterwards yea and attained the understanding of it by my selfe alone And comparing my Notes afterwards with theirs who protested how hardly they gate to understand the Booke from very able Tutors not dictating to them onely by word of mouth but taking paines also to delineate out in the dust the Schemes and demonstrations of it they could teach me no more of it than I had observed before upon mine owne reading And it seem'd plaine enough to my capacity when they discourst of Substances such as Man is and of the Accidents inhering to these Substances as for example the figure of a man how qualified he was and of what shape and stature how many foot high and his relation to his kindred whose brother he is or where placed or when borne or whether he stands or sits or bee shod or armed or does or suffers any thing and whatsoever to bee learned besides in these nine Praedicaments of which I have given these former examples or these other innumerable observations in that chiefe Praedicament of Substance 2. What now did all this further me seeing withal it as much hindred mee when as I tooke paines to understand thee O my God whose Essence is most wonderfully simple and unchangeable imagining whatsoever had being to bee comprehended under those tenne Praedicaments as if thy selfe had beene subject to thine owne Greatnesse or Beauty and that these two had an inherence in thee like Accidents in their Subject or as in a Body whereas thy greatnesse and beauty is thy Essence but a body is not great or faire in that regard as it is a body seeing that though it were lesse great or faire yet should it be a body notwithstanding But it was a meere falsehood which of thee I had conceived and no truth a very fiction of mine owne foolery and no solid ground of thy happinesse For thou hadst given forth the command and so it came to passe in me that my earth should bring forth bryars and thornes in me and that in the sweat of my browes I should eate my bread 3. And what was I the better that I the vile Slave to wicked affections read over by my selfe and understood all the bookes of those Sciences which they call liberall as many as I could cast mine eye upon And that I tooke great delight in them but knew not all this while whence all that came whatsoever was true or certaine in them For I stood with my backe to the light and with my face toward these things which received that light and therfore my face with which I discern'd these things that were illuminated was not it selfe illuminated What-ever was written either of the Art of Rhetoricke or Logicke what-ever of Geometry Musicke and Arithmeticke I attain'd the understanding of by my selfe without any great difficulty or any instructor at all as thou knowest O Lord my God even because the quicknes of conceiving and the sharpnesse of disputing is thy gift and yet did I not sacrifice any part of it to thy acknowledgement All this therefore served not mee to any good imployment but to my destruction rather since I went about to get so good a part of my portion into mine owne custody and I preserved not mine own abilities entire for thy service but wandring into a far Country to spend it there upon my Harlotries For what good did it me to have good abilities and not employ them to good uses For I understood not that those Arts were attained with great difficulty even by those that were very studious and ingenuous Schollers untill that my selfe going about to interpret them in others hearing hee was held the most excellent at them who was able to follow me with least slownesse 4. But what at last did all this benefit mee thinking all this while that thou O Lord my God of truth wert nothing but a vast and bright Body and my selfe some peece of that Body O extreme perversenesse but in that case was I then nor doe I blush O my God to confesse thy mercies towards mee to call upon thee who blushed not then openly to professe before men mine owne blasphemies and to barke against thee What good did then my nimble wit able to runne over all those Sciences and all those most knotty Volumes made easie to me without helpe or light from any Tutor seeing I err'd so fouly and with so much sacrilegious shamefulnesse in the Doctrine of Piety Or what hinderance was a farre slower wit to thy little ones seeing they straggled not so farre from thee but that in the Nest of thy Church they might securely plume themselves and nourish the wings of charity by the food of a solid faith 5. O Lord our God under the shadow of thy wings let us hope defend thou hold us up Thou shalt beare us up both while we are little and when we are gray-headed for our weaknesse
when 't is from thee then is it strength but when 't is of our selves then is it weaknes indeed Our good still lives with thee from which because wee are averse therefore are we perverse Let us now at last O Lord returne that wee doe not overturne because with thee our Good lives without any defect which Good thou art We shall not need to feare finding a place to returne unto because we fell headlong from it for howâ—ever wee have beene long absent from thence yet that house of ours shall not fall downe and that 's thy Eternity * ⎠* SAINT AVGVSTINES Confessions THE FIFTH BOOKE CHAP. 1. Hee stirres up his owne soule to praise God REceive heere the Sacrifice of my Confessions from the hand of my Tongue which thou hast formed and stirred up to confesse unto thy Name Heale thou all my bones and let them say O Lord who is like unto thee For neither does a man teach thee what is done within himselfe when he confesses to thee seeing a closed heart shuts not out thy eye nor can mans hard-heartednesse thrust backe thy hand for thou openest it when thou pleasest either out of pitty or justice to us and there is nothing can hide it selfe from thy heate But let my soule praise thee that it may love thee and let it confesse thine owne mercies to thee that it may praise thee No creature of thine is slacke or silent in thy praises nor the spirit of any man by the praises of his mouth converted to thee no nor yet any animall or corporeall creature by the mouthes of those that well consider of them that so our soule may towards thee rowze it selfe up from wearines leaning it selfe on those things which thou hast created and passing over to thy selfe who hast made them so wonderfully where refreshment and true fortitude is CHAP. 2. Gods presence can no man avoid seeing he is every where 1. LEt unquiet and naughty people now run and flee from thee as fast as they will yet thou seest them well enough and canst distinguish of shaddowes And behold all seemes gay to them meane while themselves be deformed And what wrong have they done thee by it or how have they disparaged thy government which from the highest heaven to this lowest earth is most just and perfect But whither are they fled when they fled from thy presence Or in what corner shalt not thou finde them out But runne away that they might not see thee who well sawest them that being thus blindfolded they might stumble upon thee because thou forsakest nothing that thou hast made that the unjust I say might stumble upon thee and be justly vexed by it withdrawing themselves from thy lenity and stumbling at thy justice fall foule upon thy severity Little know they in truth that thou art every where whom no place incompasses and that thou alone art ever neere even to those that set themselves furthest from thee 2. Let them therefore be turned backe and seeke thee because as they have forsaken thee their Creator thou hast not so given over thy Creature Let them bee converted that they may seeke thee and behold thou art there in their heart in the heart of those that confesse to thee and that cast themselves upon thee and that powre forth their teares in thy bosome after all their tedious wandrings Then shalt thou most gently wipe away their teares that they may weepe the more yea and delight in their weeping even for that thou Lord and not any man of flesh and blood but thou Lord who madest them canst refresh and comfort them But whereabouts was I when I sought after thee Thou wert directly before mee but I had gone backe from thee nor did I then finde my selfe much lesse thee CHAP. 3. Of Faustus the Manichee and of Astrologie 1. LEt mee lay open before my GOD that nine and twentieth yeere of mine Age. There came in those dayes unto Carthage a certaine Bishop of the Manichees Faustus by name a great snare of the Divell he was and many were intangled by him in that ginne of his smooth Language which though my selfe did much commend in him yet was I able to discerne betwixt it and the truth of those things which I then was earnest to learne nor had I an eye so much to the curious Dish of Oratory as what substance of Science their so famous Faustus set before me to feed upon Report had before-hand highly spoken him to me as that hee was a most knowing man in all honest points of Learning and exquisitely skilled in all the liberall Sciences 2. And for that I had sometimes read many bookes of the Philosophers and had fresh in memory much of theirs I presently fell to compare some points of theirs to those soule fables of the Manichees and those things verily which the Philosophers had taught who could onely prevaile so far as to make judgement of this lower world though the Lord of it they could by no meanes finde out seem'd farre more probable unto mee For great art thou O Lord and hast respect unto the humble but the proud thou beholdest afarre off Nor doest thou draw neere but to the contrite in heart nor art thou found by those that bee proud no not though they had the curious skill to number the Starres and the sand and to quarter out the houses of the heavenly Constellations and to find out the courses of the Planets For with their Vnderstanding and Wit which thou bestowedst on them doe they search out these things yea they have found out and foretold many a yeere before the Eclipses of the lights of the Sunne and Moone what day and what howre and how many Digits they should bee so nor hath their calculation faild them and just thus came all to passe as they foretold and they committed to writing the Rules found out by them which are read this day and out of them doe others foretell in what yeere and moneth of the yeere and what day of the moneth and what howre of the day and what part of it's light the Moone or Sunne is to be Eclipsed and so it shall come to passe as it is foreshewed 3. At these things men wonder and are astonished that know not this Art and they that doe know it triumph and are extolled and our of a wicked pride turning backe from thee failing thereby of thy light they foresee an Eclipse of the Sunne so long beforehand but perceive not their owne which they suffer in the present For they enquire not religiously enough from whence they are enabled with the wit to seeke all this withall and finding that 't is thou that made them they resigne not themselves up unto thee that thou mayst preserve what thou hast made and that they may kill in sacrifice unto thee what they have made themselves to be and slay their owne exalted imaginations like as the fowles of the ayre and their owne
was I welcomed with the rod of bodily sicknesse and I was even ready to goe to hell carrying with me all those sinnes which I had committed both against thee and my selfe yea many and grievous offences against others over and above that bond of originall sinne whereby wee all dye in Adam For thou hadst not yet forgiven mee any thing in Christ nor had he yet slaine that enmity by his Crosse which by my sins I had incurred and how indeed could he by an imaginary suffering upon it which was my beleefe of it How false therefore the death of his Flesh seemed unto mee so true was the death of my soule and how true the death of his body was so false was the life of my soule which did not beleeve the death of his body My feaâ—es now growing more violent upon me I was at the point of going and perishing for whither should I have gone had I dyed at that time but into fire and torments such as my misdeeds were worthy of in the truth of thy decree Of all this nothing knew my mother yet continued she to pray for me though in absence But thou who art present every where heardest her where she was and hadst compassion upon me whereas I was for I recovered health of body thereupon though sorely crazed as yet in my sacrilegious heart For I had not in all that danger desired thy baptisme I was better affected being but a youth when through my mothers devotion in my sicknesse I had bin very earnest to receive it as I have before recited and confessed 2. But I had from thenceforth growne worse and worse to my owne shame and now starke madde I scoffed at those prescripts of that Physike of thine by which thou wouldst not suffer me to dye two deaths at once with which wound should my mothers heart have beene goared it could never have been cured For I want words to expresse the affection shee bare towards me and with how much vehementeranguish she was now in labour of me in the spirit than she had been at her child-bearing in the flesh I cannot possible see therefore how she should have beene cured had so unchristian a death of mine once strucken through the bowels of her love And what should then have become of those passionate prayers of hers so frequently and incessantly in all places made unto thee But wouldst thou O God of mercies have despised that contrite and humbled heart of that chast and sober widdow so frequent in Almesdeeds so obsequious and serviceable to thy Saints who passed no day without her oblation at thine Altar never missing twice a day morning and evening to come to Church not to listen after idle tales and old wives chat but that shee might heare thee speaking to her in thy Sermons and thou her in her prayers 3. Couldst thou despise and reject without thy succour those teares of hers with which shee beg'd no gold or silver of thee nor any mutable or fading good but the salvation of her sonnes soule onely couldst thou doe it by whose grace she was inspired to doe thus By no meanes Lord. Yea thou wert still at hand and thou heardest her and thou didst all in the selfe-same order thou hadst predestinated it should be done in Let it never bee thought thou shouldst deceive her in those Visions and Answers shee had of thee both those which I have already remembred and those which I have not remembred all which shee laid up in her faithfull heart which in her prayers ever and anon shee would presse thee withall as with thine owne handwriting For thou because they mercy endureth for ever vouchsafest unto those whose debts thou forgivest thoroughly even to become a kinde of debter by thy promises CHAP. 10. His errours before his receiving of the Doctrine of the Gospell 1. THou recoveredst me therfore of that sicknesse and healedst the sonne of thy handmayd at that time in his body that thou mightest bestow upon him a health farre better and more certaine I consorted my selfe in Rome at that time with those deceiving and deceived Holy ones not onely with their Disciples of which mine Host was one in whose house I fell sicke and recovered but also with those whom they called The Elect. For I was hitherto of the opinion That it was not wee our selves that sinned but I know not what other nature in us and it much delighted my proud conceipt to bee set beyond the power of sinne and when I had committed any sinne not to confesse I had done any that thou mightest heale my soule when I had sinned against thee but I loved to excuse it and to accuse I know not what other corruption that I bare about me and that it was not I that did it But verily it was I my selfe altogether and mine owne impiety had made the division in me and that sinne of mine was the more incurable for that I did not judge my selfe to be a sinner and most execrable iniquity it was that I had rather have thee O GOD Almighty even thee I say to bee overcome by me to mine owne destruction than my selfe to bee overcome of thee to mine owne salvation 2. Thou hadst not yet therefore set a watch before my mouth and kept the doore of my lipps that my heart might not incline to wicked speeches to the excusing of these excuses of my sinnes with the men that worke iniquity and even therefore continued I still combined with their Elect ones But yet now as it were dispayring much to profit my selfe in that false doctrine even those opinions of theirs with which if I could chance upon no better I was resolv'd to rest contented I began now to be something more remisse and carelesse in the holding For there rose a conceipt in me That those Philosophers which they call Academikes should bee wiser than the rest even for that they hold men ought to make a doubt upon every thing and for that they determined how that no truth can bee comprehended by man for thus to me they seemed clearly to have thought as it is commonly received even by such as understand not the utmost of their meaning by it 3. And as free and open I was to disswade that Host of mine from that too much confidence which I perceived him to settle upon those fabulous opinions which the Manichees bookes are full of And yet I made more familiar use of their friendship than I did of other mens that were not of this heresie Yet did I not maintaine it with my ancient obstinacy but yet did my familiarity with that Sect of whom Rome shelters too many make me slower to seeke out any other way especially seeing I now despayred O LORD of heaven and earth Creator of all visible and invisible things to finde the truth in thy Church which they had quite put mee out of conceipt with And it then seem'd a
I him every Sunday preaching the Word of Truth rightly to the People by which that apprehension of mine was more and more confirmed in me that all those knots of crafty calumnies which those our deceivers had knit in prejudice of the Holy Bookes might well enough bee untyed 4. But so soone as I understood withall That Man created by thee after thine owne Image was not so understood by thy spirituall sonnes whom of our Catholike Mother thou hast begotten by thy Grace as if they once beleeved or imagined thee to be made up into an humane shape although I had not the least suspicion nor so much as a confused notion in what strange manner a spirituall substance should be yet blushing did I rejoyce that I had not so many yeeres barkt against the Catholike faith but against the fictions of carnall imaginations But herein had I beene rash and anpious that what I ought to have learned by enquirie I had spoken of as condemning For thou O the most high and the most neere the most secret and yet most present with us hast not such limbes of which some be bigger and some smalâ—â—â— but art wholly every where circumscribed in no certaine place nor art thou like these corporeall shapes yet hast thou made man after thine owne Image and behold from head to foot is he contained in some certaine biding CHAP. 4. Of the Letter and the Spirit 1. BEing thus ignorant therfore in what manner this Image of thine should subsist I something earnestly propounded the doubt how that was to be 〈◊〉 but did not triumphingâ—y oppose against it as if it peremptorily should according to the Letter bee beleeved The anxiety therefore of resolving what certaintie I was to hold did so much the more sharply even gnaw my very bowels by how much the more ashamed I was that having bin so long deceived by the promise of certaineties I had with a childish errour and stubbornnes prated up and downe of so many uncertainties and that as confidently as if they had beene certainties For that they were meere falshoods it cleerely appeared to me afterwards yea even already was I certaine that they were at least uncertaine and that I had all this while beleeved them for certaine when as namely out of a blinde and contentious humour I accused thy Catholike Church which though I had not yet found to 〈◊〉 trâ—â—â— yet found it not â—o teach what I heartily 〈◊〉 it for teaching In this manner was I first confounded and then converted and I much rejoyced O my God that thy onely Church the body of thine onely Sonne wherein the name of Christ had beene put upon me being yet an Infant did not relish these childish toyes nor maintained any such Tenet in her sound Doctrine as to crowd up the Creator of this All under the shape of humane members into any proportions of a place which though never so great and so large should yet be terminated and surrounded 2. And for this I rejoyced also for that the Old Scriptures of the Law the Prophets were laid before me now to be perused not with that eye to which they seemed most absurd before when as I misliked thy holy ones for thinking so so whereas indeed they thought not so and for that with joyfull heart I heard Ambrose in his Sermons to the people most diligently oftentimes recommend this Text for a Rule unto them The letter killeth but the Spirit giveth life and for that those things which taken according to the letter seemed to teach perverse doctrines he spiritually laid open unto us having taken off the veyle of the mystery teaching nothing in it that offended mee though such things he taught as I knew not as yet whether they were true or no. For I all this while kept my heart firme from assenting to any thing fearing to fall headlong but by this hanging in suspence I was the worse killed for my whole desire was to be made so well assured of those things which I saw not as I was certaine that seven and three make tenne 3. For I was not so mad yet as not to thinke that this last proposition might not by demonstration bee comprehended wherefore I desired to have other things as cleerely demonstrated as this whether namely those things should bee corporeall which were not present before my senses or spirituall whereof I knew not yet how to conceive but after a corporeall manner But by beleeving might I have beene cured that so the eye-sight of my soule being cleered might some way or other have beene directed toward thy truth which is the same eternally and in no point fayling But as it happens usually to him that having had experience of a bad Physician is fearefull afterwards to trust himselfe with a good so was it with the state of my soule which could no waies be healed but by beleeving and left it should beleeve falshoods it refused to be cured resisting in the meane time thy hands who hast prepared for us the Medicines of faith and hast applyed them to the diseases of the whole world and given unto them so great Authority CHAP. 5. Of the Authority and necessary vse of the holy Bible 1. FRom henceforth therfore I beganne first of all to esteeme better of the Catheâ—â—â— Doctrine and also to thinke that â—e did with more modesty and without any deceit command many things to be beleeved notwithstanding it were not there demonstrated 〈◊〉 what it should be or to what purpose it should serve nor yet what it should not bee than in the Manichees doctrine upon a rash promise of great knowledge expose my easinesse of beliefe first of all unto derision and suffer afterwards so many most fabulous and absurd things to be therefore imposed upon me to beleeve because they could not be demonstrated Next of all thou Lord by little and little with a gentle and most mercifull hand working and rectifying my heart even while I tooke into my consideration how innumerable things I otherwise beleeved which I had never scene nor was present at while they were in doing like as those many reports in the History of severall Nations those many relations of places and of Cities which I had never seene so many reports likewise of friends so many of Physicians so many of these and these men which unlesse wee should beleeve we should doe nothing at all in this life Last of all I considered with how unalterable an assurance I beleeved of what parents I was descended which I could not otherwise come to know had I not beleeved it upon heare-say perswadedst mee at last that not they who beleeved thy Bible which with so great authority thou hast setled almost among all Nations but those who beleeved it not were to bee blamed nor were those men to bee listned unto who would say perchance How knowest thou those Scriptures to have beene imparted unto mankinde by the spirit
CHAP. 7. He disswades Alipius from his excessive delight in the Circensian games 1. WE joyntly bemoaned our selves for this who lived like friends together but chiefly and most familiarly did I speake hereof with Alipius and Nebridius of whom Alipius was borne in the same Towne with me whose parents were of the chiefe ranke there and himselfe yonger than I he had also studied under me first when I set up Schoole in our owne Towne and at Carthage afterwards He loved me very much because I seemed of a good disposition to him and well learned and I loved him againe for his great towardlines to vertue which was eminent enough for one of no greater yeerâ—â— But that Whirlepit of th◠〈◊〉 thaginian fashions amongst whom those idler spectacles are hotly followed had already swallowed up him in immoderate delight of the Circensian sports But meane while that he was miserably-tumbled up and downe that way and I professing Rhetoricke there had set up a publike Schoole he made no use of me as his Master by reason of some unkindnesse risen betwixt his Father and me Although therefore I had found how dangerously he doted upon the Race-place and that I were grievously perplexed that hee tooke the course to undoe so good a hope as was conceived of him or rather as me thought he had already undone it yet had I no meanes either privately to advise him or by way of constraint to reclaime him by interest of a friendship or the awe of a Master For I supposed verily that he had had the same opinion of me with his Father but he was not of that minde Loying aside therefore his Fathers Quarell hee beganne to salute me comming sometimes into my Schoole heare a little and bee gone By this meanes forgate I to deale with him that he should not for a blinde and headstrong desire of such vaine pastimes undoe so good a wit 2. But thou O Lord thou who sittest at the sterne of all thou hast created hadst not forgotten him who was one day to prove a chiefe Priest of thy Sacraments And that his amendment might plainely be attributed to thy selfe thou truely broughtest it about by my meanes who yet knew nothing of it For when as one day I sate in my accustomed place with my schollers before me in came he saluted me sate him downe and applyed his minde to what I then handled I had by chance a passage then in hand which that I might the better illustrate it seemed very seasonable to me to make use of a similitude borrowed from the Circensian races both to make that which I infinuated more pleasant and more plaine and to give a biting quippe withall at those whom that madnes had enthralled God thou knowest that I little thought at that time of curing Alipius of that pessilence But hee tooke it to himselfe and conceived that I meerely intended it towards him And what another man would have made an occasion of being angry with mee that good yong man made a reason of being offended at himselfe and to love me the more fervently For thou hadst said it long agoe and put it into thy Booke Ribuke a wise man and he will love thee 3. But for my part I meant no rebuke towards him but 't is thou who makest use of all men both knowing or not knowing in that order which thy selfe knowest and that order is just Out of my heart and tongue thou wrought'st burning coales by which thou mightest set on fire that languishing disposition of his of which so good hopes had been conceived and mightst cure it Let such a one conceale thy praises who considers not of thy mercies which my very marrow confesses unto thee For he upon that speech heav'd himselfe out of that pit so deepe wherein he had wilfully beene plunged and had beene hood winkt with the wretched pastime of it and rowzed up his minde with a well-resolved moderntion whereupon all those filths of the Circensian pastimes slew off from him nor came he ever at them afterwards Vpon this prevailed he with his unwilling Father that he might be one of my Schollers Hee yeelded and condescended so that Alipius beginning to bee my Auditor againe was bemussled in the same superstitioÌ„ with me loving that ostentation of continency in the Manichees which he supposed to be true and unseined But verily no better it was than a senselesse and a seducing continency insnaring precious soules not able yet to reach to the height of vertue and easie to be beguiled with a faire outside of that which was but a wel-shadowed a feined vertue CHAP. 8. Alipius is taken with a delight of the Sword-plaies which before he hated 1. HEe not forsaking that worldly course which his parents had charm'd him to pursue went before me to Rome to study the Laws where he was carried away with an incredible greedinesse of seeing the Sword-players For being utterly against and detesting such spectacles when he was one day by chance met withall by divers of his acquaintance and fellow students comming from dinner they with a familiar kinde of violence haled him vehemently denying and resisting them along into the Amphitheater on a time when these cruell and deadly shewes were exhibited he thus protesting Though you hale my body to that place and there set me can you after that force me to give my minde and lend my eyes to these shewes I shall therefore be absent even while I am present and so shall I overcome both you and them too His Companions hearing these words lead him on never the slower desirous perchance to try whether he could be as good as his word or no. When they were come thither and had taken their places as they could all that Round grew hot with mercilesse Pastimes 2. But Alipius closing up the doores of his eyes forbade his minde to range abroad after such mischiefes and I would he had stopped his eares also For upon the fall of one in the sight a mighty cry of the people beating strongly upon him hee being overcome by curiosity and as it were prepared whatsoever it were to contemne it with his sight and to overcome it opened his eyes and was strucken with a deeper wound in his soule than the other was in his body whom hee desired to behold and he presently fell more miserably than the Sword-player did upoÌ„ whose fal that mighty noise was raised Which noise entred through his eares and unlockt his eyes to make way for the striking beating downe of his soule which was bold rather than valiant hitherto and so much the weaker for that it presumed now on it selfe which ought onely to have trusted upon thee For so soone as hee saw another mans blood hee at the very instant drunke downe a kinde of savagenesse nor did he turne away his head but fixed his eye upon it drinking up unawares the very Furies themselves being much taken with the barbarousnesse of
did I yet observe that very Intention of mine by which I formed those Images was not any such corporeall substance which yet could not have formed them had not it selfe beene some great thing In like manner did I conceive thee O thou Life of my life to be some hugie corporeall substance on every side piercing thorow the whole Globe of this world yea and diffused every way without it and that by infinite spaces though unbounded So that the Earth should have thee the Heaven should have thee all things should have thee and that they should be bounded in thee but thou no where 4. For as the body of this Ayre which is about the Earth hindred not the light of the Sun from passing thorow it which pierceth it not by bursting or by cutting but by filling of it so thought I that not the body of the Heaven the Ayre Sea onely but of the Earth too to be at pleasure passable unto thee yea easie to be pierced by thee in all its greatest and smallest parts that all might receive thy presence which by a secret inspiration both inwardly and outwardly governeth all things which thou hast created Thus I suspected because any other thing I could not thinke of and yet was this false too For by this meanes should a greater part of the Earth have contained a larger portion of thee and the lesse a lesser and then should all things in such sort have been full of thee as that the body of an Elephant should containe so much more of thee than the body of a Sparrow by how much that should be bigger than this and take up more roome by it by which conceipt shouldest thou make thy parts present unto the severall parts of the World by bits as it were great gobbets to great parts little bits to little parts of the world But thus thou art not present But thou hadst not as yet enlightned my darknesse CHAP. 2. Nebridius confutes the Manichees 1. IT might have bin enough for me Lord to have opposed against those deceived and deceivers those dumbe praters therefore dumbe because they founded not forth thy Word That question might have serv'd the turne which long agoe whiles wee were at Carthage Nebridius used to propound at which all we that heard it were much staggered namely What that I know not which nation of darknesse which the Manichees were wont to set in opposition against thee would have done unto thee hadst thou beene minded to fight with it For had they answered It would have done thee some hurt thē shouldst thou have bin subject to violence and corruption but if they answered It could do thee no hurt then would there have beene no reason brought for thy fighting with it especially for such a fighting in which some certaine portion or member of thine or some off-spring of thy substance should have been mingled with those contrary powers those natures not created by thee by whom it should so farre have beene corrupted and changed to the worse that it should have beene turned from happinesse into misery and should have stood in neede of some assistance by which it must both be delivered and purged and that this Off-spring of thy substance was our soule which being inthralled thy Word that was free and being defiled thy Word that was pure and being may med thy Word that was entire might every way releeve and yet that Word it selfe also bee corruptible because it was the off-spring of one and the same substance 2. Againe should they affirme thee whatsoever thou art that is thy substance to be incorruptible then were all these fancies of theirs most false and execrable But if they should affirme thee to bee corruptible even that were most false and to be abhorred at the first hearing This Argument therefore of Nebridius verily had beene enough against those who deserved wholly to bee spised out of my over-charged stomake for that they had no evasion to betake themselves unto without most horrible blasphemy both of heart and tongue thinking and speaking of thee in this fashion CHAP. 3. Free will is the cause of Sinne. 1. BVt I as yet although I both said and thought most confidently that thou our Lord God who madest not only our soules but our bodies and not onely both soules and bodies but Vs all and all things else beside wert neither to bee corrupted or altered one way or other yet understood I not hitherto What should be the cause of evill And yet what-ever it were I perceived I ought in that sense to inquire after it that I might not be constrained to beleeve that the incommutable GOD could be altered by it left my selfe should bee made the thing that I desired to seeke After this therefore I inquired with more security being very certaine that the Manichees Tenet whom I dissented from with my whole heart was no way true for that I discovered them whilest they enquired after evill to be most full of maliciousnesse they thinking that thy substance did rather suffer ill than their owne commit evill Whereupon I applyed my industrie to understand the truth of what I had heard how that Free-will should be the cause of our ill-doing And thy just Iudgement that we suffered ill But I was not able cleerely to discerne it 2. Endevouring therefore to draw the eye of my soule out of that pit I was againe plunged into it and endevouring often I was plunged as often But this raised me a little up towards thy light that I now knew as well that I had a Will as that I had a life and when therefore I did either will or nill any thing I was most sure of it that I did no other thing but will and nill and there was the Cause of my sinne as I perceived presently But what I did against my will that seemed I to suffer rather than to doe That judged I not to be my fault but my punishment whereby I holding thee most just quickly confessed my selfe not to bee unjustly punished 3. But I objected to my selfe againe Who made me Did not my GOD who is not onely good but Goodnesse it selfe Whence then came it that I can both will and nill evill things that there might be cause found why I should be justly punisht for it Who was it that set this freedome in me that ingrafted into my stemme this Cyon of bitternesse seeing I was wholly made up by my most sweet God If the Divell were the Author whence is that same Divell And if he himselfe by his own perverse will of a good Angell became a Divell whence then proceeded that perverse will in him whereby he was made a Divell seeing that the whole nature of Angels was made good by that most good Creator And by such thoughts as these was I againe cast down and overwhelmed yet not so farre brought downe was I as the Hell of that Errour where no man shall confesse
in respect of the hidden deservings of the soules thou thinkest fit for him to heare To whom let not man say What is this or Why is that Let him not say so never let him ask such a questioÌ„ seeing he is but a man CHAP. 7. He is miserably tortured in his enquirie after the Root of Evill 1. ANd now O my helper hadst thou discharged me from those fetters and presently enquired I whence Evill should be but found no way out of my question But thou sufferedst me not to be carried away from the Faith by any waves of those thoughts by which Faith I beleeved both that thou wert and that thy substance was unchangeable and that thou hadst a care of and passedst thy judgement upon men and that in Christ thy Sonne our Lord and thy holy Scriptures which the Authority of thy Church should acknowledge thou hast laid out the way of mans salvation to passe to that life which is to come after death These grounds remaining safe and irremoveably settled in my minde I with much anxiety sought from what root the nature of Evill should proceed What torments did my teeming heart then endure and what throwes O my God! yet even to them were thine eares open and I knew it not and when in silence I so vehemently enquired after it those silent conditions of my soule were strong cryes unto thy mercy 2. Thou and not man knewest how much I suffered For how great was that which my tongue sent forth into the eares of my most familiar friends And yet did I disclose the whole tumule of my soule for which neither my time nor tongue had beene sufficient Yet did all of it ascend into thy hearing which I roared out from the grones of my heart yea my whole desires were said up before thee nor was I master of so much as of the light of mine owne eyes for that was all turn'd inward but I outward nor was that confined to any place but I bent my selfe to those things that are contained in places but there found I no place to rest in nor did those places so entertain mee that I could say It is enough and 't is well nor did they yet suffer me to turne back where I might finde well-being enough For to these things was I superiour but inferiour to thee and thou art that true joy of me thy Subject and thou hast subjected under mee those things which thou createdst below me 3. And this was the true temper and the middle Region of my safety where I might remaine conformable to thine Image and by serving thee get the dominion over mine owne body But when as I rose up proudly against thee and when I ran upon my Lord with my necke with the thick bosses of my buckler then were these inferiour things made my over-matches and kept me under nor could I get either releasement or space of breathing They ran on all sides by heapes and troopes upon mee broad-looking on them but having in my thoghts these corporeall Images they way-laid me as I turn'd backe 〈◊〉 they should say unto mee Whither goest thou O thou unworthy and base creature And these grew more in number even out of my wound for thou hast humbled the proud like as him that is wounded through my owne swelling was I set further off from thee yea my cheekes too big swolne even blinded up mine eyes CHAP. 8. How the mercy of God at length relieved him 1. THou Lord art the same for ever nor art thou angry with us for ever because thou hast pitie upon dust and ashes and it was pleasing in thy sight to reforme my deformities and by inward gallingsdidst thou startle me that I shouldst become unquiet till such time as it might bee assured unto my inward sight that it was thou thy selfe Thus by the secret hand of thy medicining was my swelling abated and that troubled and bedimmed eyesight of my soule by the smart eye-salve of mine owne wholsome dolours daily began more and more to be cleered CHAP. 9. What he found in some Bookes of the Platonists agreeable to the Christian Doctrine 1. AND thou being desirous first of all to shew unto me how thou resistest the proud but givest grace unto the humble and with what great mercy of thine the way of humility is traced out unto men in that thy WORD was made flesh and dwelt among men thou procuredst for mee by meanes of a certaine man puft up with a most unreasonable pride to see certaine Bookes of the Platonists translated out of Greeke into Latine And therein I read not indeed in the selfe same words but to the very same purpose perswaded by many reasons and of severall kinds That In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and that Word was God The same was in the beginning with God All things were made by him and without him was nothing made that was made In him was life and the life was the light of men And the light shined in the darknesse and the darknesse comprehended it not And for that the soule of man though it gives testimony of the light yet it selfe is not that light but the Word of God is for God is that true light that lighteth every man that commeth into the world And because he was in the world and the world was made by him the world knew him not and because hee came unto his owne and his owne received him not But as many as received him to them gave hee power to become the sons of God as many as beleeved in his name All this did I not read there 2. There again did I read that God the Word was not borne of flesh nor of blood nor of the will of man nor of the will of the flesh but of God But that the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us did I not there reade I found out in those Bookes that it was many and divers waies said that the Sonne being in the forme of the Father thought it no robbery to be equal with God for that naturally he was the same with him But that 〈◊〉 himselfe of no reputaâ—â—â— taking upon him the forme â—â— a servant and was made in 〈◊〉 likenesse of men and was sound in fashion as a man and humbled himselfe and became obedient unto death even the death of the Crosse Wherefore God hath highty exalted him from the dead and given him a name over every name that at the name of Iesus every knee should bow of things in heaven and things in earth and things under the earth And that every tongue should confesse that Iesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father those Bookes have not 3. But that thy onely begotten Sonne coeternall with thee war before all times and beyond all times remains unchangeable and that of his fulnesse all soules receive what makes theÌ„ blessed and that by participation
changeable mind of mine And thus by degrees passing from bodies to the soule which makes use of the senses of the body to perceive by and from thence to its inner faculties unto which the senses of the body are to represent their outward objects and so forward as farre as the irrationall creatures are able to goe Thence againe passed I on to the Reasoning facultie unto which whatever is received from the senses of the body is referred to bee judged 2. This also finding it selfe to be variable in me betooke it selfe towards its owne understanding drawing away my thoughts from my old fleshly custome and withdrawing it selfe from those confused multitudes of phantasies which contradict one another that so it might find out that light which it now had a glimpse of presently upon the finding whereof without all further doubting it cryed out that what was unchangeable was to be preferred before what was changeable by which it had come to know that unchangeable Which unlesse by some meanes or other it had knowne it could never have had sure ground for the preferring of it before the Changeable nor have come so high as that which is set within hence of the twinckling eye-sight And now came I to have a sight of those invisible things of thee which are understood by those things which are made But I was not able to fixe mine eye long upon them but my infirmity being beaten backe againe I was turned to my wonted fancies carrying along with me no more but a liking of those new thoughts in my memory and an appetite as it were to the meat I had smelt which as yet I was not able to eate of CHAP. 18. Onely Christ is the way to Salvation 1. THen set I my selfe to seeke a meanes of recovering so much strength as should bee sufficient to enjoy thee but I could not finde it untill I embraced that Mediator betwixt God and man the Man Iesus Christ who is over all God blessed for evermore then calling unto me and saying I am the way the truth and the life who mingled that food which I was unable to take his owne flesh unto ouâ— flesh For the Word was made flesh that by thy wisedome by which thou createdst â— things hee might sackle oâ—â— infancy For I not yet humbled enough did not appreheâ— my Lord Iesus Christ who haâ— made himselfe humble nor did I yet know what lesson that infirmity of his would teach us For thy Word the eternall truth being so highly exalted above the highest of thy Creatures reaches up those that were cast downe unto it selfe having here below built for it selfe a lowly Cottage of our clay by which hee intended to abase from the height of their owne imaginations those that were to be cast downe that so hee might bring them about unto himselfe allaying the swelling of their pride and cherishing of their love To the end they might goe on no further in the confidence of themselves but might finde their owne weaknesse rather seeing the Divinity it selfe enfeebled at our feete by taking our fleshly garment upon him that so being weary at length they might cast downe their selves selves upon it and that rising might raise up them together with it CHAP. 19. What he thought of Christs incarnation 1. BVt I had before farre other thoughts conceiving onely of my Lord Christ as of a man of excellent wisedome whom no man could bee equalled unto and in this regard especially for that being so wonderfully borne of a Virgine giving us an example how to contemne worldly things for the obtaining of immortality that divine care of his seemed to have deserved so much authority as to be the Master over us But what Mystery this might carry with it The Word was made flesh I could not so much as imagine Thus much I collected out of what is come to us being written of him how that he did eate and drinke and sleepe and walkt and rejoyced in spirit and was heavy and preached that flesh alone did not cleave unto thy Word but our humane soule and minde also with it Every body knowes thus much that knoweth the unchangeablenesse of thy Word which I my selfe now knew as well as I could nor did I at all make any doubt of it For for him to move the limbes of his body by his will and other-whiles not to move them now to be stirred by some affection and at another time not to bee affected now to deliver wise sentences and another while to keepe silence all these be properties of a soule and mind that are mutable And should these things be falsely written of him all the rest verily would be in suspicion of being a lye nor should there be left at all in those Bookes any safenesse of Faith for mankinde 2. Because therefore none but Truths are there written I even then acknowledged a perfect man to bee in Christ Not the body of a man onely a sensitive soule without a rationall but a very man whom not onely for his being a person of Truth but for a certaine extraordinary excellency of humane nature that was in him I judged worthy to be preferred before all other men As for Alipius hee imagined the Catholikes to have beleeved God to be so cloathed with flesh that besides God and flesh there was no soule at all in Christ and that they had preached there was no soule of man in him And because hee was verily perswaded that those Actions which were recorded of him could not bee performed but by a vitall and a rationall Creature he was the slower therefore in moving towards the Christian Faith But understanding afterwards that this was the errour of the Apollinarian Heretikes hee was better pleased with the Catholike faith and better complyed with it But something later it was I confesse ere I learned how in this sentence The Word was made flesh the Catholike Truth could be cleered of the heresie of Photinus For the confuting of the Heretikes makes the opinion of thy Church more eminent and the Tenet which the sound doctrine maintaineth For there must be also Heresies that they which are approved may bee made manifest among the weake CHAP. 20. Of divers Bookes of the Platonists 1. BVt having read as then these Bookes of the Platonists having once gotten the hint from them and falling upon the search of incorporeall truth I came to get a sight of these invisible things of thine which are understood by those things which are made and being put backe againe I perceived how that the darknesse of mine own mind was it which so hindred my contemplation as that I was not suffered to bee certaine That thou were both infinite and yet not diffused over finite and infinite places and that thou art truely the same that thou art ever nor in any part nor by any motion otherwise at one time than at another and that all other things
even now have I broke loose from those ambitious hopes of ours and am fully resolved to serve God onely and this from this houre forward in this very place will I enter upon as for thee if it irkes thee to imitate me yet doe not offer to disswade me Whereunto the other answered that hee also would closely sticke unto him as his partner in so ample a reward and his fellow in so honourable a service Thus both of them now become thine rear'd up a spirituall Tower with that treasure as is onely able to doe it Of forsaking all and following thee Potitianus then and the other that was with him that had walkt over other parts of the Garden in search of them came in the very nick into the same place where they were and having there found them put them in minde of going homewards for that it beganne to grow something late But they discovering their resolution and purpose unto them and by what meanes that will beganne and came to be setled in them humbly desired they would not be troublesome to them if so be they refused to joyne themselves unto them But Potitianus and his friend no whit altered from their old wont did yet bewaile themselves with teares as he affirmed piously congratulating with them recommended themselves to their prayers and turning their hearts towards earthly things returnd into the Court But the other two setting their affections upon heavenly remain'd in that Cottage And both of them were contracted to Sweet-hearts Who having once heard of this busines dedicated also their owne Virginity unto God This was Potitianus his story CHAP. 7. He was out of love with himselfe upon this story 1. BVt thou O Lord all the while that hee was speaking didst turne mee backe to reflect upon my selfe taking my intentions from behinde my back where I had heretofore onely placed them when as I had no list to observe mine owne selfe and thou now setst mee before mine owne face that I might discerne how filthy and how crooked and sordide and bespotted and ulcerous I was And I beheld and abhorred my selfe nor could I finde any place whither to flee from my selfe And if I went about to turne mine eye from off my selfe yet did that tell mee as much as Potitianus erst had done and thou thereupon opposedst my selfe unto my selfe and thrustedst mee ever and anon into mine owne eyes to make mee finde at last mine owne iniquity and to loath it I had heretofore taken notice of it but I had againe dissembled it winckt at it and forgotten it But at this time how much the more ardently I loved those two whose wholsome purposes I heard tell of even for that they had resigned up themselves unto thee to be cured so much the more detestably did I hate my selfe in comparison of them Because I had already lost so many yeares twelve or thereabouts since that nineteenth of mine age when upon the reading of Cicero's Hortensius I was first stirred up to the study of Wisdome since when having first despised all earthly felicity I too long delaied to search out that whose not finding alone but the bare seeking ought to have been preferred before all the treasures and Kingdomes of this world already found and before all the pleasures of the body though in all abundance to be commanded 2. But I most wretched yong fellow that I was unhappy even in the very entrance into my youth had even then begged chastity at thy hands and said Give me chastity and Continency but doe not give it yet for I was afraid that thou wouldst heare me too soone and too soone deliver mee from my disease of Incontinencie which my desire was rather to have satisfied than extinguished Yea I had wandered with a sacrilegious superstition through most wicked wayes of Manichisme not yet sure that I was right but preferring that as it were before those others which I did not so much seeke after religiously as oppose malitiously And this was the reason as I thinke why I deferred from day to day to contemne all hopes in this world and to follow thee onely for that there did not appeare any certaine end which I was to direct my course unto But now was the day come wherein I was to bee set naked before my selfe and when mine owne conscience was to convince me 3. Where art thou my tongue that tongue which saidest how that for an uncertainty thou wouldst not yet cast off the baggage of vanity See certainty hath appeared now and yet does that burthen still overload thee whereas behold others have gotten wings to free their shoulders by flying from under it others I say who neither have so much worne out themselves with seeking after that certainty nor yet spent tenne whole yeeres and more in thinking how to doe it Thus felt I a corrosive within yea most vehemently confounded I was with a horrible shame when as Pontitianus was a telling that story And he having done both his tale and the businesse hee came for went his way and I said unto my selfe nay what said I not within my selfe with what scourges of condemning sentences lasht I not mine owne soule to make it follow me endevouring now to go after thee which yet drew backe It refused but gave no reason to excuse its refusall by All its arguments were already spent and confuted there remained a silent trembling and it feared like the death to bee restrained of the swinge of custome which made it pine away even to the very death CHAP. 8. What he did in the Garden 1. IN the middest then of all this vast tempest of my inner house which I had so stouâ—ly rais'd up against mine owne soule in our Chamber my heart all over troubled both in minde and countenance upon Alipius I set with open mouth crying out What tarry we any longer what is this what heardest thou even now The unlearned of the world start up and take the Kingdome by violence and wee with all our learning wanting heart see how wee wallow us in flesh and blood Because others are gone before is it a shame for us to come after or is it not rather a great shame not at all to goe after them Some such words as these I then uttered but what I know not and in that heate away I flung from him while with silence and astonishment hee wisely lookt upon mee For my speeches sounded not now in the kay they were wont to doe yea my forehead my cheekes my eies my colour and the accent of my voyce spake out my mind more emphatically than the words did which I uttered 2. A Garden there was belonging to our lodging which we had the liberty of as well as of any other part of the house for the master of the house our hoast lived not there Thither had the tempest within my brest now hurried me where no man might come to non-suit that firy action which
forgiue her trespasses what-euer shee hath drawne vpon her selfe in so many yeeres since her cleansing by the water of baptisme forgiue her Lord forgiue her I beseech thee enter not into iudgement with her but let thy mercy bee exalted aboue thy iustice and that because thy words are true and thou hast promised mercy vnto the mercifull which that people might bee is thy gift to them who wilt haue mercy on whome thou wilt haue mercy and wilt shew deeds of mercy vnto whom thou hast been mercifully inclined And I now beleeue that thou hast already done what I request of thee but take in good part O Lord these voluntary petitions of my mouth 3. For shee the day of her dissolution being at hand tooke no thought to haue her body sumptuously wound vp or imbalmed with spices nor was she ambitious of any choyce monument or cared to bee buried in her owne Country These things shee gaue vs no command for but desired only to haue her name commemorated at thy Altar which shee had serued without intermission of one day from whence she knew that holy Sacrifice to bee dispensed by which that Hand-writing that was against vs is blotted out through which Sacrifice the Enemy was triumphed ouer he who summing vp our offences and seeking for something to lay to our charge sound nothing in Him in whom wee are conquerours Who shall restore vnto him his innocent blood who shall repay him the price with which hee bought vs and so bee able to take vs out of his hands vnto the Sacrament of which price of our redemption this handmaid of thine had bound her owne soule by the bond of fayth 4. Let none plucke her away from thy protection let neyther the Lyon nor the Dragon interpose himselfe by force or fraud For shee will not answere that shee owes nothing lest she bee disprooued and gotten the better of by her crafty accuser but she will answer how that her sins are forgiuen her by him vnto whome none is able to repay that price which hee layd downe for vs who owed nothing Let her rest therefore in peace together with her husband before or after whom shee had neuer any whom shee obeyed through patience bringing forth fruit vnto thee that shee might winne him vnto thee And inspire O Lord my God inspire thy seruants my brethren thy sonnes my masters whom with voyce and heart and pen I serue that so many of them as shall reade these Confessions may at thy Altar remember Monica thy handmayd together with Patricius her sometimes husband by whose bodies thou broughtest mee into this life though how I know not May they with deuout affection be mindefull of these parents of mine in this transitory light and of my brethren that are vnder thee our Father in our Catholicke Mother and of those who are to be my fellow Citizens in that eternall Ierusalem which thy people here in their pilgrimage so sigh after euen from their birth vnto their returne thither That so what my mother in her last words desired of me may the more plentifully bee performed for her in the prayers of many as well by meanes of my Confessions as of my prayers The end of the Ninth Booke Saint Agustines Confessions The tenth Booke CHAP. 1. The Confessions of the heart 1 LEt mee know Thee O Lord who knowest mee let me know thee as I am knowne of thee O thou the vertue of my soule make thy entrance into it and so fit it for thy selfe that thou mayst haue and hold it without spotte or wrinkle This is my hope and therefore doe I now speake and in this hope doe I reioyce when at all I reioyce As for other things of this life they deserue so much the lesse to bee lamented by how much the more wee doe lament them and againe so much the more to bee lamented by how much the lesse we doe lament them For behold thou hast loued truth and hee that does so commeth to the light This will I publish before thee in the confession of my heart and in my writing before many witnesses CHAP. 2. Secret things are knowne to God 1. ANd from thee O Lord vnto whose eyes the bottome of mans Conscience is layd bare what can bee hidden in mee though I would not confesse it For so should I hide thee from mee not my selfe from thee But now for that my groaning is witnesse for mee that I am displeased with my selfe thou shinest out vnto mee and art pleasing to me yea desired and beloued of mee and I will bee ashamed of my selfe yea I will renounce mine owne selfe and make choyce of thee and neuer may I please thee nor my selfe but in thee 2. Vnto thee therefore O Lord am I layd open what euer I am and with what fruit I may Confesse vnto thee I haue before spoken Nor doe I it with words and speeches of the body but with the expressions of my very soule and the crye of my thoughts which thy care onely vnderstandeth For when I am wicked then to confesse vnto thee is no other thing but to displease my selfe but when I am well giuen to confesse vnto thee is then no other thing but not to attribute this goodnesse vnto my selfe because it is thou O Lord that blessest the Iust but first thou iustifiest him being wicked My Confession therefore O my God in thy sight is made vnto thee priuately and yet not priuately for in respect of noyse it is silent but yet it cryes alowd in respect of my affection For neither doe I vtter any thing that is right vnto men which thy selfe hath not before heard from mee nor caust thou heare any such thing from me which thy selfe hath not first sayd vnto me CHAP. 3. The Confession of our ill deeds what it helpes vs. 1. VVHat therefore haue I to doe with men that they should heare my Confessions as if they could cure all my infirmities A curious people to pry into another mans life but slothfull enough to amend their owne Why doe they desire to heare from me what I am who will not heare from thee what themselues are And how know they whenas they heare my selfe confessing of myselfe whether I say true or no seeing none knowes what is in man but the spirit of man which is in him But if they heare from thee any thing concerning themselues they cannot say The Lord lyeth For what els is it from thee to heare of themselues but to know themselues and who is hee that knowing himselfe can say It is false vnlesse himselfe lyes But because Charity beleeueth all things that is to say amongst those whom by knitting vnto it selfe it maketh one I therefore O Lord doe so also confesse vnto thee as that men may heare to whom though I be not able to demonstrate whether I confesse truely yet giue they credit vnto mee whose eares charitie hath set
because the memory now feeling that it did not beare about so much of it together as it had wont to doe and halting as it were vpon the may me receiued in the losse of what it had beene vsed vnto it eagerly layes about to haue that made vp againe which was wanting Like as some knowne man eyther seene or thought on if hauing forgotten his name we study to recouer it what euer name but his comes into our memory it will not peize in with it and all because that name was neuer vsed to bee thought vpon together with that man which name therfore is so long reiected vntil that at length presents it selfe vnto the memory with which as hauing beene acquainted with the knowledge of it may euenly iump in withall And from whence does that name present it selfe but out of the memory for when being put in minde by some other man wee know it to bee the same 't is by vertue of the memory Nor doe wee now beleeue it as any new name but vpon the assurance of our Remembrance doe wee allow it to be the same that was named to vs. But were the name vtterly blotted out of the minde we should not then remember it when we were againe put in minde of it For wee haue not vtterly as yet forgotten that which wee remember our selues to haue forgotten That lost notion therefore which wee haue vtterly forgotten shall we neuer be able so much as to seeke after CHAP. 20. All men desire blessednesse 1. HOw then doe I seeke after thee O Lord For when I seeke thee my God I seeke an happy life I will seeke thee that my soule may liue For my body that liueth by my soule and my soule by thee Which way then doe I seeke for an happy life seeing it is not to bee found vntill I can say It is enough in that place where I am to say it How seeke I it Whether by way of Remembrance as one that had forgotten it and yet remember my selfe to haue forgotten it Or by way of appetite to learne it as a thing vnknown which eyther I neuer knew or at least to haue so farre forgotten it as that I doe not so much as remember that I haue forgotten it Is nor an happy life the thing which all desire and is there any man that some way or other desires it not But where gate they the knowledge of it that they are so desirous of it where did they euer see it that they are now so enamored of it Truely we haue it but which way I know not yea there is a certaine other way which when any hath hee is euen then blessed And some there bee that bee blessed in hope These haue it in a meaner kind then those who are in possession who yet are much better then such as are neyther blessed in deede nor in hope which very same men for all this had they it not in some sort or other would not so much as desire to bee happy which that they doe desire is most certaine 2. How they come to know it I cannot tell and therefore haue they it by I know not what secret notice concerning which in much doubt I am whether it bee in the memory or no which if it bee then should wee sometimes haue beene blessed heretofore But whether euery man should haue beene so happy as seuerally considered in himselfe or as in the loynes of that man who first sinned and in whom wee are all dead and from whom being descended wee are all borne with misery I now inquire not but this I demaund whether this blessed life bee in the memory or no For neuer should wee loue it did wee not know it Wee heare the name and we all confesse our desire vnto the thing for wee are not delighted with the sound onely For when a Grecian heares the name sounded in Latine he is no wayes delighted for that hee knowes not what is spoken but wee Latines are delighted with it euen as he is if hee heares it pronounced in Greeke because the thing it selfe is neyther Greeke nor Latine the attayning whereof both Greekes and Latines doe so earnestly looke after like as the men of other Languages doe Knowne therfore vnto all it is and could they with one voyce bee demanded Whether they would be happy or no without doubt they would all answer That they would And this could not bee vnlesse the thing it selfe expressed by this name were still reserued in their memory CHAP. 21. We also remember what we neuer had 1. BVt is it so in memory as Carthage is to a man that hath seeue it No. For a blessed life is not to bee seene with the eye because it is not a body Doe wee then so remember it as wee doe numbers Neyther For these hee that already hath in his knowledge seekes not further to attayne vnto As for blessed lofe wee haue that already in our knowledge therefore doe we loue it and yet desire to attaine that wee may bee blessed Doe wee remember it then as we doe eloquence Nor so For although some vpon hearing of the name doe thereupon call to minde the thing who yet were neuer eloquent and many doe it that desire to bee so whereupon it appeares to bee already in their knowledge yet hauing by their outward Sences obserued others to bee more eloquent they are both delighted at it and desire to be so themselues notwithstanding if by their outward notice they had not obserued it they could not haue beene delighted with it nor to be eloquent but that they were delighted with such as were eloquent But what this blessed life should be wee can by no sence of our body get the experience of 2. Or is it so in memory as the ioy is that wee remember perchance so indeede for my ioy I remember euen whilest I am sadde like as I doe a happy life euen whilest I am vnhappy nor did I euer with any bodily sence eyther see or heare or smell or taste or touch that ioy of mine but I found it in my minde wheneuer I reioyced and the knowledge of it stucke so fast in my memory that I was well able to call it to remembrance with contempt sometimes and with fresh desire other whiles euen according to the diuersity of those things for which I remembred my selfe to haue reioyced For euen at vncleane thoughts was I sometimes ouerioyed which calling to minde againe I now both detest and curse And other whiles doe I ioy at good and honest thoughts which I call to minde with some desire although they perchance present not themselues and therefore againe sad at it doe I call to mind my former reioycing Where therfore and when had I any feeling of a blessed life that I should remember and loue and desire it Nor is it my desire alone or of some few besides but euery man verily would be happy which vnlesse by some certaine knowledge
in my flesh as that these false visions perswade me vnto that when I am asleepe which true visions cannot doe when I am awake Am I not my selfe at that time O Lord my God And is there yet so much difference betwixt my selfe and my selfe in that moment wherein I passe from waking to sleeping or returne from sleeping vnto waking 2. Where is my reason at that time by which my mind when it is a wake resisteth such suggestions as these at which time should the things themselues presse in vpon mee yet would my resolution re maine vnshaken Is my reason clozed vp together with mine eyes or is it lull'd asleepe with the sences of my body But whence then comes it to posse that wee so often euen in our sleepe make such resistance and being mindefull of our purpose and remaine most chastly in it wee yeeld no assent vnto such enticements And yet so much difference there is as that when any thing hath otherwise hapned in our sleepe wee vpon our waking returne to peace of conscience by the distance of time discouering that it was not wee that did it notwithstanding wee bee sorry that there is something someway or other done in vs. Is not thy hand able O God almighty to cure all the discases of my soule and with a more abundant measure of thy grace also to quench the lasciuious motions of my sleepe 3. Thou shalt increase O Lord thy graces more and more vpon mee that my soule may follow my selfe home to thee wholy freed of that birdâ—ly me of concupiscence that it may no longer rebell against it selfe nor may in dreames not onely not commit these adult erous vncleannesses by meanes of these sensuall Images procuring pollution of the flesh but that it may not so much as once consent vnto them For to hinder that no such fancy no not so much as should neede any checke to restraine it doe its pleasure in the chast affection of those that sleepe not in this life onely but euen in this age of youth is not hard for the Almighty to doe who is able to doe aboue all that wee aske or thinke And for this time in what case I yet am in this kind of naughtinesse haue I confessed vnto my good Lord reioycing with trembling in that grace which thou hast already giuen me and bemoaning my selfe for that wherein I am still vnperfect well hoping that thou wilt one day perfect thy mercies in mee euen vnto a fulnesse of peace which both my outward and inward man shall at that time enioy with thee whenas death shall be swallowed vp in victory CHAP. 31. The temptation of eating and drinking 1. THere is another euill of the day which I wish were sufficient vnto it that we are fayne by eating and drinking to repaire the daily decayes of our body vntill such time as thou destroyest both belly and meat whenas thou shalt kill this emptinesse of mine with a wonderfull fulnesse and shalt cloath this incorruptible with an eternall incorruption Butin this life euen necessity is sweete vnto me against which swetnes do I fight lest I should bee beguiled by it yea a daily warre doe I make bringing my body into subiection by my fastings the pinchings whereof are by the pleasure I take in it expelled Hunger Thirst verily are painefull they burne vp and kill like a feaver vnlesse the physicke of nourishments relieue vs. Which for that it is readily to bee had out of the comfort wee receiue by thy gifts with which both land and water and ayre serue our necessities are our calamities termed our delicacies Thus much hast thou taught mee that I am to take my meat as sparingly as I would doe my Physicke 2. But in the while I am passing from the pinching of emptynesse vnto the content of a competent replenishing does that snare of lickorishnesse euen in the very passage lie in ambush for mee For that passage betweene is a kinde of pleasure nor is there any other way to passe by but that which necessity constraines vs to goe by And whereas health is the cause of our eating and drinking there will a dangerous lickorishnesse goes a-long with health like a handmayd yea endeauours oftentimes so to goe before it as that I eate that for my tooths sake which I eyther say I doe or desire to doe for my healths sake Nor is there the same moderation in both for that which is enough in respect of health is nothing neere enough in respect of lickorishnesse yea very vncertaine it is oftentimes whether the necessary care of my body still requires sustenance or whether a voluptuous deceiueablenesse of Epicurisme supplies lust with maintenance And for that this case is vncertaine does my vnhappy soule reioyce prouides it thereby of a protection of excuse reioycing for that it cannot now appeare what may bee sufficient for health that so vnder the cloake of health it may disguise the matter of Epicurisme 3. These enticements doe I endeauour to resist dayly yea I call thy right hand to help me and to thee doe I referre my perplexities for that I am resolued of no counsell as yet whereby to effect it I heare the voyce of my God commanding Let not your hearts bee ouercharged with surfeting and drunkennesse As for drunkennesse I am farre enough from it and thou wilt haue mercy vpon mee that it may neuer come neere mee But full-feeding hath many a time stolne vpon thy seruant but thou wilt haue mercy vpon mee that it may hereafter bee put farre from mee for no man can bee temperate vnlesse thou giue it Many things thou vouchsafest vnto vs which wee pray for and what good thing soeuer wee haue receiued before wee pray from thee haue we receiued it yea to this end haue wee already receiued it that wee might acknowledge so much afterwards Drunkard was I neuer but I haue knowne many a drunkard made a sober man by thee Thy doing therefore it is that such should bee kept from being drunkards hereafter who haue not beene that way faulty heeretofore as from thee it also comes that those should not continue faulty for euer who haue beene giuen to that vice heretofore yea from thee it likewise proceedes that both these parties should take notice from whom all this proceeded 4. I heard also another voyce of thine Goe not after thine owne lusts and from thine owne pleasures turne away thy face Yea by thy fauour haue I heard this saying likewise which I haue much delighted in Neyther if wee eate are wee the better neyther if wee eate not are we the worse which is to say that neythes shall this thing makes me rich nor that miserable Also another voyce of thine haue I heard For I haue learned in whatsoeuer state I am therewith to be content and I know how to abound and how to suffer neede I can doe all things through Christ that
thee for it yet is our knowledge in comparison of thine but meere ignorance CHAP. 5. How the world was made of nothing 1. IN the beginning God made Heauen and Earth But how didst thou make them and what Engine hadst thou to worke all this vast fabrick of thine For thou wentest not about it like a fleshly artificer who shaping one body by another purposes according to the discretion of his minde to cast it into such a figure as in his fancy hee seeth fittest by his inward eye But whence should hee bee able to doe all this vnlesse thou hadst made him that fancy and he puts a figure vpon some Materiall that had existence before suppose clay or stone or wood or gold or other thing but whence should these materials haue their being hadst not thou appoynted it them T is thou that madest the Artificer his body thou that gauest a soule to direct his limbs thou madest the stuffe of which he makes any thing thou madest the apprehension whereby he takes his art by which he sees in himselfe what he hath to doe Thou gauest him the Sences of his body which being his Interpreters hee may from his mind vnto his stuffe conueigh that figure which hee is now a working which is to signifie vnto his minde againe what is done already that the minde vpon it may aske aduice of its President truth whether it bee well done or no. Let all these things prayse thee the Creator of these all 2. But yet which way doest thou make them how O God didst thou make heauen and earth Verily neyther in the heauen nor on the earth stoodest thou when thou madest heauen and earth no nor yet in the ayre or waters seeing these also belong vnto the heauen and the earth Nor yet standing in the whole world together didst thou make that whole world because there was no place where to make it before it was made that it might haue a Being Nor didst thou hold any thing in thy hand whereof to make this heauen and earth For how shouldst thou come by that which thy selfe hadst not made For what hath any Being but onely because thou art Therefore thou spakest and they were made and in thy Word thou madest them CHAP. 6. He disputes curiously what manner of Word the World was created by BVt how didst thou speake after the same way that the voyce came out of a Cloud saying This is my beloued Sonne As for that voyce it was vttered and passed away had a beginning and ending the sillables made a sound and so passed ouer the second after the first the third after the second and so forth in order vntill the last came after all the rest and silence after the last By which most cleare and plaine it is that the motion of a Creature expressed it performing thy eternall Will in it it selfe being but temporall And these words of thine thus made to serue for the time did the outward care giue notice of vnto the intelligent soule whose inward eare lay listening to thy eternall Word But whenas this latter had compared these words thus sounding within a proportion of time with that eternall Word of thine which is in the Silence it sayd This Word is far another frō that a very far different Word these words are far beneath me nay they are not at all because they flee and passe away but the Word of God is farre aboue me and abides for euer 2. If therefore in sounding passing words thou spakest that heauen and earth should bee made and that way didst create heauen and earth then was there a corporeal creature euen before heauen and earth by whose motions measured by time that voyce tooke his course in time But there was not any creature before heauen and earth or if there were surely then thou didst without such a passing voyce create that whereof thou mightest make this passing voyce by which thou wert to say the word Let the heauen and the earth be made For whatsoeuer that were of which such a voyce were to be made vnlesse by thy selfe it were made it should not at all haue any being That a body therefore might be made by which these words might be made by what word of thine was it commanded CHAP. 7. The Sonne of God is the Word coeternall with the Father 1. THou callest vs therfore to vnderstand the word who is God with thee God which word is spoken vnto all eternity and in it are all things spoken vnto euerlasting For neuer is that finished which was spoken or any other thing spoken after it that so all may come to bee spoken but all are spoken at once and vnto euerlasting For otherwise there should be time and alteration and no true eternity no true immortality Thus much I know O my God thankes to thee therefore This I know as I confesse to thee O Lord yea hee knowes and blesses thee as I doe whoeuer is not vnthankfull to thy assured Veritie 2. Wee know Lord wee know that in as much as any thing is not now what sometimes it hath beene or is now what heretofore it hath not beene so farre forth it is borne and dyes Nothing therefore of thy Word doeth retyre and come in place againe because it is truely immortall and eternall And therefore vnto thy Word coeternal vnto thy selfe thou dost once and for euer say all that thou dost say and it is made whateuer thou sayest shall bee made Nor doest thou make it otherwise then by saying and yet are not all things made together or euerlasting which so thou makest by saying CHAP. 8. The Word of God is our teacher in all 1. VVHy I beseech thee O Lord my God is this so Verily I see it after afort but how to expresse it I know not vnlesse thus it be namely that whatsoeuer begins to bee and leaues off to bee beginnes then and leaues off then when in thy eternall reason it is resolued that it ought to haue begun or left off in which Reason nothing does eyther beginne or leaue off That Reason is thy Word which is also the Beginning the same that likewise speakes vnto vs. Thus much sayd it in the Gospell by our Lords humanity and so much sounded outwardly in the eares of men to the intent it might be beleeued and sought for inwardly and found in the eternall verity where that good and onely Master taught all his Disciples There Lord heare I thy voyce speaking vnto mee because hee there speakes vnto vs who teacheth vs but he that doeth not teach vs though hee does speake yet to vs hee speaketh not 2. And who now is able to teach vs but the vnalterable Truth seeing that when wee receiue any admonishment from a mutable creature wee are but ledde along vnto that vnalterable Truth where we learne truely while wee stand to heare Him reioycing greatly because of the Bridegroomes voyce and returne our selues backe to that
their mutability by which they both leaue to bee what they haue beene and begin to bee what they haue neuer beene And this shifting out of one forme into another I suspected to bee caused by I know not what thing without form not by nothing at all yet this I was desirous to know not to suspect onely But if my voyce pen should here confesse all vnto thee whatsoeuer knots thou didst vnknâ—t for me in this questioÌ„ what Reader would haue so much patience to bee made conceiue it Nor shall my heart for all this cease at any time to giue thee honour and a Song of praise for all those things which it is not able to expresse For the changeable condition of changeble things is of it selfe capeable of all those forms into which these changable things are changed And this changeablenesse what is it Is it a soule or is it a body or is it any figure of a soule or body Might it be sayd properly that nothing were something and yet were not I would say This were it and yet was it both of these that so it might bee capeable of these visible and compounded figures CHAP. 7. Heauen is greater then Earth 1. BVt whence are both these but from thee from whom are all things so far forth as they haue being But how much the further off from thee so much the vnliker thee I doe not meane farrenesse of places Thou therefore O Lord who art not another in another place nor otherwise in another place but the same and the very same and the very selfe-same Holy Holy Holy Lord God almighty didst in the Beginning which is in thine owne selfe in thy Wisedome which was borne of thine owne Substance create something and that out of nothing 2. For thou createdst heauen and earth not out of thine owne selfe for so should they haue beene equall to thine onely Begotten Sonne and thereby vnto thine owne selfe too wheras no way iust it had beene that any thing should bee equall vnto thee which was not of thee Nor was there any thing besides thy selfe of which thou mightest create these things O God who art One in Trinity and Three in Vnity Therefore out of nothing hast thou created Heauen and Earth a great thing and a small thing for thou art omnipotent and good to make all things good euen the great heauen and the little earth Thou wert and nothing else was there besides out of which thou createdst Heauen and Earth two certaine things one neere thee the other neere to nothing One for thy selfe to bee superior vnto the other which nothing should bee inferiour vnto CHAP. 8. The Chaos was created out of nothing and out of that all things 1. BVt that Heauen of heauens which was for thy selfe Lord and this earth which thou gauest to the Sonnes of men to be seene and felt was not at first such as wee now both see and feele for it was inuisible and vnshapen and there was a deepe vpon which there was no light or darkenesse was vpon the deepe that is more then in the deepe Because this deepe of waters visible now adayes hath in his deepes a light proper for its nature perceiueable howeuer vnto the Fishes and creeping things in the bottome of it But all this whole was almost nothing because hitherto it was altogether without forme but yet there was now a matter that was apt to bee formed For thou Lord createdst the World of a matter without forme which being next to nothing thou madest out of nothing out of which thou mightest make those great workes which wee sonnes of men so much wonder at 2. For very wonderfull is this corporeall heauen which firmament betweene water and water the second day after the creation of light thou commandedst it to be made it was made Which Firmament thou calledst heauen the heauen that is to this earth and sea which thou createdst the third day by giuing a visible figure vnto the vnshapen matter which thou createdst before all dayes For euen already hadst thou created an heauen before all dayes but that was the Heauen of heauens because In the beginning thou createdst heauen and earth As for the earth which thou createdst it was an vnshapely matter because it was inuisible and without forme and darkenesse was vpon the deepe Of which inuisible earth and without forme of which vnshapelynes of which almost nothing thou mightest create all these of which this changeable world consists which continueth not the same but mutability it selfe appeares in it the times being easie to bee obserued and numbred in it For times are made by the alterations of things whilest namely their figures are varied and turned the matter whereof is this inuisible earth aforesayd CHAP. 9. What that Heauen of heauens is 1. THe Spirit therefore the Teacher of thy seruant whenas it recounts thee to haue in the beginning created heauen and earth speakes nothing of any times nor a word of any dayes For verily that Heauen of heauens which thou createdst in the beginning is some Intellectuall creature which although no waies coeternall vnto thee O Trinity yet being partaker of thy eternity doth through the sweetnesse of that most happy contemplation of thy selfe strongly restrayne its owne mutability and without any fall since its first creation cleauing close vnto thee hath set it selfe beyond all rowling interchange of times Yea neyther is this very vnshapelynesse of the inuisible earth and without forme once numbred among the dayes For where no figure nor order is there does nothing eyther come or goe and where this is not there playnely are no dayes nor any interchange of temporall spaces CHAP. 10. His desire to vnderstand the Scriptures 1. O Let truth the light of mine heart and not mine owne darkenesse now speake vnto me I fell off into that and became all be-darkned but yet euen for this euen vpon this occasion came I to loue thee I heard thy voyce behinde mee calling to mee to returne but scarcely could I discerne it for the noyse of my sinnes But see here I returne now sweating and panting after thy fountaine Let no man forbid me of this will I drinke and so shall I liue For I am not mine own life if I haue liued ill my death is farre from my selfe but t is in thee that I reuiue againe Speake thou vnto me discourse thou with mee I haue beleeued thy Bible but the words of it be most full of mystery CHAP. 11. What he learnt of God 1. NOw hast thou with a 〈…〉 voyce O Lord spoken in my inner care because thou art eternall that onely possessest immortality by reason that thou canst not be changed by any figure or motion nor is thy Will altered by times seeing no Will can be cald immortall which is now one and then another all this is in thy sight already cleare to me let it be more more cleared to me
somewell-filld Fruit-yards in which they discouering some fruites concealed vnder the leaues gladly flock thither and with cherefull chirpings seek out and pluck off these fruites For thus much at the reading or hearing of 〈…〉 words doe they discerne â— how that all things 〈…〉 to come are out 〈…〉 by thy eternall and 〈…〉 continuance at the 〈…〉 and how there is 〈…〉 all that any one of the 〈…〉 all creatures which 〈…〉 of thy making O God â—hose Will because it is the â—â—â— that thy selfe is is no â—â—â—s changed nor was it â—â—â— Will newly resolued vpâ—â— or which before was not â—â— thee by which thou createdst all things not out of thy selfe in thine own similiâ—â—â— which is the forme of â—â— things but out of nothing â—â— a formelesse vnlikenesse to â—â— selfe which might after â—â—â— formed by thy similitude â—â—â—â—â—king its recourse â—â—â— thee who art but one 〈…〉 to the capacity 〈…〉 for it so farre as is giuen to each thing in his kind and might all bee made very good whether they abide neere about thy selfe or which being by degrees remoued further off by times and by Places do eyther make or suffer many a goodly narration These things they see and they reioyce in the light of thy trueth according to all that little which from hence they are able to conceiue 2. Another bending his obseruation vpon that which is spokeÌ„ In the beginning God made heauen and earth hath a conceit that that begining is Wisedome because that also speaketh vnto vs. Another aduising likewise vpon the same words by Beginning vnderstands the first entrance of the things created taking them in this sense In the begining he made as if he should haue sayd He at first 〈◊〉 And among them that vnderstand In the beginning 〈◊〉 In thy Wisedome thou createdst heauen and earth One beleeues the matâ—â—â—â— of which the heauen and earth were to be created to be there called heauen and earth Another the natures already formed and distinguished Another vnder the 〈◊〉 of Heauen conceiues â—â—â— one formed nature and that the spirituall one to bee 〈◊〉 and vnder the name of Earth the other formelesse 〈◊〉 of the corporeall matter And as for them that vnder the names of heauen and earth vnderstand the matter as yet vnformed out of which heauen and earth 〈◊〉 to be formed neyther let they vnderstand it after 〈…〉 manner but One 〈◊〉 matter out of which both the intelligible and the sensible creature were to bee made vp Another that matter onely out of which this sensible corporeall bulke was to bee made which in his mighty bosome contaynes these natures so easie to bee seene and so ready to be had Neyther yet doe euen they vnderstand alike who beleeue the creatures already finished and disposed of to bee in this place called heauen and earth but one vnderstands both the inuisible and visible nature another the visible onely in which wee behold this lightsome heauen and darkesome earth with all things in them contayned CHAP. 29. How many wayes a thing may be sayd to be first 1. BVt he that no otherwise vnderstands In the beginning he made then if iâ— were sayd At first he made hath on ground whereupon with any truth he may vnderstand heauen earth vnlesse hee withall vnderstand the matter of heauen and earth that is to say of the vniuersall intelligible and corporeall creature For if he would haue the vniuerse to be already formed it may be rightly demanded of him If so be God made this first what then made hee after wards After the vniuerse surely he will finde nothing at all wherevpon must bee against his will heare of another question How is a thing first if after it there bee nothing But when he sayes God made the matter vnformed at first â—ad formed it afterwards there is no absurdity committed prouided that he bee able to discerne what 〈◊〉 first in eternity what in time what in choyce and what in Originall First in eternity so God is before all things first in time so is the flower before the fruit first in choyce so is the fruit before the flower first in Originall so is the sound before the Tune Of these foure the first and last that I haue mentioned are with extreme difficulty obtayned to be vnderstood but the two middlemost easily enough For too subtle and too losty a vision it is to behold thy eternity O Lord vnchangeably making these changeable things and so in that respect to be before them 2. And who in the second place is of so sharpe-sighted an vnderstanding as that hee is able without great paines to discerne how the sound should bee before the Tune yet is it so for this reason because a Tune is a sound that hath forme in it and likewise 〈…〉 that a thing not formed may haue a being whereas that which hath no forme can haue no being Thus is the matter before the thing made of â—â— Which matter is not before the thing in this respect for that it makes the thing seeing it selfe is rather made into the thing nor is it before in respect of distance of time for we doe not first in respect of time vtter formelesse founds without singing and then tune or fashion the same sounds into a form of singing afterwards iust as wood or siluer be seru'd whereof a chest or vessell is fashioned Such materials indeede doe in time precede the formes of those things which are made of them but in singing it is not so for when a man sings the sound is heard at the same time seeing that hee does not make a rude formelesse sound first and then bring it into the forme of a Tune afterwards 3. For a sound iust as it is made so it passeth nor canst thou finde aught of it which thou mayst call backe and set vnto a tune by any Art thou canst vse therefore is the tune carryed along in his sound which sound of his is his matter which verily receiues a forme that it may become a tune And therefore as I sayd is the matter of the sound before the forme of the tune not before in respect of any power it hath to make it a tune for a sound is no way the workemaster that makes the tune but being sent out of the body is like materials subiected to the soule to make a tune out of Nor is it first in our choyce seeing a sound is not better then a tune a tune being not onely a bare sound but a gracefull sound But it is first in Originall because a tune receiues not forme to cause it to become a sound but a sound receiues forme to cause it to become a tune By this example let him that is able vnderstand the matter of things to bee first made and called Heauen and Earth because Heauen and Earth were made out of it Yet was not this matter first made in respect of time because that the forme of
call whereby thou saydest Let there be light and there was light Whereas in vs there is distance of time betweene our hauing beene darknesse and our making light but of that creature it is onely sayd what it would haue beene if it had not beene enlightened And this is spoken in that manner as if it had beene vnsetled and darkesome before that so the reason might now appeare for which it was made to bee otherwise that is to say that it being conuerted vnto the light that neuer faileth might it selfe bee made light Let him vnderstand this that is able and let him that is not aske it of God Why should he trouble mee with it as if I could enlighten any man that commeth into this world CHAP. 11. Of some Impressions or resemblances of the blessed Trinity that be in man 1. VVHich of vs does sufficiently comprehend the knowledge of the almighty Trinity and yet which of vs but talkes of it if at least it be that A rare soule it is which whilest it speakes of it knowes what it speakes of For men contend and striue about it and no man sees the vision of it in peace I could wish that men would consider vpon these three that are in themselues Which three be farre another thing indeede then the Trinity is but I doe but now tell them where they may exercise their meditations and examine and finde how farre they are from it Now the three that I spake of are To Be to Know and to Will For I both Am and Know and Will I Am Knowing and Willing and I Know my selfe to Be and to Will and I would both Be and Know. Betwixt these three let him discerne that can how vnseparable a life there is yea one life one mind and one essence yea finally how vnseparable a distinction there is and yet there is a distinction Surely a man hath it before him let him looke into himselfe and see and then tell mee 2. But when once hee comes to finde any thing in these three yet let him not for all this beleeue himselfe to haue found that vnchangeable which is farre aboue all these and which IS vnchangeably and Knowes vnchangeably and Willes vnchangeably But whether or no where these three bee there is also a Trinity or whether all three bee in each seuerall one or all three in euery of them or whether both wayes at once in admirable manner simply and yet manifoldly in its infinite selfe the and vnto it selfe by which end it is and is knowne vnto it selfe and that being vnchangebly euer the same by the abundant greatnesse of its Vnity it bee all-sufficient for it selfe what man can readily conceiue who is able in any termes to expresse it ◠who shall dare in any measure rashly to deliuer his opinion vpon it CHAP. 12. The water in Baptisme is effectuall by the Holy Spirit 1. PRoceede in with thy Confession of the Lord thy God O my faith O holy holy holy Lord my God in thy name haue we beene baptized O Father Sonne and Holy Ghost because that euen among vs also in Christ his Sonne did God make an heauen and earth namely the spirituall and carnall people of his Church Yea and our earth before it receiued the forme of doctrine was inuisible and vnformed and wee were couered ouer with the darknesse of ignorance For thou hast chastised man for his iniquity and thy Iudgements were like the great deepe vnto him 2 But because thy Spirit moued vpon the waters thy mercy forsooke not our misery for thou saydst Repent ye for the Kingdom of Heauen is at hand Repent Let there be light And because our soule was troubled within vs wee haue remembred thee O Lord concerning the land of Iordan and that hill which being equall vnto thy selfe was made little for our sakes and vpon our being displeased at our owne darkenesse wee turned vnto thee and were made light So that behold we hauing sometimes beene darknesse are now light in the Lord. CHAP. 13. His deuout longing after God 1. BVT yet we walke by faith still not by sight for we are saued by hope but hope that is soene is not hope And yet doeth one deepe call vnto another in the voyce of thy water-spoutes and so doeth hee that sayth I could not speake vnto you as vnto spirituall but as vnto carnall euen He who thought not himselfe to haue apprehended as yet and who forgot those things which are behynd and reacht foorth to those things which are before yea he groaned earnestly and his soule thirsted after God as the Hart after the water-brooks saying When shall I come desiring to be cloathed vpon with his house which is from heauen he calleth also vpon this lower deepe saying Be not conformed to this world but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind And Be not children in vnderstanding but in malice be ye children that in vnderstanding ye may be perfect and O foolish Galatians who hath bewitched you 2. But now speakes hee no longer in his own voice but in thine who sentest thy Spirit from aboue by his mediation who ascended vp on high and set open the flood-gates of his gifts that the force of his streames might make glad the City of God Him doeth this friend of the bridegroome sigh after though hauing the first fruites of the Spirit in himselfe alreadie yet groaneth he within himselfe as yet wayting for the adoption to wit the redemption of his body to him he sighes as being a mēber of his Bride towards him he burnes with zeale as being a friend of the Bridegroome towards him hee burneth not towards himselfe because that in the voyce of thy water-spowtes and not in his owne voyce doth hee call to that other deepe for whose sake hee is both iealous and fearefull lest that as the serpent beguiled Eue through his subtiltie so their minds should be corrupted from the simplicitie that is in our Bridegrome thy onely Sonne Oh what a light of beauty will that be when we shall see that Bridegrome as Hee is when all teares shall be wiped from our eyes which haue beene my meat day and night whilest they daily say vnto me Where is now thy God CHAP. 14. Our misery is comforted by faith and Hope 1. ANd so say I too Where art thou O my God see where art thou In thee take I comfort a little while whenas I powre out my soule by my selfe in the voyce of ioy and prayse which is the sound of him that keepes holyday And yet againe is it besadned euen because it relapseth againe and becomes a darkesome deepe or perceiues it selfe rather euen still to bee one Vnto it thus speakes my faith which thou hast kindled to enlighten my feete in this my night Why art thou so sad O my soule and why art thou so
him put away the bitternesse of malice and wickednesse let him not kil nor commit adultery nor steale nor beare false witnesse that the dry land may appeare and bring forth the honouring of Father and mother and the loue of our neyghbour All these sayth hee haue I kept 2. Whence then commeth such stoare of thornes if so bee the earth bee fruitefull Goe stubbe vp those thicke bushes of couetousnesse sell that thou hast and fill thy selfe with standing corne by giuing to the poore and follow the Lord if thou wilt be perfect that is associated to them among whom he speaketh wisedome he that well knoweth what to distribute to the day and what vnto the night that thou also mayst know it and that for thee there may bee lights made in the Firmament of heauen which neuer will bee vnlesse thy heart be there nor will that euer bee vnlesse there thy treasure bee also like as thou hearest of our good master But that barren earth was sorry at that saying and the thornes choaked the word in him 2. But you O chosen generation you weake things of the world who haue forsaken all that ye may follow the Lord goe yee now after him and confound the strong go after him O yee beautifull feete and shine yee in the Firmament that the heauens may declare his glory you that are mid-way betweene the light and the perfect ones though not so perfect yet as the Angels and the darkenesse of the little ones though not vtterly despised Shine yee ouer all the earth and let one day enlightened by the Sunne vtter vnto another day a speech of Wisedome and one night enlightened by the Moone shew vnto another night a word of knowledge The Moone and Starres shine in the night yet doeth not the night obscure them seeing they giue that light vnto it which it is capeable of For behold as if God had giuen the word Let there lights in the Firmament of heauen there came suddenly a sound from heauen as it had been the rusking of a mighty winde and there appeared clouen tongues like as it had beene of fire and it sate vpon each of them and there were made lights in the Firmament of heauen which had the word of life in them Ely euery where about O you holy flies O you beauteous fires for you are the light of the world nor are you put vnder a bushell he whom you claue vnto is exalted himselfe and hath exalted you Ranne you abroad and make your selues knowne vnto all nations CHAP. 20. He allegorizes vpon the creation of spirituall things 1. LEt the Sea also conceiue and bring forth your works ◠and let the waters bring foorth the mouing creature that hath life For you by separating the good from the bad are made the mouth of God by whom he sayd Let the waters bring forth not a liuing soule which the earth brings forth but the mouing creatures hauing life in it and the winged fowles that fly ouer the earth For thy Sacrament O God by the ministerie of thy holy ones haue moued in the middest of the waues of temptation of this present world for the trayning vp of the Gentiles vnto thy name in thy baptisme In the doing wherof many a great wonder was wrought resembling the huge Whales and the voyces of thy Messengers flying aboue the Earth in the open Firmament of thy Bible that being set ouer them as their authority vnder which they were to fly whithersoeuer they went For there is no speech nor language where their voyce is not heard Seeing their sound is gone thorow all the Earth and their words to the end of the world because thou O Lord hast enlarged them by thy blessing 2. Say I not true or doe I mingle and confound and not sufficiently distinguish betweene the knowledge of these lightsome creatures that are in the Firmament of heauen and these corporeall workes in the wauy Sea and those things that are vnder the Firmament of heauen For of those things whereof the vnderstanding is solid and bounded within themselues without any increases of their generations like the lights of Wisedome and Knowledge as it were yet euen of them the operations bee corporeall many and diuers and one thing growing out of another they are multiplyed by thy blessing O God who hast refreshed our soone cloyed mortall sences that so the thing which is but one in the vnderstanding of our mind may by the motions of our bodies bee many seuerall wayes set out and discoursed vpon These Sacraments haue the Waters brought forth yea indeede the necessities of the people estranged from the eternity of thy trueth haue brought them foorth in thy Word that is in thy Gospell Because indeede the Waters cast them foorth the bitternesse whereof was the very cause why these Sacraments went along accompanied with thy Word 3. Now are all things faire that thou hast made but loe thy selfe is infinitely fairer that madest these all from whom had not Adam falne this brackishnesse of the Sea had neuer flowed out of his Ioines namely this mankind so profoundly and so tempestuously swelling and so restlesly tumbling vp and downe And then had there beene no necessitie of thy ministers to worke in many waters after a corporeall and sensible maner such mysterious doings and sayings For in this sense haue those mouing flying creatures at this present fallen into my meditation in which people being trayned vp admitted into though they had receiued corporeal Sacraments should not for all this bee able to profit by them vnlesse their soule were also quickned vp vnto a higher pitch and vnlesse after the word of admission it looked forwards to Perfection CHAP. 21. He allegorizes vpon the Creation of Birds and fishes alluding by them vnto such as haue receiued the Lords supper are better taught and mortified which are perfecter Christians then the meerly baptized 1. ANd hereby by vertue of thy Word not the deepnesse of the Sea but the earth it selfe once separated from the bitternesse of the waters brings forth not the creeping and flying creatures of seules hauing life in them but the liuing soule it selfe which hath now no more neede of Baptisme as the heathen yet haue and as it selfe also had when it was couered heretofore with the waters For there is entrance into the kingdome of heauen no other way since the time that thou hast instituted this Sacrament for mē to enter by nor does the liuing soule any more seeke after miracles to worke Beliefe nor is it so with it any longer That vnlesse it sees signes and wonders it will not beleeue now that the faithfull Earth is separated from the waters that were bitter with infidelity and that tongues are for a signe not to them that beleeue but to them that beleeue not The Earth therefore which thou hast founded vpon the waters hath no more neede
now of that flying kind which at thy word the waters brought foorth Send thou thy word into it by thy Messengers for their labors indeede they are which we speake of but yet thou art he that worketh in them that they may worke a soule to haue life in it 2. The Earth brings forth that is the Earth is the cause that â— they worke this in the soule like as the Sea was the cause that they wrought vpon the mouing things that haue life in them as also vpon the fowles that flie in the open firmament of heauen of whome this Earth hath no neede although it seedes vpon that fish which was taken out of the deepe vpon that Table which thou hast prepared for the faythfull For therefore was He taken out of the Deepe that hee might feede the Dry land the Fowle though bred in the Sea is yet multiplyed vpon the Earth For of the first preachings of the Euangelists mans infidelity was the cause yet giue they good exhortations vnto the faythfull also yea and many wayes doe they blesse them from day to day But as for the liuing soule that tooke his beginning from the Earth for it profits not the faythfull vnlesse they can containe themselues from the loue of this world that so their soule many only liue vnto thee which was dead while it lined in pleasure in such pleasures Lord as bring death with them For t is thou O Lord that art the vitall delight of a pure heart 3. Now therefore let thy Ministers worke vpon this with i not as sometimes they did vpon the waters of Infidelity when they preached and spake by miracles and Sacraments and mysterious expressions when as Ignorance the mother of Admiration might giue good care â—o theÌ„ out of a reuerent feare it had towards those secret wonders For such is the entrance that is made vnto faith by the sonnes of Adam forgetfull of thee while they 〈◊〉 themselues from thee 〈◊〉 become a darksome deep But let thy Ministers worke â—ow as vpon dry land that is separated from the gulfes of the great deepe and let them 〈◊〉 patterne vnto the faithfull by liuing before them â—â— stirring the vp to imitation For thus are men to heare not with an intent to hearken only but to doe also Seeke the Lord and your soule shall liue That the Earth may bring forth the liuing soule Be not conformed to this world Containe your selues from it then shall your soules liue by auoyding it which dyed by affecting it 4. Contayne your selues from the immoderate wild humour of pride the litherly voluptuousnesse of lust and the false name of knowledge that so the wilde beasts may be tamed the cattell made tractable and the Serpents harmelesse For these bee the motions of our minde vnder an Allegory that is to say the haughtynesse of pride the delight of lust and the poyson of curiosity these be the motions of a dead soule For the soule dyes not so vtterly as that it wants all motion because it dying by departing from the fountayne of life is there upon taken vp by this transitory world and is conâ—â—â—ed vnto it But thy word O God is the fountaine of eternall life and that neuer calleth away wherefore this departure of the Soule is restrayned by thy word when 〈◊〉 sayd vnto vs Be not conformed vnto this world that so the Earth may in the fountyne of life bring forth a 〈◊〉 soule that is a soule 〈◊〉 continent by vertue of 〈◊〉 Word deliuered by thy 〈◊〉 and by followâ—â—â— the followers of Christ 〈◊〉 is indeede to liue after 〈…〉 because the emution a man takes is from â—â— friend Be yee sayth he â— am for I am as you are 〈◊〉 in this liuing soule shall 〈◊〉 be good beasts meeke 〈◊〉 actions For thou 〈◊〉 commanded Goe on with thy businesse in meekenesse so shalt thou be beloued of all men And there shall be good cattell in it too which neither of they eate much shall haue nothing ouer nor if they eate little any lacke and good Serpents not dangerous to doe hurt but wise to take heed such as will make such a search into this temporall nature as may bee sufficient that Gods eternity may be cleerly seene being vnderstood by the things that are made For these Creatures are then obedient vnto Reason when being once restrayned from their deadly preuayling vpon vs they liue and become good CHAP. 22. Of Regeneration by the Spirit He allegorizes vpon the Creation of man 1. FOr behold O Lord our God our Creatour soone as euer our affectioÌ„s are restrayned from the loue of the world by which we died through our euill-liuing and began to bee a liuing soule through our good liuing and that the word which thou hast spoken be thy Apostle shal be made good in vs Be not conformed to this world that next followes vpon it which thou presently subioynedst saying But be ye transformed by the renuing of your mind not as liuing now after your kind as if you followed your neighbour next before you nor yet as liuing after the example of some better man for thou didst not say Let man be made after his kinde but Lei vs make man after our own Image and similitude that we might proue what thy will is For to this purpose sayd that dispencer of thine who begets Children by the Gospell that hee might not euer haue them babes whom hee must bee sayne to feede with milke and bring vp like a nurse Be ye transformed sayth he by the renewing of your mind that ye may proue what is that good that acceptable and perfect will of God Wherefore thou sayest not Let man he made but Let vs make man Nor saydst thou According to his kind but After our own Image likenesse For man being renewed in his minde and able to discerne and vnderstand thy truth needs no more any direction of man to follow after his kind but by thy shewing doth hee proue what is that good that acceptable and perfect will of thine yea thou teachest him that is now made capeable to discerne the Trinity of the Unity and the Vnity of the Trinity Whereas therefore it was spoken in the plurall number Let vs make man vet is it presently inferred in the singular And God made man and whereas t is sayd in the plurall number After our owne likenesse yet is inferred in the singular After the Image of God Thus is man renewed vnto the knowledge of God after the Image of him that created him and being made Spirituall he now iudges all things those namely that are to bee iudged yet hee himselfe is iudged of no man CHAP. 23 Of what things a Christian may iudge He allegorizes vpon mans dominion ouer the creatures THat hee now iudgeth all things this is the meaning That he hath dominion ouer the fish of the Sea and
to 〈◊〉 evill for soule and body 〈…〉 Appetites be in the Motive faculty of the 〈◊〉 Soule by these â—â—e soule moves herselfe to or 〈◊〉 sesued or abhorred object Here the old 〈◊〉 much mistakes for want of Philosophie Psal 18. 28 Ioh 1. 16 9 Iam. 1. 16. 1 Pet. 5. 5. Psal 51. 8. * Multa in pulvere depingentibus Which the Other Translator turnes writing them in the dust noting in his margent that it was a manner of â—â—iting then used Boldly affirmed I dare say there was never such a manner of writing But thus it was The Mathematicians had their pulverem Mathematicum dust in linnen bagges which scirced or pownc'd upon a board they drew their Schemes and Diagrams upon to make ocular demonstration withall either for their owne use or their Schollers This they could easily and the aply put in and out againe Arch medes was taken in his Study drawing his Mathematicall Lines in such dust He alludes to the Prodigall Luk. â—5 O wonderful naturall wit of S. Augustine The Papists brag of being in the true Church but plainely their Chickens seldome prove more than spoone-feathered not hardpenn'd For they want the food here spoken of Sound Faith Traditions Legends seined Miracles carnall Vowes and out side Sanctity may puffe up not edifie * He meanes that the goodly order and workmanship of the creatures causes those that well consider them to open their mouthes in praises to God for theÌ„ The Old Translator is much puzled here confounding both the sense and Sentences Psal 139. 7 Psal 138. 6 Deut. 4. 21. 1 Cor. 1. 30 Rom. 1. 21. Rom. 1. 21. Rom. 1. 23 25. Rom. 1. 21. Wis 11. 20 Iob 28. 28. Manichaeus his pride and blasphemy All Heretikes doe thus brag of the Spirit Eph. 4. 13 14. * Iust the Purilane humour of our tiâ—es with whom our incomparable Court Sermons are flatteries and our neatest Preachers are Ladypreachers for so they call them * This was the old fashion of the East where 〈◊〉 Schollers had liberty to aske questions of their Masters and to move doubts as the Professors were reading or so soone as the Lecture was done Thus did our Saviour with the Doctors 〈◊〉 2. 46. So 〈◊〉 still in some European Vniversities Pro. 21. 29 * The insolent fashion of the Students in Carthage Psal 142. 5. * He means the waters of baptisme * Memoria beati Cypriani This the former Translator turnes The Shrine of Saint Cyprian and notes in his margent The place where S. Cyprians Reliques were kept See our Preface * Because he was not yet baptised Eph. 2. 16. * Another errour of the Manichees who beleeved not Christ to have assumed a true body but a phantasticall appearance and shape onely * He alludes to his owne Manichaean humour and contempt of Baptisme that Physike of the soule which suffers it not to dye the second death thogh the body through sicknesse dyes the first Here the former Translator mistakes and misses talking of I know not what journey * NusquaÌ„nisi or nusquam non as Suetonius hath it no place omitted or in every place In the Latine the Interrogative point should not be after intermissione but after ad te * See 1 Tim. 5. 10. * Oblations were those offerings of bread meale or wine for making of the Eucharist or of Almes besides for the poore which the Primitive Christians every time they communicated brought to the Church where it was received by the Deacons who presented them to the Priest or Bishop Here note 1. They communicated daily 2. They had Service morning and evening and two Sermons a 〈◊〉 many times 3. Note that Saint Monica never heard Masse as the Popish Translater would have it in his margeat for Masse is not sound in Saint Augustine 4. Observe that here bee Sermons too which because the Papists have not with their Masses he cunningly but falâ—ily translates Sermonibus Inspirations * These glorious titles did the Manichees assume So doe our own schismaticall Pure ones This spirituall pride still accompanies Hereticks yea 't is a sare marke of heresie Marke how Saint Augustine describes them We have those now a dayes that say God sees no sinne in them and 't is not they that sinne but corruption in them Psal 141. 3 4. * Other of the Manichees errours * 〈◊〉 carni concerneretur Concerni autem non inquinari c. * See Booke 3. Chap. 3. Psal 139. 22. * Impertita etiam evectione publica Sending of Waggons or Horses and a man to defray his charges upon the Cities purse Thus had the Ancients their publike Horses or Waggons for the service of the State and defraying the charges of their ministers Thus did Constantine oppoint Coaches and Horses of Relay for the Bishops that were to come to the Councell of Nice This is supplyed by our Post-Horses and by the Secretary of State his allowance of money to those that ride with Packets upon the Kings Service The former Translator whom I finde no great Antiquary nor Critike in Grammar not standing to examine this turnes Impertita etiam evectione publica The Election being publike Wilfully changing eveâ—â—â—â—â— into electione But what then shall become of impertita In a marginall Note upon the end of the last Chapter but one he challenges us to shew where the Papists had corrupted the Fathers Sure here is Saint Augustine corrupted if not out of malice yet upon shrewd suspâ—tion of ignorance and a desire to be rid of his Taske of Translating The collapsed Ladios he knew had no skill to examine the Latine Your Implicite Faith is your onely Faith Why Because 't is Romane Catholike * Vt dictione proposita me probatum mitteret This was and still is the fashion to make an Oration or to read a Lecture for a void Professors place in our Vniversities The former Translator turnes it would send me as approved from thence upon publike provision to bee made I understand not the man * He alludes to Psal 4. 7. * He alludes to that in 2 Cor. 3. The letter killeth but the Spirit giveth life * Another of the Manichees errours * An Audiâ—â—r or a Disciple * Here Saint Augustine was too blame for he should have said A Romane Catholik and not a Christian Catholike And yet I quit him For sure that Bull of Romane Catholike was not heard of in his time Luk. 7. 14. * Fidelem Catholicum A faithfull Catholike See what we have noted in the first Booke upon this word Fidelis Marke here is Christianus Catholicus and Fidelis Catholicus but yet not Romanus Catholicâ—â— 't is strange that Saint Augustine should so soone have forgotten Rome from whence hee came sâ—lately * She meanes Baptisme * Here the former Translator incurres some suspicion of non sense or of not full understanding the place * See what wee have noted upon the eighth Chapter of the former Booke a Pultes There was the Romane Puls and
In Geneva I hope the Minister hath more authority than in England a Romae assidebat Comiti largitionuÌ„ ItalicaruÌ„ The Lord high Treasurer of the Westerne Empire was called Comes sacrarum laâ—gitionum he had sâ—xe other Treasurers in so many Provinces under him whereof he of Italy was one Vnder whom this Alipius had sâ—me Office of Iudicature ourâ—aions â—aions of the Exchequer See Sir Henry 〈◊〉 Glossary in the word 〈◊〉 And 〈…〉 l. 5. c. 40. The other Translator 〈◊〉 Assessor to the Prefect of the Contributioner of Italy Ill. Luk. 16. 10 11. 12. Psal 145. 15. * Here 's an obiection of flesh and blood against the motions of Gods Spirit * Another Obiection of flesh and blood * Why then doe the Papists inforce so many young Maids and men to vow as if it were in their own power And why suffer they those to keepe the habite and place of Chastity when as their Visitor knowes they have broken the Vow of Chastity * Mat. 19. 11. * Promeruissent Deum Which the Popish Translator turnes And were gratefull unto God Very well gratefull that is acceptable Seeing then promerita is but acceptablenesse why should merita the single word have so sawcie a signification in Popish doctrine as merits Let them mince the matter with Logike how they can by their distinction of condignity and congruity of merits sure they are gone by the Lawes of Grammar which admits no such signification of promereo or of merita unlesse perchance our Dictionaries have the word Merits not in the genuine signification but to learne us to understand what the Papists meane by it * See what we have before noted pag. 36. in the margent * Quem tunc graves aestus negotioruÌ„ suorum ad ComitatuÌ„ attraxerant This the former Translator turnes That place of our residence The man had ill lucke to misse at every hard place He helpe him Comitatus was like the place where our Termes be kept the Imperiall Chamber at Spires in Germany may rightly be called Comitatus The Emperours appointed it in any good Towne where they pleased though themselves were not there and at this time for these parts it was at Millan So plainely sayes Possidonius in the life of Saint Augustine Comitatus is the place whither subiects repaire for the dispateh of such businesse as depends upon the Kings Courts of Iustice London is our Comitatus the Kings Chamber for the South Yorke for the North. This word is familiar to the Civill Lawyers See the eighth and ninth Canons of the Councell of Sardica Mat. 7. 13. Psal 33. 11 Psal 145. * A Vow of Chastity sayes the Popish TraÌ„slator and a goodly one too How many such Nuns hath the Church of Rome that then vow chastity wheÌ„ they are satisfied with lust But well it were they had no worse Nunnes than such as vow upon remorse of conscience as this whoore did But this was a private Vow yet which God knowes how long she kept and no formall Nunnery Vow she carried not her portion into the Nunnery with her Money is of the substance of the Nunnes Vow now-a dayes Chastity is but a formality She vowes not to know a man but her money does not so the Friers may know that The Primitives admitted no Nunnes but pure Virgins and if ever it could be proved she had plaid false before her Admission she was canonically to be put out of the House Any crackt Chamber-maid will make as good a Nunne as the best now-a daies Could Nunnes keepe their Vow I would never speake against their Order * Et tractus meritorum This the Popish Translator turnes And that which Merits do import Meere non sense And notes in his margent Merits As if the place made for Popish merits Doughtily proved as if Augustine who was yet no Divine knew any thing of the Doctrine of Merits Hee taâ—kâ— before of the last Iudgement and here he talkes of the places of punishment or reward which Epicurus Philosophy knew nothing of If he pleases to looke his Dicticnary he shall finde Tractus to signifie a Region or Countrey He alludes to other Philosophers beleeving of the severall Regions of Hell and Elysium which were both under the earth but distinguisht into severall Quarters or Regions Tractus is the Accusative case plurall a This Philosophical word the former Translator turnes This Action of my minde Short of the sense Saint Augustine alludes to that in Philosophy That all naturall bodies to make theÌ„selves perceived by the sense doe send and beame out from them some figure Image c. by which the sense may appâ—hend them which figure or shape striking upon the sense provokes it and so makes it take actuall notice of us proper object And this spirituall figure representing a reall object which these bodies send out doe the Philosophers call their Intention So that Austens 〈◊〉 fancying the like Images he cals it the intention of his minds a The other Tranlator renders it thus And that this helpe must bee the Soule which thy Word being free might succour Succour a helpe A meere Bull and Non-sense which utterly loses the force and meaning of the Argument a Here flyes my Popish Translator out upon Mr. Calvine for teaching Gods Decree and purpose by with-holding of his Grace to be the Causes of Sinne and Damnation Verily Mr. Calvine is wronged that way But this being an Arminian Controversie I had rather obey His Majesties two Proclamations and one Declaration than to be so soole-hardy as to meddle with it I am neither Calvinist nor Arminian I am of the Religion of the Primitive Fathers which the Church of England professes b Here the Popish Translator commits a most negligent and grosse mistake as if the soule of man had of a pure Angell turn'd to a Divell Saint Augustine speakes not of the Soules turning Divell but of him that was once created a good Angell a Here the Popish Translater grossely playes the Papist purposely wresting the sense thus Yet did the beliefe of the Catholike Church concerning thy Christ sticke fast in me As if Saint Augustine had held this Popish implicite faith To beleeve as the Church beleeves had beene enough There is much difference betwixt a mans cleere and explicite knowledge of what he beleeves in Christ and a blinde implicite beliefe as the Church beleeves when he knowes not what the Church beleeves a See the 3. Chap. of the 4. Booke a Scripturis quas Ecclesiae commendaret autoritas Where Ecclesiae may be the dative Case and then may it goe thus Which Scriptures thy authority recommended unto the Church as before hee said lib. 6. cap. 5. See the place Here the Popish Translator would needes give Authority to the Church to teach us what is Scripture For that controversie see our Preface Iob 15. 26. I am 4. 6. a This was likely to be the Booke of Amelius the Platonist who hath indeed this beginning of S. Iohns Gospell