are heard in the heart, nor was there room for doubt; and I should more readily doubt that I live than that Truth is not, which is "clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made." CHAP. XI.—THAT CREATURES ARE MUTABLE AND therefore, as they are, they are good; therefore whatsoever is, is good. That evil, then, which I sought whence it was, is not any substance; for were it a substance, it would be good. For either it would be an incorruptible substance, and so a chief good, or a corruptible substance, which unless it were good it could not be corrupted. I perceived, therefore, and it was made clear to me, that Thou didst make all things good, nor is there any substance at all that was not made by Thee; and because all that Thou because individually they are good, and altohast made are not equal, therefore all things are; 17. And I viewed the other things below Thee, and perceived that they neither altogether are, nor altogether are not. They are, indeed, because they are from Thee; but are not, because they are not what Thou art. For that truly is which remains immutably. It is good, gether very good, because our God made all then, for me to cleave unto God, for if I remain things very good." not in Him, neither shall I in myself; but He, remaining in Himself, reneweth all things. And CHAP. XIII.-IT IS MEET TO PRAISE THE CREATOR Thou art the Lord my God, since Thou standest not in need of my goodness.5 FOR THE GOOD THINGS WHICH ARE MADE IN 19. And to Thee is there nothing at all evil, CHAP. XII.—WHATEVER THINGS THE GOOD GOD and not only to Thee, but to Thy whole crea HAS CREATED ARE VERY GOOD. 18. And it was made clear unto me that those things are good which yet are corrupted, which, neither were they supremely good, nor unless they were good, could be corrupted; because if supremely good, they were incorruptible, and if not good at all, there was nothing in them to be corrupted. For corruption harms, but, unless it could diminish goodness, it could not harm. Either, then, corruption harms not, which cannot be; or, what is most certain, all which is corrupted is deprived of good. But if they be deprived of all good, they will cease to be. For if they be, and cannot be at all corrupted, they will become better, because they shall remain incorruptibly. And what more monstrous than to assert that those things which have lost all their goodness are made better? Therefore, if they shall be deprived of all good, they shall no longer be. So long, He is unchangeable, those things which have been created mutable are not, a truth which Plato vehemently held, and most diligently commended. And I know not whether this sentiment is anywhere to be found in the books of those who were before Plato, unless in that book where it is said, 'I am who am; and thou shalt say to determine from what source he learned these things,-whether it the children of Israel, Who is sent me unto you.' But we need not likely, from the words of the apostle (Rom. i. 20), Because that 1 Rom. i. 20. Therefore, he argues, is God called the I AM (De Nat. Boni, 19); for omnis mutatio facit non esse quod erat. Similarly, we find him speaking in his De Mor, Manich. (c. i.): "For that exists in the highest sense of the word which continues always the same, which is throughout like itself, which cannot in any part be corrupted or changed, which is not subject to time, which admits of no variation in its present as compared with its former condition. This is existence in its true sense.' See also note 3, p. 158. Ps. lxxiii. 28. Wisd. vii. 27. tion; because there is nothing without which can break in, and mar that order which Thou hast appointed it. But in the parts thereof, some things, because they harmonize not with others, are considered evil; whereas those very things harmonize with others, and are good, and in themselves are good. And all these things which do not harmonize together harmonize with the inferior part which we call earth, having its own cloudy and windy sky concordant. to it. Far be it from me, then, to say, "These things should not be." For should I see nothing but these, I should indeed desire better; but yet, if only for these, ought I to praise Thee; for that Thou art to be praised is shown from the "earth, dragons, and all deeps; fire, and hail; snow, and vapours; stormy winds fulfilling Thy word; mountains, and all hills; fruitful trees, and all cedars; beasts, and all cattle; creeping things, and flying fowl; kings of the earth, and all people; princes, and all judges of the earth; both young men and maidens; old men and children," praise Thy name. But when, "from the heavens," these praise Thee, praise Thee, our God," in the heights," all Thy "angels,' all Thy "hosts,' "sun and moon," all ye stars and light, "the heavens of heavens," and the "waters that be above the heavens," praise Thy name. I did not now desire better things, because I was thinking of all; and with a better judgment I reflected that the things above were better than those below, but that all were better than those above alone. 99.66 6 Gen i. 31, and Ecclus. xxxix. 21. Evil, with Augustin, is a privation of good." See iii. sec. 12, note, above. See v. sec. 2, note 1, above, where Augustin illustrates the exist ence of good and evil by the lights and shades in a painting, etc. 8 Ps. cxlviii. 1-12. CHAP. XIV.—BEING DISPLEASED WITH SOME PART a substance, but a perversion of the will, bent OF GOD'S CREATION, HE CONCEIVES OF TWO aside from Thee, O God, the Supreme Substance, towards these lower things, and casting out its bowels, and swelling outwardly. ORIGINAL SUBSTANCES. CHAP. XVII.—ABOVE HIS CHANGEABLE MInd, he DISCOVERS THE UNCHANGEABLE AUTHOR OF 20. There is no wholeness in them whom aught of Thy creation displeaseth; no more than there was in me, when many things which Thou madest displeased me. And, because my soul dared not be displeased at my God, it would not suffer aught to be Thine which dis- 23. And I marvelled that I now loved Thee, pleased it. Hence it had gone into the opinion and no phantasm instead of Thee. And yet I of two substances, and resisted not, but talked did not merit to enjoy my God, but was transfoolishly. And, returning thence, it had made ported to Thee by Thy beauty, and presently to itself a god, through infinite measures of all torn away from Thee by mine own weight, space; and imagined it to be Thee, and placed sinking with grief into these inferior things. it in its heart, and again had become the tem- This weight was carnal custom. Yet was there ple of its own idol, which was to Thee an abom-a remembrance of Thee with me; nor did I any ination. But after Thou hadst fomented the way doubt that there was one to whom I might head of me unconscious of it, and closed mine eyes lest they should "behold vanity," I ceased from myself a little, and my madness was lulled to sleep; and I awoke in Thee, and saw Thee to be infinite, though in another way; and this sight was not derived from the flesh. CHAP. XV.—WHATEVER IS, OWES ITS BEING TO GOD. 21. And I looked back on other things, and I perceived that it was to Thee they owed their being, and that they were all bounded in Thee; but in another way, not as being in space, but because Thou holdest all things in Thine hand in truth and all things are true so far as they have a being; nor is there any falsehood, unless that which is not is thought to be. And I saw that all things harmonized, not with their places only, but with their seasons also. And that Thou, who only art eternal, didst not begin to work after innumerable spaces of times; for that all spaces of times, both those which have passed and which shall pass, neither go nor come, save through Thee, working and abiding." CHAP. XVI.—EVIL ARISES NOT FROM A SUBSTANCE, BUT FROM THE PERVERSION OF THE WILL. 22. And I discerned and found it no marvel, that bread which is distasteful to an unhealthy palate is pleasant to a healthy one; and that the light, which is painful to sore eyes, is delightful to sound ones. And Thy righteousness displeaseth the wicked; much more the viper and little worm, which Thou hast created good, fitting in with inferior parts of Thy creation; with which the wicked themselves also fit in, the more in proportion as they are unlike Thee, but with the superior creatures, in proportion as they become like to Thee." And I inquired what iniquity was, and ascertained it not to be cleave, but that I was not yet one who could cleave unto Thee; for that the body which is corrupted presseth down the soul, and the earthly dwelling weigheth down the mind which thinketh upon many things. And most certain I was that Thy "invisible things from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even Thy eternal power and Godhead." For, inquiring whence it was that I admired the beauty of bodies whether celestial or terrestrial, and what supported me in judging correctly on things mutable, and pronouncing, "This should be thus, this not,"-inquiring, then, whence I so judged, seeing I did so judge, I had found the unchangeable and true eternity of Truth, above my changeable mind. And thus, by degrees, I passed from bodies to the soul, which makes use of the senses of the body to perceive; and thence to its inward' faculty, to which the bodily senses represent outward things, and up to which reach the capabilities of beasts; and thence, again, I passed on to the reasoning faculty, unto which whatever is received from Ecclus. x. 9. Commenting on this passage of the Apocrypha (De Mus. vi. 40), he says, that while the soul's happiness and life is in God, "what is to go into outer things, but to cast out its inward parts, that is, to place itself far from God-not by distance of place, but by the affection of the mind? 5 Wisd. ix. 15. 6 Rom. i. 20. 7 See above, sec. 10. 8 Here, and more explicitly in sec. 25, we have before us what has been called the " trichotomy" of man. This doctrine Augustin it prudent to overlook in practice. The biblical view of psychology does not deny in theory, but appears to consider (De Anima, iv. 32) may well be considered here not only on its own account, but as enabling us clearly to apprehend this passage and that which follows it. It is difficult to understand how any one can doubt that St. body being preserved unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ," Paul, when speaking in 1 Thess. v. 23, of our "spirit, soul, and implies a belief in a kind of trinity in man. And it is very necessary special attributes pertain to the soul and the spirit respectively. It may be said, generally, that the soul (vxn) is that passionate and while the spirit (vevua) is the higher intellectual nature which is peculiar to man. to the understanding of other Scriptures that we should realize what affectionate nature which is common to us and the inferior creatures, Hence our Lord in His agony in the garden says (Matt. xxvi. 38), "My SOUL is exceeding sorrowful"-the soul being liable to emotions of pleasure and pain. In the same passage (ver 41) he says to the apostles who had slept during His great agony, "The SPIRIT indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak,' so that the spirit is the seat of the will. And that the spirit is also by the things that are made. But I was not able to fix my gaze thereon; and my infirmity being beaten back, I was thrown again on my accustomed habits, carrying along with me naught but a loving memory thereof, and an appetite for what I had, as it were, smelt the odour of, but was not yet able to eat. THE ONLY WAY OF SAFETY. the senses of the body is referred to be judged, which also, finding itself to be variable in me, raised itself up to its own intelligence, and from habit drew away my thoughts, withdrawing itself from the crowds of contradictory phantasms; that so it might find out that light' by which it was besprinkled, when, without all doubting, it cried out, "that the unchangeable was to be preferred before the changeable; CHAP. XVIII.-JESUS CHRIST, THE MEDIATOR, IS whence also it knew that unchangeable, which, unless it had in some way known, it could have 24. And I sought a way of acquiring strength had no sure ground for preferring it to the sufficient to enjoy Thee; but I found it not changeable. And thus, with the flash of a until I embraced that "Mediator between God trembling glance, it arrived at that which is. and man, the man Christ Jesus," "who is over And then I saw Thy invisible things understood all, God blessed for ever,' calling unto me, the seat of consciousness we gather from St. Paul's words (1 Cor. and saying, "I am the way, the truth, and the ii. 11), "What man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of life,' man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, unable to receive with our flesh. For "the ," and mingling that food which I was but the Spirit of God.” And it is on the spirit of man that the Spirit of God operates; whence we read (Rom. viii. 16), "The Word was made flesh," that Thy wisdom, by Spirit beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God." It is important to note that the word "flesh" (rap) has its which Thou createdst all things, might provide special significance, as distinct from body. The word comes to us milk for our infancy. For I did not grasp my from the Hebrew through the Hellenistic Greek of the LXX., and in biblical language (see Bishop Pearson's Præfatio Parænetica to Lord Jesus,—I, though humbled, grasped not his edition of the LXX.) stands for our human nature with its worldly surroundings and liability to temptation; so that when the humble One ; nor did I know what lesson it is said, "The Word was made flesh," we have what is equiva- that infirmity of His would teach us. For Thy lent to, "The Word put on human nature." It is, therefore, the flesh and the spirit that are ever represented in conflict one with the Word, the Eternal Truth, pre-eminent above other when men are in the throes of temptation. So it must be while the higher parts of Thy creation, raises up possess soulish bodies (to employ the barbarous but expressive word those that are subject unto Itself; but in this of Dr. Candlish in his Life in a Risen Saviour, 182), and only on the morning of the resurrection will the body be spiritual and lower world built for Itself a humble habitsuited to the new sphere of its existence: "It is sown a natural ation of our clay, whereby He intended to [ψυχικόν, "soulish"] body, it is raised a spiritual [vevμaTIKOV] body" (1 Cor. xv. 44); for," as Augustin says in his Enchiridion abase from themselves such as would be subjected life lasts; for it is characteristic of our position in the world that we (c. xci.), "just as now the body is called animate (or, using the Greek term, as above, instead of the Latin, "soulish), though it is and bring them over unto Himself, allaying a body and not a soul, so then the body shall be called spiritual, their swelling, and fostering their love; to the though it shall be a body, not a spirit. No part of our nature shall be in discord with another; but as we shall be free from ene-end that they might go on no further in selfmies without, so we shall not have ourselves for enemies within." For further information on this most interesting subject, see Delitzsch, Biblical Psychology, ii. 4 ("The True and False Trichotomy "); Olshausen, Opuscula Theologica, iv. ("De Trichotomia"); and cc. 2, 17, and 18 of R. W. Evans' Ministry of the Body, where the subject is discussed with thoughtfulness and spiritual insight. This matter is also treated of in the introductory chapters of Schlegel's Philosophy of Life. 1 That light which illumines the soul, he tells us in his De Gen. ad Lit. (xii. 31), is God Himself, from whom all light cometh; and, though created in His image and likeness, when it tries to discover Him, palpitat infirmitate, et minus valet. In sec. 13, above, speaking of Platonism, he describes it as holding "that the soul of man, though it bears witness of the Light,' yet itself is not that Light.'" In his De Civ. Dei, x. 2, he quotes from Plotinus (mentioned in note 2, sec. 13, above) in regard to the Platonic doctrine as to enlightenment from on high. He says: "Plotinus, commenting on Plato, repeatedly and strongly asserts that not even the soul, which they believe to be the soul of the world, derives its blessedness from any other source than we do, viz. from that Light which is distinct from it and created it, and by whose intelligible illumination it enjoys light in things intelligible. He also compares those spiritual things to the vast and conspicuous heavenly bodies, as if moon derives its light from the sun. That great Platonist, therefore, says that the rational soul, or rather the intellectual soul, in which class he comprehends the souls of the blessed immortals who inhabit heaven, has no nature superior to it save God, the Creator of the world and the soul itself, and that these heavenly God were the sun, and the soul the moon; for they suppose that the spirits derive their blessed life, and the light of truth, from the same source as ourselves, agreeing with the gospel where we read, 'There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. The same came for a witness, to bear witness of that Light, that through Him all might believe. He was not that Light, but that he might bear witness of the Light. That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world' (John i. 6-9);-a distinction which sufficiently proves that the rational or intellectual soul, such as John had, cannot be its own light, but needs to receive illumination from another, the true Light. This John himself avows when he delivers his witness (ibid. 16): We have all received of His fulComp. Tertullian, De Testim. Anim., and the note to iv. sec. 25, above, where other references to God's being the Father of Lights are given. ness. confidence, but rather should become weak, seeing before their feet the Divinity weak by taking our "coats of skins ;" and wearied, might cast themselves down upon It, and It rising, might lift them up. 2 Rom. i. 20. But 7 Christ descended that we may ascend. See iv. sec. 19, notes 1 and 3, above. Gen. iii. 21. Augustin frequently makes these "coats of skin ** symbolize the mortality to which our first parents became subject by being deprived of the tree of life (see iv. sec. 15, note 3, above). and in his Enarr, in Ps. (ciii. 1, 8), he says they are thus symbol ical inasmuch as the skin is only taken from animals when dead. in the Catholic faith, and was conformed to it. But somewhat later it was, I confess, that I learned how in the sentence, "The Word was made flesh," the Catholic truth can be distinguished from the falsehood of Photinus.3 For the disapproval of heretics makes the tenets of Thy Church and sound doctrine to stand out boldly. For there must be also heresies, that the approved may be made manifest among the weak.” made flesh," I could not even imagine. Only I had learnt out of what is delivered to us in writing of Him, that He did eat, drink, sleep, walk, rejoice in spirit, was sad, and discoursed; that flesh alone did not cleave unto Thy Word, but with the human soul and body. All know thus who know the unchangeableness of Thy Word, which I now knew as well as I could, nor did I at all have any doubt about it. For, now to move the limbs of the body at will, now not; now to be stirred by some affection, now not; now by signs to enunciate wise sayings, now to keep silence, are properties of a soul and mind subject to change. And should these things be falsely written of Him, all the rest would risk honour, like Arius. Before his time men had written much on the the imputation, nor would there remain in those He books any saving faith for the human race. endeavoured to show (see Dorner's Person of Christ, A. ii. 252, etc., Clark) in what the two natures united differed from human Since, then, they were written truthfully, I nature. He concluded that our Lord had no need of the human acknowledged a perfect man to be in Christ-ua, and that its place was supplied by the divine nature, so not the body of a man only, nor with the body a sensitive soul without a rational, but a very man; whom, not only as being a form of truth, but for a certain great excellency of human nature and a more perfect participation of wisdom, I decided was to be preferred before others. But Alypius imagined the Catholics to believe that God was so clothed with flesh, that, besides God and flesh, there was no soul in Christ, and did not think that a human mind was ascribed to Him. And, because He was thoroughly persuaded that the actions which were recorded of Him could not be performed except by a vital and rational creature, he moved the more slowly towards the Christian faith. But, learning afterwards that this was the error of the Apollinarian heretics,' he rejoiced of men. 1 We have already seen, in note 1, sec. 13, above, how this text (1) runs counter to Platonic beliefs as to the Logos. The following passage from Augustin's De Civ. Dei, x. 29, is worth putting on record in this connection:-"Are ye ashamed to be corrected? This is the vice of the proud. It is, forsooth, a degradation for learned men to pass from the school of Plato to the discipleship of Christ, who by His Spirit taught a fisherman to think and to say, 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not any thing made that was made. In Him was life; and the life was the light And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not' (John i. 1-5). The old saint Simplicianus, afterwards Bishop of Milan, used to tell me that a certain Platonist was in the habit of saying that this opening passage of the holy Gospel entitled, 'According to John,' should be written in letters of gold, and hung up in all churches in the most conspicuous place. But the proud scorn to take God for their Master, because the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us' (John í. 14). So that with these miserable creatures it is not enough that they are sick, but they boast of their sickness, and are ashamed of the medicine which could heal them. And doing so, they secure not elevation, but a more disastrous fall." This text, too, as Irenæus has remarked, (2) entirely opposes the false teaching of the Docete, who, as their name imports, believed, with the Manichæans, that Christ only appeared to have a body; as was the case, they said, with the angels entertained by Abraham (see Burton's Bampton Lectures, lect. 6). It is curious to note here that Augustin maintained that the Angel of the Covenant was not an anticipation, as it were, of the incarnation of the Word, but only a created angel (De Civ. Dei, xvi. 29, and De Trin. ii, 11), thus unconsciously playing into the hands of the Arians. See Bull's Def. Fid. Nic. i. 1, sec. 2, etc., and iv. 3, sec. 14., The founder of this heresy was Apollinaris the younger, Bishop of Laodicea, whose erroneous doctrine was condemned at the Council of Constantinople, A. D. 381. Note 4, sec. 23, above, on the " trichotomy," affords help in understanding it. Apollinaris seems to have desired to exalt the Saviour, not to detract from His CHAP. XX.-HE REJOICES THAT HE PROCEEDED 26. But having then read those books of the divine and much on the human side of our Lord's nature. God" the Word, the body and the xn, constituted the being of the Saviour. Dr. Pusey quotes the following passages hereon:-" The faithful who believes and confesses in the Mediator a real human, i. e. our nature, although God the Word, taking it in a singular manner, sublimated it into the only Son of God, so that He who took it, and what He took, was one person in the Trinity. For, after man was assumed, there became not a quaternity but remained the Trinity, that assumption making in an ineffable way the truth of one person in God and man. Since we do not say that Christ is only God, as do the Manichæan heretics, nor only man, as the Photinian heretics, nor in such wise man as not to have anything which certainly belongs to human nature, whether the soul, or in the soul itself the rational mind, or the flesh not taken of the woman, but made of the Word, converted and changed into flesh, which three false and vain statements made three several divisions born of God the Father, without any beginning of time, and also of the Apollinarian heretics; but we say that Christ is true God, true man, born of a human mother in the fulness of time; and that His humanity, whereby He is inferior to the Father, does not derogate from His divinity, whereby He is equal to the Father" (De Dono Persev. sec. ult.). "There was formerly a heresy-its remnants perhaps still exist-of some called Apollinarians. Some of them said that that man whom the Word took, when the Word but was only a soul without human intelligence, but that the very was made flesh,' had not the human, i. e. rational (Aoyɩkóv) mind, Word of God was in that man instead of a mind. They were cast out, the Catholic faith rejected them, and they made a heresy. It was established in the Catholic faith that that man whom the wis dom of God took had nothing less than other men, with regard to the integrity of man's nature, but as to the excellency of His person, had more than other men. For other men may be said to be partakers of the Word of God, having the Word of God, but none of them can be called the Word of God, which He was called when it is said, The Word was made flesh' (in Ps. xxix., Enarr, ii. sec. 2). "But when they reflected that, if their doctrine were true, they must confess that the only-begotten Son of God, the Wisdom and Word of the Father, by whom all things were made, is believed to have taken a sort of brute with the figure of a human body, they were dissatisfied with themselves; yet not so as to amend, and confess that the whole man was assumed by the wisdom of God, without any diminution of nature, but still more boldly denied to Him the soul itself, and everything of any worth in man, and said that He only took human flesh (De 83, Div. Quæst. qu. 80). Reference on the questions touched on in this note may be made to Neander's Church History, ii. 401, etc. (Clark); and Hagenbach, History of Doctrines, i. 270 (Clark). 8 See notes on p. 107. " Archbishop Trench's words on this sentence in the Confessions (Hulsean Lectures, lect. v. 1845) have a special interest in the present attitude of the Roman Church :-"Doubtless there is a true idea of scriptural developments which has always been recognised, to which the great Fathers of the Church have set their seal; this, namely, that the Church, informed and quickened by the Spirit of God, more and more discovers what in Holy Scripture is given her; but not this, that she unfolds by an independent power anything further therefrom. She has always possessed what she now possesses of doctrine and truth, only not always with the same distinctness of consciousness. She has not added to her wealth, but she has become more and more aware of that wealth; her dowry has remained always the same, but that dowry was so rich and so rare, that only little by little she has counted over and taken stock and inventory of her jewels. She has consolidated her doctrine, compelled to this by the challenges and provocation of enemies, or induced to it by the growing sense of her own needs." Perhaps no one, to turn from the Church to individual men, has been more indebted than was Augustin to controversies with heretics for the evolvement of truth. 61 Cor. xi. 19. 3 Platonists, and being admonished by them to ially the Apostle Paul; and those difficulties search for incorporeal truth, I saw Thy invisible vanished away, in which he at one time appeared things, understood by those things that are to me to contradict himself, and the text of made;1 and though repulsed, I perceived what his discourse not to agree with the testimonies that was, which through the darkness of my of the Law and the Prophets. And the face of mind I was not allowed to contemplate,- -as- that pure speech appeared to me one and the sured that Thou wert, and wert infinite, and yet same; and I learned to " rejoice with trembnot diffused in space finite or infinite; and that ling. So I commenced, and found that Thou truly art, who art the same ever,2 varying whatsoever truth I had there read was declared neither in part nor motion; and that all other here with the recommendation of Thy grace; things are from Thee, on this most sure ground that he who sees may not so glory as if he had alone, that they are. Of these things was I in- not received not only that which he sees, but deed assured, yet too weak to enjoy Thee. I also that he can see (for what hath he which he chattered as one well skilled; but had I not hath not received?); and that he may not only sought Thy way in Christ our Saviour, I would be admonished to see Thee, who art ever the have proved not skilful, but ready to perish. same, but also may be healed, to hold Thee; and For now, filled with my punishment, I had that he who from afar off is not able to see, may begun to desire to seem wise; yet mourned I still walk on the way by which he may reach, not, but rather was puffed up with knowledge. behold, and possess Thee. For though a man For where was that charity building upon the "delight in the law of God after the inward "foundation" of humility, "which is Jesus man,' ," what shall he do with that other law in Christ"? Or, when would these books teach his members which warreth against the law of me it? Upon these, therefore, I believe, it was his mind, and bringeth him into captivity to the Thy pleasure that I should fall before I studied law of sin, which is in his members? 10 For Thou Thy Scriptures, that it might be impressed on art righteous, O Lord, but we have sinned and my memory how I was affected by them; and committed iniquity, and have done wickedly," that afterwards when I was subdued by Thy and Thy hand is grown heavy upon us, and we books, and when my wounds were touched by are justly delivered over unto that ancient sinThy healing fingers, I might discern and distin-ner, the governor of death; for he induced our guish what a difference there is between pre- will to be like his will, whereby he remained not sumption and confession,-between those who in Thy truth. What shall wretched man " saw whither they were to go, yet saw not the do? "Who shall deliver him from the body of way, and the way which leadeth not only to this death," but Thy grace only, "through behold but to inhabit the blessed country. For Jesus Christ our Lord," whom Thou hast had I first been moulded in Thy Holy Scrip- begotten co-eternal, and createdst 13 in the begintures, and hadst Thou, in the familiar use of them, grown sweet unto me, and had I after-who, on that account, is ashamed to embark upon the ship of wood, to behold from afar his country beyond the sea? Or how can it wards fallen upon those volumes, they might hurt the humble man not to behold it from so great a distance, when perhaps have withdrawn me from the solid he is actually coming to it by that wood upon which the other disground of piety; or, had I stood firm in that wholesome disposition which I had thence imbibed, I might have thought that it could have been attained by the study of those books alone. 5 CHAP. XXI.-WHAT HE FOUND IN THE SACRED dains to be borne?' Literally, "The venerable pen of Thy Spirit (venerabilem stilum Spiritus Tur); words which would seem to imply a belief on Augustin's part in a verbal inspiration of Scripture. That he gave Scripture the highest honour as God's inspired word is clear not only from this, but other passages in his works. It is equally clear, however, that he gave full recognition to the human element in the word. See De Cons. Evang. ii. 12, where both these aspects are plainly discoverable. Compare also ibid. c. 24. 7 Ps. ii. 11. 81 Cor. iv. 7. 10 Ibid. ver. 23. 11 Song of the Three Children, 4 sq. 12 Rom. vii. 24, 25. 13 Prov. viii. 22, as quoted from the old Italic version. It must not 27. Most eagerly, then, did I seize that venerable writing of Thy Spirit, but more espec-be understood to teach that the Lord is a creature. (1) Augustin, 1 Rom. i. 20. 2 See sec. 17, note, above. 31 Cor. viii. 1. 41 Cor. iii. 11. 6 We have already quoted a passage from Augustin's Sermons (v. sec. 5, note 7, above), where Christ as God is described as the country we seek, while as man He is the way to go to it. The Fathers frequently point out in their controversies with the philosophers that it little profited that they should know of a goal to be attained unless they could learn the way to reach it. And, in accordance with this sentiment, Augustin says: "For it is as man that He is the Mediator and the Way. Since, if the way lieth between him who goes and the place whither he goes, there is hope of his reaching it; but if there be no way, or if he know not where it is, what boots it to know whither he should go?" (De Civ. Dei, xi. 2.) And again, in his De Trin. iv. 15: "But of what use is it for the proud man, pas as indeed is implied in the Confessions above, understands the pas- Hebrew |