quickness of apprehension and subtility of reasoning is thy gift though I did not sacrifice my due acknowledgments thereof unto thee therefore served it not for my use but my perdition rather Luke 15.12 because I desired to have that so liberal a part of my portion in my own hands and did not preserve my strength for thy service but went farr from thee into a remote Country that I might wast it upon meretricious delights For â–³ what profited it me so good a thing not rightly employed For I perceived not that thâ—â—â— arts â—ven by the studious and ingenious were so difficultly uâ—â—erstood till afterward I went about to teach these unto them when he was accounted most excellent amongst them that was lesse-slowly capable of those my expositions But yet â–³ what did this profit me meanwhile imagining that thou O Lord my God who art the truth wert only a lucid and immense body and that my self was a piece of that lump Perversness too great but so it was with me Nor will I now blush to confess unto thee my God thy mercies toward me and to call upon thee who then blushed not to profess to men my blasphemies and to bark against Thee â–³ What then profited me * that my wit in all those sciences so nimble and * so many knotty books without any humane assistance so easily unfolded by me when I so foully and sacrilegiously erred in the doctrine of piety Or what hindrance was a farr slower capacity to those thy little ones that never strayed far from thee but within the nest of thy Church securely feathered themselves and had the wings of their charity nourished with an Orthodox faith O Lord our God let us ever trust in the overspreading of thy wings cover thou us with them and bear thou us upon them Isa 46.3 4. Bear us both when thy young ones and when never so aged carry us on them still Because our infirmity when thou art with it is strength and our strength when t is only our own is infirmity And all our good lives alwayes only with thee and because we turned away from thee we lost it Let us now return unto thee O Lord that we may repossess it For with thee lives our good still without any decay thereof For thou thy self art it And we need not fear lest at our return our former habitation should be ruined and demolished For we indeed in departing from thence fall and come to ruine but our house in this our absence which is thy Eternity can never fall LIB V. CHAP. I. Oblation of his Confessions to God their end being to set forth his praise ACcept O Lord the sacrifice of these my Confessions offered unto thee from the hand of my tongue Psal 35.10 made and moved by thee to confess unto thy name And heal Thou all my bones that they may say O Lord who is like unto thee It is not at all to teach thee that which is done within him when any one confesseth it unto thee for the closeness of the heart excludes not thy eye nor the hardness of it repels thy hand but that Thou dost often in pity and otherwile also in vengeance melt and dissolve it at pleasuâ—â— And there is nothing hid from thy heat Psa 19.6 But yet let my soul be still praising and speaking good of Thee that for this it may love Thee and let it be confessing thy mercies unto Thee that for them it may praise Thee The whole Creation ceaseth not nor resteth from praising Thee both every spirit by their own mouths turned immediatly upon Thee and all corporeals also living or inanimate by the mouth of those who in them contemplate thy wisdom That so our wearied and sick soul may thus erect it self and move toward Thee and leaning on the things which Thou hast made may by them be conducted unto Thee who madest them all so admirably and there find refection and true strength CHAP. II. Invitation of all other strayed sinners to return to the Omnipotent God by Confession THe wicked discontented and restless may depart and fly from thee but still thou seest them and dividest the darknesse Gen. 1.4.31 and behold all things round about them are still fair and lovely in thy sight only themselves deformed For alas in thus abandoning thee how have they hurt or frustrated Thee at all Or any way discomposed thy absolute empire from the highest heaven to the lowest abysse just and entire For whither fled they when they fled from before thy face Or where are they not discovered by Thee They fled only Gen. 4.16 * that themselves might not see thee when seeing them and might yet blindfold still run against Thee who never departest from any of the things made by Thee * that they being unjust might run against Thee and so be justly hurt by Thee withdrawing from thy lenity and softness and so dashing against thy uprightness and falling upon thy sharpness ignorant that Thou who art circumscribed by no place are yet in every place and the only He that art present to those who are farr from Thee Let them then return and let them seek thee because though they have left Thee their Creator yet hast not Thou left thy creature Let them then return only and seek Thee and lo Thou art present in their hearts in the heart of all those who make Confession unto Thee and cast themselves upon Thee and in Thy bosom deplore their former vexatious deviations And then how wilt Thou indulgent wipe off again such tears from their eyes and this wiping also provoke more tears and make them to joy in these sorrowings because Thou O Lord and not man flesh and blood but thou O Lord that createdst them dost thus recreate and comfort them Where was I then when I sought for Thee For Thou wast just before me but I was strayed from my self and not able to finde my self much less could I find Thee CHAP. III. The passages of the 29th year of his age The coming of Faustus an eloquent Manichean Bishop to Carthage The Philosophers tenents in the sciences found much more probable than the Manicheans I Will now recount before my God the story of the tweny-ninth year of my age there was then come to Carâ—haâ—e a Mani hâ—an Bishop called Faustus a great snare of the Devil 's and many were caught by the sweet bait of his smooth tongue which though I also much rellished in him yet could I well distinguish it from the verity of the things which I desired to learn of him examining only what nourishing provision of science he set before me and not in how rich a dish of language he served it up For fame had before reported him most knowing in all excellent learning and exquisitly skilled in the liberall Arts. And I having read formerly and still retaining in memory much of the Philosophers tenents began to compare those with these long fables
appearing to our senses couldst notwithstanding hear and relieve our necessities I began therefore when yet a childe to pray unto thee my aid and refuge and then first inured my unskill'd tongue to the invocating of thy holy name and begged of thee though a little one with no little passion that thou wouldest save me from whipping at School And not only thou didst not hear me in that which was inflicted on me for my good but my elders also and even my parents far from wishing me any harm made a jest of those my stripes my then grievous and remediless evil Is there O Lord amongst thine any so great a soul and with so strong a passion adhering to thee Is there any I say who becomes not out of a senseless stupidity but by an inseparable union to thee so transported in his minde as that he can sport at racks and hooks and a thousand such tortures which all the world with so much fear deprecates of thee laughing at those who tremble at these in such a manner as our parents mocked at those torments which we children then suffered from our severe Masters For neither had we less horrour of these than others of greater torments nor importuned we thee less to escape them Though meanwhile we were peccant in writing or reading or conning our lessons less than was exacted of us Nor was this peccancy in us O Lord from want of memory or wit such as thou bestowest on that age but from an importunate lusting which we had after play and they revenged this fault in us who committed much what the same themselves But our Superiors equall toyes are named business and when boys-play is even the like yet these are seourged for it by their overpowring Master and in this miscarriage of things no body pitties the poor Children or them or both For who is he that weighing things well can justify my being beaten when I was a boy for playing at ball when by such play I was only hindred from a speedier attaining those vain arts in which I should play farr more unbeseemingly when I was Flder Nor did he by whom I was corrected meanwhile do any thing better himself who if worsted in any mean criticisme by his fellow-teacher was farr more racked with choler and envy then I was with the same when mastered in a match at ball by my Companions CHAP. X. And* love of Play with an aversion from his Book ANd yet I sinned O Lord God thou Ordainer and Creator of all things of nature and only not the Ordainer of sin O Lord my God I was too blame in doing then contrary to the will of my Parents and of those my Preceptors for I might have put that learning to good use to which they bred me with another purpose But my undutifulnesse arose not out of choice of something better but meerly out of a lust to play proudly aspiring to be a victor in my sports over those that played with me and to have my ears tickled with false applause that they might itch more hotly after it the same still-more and more perillous curiosity now beginning to sparkle through my wanton eyes toward the shews and playes of the more aged The Donors of which flourish afterward in so grand a reputation that almost all the spectators fore-wish the same honour one day to their little ones And yet they are well content they should be whipt if by such shews they are seduced from their study by which studies they desire their sons may one day arrive to present such shews Look upon these things O Lord with thy pitty and deliver us who now call upon thee and deliver them also who do not yet call upon thee that they also may call upon thee and thou maist deliver them CHAP. XI Of his * sicknesse and in it * his desiring Baptism for what reason upon hopes of his recovery deferred by his Mother FOr I had heard somewhat yet a childe of life eternal that was promised unto us by the humility of thy Son our Lord God descending hither because of our pride and I was already signed with the signe of his Cross and was seasoned with his †A custom in primitive times to put salt into the mouthes of the Catechumeni intimating a spiritual pre-seasoning of them for the reception of the grace of Baptisme see 3. l. Con. Carthag 5. can and being a symbol of incorruption See Ezek. 16.4 5. Mark 9.49 in latter times this ceremony was used to the newly baptized salt even from my mothers womb a woman who put much hope in thee And thou sawest O Lord I happening then to be pained at my stomack and suddenly seized with a violent Calenture near unto death thou sawest O my God for even then wast thou my Guardian with what passion of minde and with what faith I importuned the piety of my own mother and of our common mother thy Church for the Baptism of thy Christ my Lord and God And this much-perplexed mother of my flesh who now travailed far more dearly in the womb of her chast heart of the second birth of my eternal salvation by her faith in thee than before she had done of my temporal was taking care that with all speed I should be initiated and purged with the salutary †Eucharist as well as Baptism in those dayes given to Infants Sacraments confessing thee O Lord Jesus for remission of sins But that I had a suddain recovery upon which this my cleansing was for that time deferred although it could not be avoided but that if I lived longer I should be yet more defiled and so the guilt contracted from the renewed pollutions of sins after that holy lavatory would have become greater far and far more dangerous Thus then I believed in thee and she and the whole family excepting my Father who yet could not oversway in me the just power of my mothers piety to make me not believe in Christ as he at that time believed not in him For it was her holy endeavour that thou my God shouldest be my Father more than He and thou assistedst her herein to overcome her husband To whom in other things she though much better yielded all obedience because she was to yield all obedience to thee and this obedience to her husband was commanded by thee †Men baptized in their sickness were by the Canon prohibited sacred Orders because their Baptisme seemed necessitated For what reason O my God I would fain know was this my Baptism at that time delayed and whether for any my greater good were the reins of my sinning longer left loose upon me For if they were not then left loose whence is it that on every side we do still hear it said of such and such Let him alone let him do what he will for he is not yet baptized and yet concerning corporal sanity we say not Let him yet receive more wounds for he is not
unto thee He related therefore after what manner that most learned old man and most expert in al the Liberal sciences who had read digested and explained the works of so many Philosophers the Tutor to so many noble Senators that for a monument of his excellencies had erected his statue in the Forum Romanum which among the Citizens of this World is accounted a great honour having been even to that age a worshipper of Idols and a partaker of those Sacrilegious devotions to which most of the Roman Nobility were so zealously addicted that they now worshiped and numbred amongst their Gâ—ds Barking †An Egyptian God worshipped in the shape of a Dog Anubis and those other monstrous blood of Deities which once were enemies to the Roman State and which took up armes against Neptune and Venus and Minerva her Protectors Rome now supplicating and serving those deities also whom she had conquered of all which aged Victorinus had for so many years been a most powerfully eloquent patron and defender he related I say in what manner after all this that old man was not ashamed to become a Child of thy Christ and an Infant at thy Font submitting his neck to the yoak of thy humility and forcing his proud forehead to the reproach of the crosse Psal 18.9 O Lord Lord who bowest the Heavens and comest down who touchest the Mountains and they smoak with what sweet and secret attractions didst thou insinuate thy self into that breast and becamest Master of it He attentively read as Simplicianus said the holy Scripture and all the Christians writings he carefully sought out and examined and then said to Simplicianus not publickly but secretly as to a friend Know that I am now a Christian And he replyed I will not believe it nor repure you such untill I shall see you within the Church of Christ And the other in derision answered him again And is it walls then that make Christians And often he said this that already he was a Christian and Sâ—mpliâ—ianus often iterated the same reply and as often was the jest of the walls returned by him For he was affraid to displease his great friends those proud worshippers of Divels from the high top of whoâ—e Babilonâ—sh power Psal 29.5 as from Cedars of Libanus whom the Lord had not yet broken he foresaw great storms of wrath would fall upon him But afterward by continual reading and meditating he gathered more firmnesse and fearing to be denied by Christ before his holy Angels if he feared to confesse him before men Mat. 10.33 and appearing to himself guilty of a grievous crime if he should be ashamed of the Sacraments of the humility of thy eternall Word and not ashamed of that sacrilegious worship of those proud devills of whom being first a proud imitater he became also a worshipper he began to be shame-free for abandoning such vanity and to blush for not professing the Truth and all on a sudden and unexpectedly said to Simplicianus as he told me Let us go to Church there I will be made a Christian And so he transported with joy immediately accompanied him thither where when he had been ‖ Admitted a Catechumenus initiated in the first Sacraments of instructions he not long after gave in his name to receive regeneration by Baptisme Rome wondering the Church exulting The proud saw it and were grieved they gnashed with their teeth and consumed away Psal 112 10. Psal 31.6 As for thy servant O Lord God was his hope and he no more regarded lying vanities Lastly when the time came of professing his faith which profession at Rome by those who are about to receive thy grace in Baptism is wont to be made in a set form of words learnt by heart from a higher place before all the Faithful he said it was offered by the priests to Victorinus that he should performe it if he pleased in private as the custom was to indulge this to some whose bashfulnesse in publick was apt to be timoâ—ous But that he chose rather to professe the matter of his salvation in the presence of all the holy congregation For that there was no matter of salvation in the Rhetorick he had taught and yet he had professed that publickly Why therefore should not he lesse fear thy meek and humble flock in pronouncing thy word than he had feared formerly in delivering his own words a more rude and censorious multitude As soon then as he ascended publickly to repeat it every one as they knew him whispered his name to others with much congratulation and who was there almost that knew him not And every ones joyful mouth in a low murmur sounded Victorinus Victorinus Such noise they suddenly made in exultation to see him and as soon were they silent again out of attention to hear him And so he pronounced the orthodox faith with a wonderful confidence whilst every one strove with the arms of his love and joy to embrace and to seat him in the chiefest place of his heart and affections CHAP. III. Why more joy for men converted than had they been alwayes Professors †A digression till the 5. Chapter Luk. 15.7 GOod God how comes it to passe in man that he rejoyceth much more in the safety of a soul despair'd of or delivered out of some extream peril than where his hopes of him were always great or the danger escaped but little And so thou also Father of mercies rejoycest more over one penitent than over ninety nine just persons who need no repentance And with much consolation we hear it when we hear in thy word how the over-joyed shepheard brought home on his own shoulders the strayed sheep And how the lost groat was brought back into thy treasures with the great joy * of the woman that found it and also * of her neighbours And the solemn gladness of thy whole house hath forced tears from us when in thy Church it is read concerning thy younger son that he had been dead and was alive again had been lost and was found But this thy extraordinary rejoycing is properly in us only and in thy Angels satisfied with holy charity whilst thou art alwayes the same who knowest all those things alwayes after the same manner which neither abide alwayes nor on the same manner How then comes it to passe in a soul that it is more delighted in things found again or restored than in those alwayes possest For many other things witness this and all places are full of testimonies that so it is The conquering Emperour solemnizeth a triumph but first undergoes a battel and how much his peril is greater in the fight so much is his joy in the triumph A tempest ariseth at sea and threatens shipwrack all grow pale with the fright of approaehing death The heaven and sea become serene and calme and their joy is now excessive because before their fear was so A dear friend falls sick and his