Part One
The Confessions of St. Augustine. Revised from a former translation by the Rev. Edward Bouverie Pusey. (Oxford: John Henry Parker, 1843).
The Confessions contains thirteen books.
Book One: the greatness and unsearchableness of God, God’s mercies to Augustine in his infancy and boyhood along with his refractory nature, his idleness, abuse of studies, God’s mercies to him up to his fifteenth year.
“Great art Thou, O Lord, and greatly to be praised; great is Thy power, and Thy wisdom is infinite” begins the great divine. This is drawn from Psalm 145.3, a Song to the LORD about God’s Majesty and Love.[1]
The Lord’s power and wisdom are infinite and unsearchable. The human mind cannot fathom the incomprehensibility of God. Humans can have a true but never complete or exhaustive understanding of God. The Bible, as God’s Word, uses human language—but it lisps syllables in child-like language, as Calvin points out.
Augustine continues that man bears witness in himself of his own sin and that God resisteth the proud, a quote from James 4.6 and 1 Peter 5.5. It goes back to Proverbs 3.34 in sense. Proverbs 3.34: Surely he scorns the scornful, but gives grace to the humble.
1 Peter 5.5: Likewise you younger people, submit yourselves to your elders. Yes, all of you be submissive to one anther and be clothed with humility, for `God resists the pround, but gives grace to the humble.’” This connects with the fifth commandment, Honour thy father and mother. We note that the term elders here probably means parents and grandparents rather than the office-holders of the church.
All of this forms the larger background for a Augustine, God and man, one infinite and the other “but a particle of Thy creation.”[2] We have begun to blog Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion and we find the same contrast that opens Book One.[3] Knowledge of God brings knowledge of the self and true knowledge of the self, as a sinner and justified saint, begins the true knowledge of God.
In the opening lines we hear the famous phrase of Augustine, “Thou awakest us to delight in thy praise; for Thou madest us for Thyself, and our heart is restless, until it repose in Thee.” God alone is the one who awakens a dead sinner from his supine grave.
Augustine asks the Lord—his term, Lord—to know and understand whether to “praise Thee or call upon Thee.” He affirms that he must seek and call upon the Lord in order to find Him. Psalm 22.26: The poor shall eat and be satisfied; those who seek Him will praise the LORD. Let your heart live forever. Augustine wants to call on the LORD as He truly is and not erroneously, that is, he wants a true view of God.
Augustine affirms the necessity of preaching. But how shall they call in Him in whom they have not believed? Or how shall they believe without a preacher? Romans 10.14.
He says, “My faith, LORD, shall call on Thee, which Thou hast given me, wherewith Thou has inspired me, through the Incarnation of Thy Son, through the ministry of thy preacher.”[4] Even calling on the LORD is a gift itself. We may well ask ourselves if this sense of desire—of calling upon the LORD—informs our lives? If so, it is the divine gift.
We see several things here from St. Augustine: the majesty of God, the finitude and sinfulness of man, Augustine’s foolishness, faith as a gift, calling upon the LORD as a divinely given inspiration, the necessity of prayer and praise, and the means of grace—the preaching of the Word.
We close with prayer from the Seventh Sunday After Trinity:
“LORD of all power and might, who art the author of all good things: Grant in our hearts the love of Thy name, increase in us true religion, nourish us with all goodness, and of they great mercy keep us in the same; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”[5]
A hymn about the immortal and invisible God, of whom Augustine speaks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deLc8Egb0Js
Immortal, invisible, God only wise,
In light inaccessible hid from our eyes,
Most blessèd, most glorious, the Ancient of Days,
Almighty, victorious, Thy great Name we praise.
Unresting, unhasting, and silent as light,
Nor wanting, nor wasting, Thou rulest in might;
Thy justice, like mountains, high soaring above
Thy clouds, which are fountains of goodness and love.
To all, life Thou givest, to both great and small;
In all life Thou livest, the true life of all;
We blossom and flourish as leaves on the tree,
And wither and perish—but naught changeth Thee.
Great Father of glory, pure Father of light,
Thine angels adore Thee, all veiling their sight;
But of all Thy rich graces this grace, Lord, impart
Take the veil from our faces, the vile from our heart.
All laud we would render; O help us to see’
Tis only the splendor of light hideth Thee,
And so let Thy glory, Almighty, impart,
Through Christ in His story, Thy Christ to the heart.
Part One is concluded.
[1] The New Geneva Study Bible. “The psalmist lead Israel in praise of the Lord This poem is the first of six hymns that close the Psalter like a display of fireworks The psalm is an acrostic, each parallel line beginning with a concecutive letter of an the alphabet. One letter (nun) is missing.
[2] Augustine, The Confessions of St. Augustine. Revised from a former translation by the Rev. Edward Bouverie Pusey. (Oxford: John Henry Parker, 1843).
[3] http://reformationanglicanism.blogspot.com/2009/07/calvinist-anglicans-blog-on-calvins.html
[4] Augustine, op.cit., 48. The preacher to whom he alludes is Ambrose.
[5] The Book of Common Prayer, 1662 (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, Limited, 1968), 56.
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