BY THE REV. DONALD BEATON, WICK.
II.—Augustine’s Confessions.
O F all the works that have come down to us from the Fathers, there is none so well-known or so universally appreciated as the Confessions of Augustine, the Bishop of Hippo. It is what its title purports to be the confessions of a master-mind in search of rest and peace. The work describes with touching eloquence that long and eager search which ultimately ended in the finding of that true life so much longed for and so eagerly pursued.
The author of this religious classic as already stated was Augustine, the son of Patricius and Monica. He was born at Tagaste, a village of Numidia, on 13th November, 354. His father who was a Burgess of the town was a pagan, and so continued until near the end of his life. His mother, however, was an earnest Christian, and some of the most beautiful and touching passages of the Confessions refer to the mother that watched with all a woman’s devotion and a mother’s anxiety the career of her distinguished but wayward son. Augustine began his scholastic career at Tagaste where he studied grammar and rhetoric—these studies being further prosecuted at Carthage. While still a young man he gave scope to his wayward passions and fell into a course of sin. It was while leading this abandoned life that he was impressed with reading a passage in Cicero’s Hortensius on the value of philosophy; this was the beginning of that long and eventful struggle which was watched with so much solicitude by his devoted mother. Her character as set forth by her son reveals one of the purest and noblest types of womanhood known to history. Augustine might become an abandoned wretch, but still he was her son, and as one hoping against hope she poured out her soul to God. With a heart touched by the remembrance of these prayers, he says in the Confessions:—
“And Thou sentest thine hand-maid from above and deliveredst my soul out of that profound darkness; my mother, Thy faithful one, weeping to Thee for me, more than mothers weep the bodily deaths of their children. For she, by that faith and spirit which she had from Thee, discerned the death whererin I lay and Thou heardst her, O Lord; Thou watered the ground under her tears, when streaming down, and despairedst not her heart; Thou heardst her, and despisedst not her eyes in every place where she prayed; yea, Thou wast pleased to hear her.” In her solicitude for her son, she pled with a bishop to converse with him if by any means he might be turned from his ways, and received as an answer from the good man “Go thy way and God bless thee, for it is not likely that the child of these tears should perish.”
While the struggle referred to above was going on in his heart, he drifted into Manicheanism as the easiest explanation to his perplexed mind of the confliction that regarded the world as under the control of two great principles—the one evil, the other good. Through Satan’s influence they had become mixed in man. To deliver the light from the darkness is a physical process and the work of a succession of prophets, of whom the heavenly Christ, not the Jesus of the New Testament, is one. Mari, the founder of the sect, set himself forth as the promised Comforter. While under the delusion of this false doctrine, there came to Carthage, Faustus, a bishop of the Manicheans—a great share of the devil as Augustine describes him. But with all his smooth language, instead of confirming Augustine in his error he only made him intensely dissatisfied, and leaving Carthage in disgust he proceeded to Rome. His mother bewailed his departure, though, all unknown to her, it was leading up to the event for which she so devoutly prayed. She followed him as far as the sea where he decidedly not leave until he had a fair wind. “And I lied to my mother,” I stole away, and she was left behind in weeping and prayer. And what, O Lord, was she with so many tears asking of Thee, that night and such a mother, and got away. . . .
The depth of Thy counsels and hearing the main point of her desire, regardest not what she then asked, that Thou mightest make me that for which she was ever imploring Thee. The wind blew and swelled our sails and withdrew the shore from our sight; and she on the morrow was there, frantic with sorrow, and with complaints and groans filled thine ears, who didst then disregard them. For she loved my being with her, as mothers do, but much more than many; and she knew not how great joy Thou wert about to work for her out of my absence. She knew not; therefore did she weep and wail, and by this agony there appeared in her the inheritance of Eve, with sorrow seeking what in sorrow she had brought forth.” After some time he came to Milan as Rhetoric-
reader, where he fell in with Ambrose the Bishop, who received him with great kindness. He attended the preaching of Ambrose more for the study of his oratory than to receive any benefit to his soul—as to the matter of the sermon, he says I was a scoundrel and careless looker on. It was while at Milan he formally abandoned his Manichean notions, and again lost himself in darksome deeps where he could find no resting place. Fear of the judgment-to-be acted as a check on him for a time, but still he had no peace. He then turned to the study of the Scriptures and seemed to have discovered some faint glimmerings of truth in the awful gloom that enveloped his mind, but as yet the day had not dawned. He
theoretic like himself. This conversation made an impression on Augustine for a time, but he then fell into his old sins again. Shortly after this there came to him on a visit Pontitianus, a country man of his own, who held high office at the Emperor’s Court. He took up a book lying on the table which turned out to be some of the writings of the apostle Paul. Pontitianus expressed delight at finding the book in Augustine’s possession. And on Augustine inquiring that he bestowed great pains on the study of these writings, his friend was led to make remarks on the conversation of Anthony, an Egyptian monk. The narration of this conversation stirred his soul to its very depths, and while Pontitianus was speaking he was inwardly stung, and exceedingly confounded with horrible shame. A mighty struggle was going on in his soul—”the fever of his irresoluteness” played havoc with his soberer thoughts, and swayed to and fro by the baffling waves of indecision. The sins of his nature, to which he gave so much reign in the days of his thoughtless folly, rose up with a new power, proclaiming their right to rule. But the awful struggle was drawing near an end—at least in its present form. When at last his mind had heaped up all the misery in the sight of his heart there arose a mighty storm bringing a mighty shower of tears. And with these tears he offered up the earnest prayer, “And thou O Lord how long? how long, Lord, wilt thou be angry for ever? Remember not our former iniquities” for I feel, he says, I was held by them. “I sent up these sorrowful words; How long? how long, to-morrow, and to-morrow? Why not now? Why not now? Why not now an end to my uncleanness?” And then comes the ever memorable description of his conversion. Let us read it in Augustine’s own words, “So was I speaking and weeping in the most bitter contrition of my heart, when, lo! I heard from a neighbouring house a voice, as of a boy or girl, I know not, chanting, and oft repeating, ‘Take up and read; take up and read.’ Instantly my countenance altered, I began to think most intently, whether children were wont in any kind of play to sing such words, nor could I remember ever to have heard the like. So, checking the torrent of my tears, I arose, interpreted it to be no other than a command from God, to open the book and read the first chapter I should find. For I had heard of the Gospel, the reading of which, during the reading of the Gospel, he received the admonition, as if what was being read was spoken to him; ‘Go, sell all that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven, and come and follow me,’ and by such oracle he was forthwith converted unto Thee. Haggerly then I returned to the place where Alypius was sitting; for there I had laid the volume of the Apostle, when I arose thence. I seized, opened, and in silence read that section, on which my eyes first fell: “Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envy, but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ and make not
philosophers of antiquity and modern times. We meet him alike humanity. He stands of right by the side of the greatest love and and with it, what is better, a heart full of Christian love and and a mind uncommonly fertile and deep, bold and soaring. He had and looking down commanding upon succeeding centuries, genius of the first order, towering like a pyramid above his age, right, as he is usually represented, is a philosophical and theological heart in the upturned eye, with pen in left hand and a burning heart in the as well as could be done. “Augustine,” he says, “the man with the character of Augustine, both as a man and theologian, perhaps the complete, but no thanks to him for that for he was standing on Augustine’s shoulders.” Dr. Schaff in a few paragraphs sums up the whole than Calvin “says Dr. Duncan. “He was greater on the presentation of the doctrines of grace. “He was influenced by Augustine’s genius, and their teaching was deeply influenced by Augustine’s on the centuries. Luther and Calvin came under the spell of his atention of their fellowmen, and exercising an untold influence the figure of Augustine is one of those commanding the
Hippo.
In 430, in his seventy-sixth year, while the Vandals were besieging the little seaport town on the northern coast of Africa. He died office for thirty-five years, and his name is always associated with this his forty-first year he became Bishop of Hippo. He held this study. After a period of rest he was ordained a presbyter, and in native land where he passed his time in quiet meditation and third year, and having sold all his belongings he returned to his whence He is to raise me up.” Augustine was now in his thirty-iest He should be ignorant at the end of the world of the place bed. “Nothing is far to God,” was her answer, “nor need I fear-distance from her native city?” some one said to her on her death- alien grave. “Did she not dread leaving her body at such a Ostia, in the fifty-sixth year of her age. She was buried in an whose work on earth was finished she passed peacefully away at tears and groans, and now they had been answered, and as one the lonely watches of the night, and her petitions oft-times were day was near at hand—she had prayed for her son by day and in groanings.” For her, too, the night was already far spent and the than she was wont to beg by her pitiful and most sorrowful, think; for she perceived that Thou hadst given her more for me, and blesses Thee, who art able to do above that which we ask or relate in order how it took place; she leaps for joy, and triumphs, unto my mother,” he says, “we tell her: she rejoices at it; we taken place, and they both go to Monnica. “Thence we go with unspeakable gladness. He tells his friend Alypius what has weary, wrestling soul, and the light of the morning filled his heart of doubt vanished away.” The day had dawned at last to the light as it were of serenity infused into my heart, all the darkness read nor needed I: for instantly at the end of this sentence, by a provision for the flesh in concupiscence.” No further would I
on the broad highways and on the narrow footpaths, on the giddy Alpine heights and in the awful depths of speculation, wherever philosophical thinkers before him or after him have trod.” His greatest work is his City of God. It was begun in 413, after the occupation of Rome by Alaric, and finished in 426. A thrill of dismay went through the Roman empire at the news of the fall of the great city. The wild hordes from the north in loud cry of unbelief was heard amidst the confusion, and their merciless onswEEP wrecked and pillaged everything. The responsible tongues proclaimed that the God of the Christians was helpless to stay these devastations. It was partly to meet this state of matters Augustine wrote his City of God. He points out that calamities as tragic as these happened in the days of the Cæsars when the old gods were not necessarily calamities, some may have a disciplinary end in view. He then proceeds to show that there have been from the beginning two great communities or cities—the city of God comprising within it all the true worshippers of God, and the city of the world which, in its principles, is diametrically opposed to the city of God. His chief contro-versial works are those against the Donatists and the Pelagians. In the latter he vindicates the doctrines of grace against the opinions of Pelagius.
His best known work, however, is his Confessions. It consists of thirteen books—in the first ten he gives an account of his search for the true life, and in the last three we have disquisitions on the creation. Even in the Confessions we have statements showing that Augustine inclined to baptismal regeneration, and that he believed in prayers for the dead, and there can be no question that in his later writings he contributed to promote the adoration of the Virgin Mary. He also advocates monasticism and a devotion to the dead, even as early as his day, the church began to drift from her apostolic moorings, but with all his shortcomings he stands before us as one of the greatest figures in the history of the Church. Enough has already been quoted from the Confessions to give an idea of its nature. A neat and handy copy is published in Melrose’s series of Books for the Heart, edited by Rev. A. Smellie, at the reasonable price of half-a-crown.
AN atheist being asked by a professor of Christianity, “how he could quiet his conscience in so desperate a state?” replied, “As much I am astonished at yourself, who, believing the Christian religion to be true, can quiet your conscience in living so much like the world. Did I believe what you profess, I should think no care, no diligence, no zeal enough.” “Alas! that there should still, by Christians, be so much cause given for the astonishment of atheists!”
HOW MR. ROGERS ESCAPED PRISON.
THE restoration of Charles II. was quickly followed with sad work in the churches both of Scotland and of England. The Church of Scotland then entered on its furnace period, and for twenty-eight long years it suffered under the iron heel of oppression. During the same time the Nonconformists in England suffered too though their sufferings were neither so extreme nor so unbroken as the sufferings of their brethren in Scotland. About two thousand of the most pious ministers that ever adorned the Church of England were at one blow silenced, excluded from their places and doomed because of their faithfulness to their vows and conscience to lie under the disfavour of the powers that be. After their exclusion from the pulpits of the Establishments, when congregations clung to them and gathered about them, means were taken by these persecutors to silence them again. Their public services were put a stop to, and it became penal for them in a public way to engage in their Master’s work. Not only were the High Church clergy arrayed against them, but the county magistracy, the survivors and representatives of the cavaliers, were bent on using the power they now enjoyed for harassing the Puritan preachers.
Among the godly men who were thus persecuted was a Mr. Rogers, a minister in the county of Cumberland. He was a descendant of Mr. Rogers, one of the martyrs that suffered for the faith under Bloody Mary, and was himself a man of like spirit with his worthy ancestor. In the neighbourhood in which he lived he was jealously watched by one of the justices, Sir Richard Craddock, a great enemy to serious religion and to those that professed it. On one occasion this magistrate got information to the effect that Mr. Rogers was to preach at a certain place some distance away, and of this he availed himself by sending two men to the place at the appointed time to act as spies. These spies were instructed to note the names of the hearers as well as to have evidence at hand in order to convict the preacher. Accordingly they went and did what was told them. They submitted to Sir Richard and certain of the congregation that he had secured, and he summoned Mr. Rogers and certain of the congregation that he had secured, and they were summoned at the minister and his hearers that were sitting some time in the hall. There was now some delay in the matter. One of the two who was to be his heliress, came into the hall and made up to the company seated there. She and Mr. Rogers at once became friends, and she was soon seated on his knee quite at home with him. The missing witness did not come that day and so the
proceedings were delayed, and the men were bidden to come on another early date that was fixed. Mr. Rogers remembers ordering the little girl that was so friendly on the occasion of their first visit, to look with him on this second day some sweetmeats to give her if he should chance to see her. On this day the two witnesses were forthcoming and the case went on. Of course, there was no flaw in the evidence, and the result seemed inevitable. Sir Richard retired to his private room to write out the warrant that would commit the worthy men to jail. At this point in came his grand-daughter again and made up to Mr. Rogers as friendly as before. Her confidence was completely his, so in her childish way she began questioning him as to why he and his friends were there. She was told this, and then she asked what was going to happen. She was told that it seemed likely that they were to be sent to prison by her grandfather, and off she ran to her grandfather’s room. She knocked and beat the door until it was opened—for she was and so spoilt was she, that she stuck a knife into her arm for not getting her own way. Ever after this she had never been refused anything, and now her wayward self-will displayed itself on behalf of my good gentleman in the hall? “That’s none of your business,” said he. “But it is my business,” she replied, “you are going to send him to prison, and if you send him to prison I’ll go and drown myself, I will.” The justice was now brought to a stand still. He knew how self-willed his favourite was, and he could never tell how or when she might carry out her threat. His mind was soon made up. Rather than run the risk of losing his grandchild he tore the papers he held in his hand in pieces, and went with her to inform the men that were waiting to be sent to prison, that they might go home. His grand-daughter had interceded for them and the case against them would go no further. Before Mr. Rogers went away he laid his hand on the girl’s head and prayed for her to this effect:—”May the blessing of that God, whose cause you have pleaded, though yet you know Him not, rest upon you in life and in death, in time and in eternity.”
Many years afterwards Mr. Rogers, a Nonconformist minister also, was in London with Mr. Thomas Bradbury, then one of the leading evangelical ministers in the city, and they were together at dinner in the house of an eminent Christian lady. At table, Mr. Rogers told the story of his father’s escape from prison at him, and as soon as he had told it, she said, “Through I have known you so long, Mr. Rogers, I never knew till now that you were old Mr. Rogers son. Do you know, I was the little girl that was the means of keeping him from prison.” This was a surprise—
By the time she was grown up her grandfather died, and she was his heiress in the possession of a good estate and with life before her. Accompanied by a lady friend, she went up to London and took rooms in the Court end of the town to enjoy herself. They went through the round of fashionable follies until they began to get tired of them. Then she had some slight indisposition, and as it was the fashion for people moving in her circle when anything allied them to go to Bath, she went with her lady companion there. The doctor she consulted at Bath was a man that feared God, and in treating her he had an opportunity of speaking a word that bore good fruit. When she told him what her symptoms were and how she felt, she added, “there is not much the matter with me, only I have an uneasy mind.” “Oh,” he said, “I once suffered from that too; but I met with a book that cured me.” “Books!” said she, “there is not a novel or play that comes out that I do not get, and when I have read them I am just as I was before.” “That does not surprise me in the least,” said he, “but the book that I found is such that when I have read it through I am ready to read it again, and as often as I read it I always find in it something fresh.” “Pray, doctor,” said she, “what book is it?” “Oh,” she asked, “I don’t tell everyone.” “May I not see it?” “Yes,” he said, “if you will speak me fair. You will promise me that you will read it, and if you don’t see much in it the first time that you will read it again.” “Oh, yes,” she said, “I will promise that.” On his next visit the doctor did not bring the book; this he did to sharpen her curiosity. On the next visit again he came without it. But on the next he brought it, and took out of his pocket the New Testament. “Poh!” she said, “a Testament! I might have had that for myself.” “Very true,” said the doctor, “but I have your promise that you will read it.” “So you have,” said she, “and I will read it—besides I never have read it.” So she began to read the Scriptures, and now if she suffered from uneasiness of mind before, new uneasiness took hold of her. In order to get rid of this new anxiety, she thought she must go back to London and mix in its gay circles again. This she did, but all the gaiety of the metropolis could not give peace to her heart. She could not thus shake out the arrow that had reached her conscience. At last one night she had a remarkable dream, she thought she was in a certain congregation hearing a certain minister discoursing on a certain passage of Scripture. When she
minister prayed and that minister’s son should meet in such circumstances. Mr. Bradbury and Mr. Rogers both expressed their surprise that she who had been brought up in a circle that hated serious religion, and particularly “Dissenters” should now be a “Dissenter” and be so much attached to true religion. They made it plain too, that if she had no objection so to do, that they should like that she should tell them how the change had come about. The good lady consented immediately, and told them her story.
Expository Hotes :
ISAIAH XLII. 1-4.
BY THE REV. ALEXANDER STEWART, O.B.A.N.
II.—The Servant : His Equipment.
Behold my Servant, whom I uphold;
Mine Elect, in whom my soul delighteth;
I have put my Spirit upon Him ;
He shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles.—(Ver. 1.)
And here we are confronted with a fact that may well cause us to take our shoes from off our feet in prostrate adoration. We have not less wonderful a truth than the willing agreement and actual participation of the Three Persons of the Godhead in the work of human redemption. We see how truly that work merits the description of a “great salvation.” Here you have the Triune
Him.
other. Christ was upheld through the Spirit that was put upon Him. “The one is just an amplification of the other.” My Servant, whom I uphold; and “I have a twofold reference. His equipment is brought before us here in duties of His office, with all that was necessary for the adequate discharge of the duties of His office. He was equipped for His work. He was endowed
official work.
The Spirit was put upon Him in His Incarnation. A body was prepared for Him by the Spirit. The Holy Ghost came upon Mary, and the Power of the Highest overshadowed her. And this anointing of the Spirit secured the sinlessness of His humanity. His human nature had no taint of human corruption. He was truly man, He was truly the Son of man; but He was holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners. The Spirit was put upon Him again at His baptism. Then He was publicly installed into the office to which He had been elected from everlasting, and His inauguration was marked by a fresh anointing. The Spirit descended in bodily shape like a dove, and rested on Him. Then you find Him borne in the full tide of the Spirit’s influence to meet the Tempter in the wilderness, and from the wilderness to that scene of such singular glory in the synagogue of Nazareth. He opens His mouth, and expounds to them the Scriptures, and they wonder at the gracious words that proceed from His mouth. What was the reason for their wonder? It is because His preaching was a verification of His text. What He spoke about was the anointing of the Servant of the Lord, and His very manner of asserting it was of itself a proof that this Scripture was that day fulfilled in their ears. He that was sent from God spoke the words of God, because the Father gave not the Spirit by measure unto Him. He performed all His works as the Servant through the Spirit. He healed the sick, He cast out devils, He raised the dead. “O but,” you say, “was he not Divine? Was he not the Son? Had he not almighty power in Himself? And what need had he of the Spirit?” It is true that He was Divine. He did not cease to be the Son when He became the Servant. But we must not forget that all the works of Christ on earth were the works of the Servant, that is, they were the works of the God-man, the man Christ Jesus. And His humanity never had separate personal subsistence. It never existed apart from His Divine Person; but although it was ever in union with Godhead, it did not become divine. It remained truly human, under all the necessary limitations of finite though perfect humanity. And it is through the Spirit that the intercourse between the divine and the human was maintained. The communications which reached the manhood from the Godhead in the Person of the Servant of the Lord were due to the Spirit that had been put upon Him. So He was led by the Spirit; He put His trust in God through the Spirit; He spoke as never man spoke through the Spirit; He performed His works of might
official work.
God engaging to secure the salvation of sinners. You have not only harmonious concurrence, but active co-operation. The Father animates the Son with the Spirit. The Father chooses the Son to be His Servant, and puts His Spirit upon Him. The Son undertakes the appointed service with perfect willingness. The Spirit engages to equip the Servant for the performance of His
power through the Spirit; He was refreshed and upheld by the Spirit; and finally, He offered Himself through the Eternal Spirit without spot unto God.
Last of all He received the Spirit when He ascended on high. Then He received gifts for men. This, in one view of it, might be said to be the great end for which He came. This might be said to sum up His reward. He went away that the Spirit might come. He came to make a way for the Spirit. He rose again that He might have the Spirit to bestow. And when He was raised to the right hand of God the Father, He was anointed with the oil of gladness above His sheaves. Thus He is able to secure the fruits of His death. Thus the sower that went forth, and wept as He sowed His precious seed, shall come back with rejoicing, bringing His sheaves. He can draw all men unto Him through the Spirit’s power.
And what actually was the servant’s work? It is brought before us in the passage we are considering. It is unnecessary to enter into the discussions that have gathered round this word judgment. It is manifest that it means, in a word, the Gospel, the truth as it is in Jesus. But the Gospel of grace is founded on justice; it is established on eternal truth. The grace of God, which bringeth salvation, hath indeed appeared unto all men in the Redeemer, Jesus Christ. The religion of Christ rests on the broad and deep foundation of righteousness, and it is this that made the work of the Servant an undertaking of such inconceivable greatness. He must make reconciliation for iniquity, and bring in everlasting righteousness. And this righteousness that He bringeth in on the Cross is the righteousness that He bringeth forth to the Gentiles in the Gospel. It is the judgment to which this passage refers. In short, the work of the Servant was, first of all, to find a Gospel, to secure it—a Gospel for the lost; and then to bring it forth unto the Gentiles, to diffuse it abroad among all nations unto the ends of the earth, for the obedience of faith.
Behold then the Servant. He is surely worthy of the steady and loving contemplation of our minds. There never was such a Servant, and there never was such a service. Never was servant so willing to undertake His work, so hearty in the performance of it. It was more to Him than His work, so necessary to the will of the Father, or rather it blended with His, in such sweet and perfect harmony, that there never was one discordant note. Never was servant so loyal to the terms of His commission. He sought not to please Himself. He sought not His own honour. He never deviated by one hair’s-breadth from the straight, though not always easy, path of obedience. Even so “Father” was the keynote of His service. Never was servant so diligent in business, so fervent in spirit, serving the Lord. Not a moment was wasted. Not an opportunity was lost. Every hour was