430
A.D.
Augustine of Hippo
Patristic
A.D. 354–430
“"If I said, My foot has slipt; Your mercy, O Lord, held me up" [Psalm 94:18]. See how God loves confession. Your foot has slipt, and you say not, my foot has slipt; but you say you are firm, when you are slipping. The moment you begin to slip or waver, confess thou that slip, that you may not bewail your total fall; that He may help, so that your soul be not in hell. God loves confession, loves humility. You have slipped, as a man; God helps you, nevertheless: yet say, "My foot has slipt." Why do you slip, and yet sayest, I am firm? "When I said, My foot has slipt, Your mercy, O Lord, has held me up." Just as Peter presumed, but not in strength of his own. The Lord was seen to walk upon the sea, trampling on the heads of all the proud in this life. In walking upon the foaming waves, He figured His own course when He tramples on the heads of the proud. The Church too does trample upon them: for Peter is the Church Herself. Nevertheless, Peter dared not by himself walk upon the waters; but what said he? "Lord, if it be Thou, bid me come unto You on the water." [Matthew 14:28] He in His own power, Peter by His order; "bid me," he says, "come unto You." He answered, "Come." For the Church also tramples on the heads of the proud; but since it is the Church, and has human weakness, that these words might be fulfilled, "If I said, My foot has slipt," Peter tottered on the sea, and cried out, "Lord, save me!" [Matthew 14:30] and so what is here put, "If I said, My foot has slipt," is put there, "Lord, I perish." And what is here, "Your mercy, O Lord, has held me up," is there put, "And immediately Jesus stretched forth His hand, saying, O thou of little faith, wherefore did you doubt?" [Matthew 14:31] It is wonderful how God proves men: our very dangers render Him who rescues us sweeter unto us. For see what follows: because he said, "If I said, My foot has slipt, Your mercy, O Lord, has held me up." The Lord has become especially sweet unto him, in rescuing him from danger; and thus speaking of this very sweetness of the Lord, he exclaims and says, "O Lord, in the multitude of the sorrows that I had in my heart, Your comforts have refreshed my soul" [Psalm 94:19]. Many sorrows, but many consolations: bitter wounds, and sweet remedies.”
“And thus the devil, the prince of the impious city, when he stirs up his own vessels against the city of God that sojourns in this world, is permitted to do her no harm. For without doubt the divine providence procures for her both consolation through prosperity, that she may not be broken by adversity, and trial through adversity, that she may not be corrupted by prosperity; and thus each is tempered by the other, as we recognize in the Psalms that voice which arises from no other cause, "According to the multitude of my griefs in my heart, Thy consolations have delighted my soul." Hence also is that saying of the apostle, "Rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation."”
“This, then, is the way now in which one living according to Christ acts in regard to his flesh when he struggles against his evil lustfulness. He restrains it in order to be healed, but he retains it even though his flesh is not yet healed. Still he nourishes and cherishes his flesh's good nature, since "no one ever hated his own flesh." In this way also Christ regards the church, insofar as we may compare lesser things with the greater. He both curbs it by corrections lest it be dissolved through the inflation of impunity, and he cheers it by consolations lest it succumb to the weight of its infirmity. In reference to this we have both the words of the apostle: "But if we judged ourselves, we should not thus be judged. But, when we are judged, we are being chastised by the Lord, that we may not be condemned with the world," and those of the psalm: "According to the multitude of my sorrows in my heart, your comforts have given joy to my soul." We must hope for the perfect soundness of our flesh, free from any resistance, because at that time the church of Christ will have a certain security that is free from any fear.”
“Dearly beloved, as I have already said, the devil is always either raging or lying in ambush. So, it behooves us to be always prepared by keeping our hearts fixed on the Lord. It behooves us to exert ourselves to the utmost in beseeching the Lord for fortitude in the midst of those harassing trials and tribulations, for of ourselves we are nothing but little children. What should we say with regard to ourselves? You have heard the answer from the apostle Paul during the reading of the epistle, in which he says, "For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so also through Christ does our comfort abound." In the psalm, it is expressed in this way: "According to the multitude of my sorrows in my heart, your encouragements have given joy to my soul." The psalmist expresses it one way, the apostle expresses it in another, but each of them tells us that if the Comforter were not with us we would yield to the persecutor.”
“Remember how often I remind you of this, and let us not think that we ought now, in this life, to be happy and free from all trials; let us not sacrilegiously murmur against God in the straits of our temporal affairs, as if he were not giving us what he has promised. For he promised what we need for this life, but the comforting of the sad is one thing, the joys of the blessed something quite other. "Lord," the psalmist says, "according to the multitude of my sorrows in my heart, your comforts have given joy to my soul." Let us not, then, murmur in our trials, lest we lose the inclusiveness of good cheer, of which it is said, "rejoicing in hope," followed by "patient in tribulation." Therefore, the new life begins now by faith and is carried on by hope, but then will come the time when "death shall be swallowed up in victory," when that "enemy, death, shall be destroyed last," when we shall be changed and shall become like the angels, "for we shall all indeed," he says, "rise again, but we shall not all be changed." And the Lord said, "They will be equal to the angels of God." We have now mastered fear by faith, but then we shall have the mastery in love by vision. "For as long as we are in the body, we are absent from the Lord, for we walk by faith and not by sight."”