Aurelius Augustinius, bishop of Hippo Regius, Numidia (now Annaba, Algeria) is considered one of the more important church fathers by Western Christians. He was a deep thinker who liked to write a lot. He’s mostly known for two books: On the City of God, which explains the significant differences between the Kingdom and the world we live in; and his Confessions, which is about coming to God in general, and how Augustine came to God in particular.
Books and chapters were a lot shorter in ancient times than they are now, so here are the first five chapters of the first book of Augustine’s Confessions.
Confessions, 1.1-5.
You are great, Lord, and greatly to be praised. (Ps 145.3) Your power is great, and your wisdom can’t be numbered. Humans wish to praise you—humans, a portion of your creation, who carry around their mortality, who carry around the testimony of their sin and that “God opposes the proud.” (1Pe 5.5) Even so, humans, a portion of your creation, wish to praise you. You excite us to pleasure in praising you, because you made us for yourself! Our hearts are restless till they find rest in you. Lord, permit me to know and understand which of these I should do first: Invoke you, or praise you? Or should I get to know you before I invoke you? Who can rightly invoke you if we don’t know you? We can’t invoke you when you’re not really the one we’re invoking. Maybe we should learn who you are first. “But how can they call on him to save them unless they believe in him? And how can they believe in him if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them?” (1Pe 5.5) Those who seek the Lord will praise him. (Ps 22.26) Those who seek, will find him, (Mt 7.7) and those who find him, will praise him. So I will seek you, Lord, while I invoke you. I will call upon you while I believe in you. That’s what you’ve called us to do. My faith, which you gave me, which you breathed into me through your Son’s humanity, through your preacher’s ministry—my faith invokes you.
How should I call upon my Lord and God? I realize I should ask him, when I call on him, to be in me. But where is there space in me for God to be in?—he made the heavens and earth! My Lord God, is there anything in me that could contain you? Can the very heavens and earth—which you made, which you used to make me—contain you? Since nothing can exist without you, doesn’t it follow that you’re there already, holding it together?—so why should I ask you to be in me, since I already exist, and wouldn’t exist if you weren’t in me? I’m not yet in the grave, but you’re there too: “If I go down to the grave, you are there.” (Ps 139.8) I couldn’t exist at all if you weren’t in me. I could do nothing because “everything comes from him and exists by his power and is intended for his glory.” (Ro 11.36) Isn’t that right, Lord? Where can I invoke you, since you’re in me already? Where will you come to me? I’d have to go outside heaven and earth for my God—who said, “Am I not everywhere in all the heavens and earth?” (Jr 23.24) —to come into me.
Since you fill the heavens and earth, can they contain you, or do you fill them and overflow them? Where would the overflow go? Is that for us? Do you fill them by containing them, rather than them containing you? The things that are full of you don’t really hold you; when we break them, you don’t spill out. And when you’re poured out on us, you lift us up, and don’t just lie there. You bring us together, and don’t just dissipate. You fill and permeate all things. Since no one thing can contain all of you, can one thing contain a part?—big things a big part, small things a small part? Can an older part of you be in a younger thing? Or are you wholly everywhere, while nothing contains you wholly?
What are you, my God? What other than the Lord God? For who is Lord but the Lord? Who is God other than our God? (Ps 18.31) The greatest, the best, the most powerful, the Almighty, the most merciful yet most fair, the most hidden yet most present, the most beautiful and mighty, stable yet incomprehensible, unchangeable yet changes everything, never new and never old, renews everything yet ages the proud and ignorant, always working yet always resting, gathering yet needs nothing, carries and fills and protects and creates and nourishes and develops, seeks yet lacks nothing. You love without it burning you. You’re jealous but it doesn’t grieve you. You change your mind, but aren’t sorry for it. You get angry yet stay serene. You change your methods but never your plans. You get back what you seek, yet you never lost it. You need nothing, but rejoice when you get things. You covet nothing, but demand growth. You have plenty of everything—who has anything that isn’t actually yours?—yet repay debts you don’t owe, and forgive debts—and lose nothing. So what can we say about you, my God, my life, my holy delight? What can anyone say about you? Those who say the most may as well say nothing. Yet how sad for those who say nothing!
Can I find rest in you? Who can send you to my heart, make it drunk, make me forget my worries, and have me embrace you, my only good thing? What are you to me?—have mercy on me so I can speak. What am I to you?—you demand my love, and when I don’t love you you’re angry, and warn me of great sorrows? Is it no minor thing to not love you? Tell me of your mercy, my Lord God, and what you are to me. “Say to my soul, ‘I am your salvation!’ ” (Ps 35.3 ESV) Tell me so I can hear. Look, Lord, the ears of my heart are before you: Open them and “say to my soul, ‘I am your salvation!’ ” I’ll take hold of that voice and run after you. Don’t hide your face from me. If I have to die, let me see your face first.
The house of my soul is narrow. If you come to it, expand it. It’s a wreck; repair it. The things in it will offend you, and I confess I know better. But who will clean it? Who shall I cry to, other than you? “Cleanse me from these hidden faults. Keep your servant from deliberate sins!” (Ps 19.12-13) I believe, so I speak, Lord; you know. Haven’t I confessed my sins to you, my God? Haven’t you forgiven the wickedness of my heart? (Ps 32.5) I don’t fight your judgment—you are the truth, and I don’t care to deceive myself, lest my sinful nature lie to me. I won’t plead with you, for “LORD, if you kept a record of our sins, who, O Lord, could ever survive?” (Ps 130.3)