' " Quis istls coi'da mutavit, nisi qui finxit singillatim corda eorum ? Quis Imjug rigoris duriticm ad obediendi moUivit affectum, nisi qui potens est de lapidibus Abra- hse filios excitare ?" — Prosp. ad Rufiu. de Lib. Arbit.
" riorcmus coram Domino qui fecit nos et homines ct salvos. Nam si illo nos fecit homines, nos autem ipsi nos fecimus salvos, aliquid illo melius fecijuus. Melior onim est salvus homo quam quilibet homo. Si ergo to Dcus fecit hominem et tu te fecisti bonuin hominem, quod tu fecisti melius est. Noli te extoUere super Deum, . . . con- fiterc illi qui fecit te, quia nemo rcci'eat nisi qui creat, nemo reficit nisi qui fecit." . — August, de Verb. Apost. Serm. x.
" Nemo quisquam hominum sive ad cogitandum, sivc ad operandum quodcunque bonum potest esse idoneus; nisi qui fucrit muncre gratuito divinre opitulationis adju- tus ; ab ipso namque est iuitium bona3 voluntatis, ab ipso facultas boni operis, ab ipso perseverantia bonas convcrsatiouis." — Fulgent, lib. i. ad Mouim.
CHAP. VI.] THE MANNER OF CONVERSION EXPLAINED, ETC. 337
in our regeneration ; for all which ends we ought to pray for Him, according to the example of holy men of old/
CHAPTER VL
THE MANNER OF CONVERSION EXPLAINED IN THE INSTANCE OF AUGUSTINE.^
The outward means and manner of conversion to God, or regeneration, with the degrees of spiritual operations on the minds of men and their effects, exem- plified in the conversion of Augustine, as the account is given thereof by himself.
As among all the doctrines of the gospel, there is none opposed with more violence and subtlety than that concerning our regenera- tion by the immediate, powerful, effectual operation of the Holy Spirit of grace; so there is not scarce any thing more despised or scorned by many in the world than that any should profess that there hath been such a luork of God upon themselves, or on any occasion declare aught of the way and manner whereby it was wrought. The very mentioning hereof is grown a derision among some that call themselves Christians; and to plead an interest or concern in this grace is to forfeit all a man's reputation with many who would be thought wise, and boast themselves to be rational. Neither is this a practice taken up of late, in these declining times of the world, but seems to have been started and followed from
' " Jam divini amor Numinis, Patris omnipotentis prolisque beatissiniEe sancta com- municatio ; omnipotens Paraclete Spiritus ; moerontiura consolator clementissime, jam cordis mei pcnetvalibus potenti illabere virtute, et tenebrosa quseque laris neglecti lati- bula, corusci luminis fulgore pius habitator Isetifica, tuique roris abundantia, longo ariditatis marcentia squalore, visitando fecunda."
2 After a youth spent in vicious excess, Augustine was converted to the faith of the gos- pel, and admitted into the church by Ambrose at Milan, a.d. 387. Ten years afterwards he wrote his " Confessions," in thirteen books; of which ten ai'C occupied with a detail of his sinfid conduct in early life, the circumstances of his conversion, and his personal history up to the period of his mother's death, while the remaining three are devoted to an exposition of the Mosaic account of creation. The work is altogether of an unique and extraordinary character, — a direct address to the Deity, sustained with consider- able skill and occasionally in strains of animated devotion, abounding in the most humble confession of the sins of the author's youth, and marked everywhere with the vigour of genius. As a faithful and minute record of the internal workings of his heart, these " Confessions" of Augustine ai'c of great service in illustrating the nature of the spiritual change implied in conversion. It is on this account Owen draws from them so largely in this chapter. Milner, for similar purposes, has embodied the substance of thera in his " History of the Church."
The quotations made by Owen have been compared with Bruder's edition of the " Confcs.sions" (1837). In some instances these quotations are translated by Owen, but wherever a formal translation is not supplied, the reader may understand that the substance of what is quoted is given immediately afterwards in our author's own words. _Ed.
VOL. III. 22
838 THE MANNER OF CONVERSION EXPLAINED [bOOK III.
days of old, — possibly from the beginning; yea, tlie enmity of Cain against Abel was but a brancli of this proud and perverse inclina- tion. The instance of Ishmael in the Scripture is representative of all such as, under an outward profession of the true religion, did or do scoff at those who, being, as Isaac, children of the promise, do pro- fess and evidence an interest in the internal j)Oiuer of it, which they are unacquainted withal. And the same practice may be traced in succeeding ages. Hence, holy Austin, entering upon the confession of his greater sins, designing thereby to magnify the glory and effi- cacy of the grace of God in his conversion, provides against this scorn of men, which he knew he should meet withal. " Irrideant," saith he, " me arrogantes et nondum salubriter prostrati et elisi a te, Deus mens, ego tamen confitear tibi dedecora mea, in laude tua," Confess, lib. iv. cap. 1 ; — " Let arrogant men deride or scorn me, who were never savingly cast down nor broken in pieces by thee, my God, yet I will [rather, let me] confess my own shame, unto thy praise." Let none be offended with these expressions, of being "savingly or wholesomely cast down and broken of God;" for, in the judgment of this great person, they are not fanatical. We may not, therefore, think it strange if the same truth, the same practice, and profession of it, do still meet with the same entertainment. Let them deride and scorn it who were never humbled savingly, nor broken with a sense of sin, nor relieved by grace ; the holy work of God's Spirit is to be owned, and the truth to be avowed as it is in Jesus.