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Moody Classics Set of 6 Books

Moody Publishers

THE FIRST BOOK

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Confession of the greatness and unsearchableness of God, of God's mercies in infancy and boyhood, and human wilfulness; of his own sins of idleness, abuse of his studies, and of God's gifts up to his fifteenth year.

1. Great art Thou, O Lord, and greatly to be praised; great is Thy power, and Thy wisdom infinite (Pss. 145:3; 147:5). And Thee would man praise; man, but a particle of Thy creation; man, that bears about him his mortality, the witness of his sin, the witness, that Thou resistest the proud (Jam. 4:6; 1 Pet. 5:5): yet would man praise Thee; he, but a particle of Thy creation. Thou awakest us to delight in Thy praise; for Thou madest us for Thyself, and our heart is restless, until it rest in Thee.

Grant me, Lord, to know and understand which is first, to call on Thee or to praise Thee? and, again, to know Thee or to call on Thee? For who can call on Thee, not knowing Thee? For he that knoweth Thee not, may call on Thee as someone other than Thou art. Or, is it rather, that we call on Thee that we may know Thee? But how shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? (Rom. 10:14) or how shall they believe without a preacher? And they that seek the Lord shall praise Him (Ps. 22:26). For they that seek shall find Him (Matt. 7:7), and they that find shall praise Him. I will seek Thee, Lord, by calling on Thee; and will call on Thee, believing in Thee; for to us hast Thou been preached. My faith, Lord, shall call on Thee, which Thou hast given me, and by which Thou hast inspired me, through the Incarnation of Thy Son, through the ministry of the Preacher.

2. And how shall I call upon my God, my God and Lord, since, when I call for Him, I shall be calling Him to myself? and what room is there within me, where my God can come into me? Where can God come into me, God who made heaven and earth? Is there, indeed, O Lord my God, anything in me that can contain Thee? Do then heaven and earth, which Thou hast made, and wherein Thou hast made me, contain Thee? or, because nothing which exists could exist without Thee, doth therefore whatever exists contain Thee? Since, then, I too exist, why do I desire that Thou shouldest enter into me, who were not, if Thou wert not in me? Why? Because I am not now in hell, and yet Thou art there also. For if I go down into hell, Thou art there. I could not be then, O my God, could not be at all, wert Thou not in me; or, rather, unless I were in Thee, of whom are all things, by whom are all things, in whom are all things. Even so, Lord, even so. Where do I call Thee, since I am in Thee? or whence canst Thou enter into me? For where can I go beyond heaven and earth, that there my God should come into me, who hath said, I fill the heaven and the earth?

3. Do the heaven and earth then contain Thee, since Thou fillest them? or dost Thou fill them and yet overflow, since they do not contain Thee? And where, when the heaven and the earth are filled, pourest Thou forth the remainder of Thyself? Or hast Thou no need that anything contain Thee, who containest all things, since what Thou fillest Thou fillest by containing it? For the vessels which Thou fillest restrict Thee not, since, though they were broken, Thou wert not poured out. And when Thou art poured out on us (Acts 2:18), Thou art not cast down, but Thou upliftest us; Thou art not scattered, but Thou gatherest us. But Thou who fillest all things, fillest Thou them with Thy whole self? or, since all things cannot contain Thee wholly, do they contain part of Thee? and all at once the same part? or each its own part, the greater more, the smaller less? And is, then, one part of Thee greater, another less? or, art Thou wholly everywhere, while nothing contains Thee wholly?

4. What art Thou then, my God? What, but the Lord God? For who is Lord but the Lord? or who is God save our God? (Ps. 35:3). Most highest, most good, most potent, most omnipotent; most merciful, yet most just; most hidden, yet most present; most beautiful, yet most strong; stable, yet incomprehensible; unchangeable, yet all-changing; never new, never old; all-renewing, and bringing age upon the proud, and they know it not; ever working, ever at rest; still gathering, yet needing nothing; supporting, filling, and over-spreading; creating, nourishing, and maturing; seeking, yet having all things. Thou lovest, yet without passion; art jealous, without anxiety; repentest, yet grievest not; art angry, yet serene; changest Thy works, Thy purpose unchanged; receivest again what Thou findest, yet didst never lose; never in need, yet rejoicing in gains; never covetous, yet exacting usury (Matt. 25:27). Thou receivest over and above, that Thou mayest owe; and who hath anything that is not Thine? Thou payest debts, owing nothing; remittest debts, losing nothing. And what have I now said, my God, my life, my holy joy? or what saith any man when he speaks of Thee? Yet woe to him that speaketh not, since the mute are even the most eloquent.

5. Oh! that I might rest on Thee! Oh! that Thou wouldest enter into my heart, and inebriate it, that I may forget my ills, and embrace Thee, my only good. What art Thou to me? In Thy pity, teach me to utter it. Or what am I to Thee that Thou demandest my love, and, if I give it not, are wroth with me, and threatenest me with grievous woes? Is it then a slight woe to love Thee not? Oh! for Thy mercies' sake, tell me, O Lord my God, what Thou art unto me. Say unto my soul, I am thy salvation (Ps. 18:31). So speak, that I may hear. Behold, Lord, my heart is turned to Thee; open Thou the ears thereof, and say unto my soul, I am thy salvation. After this voice let me run, and take hold on Thee. Hide not Thy face from me. Let me die—lest I die—only let me see Thy face.

6. Narrow is the mansion of my soul; enlarge Thou it, that Thou mayest enter in. It lies in ruins; repair Thou it. It contains that which must offend Thine eyes; I confess and know it. But who shall cleanse it? or to whom should I cry, save Thee? Lord, cleanse me from my secret faults, and spare Thy servant from the power of the enemy. I believe, and therefore do I speak (Pss. 19:12–13; 116:10; 32:5). Lord, thou knowest. Have I not confessed against myself my transgressions unto Thee, and Thou, my God, hast forgiven the iniquity of my heart? I contend not in judgment with Thee (Job 9:3), who art the truth; I fear to deceive myself; lest mine iniquity lie unto itself (Ps. 26:12). Therefore I contend not in judgment with Thee; for if Thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall abide it? (Ps. 130:3).

7. Yet allow me to speak unto Thy mercy, me, dust and ashes (Gen. 18:27). Yet allow me to speak, since I speak to Thy mercy, and not to scornful man. Thou too, perhaps, despisest me, yet wilt Thou return and have compassion upon me (Jer. 12:15). For what would I say, O Lord my God, but that I know not whence I came into this dying life (shall I call it?) or living death. Then immediately did the comforts of Thy compassion take me up, as I heard (for I remember it not) from the parents of my flesh, out of whose substance Thou didst sometime fashion me. Thus there received me the comforts of woman's milk. For neither my mother nor my nurses filled their own breasts for me; but Thou didst bestow the food of my infancy through them, according to Thine ordinance, whereby Thou distributest Thy riches through the hidden springs of all things. Thou also gavest me to want no more than Thou gavest; and to my nurses willingly to give me what Thou gavest them. For they, with an heaven-taught affection, willingly gave me, what they abounded with from Thee. For this my good from them, was good for them. Nor, indeed, from them was it, but through them; for from Thee, O God, come all good things, and from my God is all my health. This I since learned, Thou, through these Thy gifts, within me and outside me, proclaiming Thyself unto me. For then I knew but to suck; to be satisfied in what pleased, and cry at what hurt my flesh; nothing more.

8. Afterwards I began to smile; first in sleep, then waking: for so it was told me about myself, and I believed it; for we see the like in other infants, though of myself I remember it not. Thus, little by little, I became conscious where I was; and to have a wish to express my wishes to those who could satisfy them, and I could not; for the wishes were within me, and they without; nor could they by any power of theirs enter within my spirit. So I tossed about at random limbs and voice, making the few signs I could, and such as I could, like, though in truth very little like, what I wished. And when I was not presently obeyed (my wishes being hurtful or unintelligible), then I was indignant with my elders for not submitting to me, with those owing me no service, for not serving me; and avenged myself on them by tears. Such have I learnt about infants from observing them; and, that I was myself such, they, without knowing it, have shown me better than my nurses who knew it.

9. But my infancy died long since, and I live. But Thou, Lord, who for ever livest, and in whom nothing dies: for before all that can be called "before," Thou art, and art God and Lord of all which Thou hast created: in Thee abide, fixed for ever, the first causes of all things unabiding; and of all things changeable, the springs abide in Thee unchangeable: and in Thee live the eternal reasons of all things unreasoning and temporal. Tell me, Lord, Thy suppliant; say, all-pitying, to me, Thy pitiable one; say, did my infancy succeed another age of mine that died before it? Was it that which I spent within my mother's womb? for of that I have heard something, and have myself seen women with child? and what before that life again, O God my joy, was I any where or any body? For this have I none to tell me, neither father nor mother, nor experience of others, nor mine own memory. Dost Thou laugh at me for asking this, and bid me praise Thee and acknowledge Thee, for all I do know?

10. I acknowledge Thee, Lord of heaven and earth, and praise Thee for my first rudiments of being, and my infancy, whereof I remember nothing; for Thou hast endowed man that he should from others guess much concerning himself; and believe much on the strength of weak women. Even then I had being and life, and (at my infancy's close) I could seek for signs, whereby to make known to others my sensations. Whence could such a being be, save from Thee, Lord? Shall any be his own artificer? Or can there elsewhere be derived any channel, which may stream essence and life into us, save from Thee, O Lord, in whom essence and life are one? for Thou Thyself art supremely Essence and Life. For Thou art most high, and art not changed (Mal. 3:6), neither in Thee doth Today come to a close; yet in Thee doth it come to a close; because all such things also are in Thee. For they had no way to pass away, unless Thou upheldest them. And since Thy years fail not (Ps. 102:27), Thy years are this very day. How many of ours and our fathers' years have flowed away through Thy "today," and from it received the measure and the mould of such being as they had; and still others shall flow away, and so receive the measure of their degree of being. But Thou art still the same (Ibid)., and all things of tomorrow, and all beyond, and all of yesterday, and all behind it, Thou hast done today. What is it to me, if anyone comprehend not this? Let him also rejoice and say, What thing is this? (Ex. 16:15). Let him rejoice even thus; and be content rather by not discovering to discover Thee, than by discovering not to discover Thee.

11. Hear, O God. Alas, for man's sin! So saith man, and Thou pitiest him; for Thou madest him, but sin in him Thou madest not. Who remindeth me of the sins of my infancy? for in Thy sight none is pure from sin, not even the infant whose life is but a day upon the earth (Job 25:4). Who brings this to my mind? Doth not each little infant, in whom I see what of myself I remember not? What then was my sin? Was it that I hung upon the breast and cried? For should I now so do for food suitable to my age, justly should I be laughed at and reproved. What I then did was worthy of reproof; but since I could not understand reproof, custom and reason forbade me to be reproved. For those habits, when grown, we root out and cast away. Now no man, though he roots out the bad, wittingly casts away what is good (John 15:2). Or was it then good, even for a while, to cry for what, if given, would be harmful? bitterly to resent, that persons free, and its own elders, yea, that very authors of its birth, served it not? that many other persons besides, wiser than it, obeyed not the orders of its good pleasure? to do its best to strike and hurt, because commands were not obeyed, which had been obeyed to its hurt? The weakness then of infant limbs, not its will, is its innocence. Myself have seen and known even a baby envious; it could not speak, yet it turned pale and looked bitterly on its foster-brother. Who knows not this? Mothers and nurses tell you, that they subdue these things by I know not what remedies. Is that too innocence, when the fountain of milk is flowing in rich abundance, not to endure one to share it, though in extremest need, and whose very life as yet depends thereon? We bear gently with all this, not as being no or slight evils, but because they will disappear as years increase; for, though tolerated now, the very same tempers are utterly intolerable when found in later years.

12. Thou, then, O Lord my God, who gavest life to this my infancy, furnishing thus with senses (as we see) the body Thou gavest, equipping it with limbs, ornamenting its proportions, and, for its general good and safety, implanting in it all vital functions, Thou commandest me to praise Thee for these things, to confess unto Thee, and sing unto Thy name, Thou most Highest (Ps. 92:1). For Thou art God, Almighty and Good, even hadst Thou done nothing but only this, which none could do but Thou: whose oneness is the mould of all things; who out of Thy own fairness makest all things fair; and orderest all things by Thy law. This age then, Lord, whereof I have no remembrance which I take on others' word, and guess from other infants that I have passed, true though the guess be, I am yet reluctant to count in this life of mine which I live in this world. For no less than that which I spent in my mother's womb, is it hid from me in the shadows of forgetfulness. But if I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me (Ps. 51:7), where, I beseech Thee, O my God, where, Lord, or when, was I Thy servant innocent? But, lo! that period I pass by; and what have I now to do with that, of which I can recall no trace?

13. Passing hence from infancy, I came to boyhood, or rather it came to me, displacing infancy. Nor did that depart,—(for whither went it?)—and yet it was no more. For I was no longer a speechless infant, but a speaking boy. This I remember; and have since observed how I learned to speak. It was not that my elders taught me words (as, soon after, other sorts of learning) in any set method; but I, longing by cries and broken accents and various motions of my limbs to express my thoughts, so that I might have my will, and yet unable to express all I wished, or to whom I willed, did myself, by the understanding which Thou, my God, gavest me, practise the sounds in my memory. When they named any thing, and as they spoke turned towards it, I saw and remembered what they called what they would point out, by the name they uttered. And that they meant this thing and no other, was plain from the motion of their body, and natural language, as it were, of all nations, expressed by the countenance, glances of the eye, gestures of the limbs, and tones of the voice, indicating the affections of the mind, as it pursues, possesses, rejects, or shuns. And thus by constantly hearing words, as they occurred in various sentences, I understood gradually for what they stood; and having broken in my mouth to these signs, I thereby gave expression to my will. Thus I exchanged with those about me these current signs of our wills and so launched deeper into the stormy exchanges of human life, yet depending on parental authority and the desires of my elders.

14. O God my God, what miseries and mockeries did I now experience, when obedience to my teachers was proposed to me, as proper in a boy, in order that in this world I might prosper, and excel in the art of speech, which should serve to the "praise of men," and to deceitful riches. Next I was sent to school to get learning, in which I (poor wretch) knew not what use there was; and yet, if slow in learning, I was beaten. For this was judged right by our forefathers; and many, passing the same course before us, formed for us weary paths, through which we were fain to pass; multiplying toil and grief upon the sons of Adam. But, Lord, we found that men called upon Thee, and we learnt from them to think of Thee (according to our powers) as of some great One, who, though hidden from our senses, couldst hear and help us. For so I began, as a boy, to pray to Thee, my aid and refuge; and broke the restraints of my tongue to call on Thee, praying Thee, though small, yet with no small earnestness, that I might not be beaten at school. And when Thou heardest me not (not thereby giving me over to folly) (Ps. 21:3), my elders, yea, my very parents, who yet wished me no ill, laughed at my punishments, my then great and grievous ill.

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Excerpted from Moody Classics Set of 6 Books by Paul M. Bechtel. Copyright © 2007 Moody Bible Institute. Excerpted by permission of Moody Publishers.
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