3. Ps..cxin. 5: 4 Ps. CxXxXv. 15. 7 Isa. lili. 1. 8 en, xxxvii, 28.
THE' WORKS -OF SE AUGUSTIN, [PsaLtm LXXVII.
thyself, if thou canst delight in Him alone. For what is a better thing than He? Dost thou not see that, when thou returnest to thyself, thou returnest to a worse thing? " for I shall be mindful from the beginning of Thy wonderful works.
wrought on the soul. Sober are those that were a little before drunken, believers are those that were a little before worshippers of idols; their goods they bestow on the poor that did rob before those of others. .. . " Wonderful things alone." Moses too did them, but not alone: Elias too did them, even Eliseus did them, the Apostles too did them, but no one of them alone. That they might have power to do them, Thou wast with them: when Thou didst them they were not with Thee. For they were not with Thee when Thou didst them, inasmuch as Thou didst make even these very men. How "alone"? Is:it perchance the Father, and not the Son? Or the Son, and not the Father? Nay, but Father and Son and Holy Ghost. For it is not three Gods but one God that doeth wonderful things alone, and even in this very leaperover. For even his leaping over and arriving at these things was a miracle of God: when he was babbling within with his own spirit, in order that he might leap over even that same spirit of his, and might delight in the works of God, he then did wonderful things himself. But God hath done what? "Thou hast made known unto the people Thy power.'5 Thence this congregation of Asaph leaping over; because He hath made known in the peoples His virtue. What virtue of His hath He made known in the peoples? " But we preach Christ crucified, .. . Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God." ® If then the virtue of God is Christ,
13. "And I will meditate on all Thy works, and on Thy affections I will babble" (ver. 12). Behold the third babbling! He babbled without, when he fainted ; he babbled in his spirit within, when he advanced ; he babbled on the works of
God, when he arrived at the place toward which he advanced. "And on Thy affections: " not on my affections. What man doth live without affections? And do ye suppose, brethren, that they who fear God, worship God, love God, have not any affections? Wilt thou indeed suppose and dare to suppose, that painting, the theatre, hunting, hawking, fishing, engage the affections, and the meditation on God doth not engage certain interior affections of its own, while we contemplate the universe, and place before our eyes the spectacle of the natural world, and therein labour to discover the Maker, and find Him nowhere unpleasing, but pleasing above * all things P
14. "O God, Thy way is in the Holy One" (ver. 13). He is contemplating now the works of the mercy of God around us, out of these he is babbling, and in these affections he is exulting. At first he is beginning from thence, 'Thy way is in the Holy One?" What is that way of Thine which is in the Holy One? "JI am," He saith, " the Way, the Truth, and the Life." 2 Return therefore, ye men, from your affections... . "Who is a great God, like our God?" 3 Gentiles have their affections regarding their gods, they adore idols, they have eyes and they see not; ears they have and they hear not; feet they have and they walk not. Why dost thou walk to a God that walketh not? I do not, he saith, worship such things, and what dost thou worship? The divinity which is there. Thou dost then worship that whereof hath been said elsewhere, "for the Gods of the nations are demons." + Thou dost either worship idols, or devils. Neither idols, nor devils, he saith. And what dost thou worship? The stars, sun, moon, those things celestial How much better Him that hath made both things earthly and things celestial. ' Who is a great God like our God?" 15. "Thou art the God that doest wonderful things alone"' (ver. 14). Thou art indeed a great God, doing wonderful things in body, in soul; alone doing them. The deaf have heard, the blind have seen, the feeble have recovered, the dead have risen, the paralytic have been strengthened. But these miracles were at that time performed on bodies, let us see those
He hath made known Christ in the peoples. Do we not yet perceive so much as this; and are we so unwise, are we lying so much below, do we so leap over nothing, as that we see not this?
16. " Thou hast redeemed in Thine arm Thy people" (ver.15). " With Thine arm," that is, with Thy power. "And to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed?"'7 "Thou hast redeemed in Thine arm Thy people, the sons of Israel and of Joseph." How as if two peoples, " the sons of Israel and of Joseph"? Are not the sons of Joseph among the sons of Israel? ... He hath admonished us of some distinction to be made. Let us search out our spirit, perchance God hath placed there something — God whom we ought even by night to seek with our hands, in order that we may not be deceived — perchance we shall discover even ourselves in this distinction of "sons of Israel and of Joseph." By Joseph He hath willed another people to be understood, hath willed that the people of the Gentiles be understood. Why the people of the Gentiles by Joseph? Because Joseph was sold into Egypt by his brethren.® That Joseph whom the brethren envied, and sold
3. Ps..cxin. 5: 2 John xiv. 6. 4 Ps. CxXxXv. 15. 5 Virtus. us. "* Virtue," Oxf. ed. 7 Isa. lili. 1. 8 6-1 Cori 1.23. en, xxxvii, 28.
1 One ms. " through."