{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/101/1010021.htm","path":"chr/ecf/101/1010021.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/101/1010021.htm","text":"Chapter V.\u2014He Seeks Rest in God, and Pardon of His Sins.\n5. Oh! how shall I find rest in Thee? Who will send Thee into my heart to inebriate it, so that I may forget my woes, and embrace Thee my only good? What art Thou to me? Have compassion on me, that I may speak. What am I to Thee that Thou demandest my love, and unless I give it Thee art angry, and threatenest me with great sorrows? Is it, then, a light sorrow not to love Thee? Alas! alas! tell me of Thy compassion, O Lord my God, what Thou art to me. \u201cSay unto my soul, I am thy salvation.\u201d 138 So speak that I may hear. Behold, Lord, the ears of my heart are before Thee; open Thou them, and \u201csay unto my soul, I am thy salvation.\u201d When I hear, may I run and lay hold on Thee. Hide not Thy face from me. Let me die, lest I die, if only I may see Thy face. 139\n6. Cramped is the dwelling of my soul; do Thou expand it, that Thou mayest enter in. It is in ruins, restore Thou it. There is that about it which must offend Thine eyes; I confess and p. 47 know it, but who will cleanse it? or to whom shall I cry but to Thee? Cleanse me from my secret sins, 140 O Lord, and keep Thy servant from those of other men. I believe, and therefore do I speak; 141 Lord, Thou knowest. Have I not confessed my transgressions unto Thee, O my God; and Thou hast put away the iniquity of my heart? 142 I do not contend in judgment with Thee, 143 who art the Truth; and I would not deceive myself, lest my iniquity lie against itself. 144 I do not, therefore, contend in judgment with Thee, for \u201cif Thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?\u201d 145\nMoriar ne moriar, ut eam videam. See Ex. 33.20.\n47:140\nPs. 19:12, 13. \u201cBe it that sin may never see the light, that it may be like a child born and buried in the womb; yet as that child is a man, a true man, there closeted in that hidden frame of nature, so sin is truly sin, though it never gets out beyond the womb which did conceive and enliven it.\u201d\u2014Sedgwick\n47:141 47:142 47:143 47:144\nPs. 26.12, Vulg. \u201cThe danger of ignorance is not less than its guilt. For of all evils a secret evil is most to be deprecated, of all enemies a concealed enemy is the worst. Better the precipice than the pitfall; better the tortures of curable disease than the painlessness of mortification; and so, whatever your soul\u2019s guilt and danger, better to be aware of it. However alarming, however distressing self-knowledge may be, better that than the tremendous evils of self-ignorance.\u201d\u2014Caird.\n47:145","title":"Nicene and Post Nicene-Fathers, Vol. I: The Confessions: ...","type":"page"}