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Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow CHAP. I.—: HE DEPLORES THE WICKEDNESS OF HIS YOUTH. - A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, Vol. 1 (The Confessions and Letters of St. Augustine)

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CHAP. I.—: HE DEPLORES THE WICKEDNESS OF HIS YOUTH. - Philip Schaff, A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, Vol. 1 (The Confessions and Letters of St. Augustine) [1886]

Edition used:

A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, ed. Philip Schaff, LL.D. (Buffalo: The Christian Literature Co., 1886). Vol. 1 The Confessions and Letters of St. Augustin, with a Sketch of his Life and Work.

Part of: A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, 14 vols.

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CHAP. I.—

HE DEPLORES THE WICKEDNESS OF HIS YOUTH.

1. I will now call to mind my past foulness, and the carnal corruptions of my soul, not because I love them, but that I may love Thee, O my God. For love of Thy love do I it, recalling, in the very bitterness of my remembrance, my most vicious ways, that Thou mayest grow sweet to me,—Thou sweetness without deception! Thou sweetness happy and assured!—and re-collecting myself out of that my dissipation, in which I was torn to pieces, while, turned away from Thee the One, I lost myself among many vanities. For I even longed in my youth formerly to be satisfied with worldly things, and I dared to grow wild again with various and shadowy loves; my form consumed away,1 and I became corrupt in Thine eyes, pleasing myself, and eager to please in the eyes of men.

[1 ]Ps. xxxix. 11.