Dear Harley,That’s absurd! You never cease to amaze me with the things you write.
Augustine would NEVER elevate his views on predestination in order to give up or attack the Sacraments and teaching authority of the Church.
Let me show you just how Catholic Blessed Augustine was....
Augustine on Confession
“All mortal sins are to be submitted to the keys of the Church and all can be forgiven; but recourse to these keys is the only, the necessary, and the certain way to forgiveness. Unless those who are guilty of grievous sin have recourse to the power of the keys, they cannot hope for eternal salvation. Open your lips, them, and CONFESS YOUR SINS TO THE PRIEST. Confession alone is the true gate to Heaven.” Augustine, Christian Combat (A.D. 397).
Saint Augustine’s prayer to the Blessed Mother
Prayer to Our Lady of Mercy - St. Augustine of Hippo
Blessed Virgin Mary,
who can worthily repay you with praise
and thanks for having rescued a fallen world
by your generous consent!
Receive our gratitude,
and by your prayers obtain the pardon of our sins.
Take our prayers into the sanctuary of heaven
and enable them to make our peace with God.
Holy Mary, help the miserable,
strengthen the discouraged,
comfort the sorrowful,
pray for your people,
plead for the clergy,
intercede for all women consecrated to God.
May all who venerate you
feel now your help and protection.
Be ready to help us when we pray,
and bring back to us the answers to our prayers.
Make it your continual concern
to pray for the people of God,
for you were blessed by God
and were made worthy to bear the Redeemer of the world,
who lives and reigns forever.
Saint Augustine on Transubstantiation of Eucharist
“You ought to know what you have received, what you are going to receive, and what you ought to receive daily. That Bread which you see on the altar, having been sanctified by the word of God, IS the Body of Christ. The chalice, or rather, what is in that chalice, having been sanctified by the word of God, IS the Blood of Christ.”
-”Sermons”, [227, 21]
Saint Augustine on infant Baptism
“And if any one seek for divine authority in this matter, though what is held by the whole Church, and that not as instituted by Councils, but as a matter of invariable custom, is rightly held to have been handed down by apostolical authority, still we can form a true conjecture of the value of the sacrament of baptism in the case of infants, from the parallel of circumcision, which was received by God’s earlier people, and before receiving which Abraham was justified, as Cornelius also was enriched with the gift of the Holy Spirit before he was baptized.” Augustine, On Baptism against the Donatist, 4:24:31 (A.D. 400).
Saint Augustine on Peter’s Successors Claim Authority over the Church
“I am held in the communion of the Catholic Church by...and by the succession of bishops from the very seat of Peter, to whom the Lord, after His resurrection commended His sheep to be fed up to the present episcopate.” Augustine, Against the Letter of Mani, 5 (A.D. 395).
If Augustine had been born in the 14th-15th century he might well have been branded a heretic and suffered the same fate as Jan Hus.