Augustine led a wild youth and thankfully, finally settled down to write a lot of great books. The early Augustine was a lot different from the later Augustine. As he matured, so did his faith and the all-encompassing joy he experienced by being a child of the most High God.
Just as ours should.
And we need to rediscover Augustine's peculiar slant – a very Biblical slant – on grace as the free gift of sovereign joy in God that frees us from the bondage of sin. We need to rethink our Reformed soteriology so that every limb and every branch in the tree is coursing with the sap of Augustinian delight. We need to make plain that total depravity is not just badness, but blindness to beauty and deadness to joy; and unconditional election means that the completeness of our joy in Jesus was planned for us before we ever existed; and that limited atonement is the assurance that indestructible joy in God is infallibly secured for us by the blood of the covenant; and irresistible grace is the commitment and power of God's love to make sure we don't hold on to suicidal pleasures, but will set us free by the sovereign power of superior delights; and that the perseverance of the saints is the almighty work of God to keep us, through all affliction and suffering, for an inheritance of pleasures at God's right hand forever..." "...If it is true, as R.C. Sproul says that today "we have not broken free from the Pelagian captivity of the church," then we should pray and preach and write and teach and labor with all our might to break the chain that holds us captive. Sproul says, "We need an Augustine or a Luther to speak to us anew lest the light of God's grace be not only overshadowed but be obliterated in our time." Yes, we do. But we also need tens of thousands of ordinary pastors like you and me, who are ravished with the extraordinary sovereignty of joy in God.
Good stuff, saints! 8~)
AMEN! THX THX.
Amen
Just as ours should."
Once again...right on the nose.
“”We need to rethink our Reformed soteriology so that every limb and every branch in the tree is coursing with the sap of Augustinian delight. “”
Piper was hardly a scholar on Blessed Augustine!
Lets look at some prayer and writings of Blessed Augustine with REAL delight.
Saint Augustine Prayer.
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.
Other Writings...
“But in regard to those observances which we carefully attend and which the whole world keeps, and which derive not from Scripture BUT FROM TRADITION, we are given to understand that they are recommended and ordained to be kept either by the Apostles themselves or by plenary COUNCILS, THE AUTHORITY OF WHICH IS QUITE VITAL TO THE CHURCH.”
Letter of Augustine to Januarius 54,1,1, 400 A.D.
“I believe that this practice comes from apostolic tradition, just as so many other practices NOT FOUND IN THEIR WRITINGS nor in the councils of their successors, but which, because they are kept by the whole Church everywhere, are believed to have been commended and handed down by the Apostles themselves.”
St. Augustine, Baptism 1,12,20, 400 A.D.
“What they found in the Church they kept; what they learned, they taught; what they received from the fathers, they handed on to the sons.”
St. Augustine, Against Julian, 2,10,33, 421 A.D.
“Since by Christ’s favor we are CATHOLIC Christians:”
St. Augustine, Letter to Vitalis, 217,5,16, 427 A.D.
“By the same word, by the same Sacrament you were born, but you will not come to the same inheritance of eternal life, unless you return to the CATHOLIC CHURCH.”
St. Augustine, Sermons, 3, 391 A.D.
“This Church is holy, the one Church, the true Church, the Catholic Church, fighting as she does against all heresies. She can fight, but she cannot be beaten. All heresies are expelled from her, like the useless loppings pruned from a vine. She remains fixed in her root, in her vine, in her love. The gates of hell shall NOT conquer her.”
St. Augustine, Sermon to Catechumens, on the Creed, 6,14, 395 A.D.
Piper either had no clue about Blessed Augustine or he used 1 or two of his writings to support an agend.
Blessed Augustine would have admonished the likes of Piper if they were living in the same time period
“”We need to make plain that total depravity is not just badness, but blindness to beauty and deadness to joy; “”
More gibberish from piper.
Here is what Blessed Augustine writes...
http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/ipb-e/epl-01/agenc-01.txt
A good that wholly lacks an evil
aspect is entirely good. Where there is some evil in a thing, its
good is defective or defectible. Thus there can be no evil where
there is no good. This leads us to a surprising conclusion: that,
since every being, in so far as it is a being, is good, if we then
say that a defective thing is bad, it would seem to mean that we
are saying that what is evil is good, that only what is good is
ever evil and that there is no evil apart from something good.
This is because every actual entity is good [omnis natura bonum
est].