Holiday

I don't blog with any sort of predictable regularity, but for those of you who check out my blog periodically, I will be taking a month of vacation to spend with my family and during that time, the blog will be collecting cob webs.  Blessings.

The Holdfast

I threatned to observe the strict decree
     Of my dear God with all my power and might.
     But I was told by one, it could not be.
Yet I might trust in God to be my light.
Then I will trust, said I, in him alone.
     Nay, ev'n to trust in him, was also his:
     We must confess, that nothing is our own.
Then I confess that he my succour is:
But to have nought is ours, not to confess
     That we have nought.  I stood amaz'd at this,
     Much troubled, till I heard a friend express,
That all things were more ours by being his.
     What Adam had, and forfeited for all,
     Christ keepeth now, who cannot fail or fall.

                                           - George Herbert

Augustine on Ambrose's reading habits...

"When he read, his eyes scanned the page and his heart explored the meaning, but his voice was silent and his tongue was still.  All could approach him freely and it was not usual for visitors to be announced, so that often, when we came to see him, we found him reading like this in silence, for he never read aloud.  We would sit there quietly, for no one had the heart to disturb him when he was so engrossed in study.  After a time we went away again, guessing that in the short time when he was free from the turmoil of other men's affairs and was able to refresh his own mind, he would not wish to be distracted.  Perhaps he was afraid that, if he read aloud, some obscure passage in the author he was reading might raise a question in the mind of an attentive listener, and he would then have to explain the meaning or even discuss some of the more difficult points.  If he spent his time in this way, he would not manage to read as much as he wished.  Perhaps a more likely reason why he read to himself was that he needed to spare his voice, which quite easily became hoarse.  But whatever the reason, we may be sure it was a good one."

                                                                                    - The Confessions, Book VI.3

Pros and Cons

There is no true profession of faith without real confession of sin.

There is no right pronouncement of the gospel without honest consecration of life to Christ.