CHRIST'S POWER TO RESURRECT

'No one can as easily awaken another in bed, as Christ can in the tomb.'
Augustine of Hippo in Tim Chester, Enjoying Jesus, p.72.

GOD'S JUSTICE

'When God punishes sinners, He does not inflict His evil on them, but leaves them to their own evil. 'Behold', saith the Psalmist, 'he hath been in labour with injustice, he hath conceived toil; brought forth iniquity. He hath opened a pit and dug it; and he is fallen into the hole he made. His sorrow shall come down upon his crown.' [Psalm 7:154-16] When therefore God punishes, He punishes as a judge those that transgress the law, not by bringing evil upon them from Himself, but driving them on to that which they have chosen, to fill up the sum of their misery.'

Augustine of Hippo in Andrew Davison, Blessing, p.61.

HOW GOD'S SPIRIT DISCIPLES THROUGH GOD'S WORD

The Holy Spirit, therefore, has generously and advantageously planned Holy Scripture in such a way that in the easier passages He relieves our hunger; in the more obscure He drives away our pride. Practically nothing is dug out from those obscure texts which is not discovered to be said very plainly in another place.'

Augustine of Hippo in Mark D Thompson, A Clear and Present Word: The clarity of Scripture, p.110.

HOW GRACE BEGINS

'To desire the aid of grace is the beginning of grace.'
Augustine of Hippo in James KA Smith, On the Road with Saint Augustine, p.67. 

LOVING THE GIVER NOT THE GIFT

'...if the things of this world delight you, praise God for them, but turn your love away from them and give it to their Maker.' 

Augustine of Hippo in Andrew Wilson, Spirit and Sacrament, p.35. 

WHERE MARITAL UNION POINTS US

'...the sacrament of monogamous marriage in our time is a symbol that in the future we shall all be united and subject to God in one heavenly city.' 

Augustine of Hippo in Jana Marguerite Bennett, Singleness and the Church, p.74. 

GOD LOVED US EVEN WHEN WE HATED HIM

'God's love is incomprehensible and unchangeable. For it was not after we were reconciled to him through the blood of his Son that he began to love us...Rather, he has loved us before the world was created...The fact that we were reconciled through Christ's death must not be understood as if his Son reconciled us to [The Father] so that he might now begin to love those whom he had hated. Rather, we have already been reconciled to him who loves us, with whom we were enemies on account of sin. The apostle will testify whether I am speaking the truth: "God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us" [Romans 5:8]. Therefore he loved us even when we practiced enmity toward him and committed wickedness. Thus in a marvellous and divine way he loved us even when he hated us. For he hated us for what were that he had not made; yet because our wickedness had not entirely consumed his handiwork, he knew how, at the same time, to hate in each one of us what we had made and to love what he had made.' 

Augustine of Hippo in Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, p.487. 

ANGRY LOVE

'Just as death achieves heights of fury in the work of destruction, so love achieves heights of fury in the work of salvation.' 

Augustine of Hippo in Robert W Jenson, Song of Songs, p.93. 

THE BEAUTY OF CREATION

'I said to all those things which stand about the gate to my senses: "Tell me about my God...tell me something about him." And they cried out in a loud voice: "He made us." My question was in my contemplation of them, and their answer was in their beauty.' 

Augustine of Hippo in Belden C Lane, Ravished by Beauty, p.101. 

FAITH

'Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward for this faith is to see what you believe.' 

Augustine of Hippo in Mark Jones, Knowing Christs, p.64. 

THE INCARNATION

'Man's maker was made man,
that He, Ruler of the stars, might nurse at His mother's breast;
that the Bread might hunger,
the Fountain thirst,
the Light sleep,
the Way be tired on its journey;
that the Truth might be accused of false witness,
the Teacher be beaten with whips,
the Foundation be suspended on wood;
that Strength might grow weak;
that the Healer might be wounded;
that Life might die.'
Augustine of Hippo in Mark Jones, Knowing Christ, p.34. 

JESUS RENEWS HUMANITY

'Christ, the master of the mint, came along to stamp the coins afresh.' 

Augustine of Hippo in Jason B Hood, Imitating God in Christ, p.137. 

UNDERSTANDING THE BIBLE

'So anyone who thinks that he has understood the divine scriptures or any part of them, but cannot by his understanding build up this double love of God and neighbour, has not yet succeeded in understanding them.' 

Augustine of Hippo in E Randolph Richards and Brandon J O'Brien, Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes, p.190. 

THE ASCENSION

'You ascended from before our eyes and we turned back grieving, only to find you in our hearts.'

Augustine of Hippo in Timothy Keller, Encounters with Jesus, p.179.

DISCERNMENT

'...when there is a question as to whether a man is good, one does not ask what he believes, or what he hopes, but what he loves.'

Augustine of Hippo in Steven Garber, The Fabric of Faithfulness: Weaving together belief and behavior, p.35.  

DESIRE

'When you would fill a purse, knowing how large a present it is to hold, you stretch wide its cloth or leather: knowing how much you are to put in it, and seeing that the purse is small, you extend it to make more room. So by delaying [his gift] God strengthens our longing, through longing he expands our soul, and by expanding our soul he increases its capacity. So brethren, let us long, because we are to be filled...That is our life, to be trained by longing: and our training through the holy longing advances in the measure that our longings are detached from the love of this world...Let us stretch ourselves out towards him, that when he comes he may fill us full.' 

Augustine of Hippo in Christopher West, Fill These Hearts, p.77.  

PREACHING

'My preaching almost always displeases me.'
Augustine of Hippo in Kent and Barbara Hughes, Libertaing Ministry from ther Success Syndrome, p.183.

GOD

'Late have I loved you, beauty so old and so new: late have I loved you. And see, you were within and I was in the external world and sought you there, and in my unlovely state I plunged into those lovely created things which you made. You were with me, and I was not with you. The lovely things kept me far from you, though if they did not have their existence in you, they had no existence at all. You called and cried out loud and shattered my deafness. You were radiant and resplendent, you put to flight my blindness. You were fragrant, and I drew my breath and now pant after you. I tasted you, and I feel but hunger and thirst for you. You touched me, and I am set on fire to attain the peace that is yours.'

Augustine of Hippo, Confessions, p.201.

FRIENDSHIP

'Friendship can be a dangerous enemy, a seduction of the mind lying beyond the reach of investigation. Out of a game and a jest came an avid desire to do injury and an appetite to inflict loss on someone without any motive on my part of personal game, and no pleasure in settling a score. As soon as the words are spoken "Let us go and do it," one is ashamed not to be shameless.'

Augustine of Hippo, Confessions, p.34.

SELF-RIGHTEOUNESS

'No one who considers his frailty would dare to attribute to his own strength his chastity and innocence, so that he has less cause to love you - as if he had less need of your mercy by which you forgive the sins of those converted to you. If man is called by you, follows your voice, and has avoided doing those acts which I am recalling and avowing in my own life, he should not mock the healing of a sick man by the Physician, whose help has kept him from falling sick, or at least enabled him to be less gravely ill. He should not love you less, indeed even more; for he sees that the one who delivered me from the great sickness of my sins is also he through whom he may see that he himself  has not been the victim of the same great sicknesses.'

Augustine of Hippo, Confessions, p.32.