Chapter 14

15. And so say I too, O my God, where art Thou? Behold where Thou art! In Thee I breathe a little, when I pour out my soul by myself in the voice of joy and praise, the sound of him that keeps holy-day.[1] And yet it is “cast down,” because it relapses and becomes a deep, or rather it feels that it is still a deep. Unto it doth my faith speak which Thou hast kindled to enlighten my feet in the night, “Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me? hope thou in God;”[2] His “word is a lamp unto my feet.”[3] Hope and endure until the night,—the mother of the wicked,—until the anger of the Lord be overpast,[4] whereof we also were once children who were sometimes darkness,[5] the remains whereof we carry about us in our body, dead on account of sin,[6] “until the day break and the shadows flee away.”[7] “Hope thou in the Lord.” In the morning I shall stand in Thy presence, and contemplate Thee;[8] I shall for ever confess unto Thee.[9] In the morning I shall stand in Thy presence, and shall see “the health of my countenance,”[10] my God, who also shall quicken our mortal bodies by the Spirit that dwelleth in us,[11] because in mercy He was borne over our inner darksome and floating deep. Whence we have in this pilgrimage received “an earnest”[12] that we should now be light, whilst as yet we “are saved by hope,”[13] and are the children of light, and the children of the day,—not the children of the night nor of the darkness,[14] which yet we have been.[15] Betwixt whom and us, in this as yet uncertain state of human knowledge, Thou only dividest, who provest our hearts[16] and callest the light day, and the darkness night.[17] For who discerneth us but Thou? But what have we that we have not received of Thee?[18] Out of the same lump vessels unto honour, of which others also are made to dishonour.[19]