I need a resource for an Augustine quote

I was looking for a quote attributed to Augustine yesterday and was unable to find it by any means in my library; which means I need a new resource. Help me to determine which one to buy by telling me which resource as a statement from Augustine to the effect of.....

There is only one deathbed conversion in scripture (the thief on the cross) so that will not despair, so that we will have hope; but there is only one lest we presume upon God's grace.

I'm fairly certain my memory of the quote is flawed but Logos hasn't helped me fix my memory just yet.

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Jack Caviness

I'm fairly certain my memory of the quote is flawed but Logos hasn't helped me fix my memory just yet.

I have heard the statement, but I don't think the version I heard was attributed to Augustine. I also could not find anything similar in my Library.

Alan Macgregor

Thomas, I don't have it in my Logos resources, but searching online I came upon this resource with the words you quoted:

It is, of course, always a theoretical possibility that one might believe and repent on one's deathbed and be saved, as it were, at the last moment. But, fact is, it almost never happens. (Augustine reminds us that there is one case of a deathbed conversion in the Bible so that no one may despair, but only one, so that no one will presume.) What is more, we don't know the personal history of the thief on the cross. Was he a man who had often heard the Word of God addressed to his conscience and refused to heed it or, as it perhaps more likely, was he an irreligious man who knew very little of God and his salvation until he saw both in the face of the Savior of the World and heard it in his words as he hung on the cross?

They are from this web resource: Faith Presbyterian Church, Tacoma, WA

STUDIES IN MICAH No. 7
October 25, 1998
Micah 3:1-4

Hope that may help you track it down.

Every blessing

Alan

TCBlack

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/200155#Comment_200155

Thanks Alan. I have found a few like that as well -(In fact I found that quote just now).

Unfortunately via Google I've also seen the quote attributed to J.C. Ryle, C.I. Scofield, Augustine, H.L. Willmington, C.S. Lewis and the list goes on.

It appears I may have to attribute the loose quote to "someone who once said something like...." [;)]

Alan Macgregor

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/200159#Comment_200159

Thomas,

"As someone once said/wrote" … I read a lot of Someone's books! [;)]

BTW my own father was converted just three weeks before he died. He suffered a slight stroke and in his weakness God changed his life. When I was told of his "conversion" I was sceptical, because I thought that he was just saying this to keep my Christian mother happy. However, I was convinced of the reality of his conversion when talking to him and my mother in hospital.

Mum: "Tell Alan your news. You've found the Lord."

Dad: "That would be presumptuous. I wasn't looking. He found me."

When I heard him say that I knew that this was genuine, because an unregenerate man just wouldn't think to express it in this way.

In the short time we had left together (he died less than three weeks later) Dad asked my to read the scriptures every time I was with him. The last reading we had together was Psalm 84; in particular verse 10 meant a great deal to him.

Even though it was back in 1993, I have never forgotten those days. They were precious times.

Every blessing,

Alan

TCBlack

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/200160#Comment_200160

Heh. I've read a lot of someone's books as well.

I just found another interesting attribution to one: Pasquier Quesnel. Alas as none of these "citations" desire to cite their work I am at a standstill on this one.

Alan Macgregor

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/200162#Comment_200162

I've edited my initial response. [:S]

TCBlack

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/200167#Comment_200167

With presumed permission Alan, I would like to include that story in my sermon.

Praise the Lord Almighty who is able to save.

Todd Phillips

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/200169#Comment_200169

According to an Augustine biography, Samuel Beckett was responsible for attributing it to Augustine, but it's not in any of Augustine's extant writings:

http://books.google.com/books?id=cQqB_hiupPgC&pg=PA289&lpg=PA289&dq=despair+thieves+presume+damned+augustine&source=bl&ots=DYRON4RgZz&sig=_Tmc84yyCXuq32_0czv8c_KmsAo&hl=en&ei=ok0CTfe1HML7lwes3-XTCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CDcQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=despair%20thieves%20presume%20damned%20augustine&f=false

Nord Zootman

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/200159#Comment_200159

It appears I may have to attribute the loose quote to "someone who once said something like...."

You surely know the preacher's pattern:

"as Augustine once said..."

"as someone once said..."

"as I always say..." [:)]

TCBlack

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/200180#Comment_200180

According to an Augustine biography, Samuel Beckett was responsible for attributing it to Augustine, but it's not in any of Augustine's extant writings:

Todd, you're incredible. [y]

The only issue is that Samuel Barclay Beckett (13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Beckett post dates some of the quasi citations I've found.

Dan Anderson

I found a reference in Augustine: a new biography By James Joseph O'Donnell that might help It seems that you are not the only one looking.

http://books.google.com/books?id=cQqB_hiupPgC&pg=PA289&lpg=PA289&dq=Augustine+thieves+despair+presume&source=bl&ots=DYRPEXNeTy&sig=KauhxAr9ndzCJM1D-e0UdsB4Cnw&hl=en&ei=DWQCTYRIg7SwA9XD0YsN&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CC0Q6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=Augustine thieves despair presume&f=false

TCBlack

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/200243#Comment_200243

What is most telling is the confirmation that it cannot be found in any of Augustine's surviving writings.

That alone now relegates the quote to the realm of "someone once said...."

Perhaps I'll just cite Nord Zootman as the source. [;)]

Jack Caviness

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/200160#Comment_200160

BTW my own father was converted just three weeks before he died. He suffered a slight stroke and in his weakness God changed his life. When I was told of his "conversion" I was sceptical, because I thought that he was just saying this to keep my Christian mother happy. However, I was convinced of the reality of his conversion when talking to him and my mother in hospital.

Thank you for sharing this.

Alan Macgregor

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/200169#Comment_200169

With presumed permission Alan, I would like to include that story in my sermon.

Praise the Lord Almighty who is able to save.

Feel free, Thomas. Soli Deo Gloria.

David A. Peterson

I was looking for a quote attributed to Augustine yesterday

Could it be a rough paraphrase from the following passage?

Accordingly, the thief, who was no follower of the Lord previous to the cross, but His confessor upon the cross, from whose case a presumption is sometimes taken, or attempted, against the sacrament of baptism, is reckoned by St. Cyprian⁷ among the martyrs who are baptized in their own blood, as happens to many unbaptized persons in times of hot persecution, For to the fact that he confessed the crucified Lord so much weight is attributed and so much availing value assigned by Him who knows how to weigh and value such evidence, as if he had been crucified for the Lord. Then, indeed, his faith on the cross flourished when that of the disciples failed, and that without recovery if it had not bloomed again by the resurrection of Him before the terror of whose death it had drooped. They despaired of Him when dying,—he hoped when joined with Him in dying; they fled fromthe author of life,—he prayed to his companion in punishment; they grieved as for the death of a man,—he believed that after death He was to be a king; they forsook the sponsor of their salvation,—he honoured the companion of His cross. There was discovered in him the full measure of a martyr, who then believed in Christ when they fell away who were destined to be martyrs. All this, indeed, was manifest to the eyes of the Lord, who at once bestowed so great felicity on one who, though not baptized, was yet washed clean in the blood, as it were, of martyrdom. But even of ourselves, who cannot reflect with how much faith, how much hope, how milch charity he might have undergone death for Christ when living, who begged life of Him when dying? Besides all this, there is the circumstance, which is not incredibly reported, that the thief who then believed as he hung by the side of the crucified Lord was sprinkled, as in a most sacred baptism, with the water which issued from the wound of the Saviour’s side. I say nothing of the fact that nobody can prove, since none of us knows that he had not been baptized previous to his condemnation. However, let every man take this in the sense he may prefer; only let no rule about baptism affecting the Saviour’s own precept be taken from this example of the thief; and let no one promise for the case of unbaptized infants, between damnation and the kingdom of heaven, some middle place of rest and happiness, such as he pleases and where he pleases. For this is what the heresy of Pelagius promised them: he neither fears damnation for infants, whom he does not regard as having any original sin, nor does he give them the hope of the kingdom of heaven, since they do not approach to the sacrament of baptism. As for this man, however, although he acknowledges that infants are involved in original sin, he yet boldly promises them, even without baptism, the kingdom of heaven. This even the Pelagians had not the boldness to do, though asserting infants to be absolutely without sin. See, then, what a network of presumptuous opinion he entangles, unless he regret having committed such views to writing.

Schaff, P. (1997). The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers Vol. V. Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems.

In Christ,

Dave

TCBlack

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/200347#Comment_200347

Very interesting David. The opening salvo against a "Presumption" gives merit to the thought. Though the presumption in view here is a perceived abolition of baptism by Pelagius.

David A. Peterson

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/200350#Comment_200350

Yes, the discussion about baptism in some circles IS about salvation. There are some nuggets concerning the death bed and salvation. I could look deeper but I was this diversion to shy away from a seminary paper that needs to be completed - about three pages away... The new search by the was is very fast...

TCBlack

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/200359#Comment_200359

Yes, the discussion about baptism in some circles IS about salvation.

Silly of me to neglect the obvious, earlier Christians saw no distinction or very little regarding salvation, discipleship and obedience to their Lord.

As for you....

BACK TO WORK! :-)