{"id":1121,"date":"2015-08-28T00:03:54","date_gmt":"2015-08-28T05:03:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/?p=1121"},"modified":"2018-08-28T21:12:47","modified_gmt":"2018-08-29T02:12:47","slug":"grant-what-you-command","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/2015\/08\/28\/grant-what-you-command\/","title":{"rendered":"Grant What You Command"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;My entire hope is exclusively in your very great mercy. <strong>\u00a0Grant what you command, and command what you will<\/strong>. \u00a0You require continence. \u00a0A certain writer has said (Wisd. 8. 21): &#8216;As I knew that no one can be continent except God grants it, and this very thing is part of wisdom, to know whose gift this is.&#8217; \u00a0By continence we are collected together and brought to the unity from which we disintegrated into multiplicity. \u00a0He loves you less who together with you loves something which he does not love for your sake. \u00a0O love, you ever burn and are never extinguished. \u00a0O charity, my God, set me on fire. \u00a0You command continence; <strong>grant what you command, and command what you will<\/strong>.&#8221;\u00a0Augustine of Hippo, <em>Confessions<\/em>\u00a0X. xxix. trans. Henry Chadwick (Oxford 1991), p. 202. [Emphasis added]<\/p>\n<p>These famous words demonstrate Augustine&#8217;s understanding of the gift of God&#8217;s mercy and grace. \u00a0He realized that self control and the love of God were gifts that no sinner could generate from their own souls. \u00a0Therefore, he asked God to grant the gift of obedience to His divine commands. \u00a0Augustine knew God&#8217;s gift was necessary in order to fulfill God&#8217;s command. \u00a0This gift is grace.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;My entire hope is exclusively in your very great mercy. \u00a0Grant what you command, and command what you will. \u00a0You require continence. \u00a0A certain writer has said (Wisd. 8. 21): &#8216;As I knew that no one can be continent except &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/2015\/08\/28\/grant-what-you-command\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,99],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-augustine-of-hippo","category-grace"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/55"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1121"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1121\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1923,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1121\/revisions\/1923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}