---
title: 'W.G.T. Shedd on The Confessions of Augustine'
type: post
author: 'R. Andrew Myers'
date: 2022-11-04
url: https://confessional.org/blog/2022-w-g-t-shedd-on-the-confessions-of-augustine
---

# W.G.T. Shedd on The Confessions of Augustine

“The editing of these Confessions has been a labor of love. As we have scanned the sentences and syllables, we have seemed to hear the beating of that flaming heart, which, now for fifteen centuries, has burnt and throbbed with a seraph’s affection in the Mount of God. We have seemed to look into that deep and spiritual eye, which gazed without shrinking, yet with bitter penitential tears, into the depths of a tormenting conscience and a sinful nature, that it might then gaze without dazzling, and with unutterable rapture, into the eyes and face of The Eternal. Our Protestantism concedes, without scruple, the cognomen of Saint to this ethereal spirit. Our Christianity triumphs in that marvellous power of grace, which wrought such a wonderful transformation. Having this example and living fact before our view, we believe that Christ, the Lord, has all power, both in heaven and upon earth; and there is lodged in his pierced and bleeding hands a spiritual energy that is able to renovate the mightiest, and the most vitiated forms of humanity. The Caesars and Napoleons, the Byrons and Rousseaus, all the passionate spirits, all the stormy Titans, are within reach of that irresistible influence which is garnered up in the Redemption of the Son of God, and which is accessible to the prayers and the faith of the church.” — [W.G.T. Shedd](/authors/william-greenough-thayer-shedd), “Introduction to *The Confessions of Augustine*” (1860), pp. xxxii-xxxiii