Clergy

"Books cannot always please, however good; Minds are not ever craving for their food."

"And took for truth the test of ridicule."

"Time has touched me gently in his race, And left no odious furrows in my face."

"In this fool's paradise he drank delight."

"Habit with him was all the test of truth, It must be right: I’ve done it from my youth."

"The mind here exhibited is one untouched by pity, unstung by remorse, and uncorrected by shame; yet is this hardihood of temper and spirit broken by want, disease, solitude, and disappointment, and he becomes the victim of a distempered and horror-stricken fancy."

"Her air, her manners, all who saw admir'd; Courteous though coy, and gentle though retir'd; The joy of youth and health her eyes display'd, And ease of heart her every look convey'd."

"Oh, rather give me commentators plain, Who with no deep researches vex the brain; Who from the dark and doubtful love to run, And hold their glimmering tapers to the sun."

"Our farmers round, well pleased with constant gain, Like other farmers, flourish and complain."

"A master passion is the love of news."

"The murmuring poor, who will not fast in peace."

"Where Plenty smiles - alas! she smiles for few, And those who taste not, yet behold her store, Are as the slaves that dig the golden ore, The wealth around them makes them doubly poor."

"He tried the luxury of doing good."

"Secrets with girls, like loaded guns with boys, Are never valued till they make a noise."

"We hear from the saints who experienced prayer power that prayer gives wings to humans lifting them up so they can fly."

"The Bible is different from all other books; other books are written by man, but the Bible not only contains the sayings and commandments of God, but was also written entirely under divine inspiration. So we might say that it is God's book, which he gave to man to lead him to everlasting life."

"We must delight in each other, make other's conditions our own, rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together, always having before our eyes our commission and community in the work, our community as members of the same body."

"For we must consider that we shall be a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us, so that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a byword through the world."

"The only law that a Christian should listen to and read is the law of God's Commandments. And it is not right to comply with, implement or observe any other law."

"Why, for instance, did Martin Luther succeed, whereas other important rebels against the medieval church — like John Huss — fail? Well, Luther was successful because printing had been developed by the time he advanced his cause. So his good earthy writings were put into pamphlets and spread so far and wide that the church officials couldn't have stopped the Protestant Reformation even if they had burned Luther at the stake."

"If I knew a foreigner from anywhere in his virtue who would love God and would be interested in the good more than my own brother, he would be dearer to me than my brother. And hence I prefer good English priests over timid Czech priests and good German over an evil brother."

"Even a most evil man is better than the devil!"

"It is impossible that Christendom finds its peace in God's will, if the priesthood is not being called to order."

"The people from Prague and other Czechs should be whipped who speak half Czech and half German (...) And who could enumerate how the Czech language has already been corrupted, so that the true Czech hears they speak, but he does not understand them. And from that arises envy, anger, conflict, strife and Czech humiliation."

"O sancta simplicitas!"

"Melius est bene mori, quam male vivere (...) qui mortem metuit, amittit gaudia vitae; super omnia vincit veritas, vincit, qui occiditur, quia nulla ei nocet adversitas, si nulla ei dominatur iniquitas."

"God is my witness that I have never taught or preached that which false witnesses have testified against me. He knows that the great object of all my preaching and writing was to convert men from sin. In the truth of that gospel which hitherto I have written, taught and preached, I now joyfully die."

"I call God to witness that all I have written and preached, has been to rescue souls from sin. There can be no turning back. My Lord walked the path of truth and duty, even though it took Him to Calvary. Can I, one of his humble followers, turn back now? To witness to God's truth is more important than life. Joyfully then, will I confirm with my blood all the writings and preachings of truths that I've held. Into Thy hands, O Lord, I commit my spirit.*"

"We bear it calmly, though a ponderous woe, And still adore the hand that gives the blow."

"Wine whets the wit, improves its native force…"

"Heaven is not always angry when he strikes, But most chastises those whom most he likes."

"We live and learn, but not the wiser grow."

"It were better that Ten Suspected Witches should escape, than that one Innocent Person should be Condemned."

"Drink is in itself a good creature of God, but the abuse of drink is from Satan."

"In the nineteenth century, Wyclif was honoured not only in the vanguard of the reformers, but also as a pioneer of English literature. ... Today the great majority of those who are in a position to judge believes that Wyclif had no more personal hand in the Wyclif bible than King James had in the King James bible. Equally, those who have studied most closely the surviving Wycliffite tracts hesitate to attribute any of them to the reformer himself. Indeed, they doubt whether anything in English survives from his hand save a few fragments."

"By that which hath beene spoken...concerning the visibilitie of the Church, like Dagon before the Arke, fals downe to the ground, and Wickliffe remaines in this point, as in al the former, a resolved true, Cathotholike, English Protestant."

"[T]here is none that hath behaved himselfe more religiously, valiantlie, learnedlie, and constantlie, then this stout Champion, reverend Doctor, & worthie preacher of Gods word Iohn Wickliffe."

"John Wicliff; whom we hesitate not to admire as one of the greatest ornaments of his country; and as one of those prodigies, whom providence raises up, and directs as its instruments to enlighten man kind. His amazing penetration; his rational manner of thinking; and the noble freedom of his spirit, are equally the objects of our admiration. Wicliff was in religion, what Bacon was afterwards in science; the great detecter of those arts and glosses, which the barbarism of ages had drawn together to obscure the mind of man. To this intuitive genius Christendom was unquestionably more obliged than to any name in the list of reformers. He explored the regions of darkness, and let in not a feeble and glimmering ray; but such an effulgence of light, as was never afterwards obscured. He not only loosened prejudices; but advanced such clear incontestable truths, as, having once obtained footing, still kept their ground, and even in an age of reformation wanted little amendment."

"Better to be always in a minority of one with God — branded as madman, incendiary, fanatic, heretic, infidel — frowned upon by "the powers that be," and mobbed by the populace — or consigned ignominiously to the gallows, like him whose "soul is marching on," though his "body lies mouldering in the grave," or burnt to ashes at the stake like Wickliffe, or nailed to the cross like him who "gave himself for the world," — in defence of the RIGHT, than like Herod, having the shouts of a multitude crying, "It is the voice of a god, and not of a man!""

"I intend neither to deny, dissemble, defend, or excuse any of his faults. ... Yea; should I be over-officious to retain myself, to plead for Wicliffs faults, that glorious Saint would sooner chide then thank me, unwilling that in favour of him, truth should suffer prejudice. He was a man, and so subject to errour, living in a dark Age, more obnoxious to stumble vex'd with opposition, which makes men reel into violence, and therefore it is unreasonable, that the constitution and temper of his positive opinions, should be guessed by his Polemical Heat, when he was chafed in disputation. But besides all these, envy hath falsly fathered many foul aspertions upon him."

"[T]his is out of all doubt, that at what time all the world was in most desperate and vile estate, and the lamentable ignorance and darkness of God's truth had overshadowed the whole earth, this man stepped forth like a valiant champion, unto whom that may justly be applied which is spoken in the book called Ecclesiasticus, of one Simon, the son of Onias: "Even as the morning star being in the midst of a cloud, and as the moon being full in her course, and as the bright beams of the sun; so doth he shine and glister in the temple and Church of God.""

"Scholastic in form, Wyclif's writings are modern in spirit. His De Officio Regis is the absolute assertion of the Divine Right of the king to disendow the Church."

"[T]he famous John Wickliffe, the Morning-Star of the Reformation."

"Why else was this Nation chos'n before any other, that out of her as out of Sion should be proclam'd and sounded forth the first tidings and trumpet of Reformation to all Europ. And had it not bin the obstinat perversnes of our Prelats against the divine and admirable spirit of Wicklef, to suppresse him as a schismatic and innovator, perhaps neither the Bohemian Husse and Jerom no nor the name of Luther, or of Calvin had bin ever known: the glory of reforming all our neighbours had bin compleatly ours."

"I acknowledge that the sacrament of the altar is very God's body in form of bread, but it is in another manner God's body than it is in heaven."

"There was good reason for the silence of the Holy Spirit as to how, when, in what form Christ ordained the apostles, the reason being to show the indifferency of all forms of words."

"Crown and cloth maken no priest, nor emperor's bishop with his words, but power that crist giveth; and thus by life have been priests known."

"This Bible is for the Government of the People, by the People, and for the People."

"I believe that in the end the truth will conquer."

"Already a third and more of England is in the hands of the Pope. There cannot be two temporal sovereigns in one country; either Edward is King or Urban is king. We make our choice. We accept Edward of England and refute Urban of Rome."