Mystics

"If any man be well grown in grace, he must needs come [to receive the Eucharist], because he is excellently disposed to so holy a feast: but he that is but in the infancy of piety had need to come, that so he may grow in grace. The strong must come lest they become weak; and the weak that they may become strong. The sick must come to be cured; the healthful to be preserved."

"O holy and ever-blessed Spirit, Who didst overshadow the holy Virgin, the mother of our Lord, and caused her to conceive by a miraculous and mysterious manner, be pleased to overshadow my soul, and enlighten my spirit, that I may conceive the holy Jesus in my heart, and may bear Him in my mind, and may grow up to the fulness of the stature of Christ, to be a perfect man in Christ Jesus. Amen."

"Whatever we beg of God, let us also work for it, if the thing be matter of duty, or a consequent to industry; for God loves to bless labour and to reward it, but not to support idleness. And therefore our blessed Saviour in his sermons joins watchfulness with prayer, for God’s graces are but assistances, not new creations of the whole habit, in every instant or period of our life. Read Scriptures, and then pray to God for understanding. Pray against temptation; but you must also resist the devil, and then he will flee from you. Ask of God competency of living; but you must also work with your hands the things that are honest, that ye may have to supply in time of need. We can but do our endeavor, and pray for blessing, and then leave the success with God; and beyond this we cannot deliberate, we cannot take care — but, so far, we must."

"All that a sick and dying man can do, is but to exercise those virtues which he before acquired, and to perfect that repentance, which was begun more early."

"Upon the wings of fasting and alms holy prayer infallibly mounts up to heaven."

"God is pleased with no music from below so much as in the thanksgiving songs of relieved widows, of supported orphans, of rejoicing, and comforted, and thankful persons."

"...for there is some virtue or other to be exercised, whatever happens..."

"God gave necessities to man, that all men might need; and several abilities to several persons, that each man might help to supply the public needs, and, by joining to fill up all wants, they may be knit together by justice, as the parts of the world are by nature."

"Let no man appropriate to his own use what God, by a special mercy, or the republic, hath made common; for that is both against justice and charity too; and by miraculous accidents, God hath declared his displeasure against such enclosure."

"My children are not so much mine as they are God’s."

"Faith, hope, and charity are the best weapons in the world to fight against intemperance."

"Some married persons, even in their marriage, do better please God than some virgins in their state of virginity: they, by giving great example of conjugal affection, by preserving their faith unbroken, by educating children in the fear of God, by patience, and contentedness, and holy thoughts, and the exercise of virtues proper to that state, do not only please God, but do in a higher degree than those virgins whose piety is not answerable to their great opportunities and advantages."

"Love is the greatest thing that God can give us; for himself is love; and it is the greatest thing we can give to God; for it will also give ourselves and carry with it all that is ours."

"...since God has appointed one remedy for all the evils in the world and that is a contented spirit."

"He that is choice of his time will be choice of his company, and choice of his actions."

"This grace (purity of intention) is so excellent that it sanctifies the most common actions of our life and yet is so necessary that without it, the very best actions of our devotion are imperfect and vicious."

"God is in the bowels of thy brother; refresh them, when he needs it, and then you give your alms in the presence of God, and to God; and He feels the relief which thou providest for thy brother."

"...if love hath filled all the corners of our soul, it alone is able to do all the work of God."

"Remember that zeal, being an excrescence of divine love, must in no sense contradict any action of love. Love to God includes love to our neighbour; and therefore no pretence of zeal for God’s glory must make us uncharitable to our brother; for that is just so pleasing to God as hatred is an act of love."

"True Faith which leads to charity leads on to that which unites wills and affections, not opinions."

"God will not be angry at men for being invincibly deceived, why should men be angry one at another? For he that is most displeased at another man's error, may also be tempted in his own will, and as much deceived in his understanding. For if he may fail in what he can choose, he may also fail in what he cannot choose: His understanding is no more secured than his will, nor his Faith more than his obedience."

"O let Thy mercy descend upon the whole church; preserve her in truth and peace, in unity and safety, in all storms, and against all temptations and enemies; that she, offering to Thy glory the never-ceasing sacrifice of prayer and thanksgiving, may advance the honour of her Lord, and be filled with His Spirit, and partake of His glory. Amen."

"The Holy Ghost is certainly the best preacher in the world, and the words of Scripture the best sermons."

"It is not only lawful to tolerate disagreeing persuasions, but the authority of God only is competent to take notice of it, and infallible to determine it, and fit to judge, and therefore no human authority is sufficient to do all those things which can justify the inflicting temporal punishments upon such as do not conform in their persuasions to a rule or authority which is not only fallible, but supposed by the disagreeing person to be actually deceived."

"If a permission be given of disputing the particulars, the questions become next to infinite. A Mirror when it is broken represents the object multiplied and divided: but if it be entire and through one center transmits the species to the eye, the Vision is one and natural. Laws are the Mirror in which men are to dress and compose their actions, and therefore must not be broken with such clauses of exception which may without remedy be abused to the prejudice of authority, and peace, and all human sanctions."

"If we consider the Doctrines [of Roman Catholics] themselves, we shall find them to be superstructures ill built, and worse managed, but yet they keep the foundation, they build upon God in Jesus Christ, they profess the Apostles’ Creed, they retain Faith and Repentance as the supporters of all our hopes of Heaven, and believe many more truths then can be proved to be of simple and original necessity to salvation. And therefore all the wisest Personages of the adverse party allowed to them possibility of salvation, whilst their errors are not faults of their will, but weaknesses and deceptions of the understanding. So that there is nothing in the foundation of Faith, that can reasonably hinder them to be permitted: The foundation of Faith stands secure enough for all their vain and unhandsome superstructures."

"The peace of the Church and the unity of her doctrine is best conserved when it is judged by the proportion it hath to that rule of unity which the Apostles gave, that is the Creed for Articles of mere belief, and the precepts of Jesus Christ, and the practical rules of piety, which are most plain and easy, and without controversy, set down in the Gospels, and Writings of the Apostles. But to multiply articles, and adopt them into the family of the faith, and to require assent to such articles which (as S. Paul's phrase is) are of doubtful disputation, equal to that assent we give to matters of faith, is to build a Tower upon the top of a Bulrush, and the further the effect of such proceedings does extend, the worse they are; the very making such a Law is unreasonable, the inflicting spiritual censures upon them that cannot do so much violence to their understanding as to obey it, is unjust and ineffectual; but to punish the person with death, or with corporal infliction, indeed it is effectual, but it is therefore tyrannical."

"Either the disagreeing person is in error, or not, but a true believer; in either of the cases to persecute him is extremely imprudent. For if he be a true believer, then it is a clear case that we do open violence to God, and his servants, and his truth. If he be in error, what greater folly and stupidity then to give to error the glory of Martyrdom, and the advantages which are accidentally consequent to a persecution?"

"It is unnatural and unreasonable to persecute disagreeing opinions. Unnatural; for Understanding being a thing wholly spiritual, cannot be restrained, and therefore neither punished by corporal afflictions. It is in alienâ republicâ, a matter of another world; you may as well cure the colic by brushing a man's clothes, or fill a man's belly with a syllogism: these things do not communicate in matter, and therefore neither in action nor passion; and since all punishments in a prudent government punish the offender to prevent a future crime, and so it proves more medicinal than vindictive, the punitive act being in order to the cure and prevention: and since no punishment of the body can cure a disease in the soul, it is disproportionable in nature, and in all civil government, to punish where the punishment can do no good. It may be an act of tyranny, but never of justice. For is an opinion ever the more true or false for being persecuted?"

"The mere doctrines and opinions of men are things Spiritual, and therefore not Cognoscible by a temporal Authority; and the Ecclesiastical Authority, which is to take Cognisance is itself so Spiritual, that it cannot inflict any punishment corporal."

"Force in matters of opinion can do no good, but is very apt to do hurt."

"No man speaks more unreasonably, then he that denies to men the use of their Reason in choice of their Religion."

"Now although men's understandings be not equal, and that it is fit the best understandings should prevail, yet that will not satisfy the weaker understandings, because all men will not think that another understanding is better than his own, at least not in such a particular, in which with fancy he hath pleased himself. But commonly they that are least able, are most bold, and the more ignorant is the more confident, therefore it is but reason if he would have another bear with him, he also should bear with another, and if he will not be prescribed to, neither let him prescribe to others."

"Nothing is more dishonourable to God, then to offer a sin in sacrifice to Him, and nothing more incongruous in the nature of the thing, then that truth and falsehood should support each other, or that true doctrine should live at the charges of a lie."

"But for the Article itself, we all say that Christ is there present [in the Eucharist] some way or other extraordinary; and it will not be amiss to worship him at that time, when he gives himself to us in so mysterious a manner, and with so great advantages; especially since the whole Office is a consociation of diverse actions of Religion and Divine Worship. Now in all opinions of those men who think it an act of Religion to communicate and to offer; a Divine Worship is given to Christ, and is transmitted to him by mediation of that action and that Sacrament, and it is no more in the Church of Rome, but that they differ and mistake infinitely in the manner of his presence; which error is wholly seated in the Understanding, and does not communicate with the will; for all agree that the Divinity and the Humanity of the Son of God is the ultimate and adequate object of Divine Adoration, and that it is incommunicable to any creature whatsoever, and before they venture to pass an Act of Adoration, they believe the bread to be annihilated or turned into his substance who may lawfully be worshipped; and they who have these thoughts, are as much enemies of Idolatry, as they that understand better how to avoid that inconvenience which is supposed to be the crime, which they formally hate, and we materially avoid: This consideration was concerning the Doctrine itself."

"Whoever persecutes a disagreeing person, arms all the world against himself, and all pious people of his own persuasion. When the scales of authority return to his adversary, and attest his contradictory; and then, what can he urge for mercy for himself, or his party that sheweth none to others? If he says, that he is to be spared because he believes true, but the other was justly persecuted because he was in error, he is ridiculous. For he is as confidently believed to be a heretic, as he believes his adversary such, and whether he be or no, being the thing in question, of this he is not to be his own judge, but he that hath authority on his side, will be sure to judge against him."

"There is no General Council that hath determined that a General Council is infallible: No Scripture hath recorded it; no Tradition universal hath transmitted to us any such proposition; So that we must receive the Authority at a lower rate, and upon a less probability then the things consigned by that Authority. And it is strange that the Decrees of Councils should be esteemed authentic and infallible, and yet it is not infallibly certain, that the Councils themselves are infallible, because the belief of the Council’s infallibi∣lity is not proved to us by any medium, but such as may deceive us."

"I will not be so severe and dogmatical against them [as Gregory of Nazianzus]: For I believe many Councils to have been called with sufficient Authority, to have been managed with singular piety and prudence, and to have been finished with admirable success and truth. And where we find such Councils, he that will not with all veneration believe their Decrees, and receive their sanctions, understands not that great duty he owes to them who have the care of our souls, whose faith we are bound to follow (saith S. Paul) that is so long as they fol∣low Christ, and certainly many Councils have done so: But this was then when the public interest of Christendom was better conserved in determining a true Article, then in finding a discreet temper, or a wise expedient to satisfy disagreeing persons; (As the Fathers at Trent did, and the Lutherans and Calvinists did at Sendomir in Polonia; and the Sublapsarians and Supralapsarians did at Dort:) It was in Ages when the sum of Religion did not consist in maintaining the Grandezza of the Papacy; where there was no order of men with a fourth Vow upon them to advance S. Peters Chair; when there was no man, nor any company of men, that esteemed themselves infallible, and therefore they searched for truth as if they meant to find it, and would believe it if they could see it proved, not resolved to prove it because they had upon chance or interest believed it; then they had rather have spoken a truth, then upheld their reputation, but only in order to truth. This was done sometimes, and when it was done, God's Spirit never failed them, but gave them such assistances as were sufficient to that good end for which they were Assembled, and did implore his aid."

"For [the passage] pasce oves [feed my sheep] there is little in that Allegation, besides the boldness of the Objectors; for were not all the Apostles bound to feed Christ's sheep? had they not all the Commission from Christ, and Christ's Spirit immediately? S. Paul had certainly; did not S. Peter himself say to all the Bishops of Pon∣tus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithinia, that they should feed the flock of God, and the great Bishop and Shepherd should give them an immarcescible Crown; plainly implying, that from whence they derived their Authority, from him they were sure of a reward."

"[A Papal approval] cannot make [a council] divine, and necessary to be heartily believed. It may make it lawful, not make it true, that is, it may possibly by such means become a Law but not a truth. I speak now upon supposition the Popes confirmation were necessary, and required to the making of conciliary and necessary sanctions. But if it were, the case were very hard: For suppose a heresy should invade, and possess the Chair of Rome, what remedy can the Church have in that case, if a General Council be of no Authority without the Pope confirm it? will the Pope confirm a Council against himself; will he condemn his own heresy? That the Pope may be a Heretic appears in the Canon Law, which says he may for heresy be deposed, and therefore by a Council which in this case hath plenary Authority without the Pope."

"Now the Question is not whether General Councils have a promise that the Holy Ghost will assist them; For every private man hath that promise, that if he does his duty he shall be assisted sufficiently in order to that end to which he needs assistance; and therefore much more shall General Councils in order to that end for which they convene, and to which they need assistance, that is, in order to the conservation of the Faith, for the doctrinal rules of good life, and all that concerns the essential duty of a Christian, but not in deciding Questions to satisfy contentious or curious or presumptuous spirits. But now can the Bishops so convened be factious, can they be abused with prejudice, or transported with interests, can they resist the Holy Ghost, can they extinguish the Spirit, can they stop their ears, and serve themselves upon the Holy Spirit and the pretence of his assistances, and cease to serve him upon themselves, by captivating their understandings to his dictates, and their wills to his precepts? Is it necessary they should perform any condition? is there any one duty for them to perform in these Assemblies, a duty which they have power to do or not do? If so, then they may fail of it, and not do their duty: And if the assistance of the Holy Spirit be conditional, then we have no more assurance that they are assisted, then that they do their duty and do not sin."

"The Authority of a Council is not greater then the Authority of the Apostles, nor their dictates more sacred or authentic."

"But I am too long in this impertinency: If I were bound to call any man Master upon earth, and to believe him upon his own affirmative and authority; I would of all men least follow him that pretends he is infallible and cannot prove it. For that he cannot prove it, makes me as uncertain as ever, and that he pretends to infallibility makes him careless of using such means which will morally secure those wise persons, who knowing their own aptness to be deceived, use what endeavours they can to secure themselves from error, and so be∣come the better and more probable guides."

"Is it possible for any man to contrive a way to make the Decree of the Council of Trent, commanding the public Offices of the Church to be in Latin, friends with the fourteenth chapter of the Corinthians?"

"When men think every thing to be their Faith and their Religion, commonly they are so busy in trifles and such impertinencies in which the scene of their mistake lies, that they neglect the greater things of the Law, charity, and compliances, and the gentleness of Christian Communion; for this is the great principle of mischief, and yet is not more pernicious then unreasonable."

"The truth is, all these ways of Interpreting of Scripture which of themselves are good helps, are made either by design, or by our infirmities ways of intricating and involving Scriptures in greater difficulty, because men do not learn their doctrines from Scripture, but come to the understanding of Scripture with preconceptions and ideas of doctrines of their own, and then no wonder that Scriptures look like Pictures, wherein every man in the room believes they look on him only, and that wheresoever he stands, or how often soever he changes his station. So that now what was intended for a remedy, becomes the promoter of our disease, and our meat becomes the matter of sicknesses: And the mischief is, the wit of man cannot find a remedy for it; for there is no rule, no limit, no certain principle, by which all men may be guided to a certain and so infallible an Interpretation, that he can with any equity prescribe to others to believe his Interpretations in places of controversy or ambiguity."

"The sum is this: Since holy Scripture is the repository of divine truths, and the great rule of Faith, to which all Sects of Christians do appeal for probation of their several opi∣nions, and since all agree in the Articles of the Creed as things clearly and plainly set down, and as containing all that which is of simple and prime necessity; and since on the other side there are in Scripture many other mysteries, and matters of Question upon which there is a veil; since there are so many Copies with infinite varieties of reading; since a various Interpunction, a parenthesis, a letter, an accent may much alter the sense; since some places have diverse literal senses, many have spiritual, mystical and Allegorical meanings; since there are so many tropes, metonymies, ironies, hyperboles, proprieties and improprieties of language, whose understanding depends upon such circumstances that it is almost impossible to know its proper Interpretation; now that the knowledge of such circumstances and particular stories is irrevocably lost: since there are some mysteries which at the best advantage of expression, are not easy to be apprehended, and whose explication, by reason of our imperfections, must needs be dark, sometimes weak, sometimes unintelligle: and lastly, since those ordinary meanes of expoun∣ding Scripture, as searching the Originals, conference of places, parity of reason, and analogy of Faith, are all dubious, uncertain, and very fallible, he that is the wisest and by consequence the likeliest to expound truest in all probability of reason, will be very far from confidence, because every one of these and many more are like so many degrees of improbability and incertainty, all depressing our certainty of finding out truth in such mysteries and amidst so many difficulties. And therefore a wise man that considers this, would not willingly be prescribed to by others; and therefore if he also be a just man, he will not impose upon others; for it is best every man should be left in that liberty from which no man can justly take him, unless he could secure him from error: So that here also there is a necessity to conserve the liberty of Prophesying, and Interpreting Scripture; a necessity derived from the consideration of the difficulty of Scripture in Questions controverted, and the uncertainty of any internal medium, of Interpretation."

"Honorius was condemned for a Monothelite; yet in one of the Epistles which the sixth Synod alleged against him, (viz. the second) he gave them counsel that would have done the Church as much service as the determination of the Article did; for he advised them not to be curious in their disputings, nor dogmatical in their determinations about that Question; and because the Church was not used to dispute in that Question, it were better to preserve the simplicity of Faith, then to ensnare mens consciences by a new Article."

"Well! Thus far we are come: Although we are secured in fundamental points [of doctrine] from involuntary error, by the plain, express, and dogmatical places of Scripture, yet in other things we are not but may be invincibly mistaken, because of the obscurity and difficulty in the controverted parts of Scripture, by reason of the incertainty of the means of its Interpretation, since Tradition is of an uncertain reputation, and sometimes evidently false, Councils are contradictory to each other, and therefore certainly are equally deceived many of them, and therefore all may; and then the Popes of Rome are very likely to mislead us, but cannot ascertain us of truth in matter of Question; and in this world we believe in part, and prophecy in part, and this imperfection shall never be done away till we be translated to a more glorious state; either we must throw our chances, and get truth by accident or predestination, or else we must lie safe in a mutual toleration, and private liberty of persuasion, unless some other Anchor can be thought upon where we may fasten our floating Vessels, and ride safely."

"He that submits his understanding to all that he knows God hath said, and is ready to submit to all that he hath said if he but know it, denying his own affections and ends, and interests and humane persuasions, laying them all down at the foot of his great Master Jesus Christ, that man hath brought his understanding into subjection, and every proud thought unto the obedience of Christ, and this is εἰς ὑπακοὴν πίστεως, the obedience of Faith, which is the duty of a Christian."