Non Fiction Authors From England

"Bishop Jeremy Taylor is clear, that men will find it impossible to do anything greatly good, unless they cut off all superfluous company and visits."

"Her heart was a passion-flower, bearing within it the crown of thorns and the cross of Christ."

"God is everywhere present by His power. He rolls the orbs of heaven with His hand; He fixes the earth with His foot; He guides all creatures with His eye, and refreshes them with His influence; He makes the powers of hell to shake with His terrors, and binds the devils with His word."

"Faith converses with the angels, and antedates the hymns of glory."

"In self-examination, take no account of yourself by your thoughts and resolutions in the days of religion and solemnity; examine how it is with you in the days of ordinary conversation and in the circumstances of secular employment."

"The first things that hinders the prayer of a good man from obtaining its effects is a violent anger, and a violent storm in the spirit him who prayers."

"The thing framed says that nothing framed it; the tongue never made itself to speak, and yet talks against him that did; saying that which is made, is, and that which made it, is not. But this folly is infinite as hell, as much without light or bound as the chaos or the primitive nothing."

"Can any thing in this world be more foolish than to think that all this rare fabric of heaven and earth can come by chance, when all the skill of art is not able to make an oyster?"

"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."

"It remains, that we who are alive should so live, and by the actions of religion attend the coming of the day of the Lord, that we neither be surprised nor leave our duties imperfect, nor our sins uncancelled, nor our persons unreconciled, nor God unappeased; but that, when we descend to our graves, we may rest in the bosom of the Lord, till the mansions be prepared where we shall sing and feast eternally. Amen. Te Deum laudamus."

"Virtue and vice are oftentimes so near neighbours that we pass into each other’s borders without observation, and think we do justice when we are cruel; or call ourselves liberal when we are loose and foolish in expenses; and are amorous when we commend our own civilities and good nature."

"The sacraments and ceremonies of the gospel operate not without the concurrent actions and moral influences of the suscipient."

"But exhortations must prevail with their own proper weight, not by the passion of the speaker."

"O most gracious and eternal God and loving Father, Who hast poured out Thy bowels upon us, and sent the Son of Thy love unto us to die for love, and to make us dwell in love, and the eternal comprehensions of Thy Divine mercies, O be pleased to inflame my heart with a holy charity towards Thee and all the world."

"And what can be greater than that from the goodness and love of God we receive Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost, and adoption, and the inheritance of sons, and to be coheirs with Jesus, and to have pardon of our sins, and a Divine nature, and restraining grace and the grace of sanctification, and rest and peace within us, and a certain expectation of glory?"

"Charity is the great channel through which God passes all his mercy upon mankind. For we receive absolution of our sins in proportion to our forgiving our brother. This is the rule of our hopes, and the measure of our desire in this world; and in the day of death and judgment the great sentence upon mankind shall to transacted according to our alms, which is the other part of charity. Certain it is, that God cannot, will not, never did, reject a charitable man in his greatest needs and in his most passionate prayers; for God himself is love, and every degree of charity that dwells in us is the participation of the divine nature."

"By a daily examination of our actions we shall the easier cure a great sin, and prevent its arrival to become habitual. For to examine we suppose to be a relative duty, and instrumental to something else. We examine ourselves, that we may find out our failings and cure them; and therefore if we use our remedy when the wound is fresh and bleeding, we shall find the cure more certain and less painful."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"Love is as communicative as fire, as busy and as active..."

"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."

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

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

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

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

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

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

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

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

"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?"

"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?"

"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."