Anglican Bishops

"For heresy is not an error of the understanding, but an error of the will. And this is clearly insinuated in Scripture, in the style whereof Faith and a good life are made one duty, and vice is called opposite to Faith, and heresy opposed to holiness and sanctity."

"The Church hath power to intend our Faith, but not to extend it; to make our belief more evident, but not more large and comprehensive. For Christ and his Apostles concealed nothing that was necessary to the integrity of Christian Faith, or salvation of our souls; Christ declared all the will of his Father, and the Apostles were Stewards and Dispensers of the same Mysteries, and were faithful in all the house, and therefore concealed nothing, but taught the whole Doctrine of Christ; so they said themselves."

"My trust is in God."

"Over the mountains, And over the waves, Over the fountains, And under the graves; Over the floods that are deepest, Which do Neptune obey; Over the rocks that are steepest, Love will find out the way."

"I told him, that I heard Dr. Percy was writing the history of the wolf in Great-Britain. . 'The wolf, Sir! why the wolf? Why does he not write of the bear, which we had formerly? Nay, it is said we had the beaver. Or why does he not write of the grey rat, the Hanover rat, as it is called, because it is said to have come into this country about the time that the family of Hanover came? I should like to see The History of the Grey Rat, by Thomas Percy, D.D., Chaplain in Ordinary to His Majesty,' (laughing immoderately). . 'I am afraid a court chaplain could not decently write of the grey rat.' . 'Sir, he need not give it the name of the Hanover rat.' Thus could he indulge a luxuriant sportive imagination, when talking of a friend whom he loved and esteemed."

"Praise God, from whom all blessings flow! Praise Him, all creatures here below! Praise Him above, ye heavenly host! Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost!"

"All praise to thee, my God, this night, For all the blessings of the light; Keep me, O keep me, King of Kings, Beneath thy own almighty wings."

"He who foresees calamities suffers them twice over."

"Teach him how to live, And, oh still harder lesson! how to die."

"War its thousands slays, Peace its ten thousands."

"One murder made a villain, Millions a hero. Princes were privileged To kill, and numbers sanctified the crime."

"In sober state, Through the sequestered vale of rural life, The venerable patriarch guileless held The tenor of his way."

"What is striking about the books which were written, especially during the eighteenth century, to defend Christianity against these attacks, is the degree to which they accept the assumptions of their assailants. Christianity is defended as being reasonable. It can be accommodated within these assumptions, which all reasonable people hold. There is little suggestion that the assumptions themselves are to be challenged. The defense is, in fact, a tactical retreat. But, as later history has shown, these tactical retreats can--if repeated often enough--begin to look more like a rout."

"The leaders of this movement [The Religious Right in the United States], while accepting the biblical doctrine regarding the radical corruption of human nature by sin, in effect exempt themselves as "born-again Christians" from its operation. They identify their own cause unconditionally with the cause of God, regard their critics as agents of Satan, and are apparently prepared to see the human race obliterated in an apocalyptic catastrophe in which the nuclear arsenal of the United States is the instrument of Jesus for the fulfillment of his purpose against the Soviet Union as the citadel of evil. This confusion of a particular and fallible set of political and moral judgements with the cause of Jesus Christ is more dangerous than the open rejection of the claim of Christ in Islam [....] The "Religious Right" uses the name of Jesus to cover the absolute claims of one national tradition."

"So we already have the evidence of the dichotomy that runs through our culture. We all engage in purposeful activity, and we judge ourselves and others in terms of success in achieving the purposes that we set before ourselves. Yet we accept as the final product of this purposeful activity a picture of the world from which purpose has been eliminated. Purpose is a meaningful concept in relation to our own consciousness of ourselves, but it is allowed no place in our understanding of the world of facts."

"The necessary precondition for the birth of science as we know it is, it would seem, the diffusion through society of the belief that the universe is both rational and contingent. Such a belief is the presupposition of modern science and cannot by any conceivable argument be a product of science. One has to ask: Upon what is this belief founded?"

"There is a need for what [Michael] Polanyi calls the critique of doubt. When we undertake to doubt any statement, we do so on the basis of beliefs which--in the act of doubting--we do not doubt. I can only doubt the truth of a statement on the ground of other things--usually a great many things--which I believe to be true. It is impossible at the same time to doubt both the statement, and the beliefs on the basis of which the statement is doubted."

"must we not say that it is part of the deep sickness of our culture that ever since Descartes, we have been seduced by the idea of a kind of knowledge which could not be doubted, in which we would be absolutely secure from personal risk? And has not this seduction taken two forms which, even if they disclaim all relationship with each other, are really twin brothers? One is biblical fundamentalism which supposes that adherence to the text of the Bible frees me from the risk of error and therefore gives me a security which does not depend on my own discernment of the truth. The other is a type of scientism which supposes that science is simply a transcript of reality, of the "facts" which simply have to be accepted and call for no personal decision on my part, a kind of knowledge which is "objective" and free from all the bias of subjectivity."

"The missionary calling has sometimes been interpreted as a calling to stem this fearful cataract of souls going to eternal perdition. But I do not find this in the center of the New Testament representation of the missionary calling."

"If the gospel is to challenge the public life of our society, if Christians are to occupy the "high ground" which they vacated in the noon time of "modernity," it will not be by forming a Christian political party, or by aggressive propaganda campaigns. Once again it has to be said that there can be no going back to the "Constantinian" era. It will only be by movements that begin with the local congregation in which the reality of the new creation is present, known, and experienced, and from which men and women will go into every sector of public life to claim it for Christ, to unmask the illusions which have remained hidden and to expose all areas of public life to the illumination of the gospel. But that will only happen as and when local congregations renounce an introverted concern for their own life, and recognize that they exist for the sake of those who are not members, as sign, instrument, and foretaste of God's redeeming grace for the whole life of society."

"When Bishop Berkeley said 'there was no matter,' And proved it—'twas no matter what he said."

"Berkeley, Hume, Kant, Fichte, Hegel, James, Bergson all are united in one earnest attempt, the attempt to reinstate man with his high spiritual claims in a place of importance in the cosmic scheme."

"We stood talking for some time together of Bishop Berkeley's ingenious sophistry to prove the non-existence of matter, and that every thing in the universe is merely ideal. I observed, that though we are satisfied his doctrine is not true, it is impossible to refute it. I never shall forget the alacrity with which Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it, "I refute it thus!""

"We indeed, who are beings of finite powers, are forced to make use of instruments. And the use of an instrument sheweth the agent to be limited by rules of another’s prescription, and that he cannot obtain his end but in such a way, and by such conditions. Whence it seems a clear consequence, that the supreme unlimited agent useth no tool or instrument at all. The will of an Omnipotent Spirit is no sooner exerted than executed, without the application of means; which, if they are employed by inferior agents, it is not upon account of any real efficacy that is in them, or necessary aptitude to produce any effect, but merely in compliance with the laws of nature, or those conditions prescribed to them by the First Cause, who is Himself above all limitation or prescription whatsoever."

"Few men think; yet all have opinions."

"Since therefore, as well those degrees of heat that are not painful, as those that are, can exist in a thinking substance; may we not conclude that external bodies are absolutely incapable of any degree of heat whatsoever?"

"Seeing therefore they are both [heat and pain] immediately perceived at the same time, and the fire affects you only with one simple, or uncompounded idea, it follows that this same simple idea is both the intense heat immediately perceived, and the pain;and consequently, that the intense heat immediately perceived, is nothing distinct from a particular sort of pain."

"Doth the reality of sensible things consist in being perceived? or, is it something distinct from their being perceived, and that bears no relation to the mind?"

"That there is no such thing as what philosophers call material substance, I am seriously persuaded: but if I were made to see any thing absurd or skeptical in this, I should then have the same reason to renounce this, that I imagine I have now to reject the contrary opinion."

"I entirely agree with you, as to the ill tendency of the affected doubts of some philosophers, and fantastical conceit of others. I am even so far gone of late in this way of think, that I have quitted several of the sublime notions I had got in their schools for vulgar opinions. And I give it you on my word, since this revolt from metaphysical notions to the plain dictates of nature and common sense, I find my understanding strangely enlightened, so that I can now easily comprehend a great many thing which before were all mystery and riddle."

"That neither our Thoughts, nor Passions, nor Ideas formed by the Imagination, exist without the Mind, is what every Body will allow. And it seems no less evident that the various Sensations or Ideas imprinted on the Sense... cannot exist otherwise than in a Mind perceiving them... For as to what is said of the absolute Existence of unthinking Things without any relation to their being perceived, that seems perfectly unintelligible. Their Esse is Percipi, nor is it possible they should have any Existence, out of the Minds or thinking Things which perceive them."

"That we have first rais'd a Dust, and then complain, we cannot see."

"Truth is the cry of all, but the game of the few."

"[Tar water] is of a nature so mild and benign and proportioned to the human constitution, as to warm without heating, to cheer but not inebriate."

"Abstract terms (however useful they may be in argument) should be discarded in meditation, and the mind should be fixed on the particular and the concrete, that is, on the things themselves."

"Solicitation and effort or conation belong properly to animate beings alone. When they are attributed to other things, they must be taken in a metaphorical sense; but a philosopher should abstain from metaphor."

"For no one's authority ought to rank so high as to set a value on his words and terms even though nothing clear and determinate lies behind them."

"In the pursuit of truth we must beware of being misled by terms which we do not rightly understand. That is the chief point. Almost all philosophers utter the caution; few observe it."

"Westward the course of empire takes its way; The four first acts already past, A fifth shall close the drama with the day: Time's noblest offspring is the last."

"For Science it cannot be called, when you proceed blindfold, and arrive at the Truth not knowing how or by what means."

"It is said, that the minutest Errors are not to be neglected in Mathematics: that the Fluxions are...not proportional to the finite Increments though ever so small; but only to. . . nascent Increments. . . And. . . there be other Fluxions, which Fluxions of Fluxions are called second Fluxions. And the Fluxions of these sec- ond Fluxions are called third Fluxions: and so on, fourth, fifth, sixth, &c. ad in- finitum. Now as our Sense is strained and puzzled with the perception of Objects extremely minute, even so the Imagination, which Faculty derives from Sense, is very much strained and puzzled to frame clear Ideas of the least Particles of time, or the least Increments generated therein. . And it seems. . to. . . exceed, if I mistake not, all Humane Understanding. The further the Mind analyseth and pursueth these fugitive Ideas, the more it is lost and bewildered; the Objects, at first fleeting and minute, soon vanishing out of sight. Certainly in any Sense a second or third Fluxion seems an obscure Mystery. The incipient Celerity of an incipient Celerity, the nascent Augment of a nascent Augment, i.e. of a thing which hath no Magnitude: ‘Take it in which light you please, the clear Conception of it will, if I mistake not, be found impossible. . And if a second Fluxion be inconceivable, what are we to think of third, fourth, fifth Fluxions, and so onward without end? ... They suppose finite Quantities to consist of Parts infinitely little... Now to conceive a Quantity infinitely small, that is, infinitely less than any sensible or imaginable Quantity, or any the least finite Magnitude, is, I confess, above my Capacity. But to conceive a Part of such infinitely small Quantity, that shall be still infinitely less than it, and consequently though multiply’d infinitely shall never equal the minutest finite Quantity, is, I suspect, an infinite Difficulty to any Man whatsoever; and will be allowed such by those who candidly say what they think; provided they really think and reflect, and do not take things upon trust."

"Our youth we can have but to-day, We may always find time to grow old."

"And what are these same evanescent Increments? They are neither finite Quantities nor Quantities infinitely small, nor yet nothing. May we not call them the Ghosts of departed Quantities?"

"And God-appointed Berkeley that proved all things a dream, That this pragmatical, preposterous pig of a world, its farrow that so solid seem, Must vanish on the instant if the mind but change its theme;"

"(Berkeley) gave the impression that he too was a victim, that he took the assertion "Mind is a substance" in a literal sense, that he thought that the soul was actually a "substance" "in" which ideas "inhere" and which "supports" the ideas, ect. hence the expression "in the mind".... Berkeley had a purely substantivalist conception of the mind, confirmed by his private utterances."

"Bishop Berkeley destroyed this world in one volume octavo; and nothing remained after his time, but mind—which experienced a similar fate from the hand of Mr. Hume, in 1737."

"Berkeley was... the first to treat the subjective starting-point really seriously and to demonstrate irrefutably its absolute necessity. He is the father of idealism."

"Berkeley, as we have seen, thinks that there are logical reasons proving that only minds and mental events can exist. This view, on other grounds, is also held by Hegel and his followers. I believe this to be a complete mistake. Such a statement as “there was a time before life existed on this planet,” whether true or false, cannot be condemned on grounds of logic, any more than “there are multiplication sums which no one will have ever worked out.” To be observed, or to be a percept, is merely to have effects of certain kinds, and there is no logical reason why all events should have effects of these kinds."

"In the second Dialogue Philonous sums up the discussion, so far as it has gone, in the words: “Besides spirits, all that we know or conceive are our own ideas.” He ought not, of course, to make an exception for spirits, since it is just as impossible to know spirit as to know matter. The arguments, in fact, are almost identical in both cases."

"I come now to Berkeley’s empirical arguments. To begin with, it is a sign of weakness to combine empirical and logical arguments, for the latter, if valid, make the former superfluous. [Footnote: E.g., "I was not drunk last night. I had only had two glasses; besides, it is well known that I am a teetotaller."] If I am contending that a square cannot be round, I shall not appeal to the fact that no Square in any known city is round. But as we have rejected the logical arguments, it becomes necessary to consider the empirical arguments on their merits."