theologians-from-ireland

"If a man be, in all the known and tangible relations of life, an honourable and good man, he is entitled to respectful mention; nor does the fact of his being a member of an erring church, or the defender of an erring faith, deprive him of his claim to be treated with decency and courtesy in a book, any more than in private social intercourse. To assail a man's positions with strong arguments is quite a different thing from assailing himself with strong invectives."

"The failure to admit the existence of intrinsic evil in man and the search for happiness in this world are interrelated. Both are predicated on the denial of Transcendence (and so the denial of conscience as the antenna of Transcendence, that inner sense of right and wrong) and so the denial of the universal call to holiness as man’s goal in life. Both are materialistic—reducing moral behaviour to a calculus of advantages and disadvantages to the autonomous self. Both constitute the essence of secularism. That secularism has seeped into the very fabric of the contemporary theology."

"The ground of episcopacy is derived partly from the pattern prescribed by God in the Old Testament, and partly from the imitation thereof brought in by the apostles, and confirmed by Christ himself in the time of the New. The government of the Church of the Old Testament was committed to the priests and Levites, unto whom the ministers of the New do now succeed; in like sort as our Lord’s Day hath done unto their Sabbath, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, touching the vocation of the Gentiles, “I will take of them for priests, and for Levites, saith the Lord.”"

"Contention arises either through error in men's judgments or else disorder in their affections. When contention does grow by error in judgment, it ceases not till men by instruction come to see wherein they err, and what it is that did deceive them; without this there is neither notice nor punishment that can establish peace in the Church."

"If it may now answer the expectation of many pious, and prudent persons, who have desired the publishing of it, as a seasonable preparative to some moderation in the midst of those extremes, which this age abounds with, it will attain the end intended by the author; and it is likely to be more operative, by the great reputation he had, and hath in the hearts of all good men, being far from the least suspicion to be biased by any private ends, but only aiming at the reducing of order, peace, and unity, which God is the author of, and not of confusion."

"They who talk so much of the catholic Church, but indeed stand for their own particular, must of force sink as low in uncharitableness, as they have thrust themselves deep in schism. We who talk less of the universality of the Church, but hold the truth of it, cannot find in our hearts to pass such a bloody sentence upon so many poor souls that have given their names to Christ."

"It is a strange thing to me, that wise men should make such large discourses of the catholic Church, and bring so many testimonies to prove the universality of it, and not discern, that, while by this means they think they have gotten a great victory over us, they have in very truth overthrown themselves."

"He, whose pleasure it was to spread the Church’s seed so far, said to east, west, north, and south, “Give”; it is not for us then to say, “Keep back.” He hath given to his Son “the heathen for his inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for his possession.” We for our parts dare not abridge this grant, and limit this great lordship, as we conceive it may best fit our own turns, but leave it to his own latitude, and seek for the catholic Church neither in this part, nor in that piece, but, as it hath been before said in the words of the Apostle, among “all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours."

"In early times of Christianity, even those who used animal food themselves came to think of the vegetarian as one who lived a higher life, and approached more nearly to Christian perfection."

"The delusion of invincibility can never grow up in the mind of anyone except one who has never met a strong antagonist."

"Teach me to feel that Thou art always nigh; Teach me the struggles of the soul to bear; To check the rising doubt, the rebel sigh; Teach me the patience of unanswered prayer."

"At the foot of the cross, in all humility and in all adoration, we have learned at once the depth and the height of human nature; we have learned to think all wisdom but foolishness for the knowledge of Christ; all purity but sin, unwashed by His atonement; all hope in earth, of all hopes the most miserable, but in the faith of His most blessed resurrection; content to bear the struggles of life, at His command; and submitting to the grave, with a consciousness that it can sting no more."

"There is not a moral evil which has not its infallible antidote, nor any moral virtue which has not its spring and sustenance in Jesus Christ and Him crucified. To apprehend Him with every faculty of the mind, and with every affection of the heart, and to grow daily in that apprehension, is to emerge from every thing that enthralls, to surmount all that can contaminate."

"Pultes Scotorum."

"Synthesizing as it does the philosophical accomplishments of fifteen centuries, this book appears as the final achievement of ancient philosophy."

"One man stands head and shoulders above his contemporary scholars: head and shoulders, some hold, above the Middle Ages: John Scotus Erigena."

"Tabula tantum."

"Nemo intrat in caelum nisi per philosophiam."

"Quid est aliud de philosophia tractare, nisi verae religionis, qua summa et principalis omnium rerum causa, Deus, et humiliter colitur, et rationabiliter investigatur, regulas exponere? Conficitur inde, veram esse philosophiam veram religionem, conversimque veram religionem esse veram philosophiam."

"Sed fortasse quis dixerit: Quomodo omnia, quae sunt, lumina sunt?"

"Cum ergo audimus, Deum omnia facere, nil aliud debemus intelligere, quam Deum in omnibus esse, hoc est, essentiam omnium subsistere."

"Auctoritas siquidem ex vera ratione processit, ratio vero nequaquam ex auctoritate. Omnis enim auctoritas, quae vera ratione non approbatur, infirma videtur esse. Vera autem ratio, quum virtutibus suis rata atque immutabilis munitur, nullius auctoritatis adstipulatione roborari indigent."