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Tag: faith

  • Counterfeit of piety

    “I know of no quality so easy to counterfeit as piety, if conduct and life are not made to conform with it.” III.2 “Of repentance” (p.748)

  • No Superficial Repentance

    “I know no superficial, halfway, and perfunctory repentance. It must affect me in every part before I will call it so, and must grip me by the vitals and afflict them as deeply and as completely as God sees into me.” Of Repentance (749)

  • Repentance

    “God must touch our hearts. Our conscience must reform by itself through the strengthening of our reason, not through the weakening of our appetites.”   III.2 “Of repentance” (p. 740)

  • “Let us follow along, in God’s name”

    “Let us follow along, in God’s name, let us follow!”   II.37 “Of the Resemblance of Children to Fathers” (p. 706)

  • What we call monsters

    “What we call monsters are not so to God, who sees in the immensity of his work the infinity of forms that he has comprised in it…From his infinite wisdom there proceeds nothing but that is good and ordinary and regular…We call contrary to nature what happens contrary to custom; nothing is anything but according…

  • A true prayer

    “A true prayer and religious reconciliation of ourselves to God cannot occur in an impure soul, subject even then to the domination of Satan.” I.56 (p.285)

  • Virtue presupposes difficulty

    “For it seems that the name of virtue presupposes difficulty and contrast, and that it cannot be exercised without opposition.” II.11 “Of cruelty” (p. 372)

  • Enough other foundations

    “But I think that the practice I see is bad, of trying to strengthen and support our religion by the good fortune and prosperity of our enterprises. Our belief has enough other foundations; it does not need events to authorize it.” I.32 “We should meddle soberly with judging divine ordinances” (p. 194)

  • Secrets of the divine

    “… a whole pile of people… clai[m] to find the causes of every incident and to see in the secrets of the divine will the incomprehensible motives of his works; and although the variety and continual discordance of events tosses them from corner to corner and from east to west, yet they do not stop…

  • Another type of good believers

    “Of simple souls, less curious and less learned, are made good Christians, who, through reverence and obedience, believe simply and live under the laws. In the middle range of mental vigor and ability, error in opinion is engendered; those in this range follow the first plausible meaning, and have some claim to regard our sticking…