Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

S. Austin Allibone, comp. Prose Quotations from Socrates to Macaulay. 1880.

Francis Atterbury

The greater absurdities are, the more strongly they evince the falsity of that supposition from whence they flow.

A remembrance of the good use he had made of prosperity contributed to support his mind under the heavy weight of adversity which then lay upon him.

Make the true use of those afflictions which his hand, mercifully severe, hath been pleased to lay upon thee.

Though it be not in our power to make affliction no affliction, yet it is in our power to take off the edge of it, by a steady view of those divine joys prepared for us in another state.

Our Saviour is represented everywhere in Scripture as the special patron of the poor and afflicted.

Age makes us most fondly hug and retain the good things of this life, when we have the least prospect of enjoying them.

Shall we repine at a little misplaced charity, we who could no way foresee the effect,—when an all-knowing, all-wise Being showers down every day his benefits on the unthankful and undeserving?

Our part is to choose out the most deserving objects, and the most likely to answer the ends of our charity, and, when this is done, all is done that lies in our power: the rest must be left to Providence.

Those good men who take such pleasure in relieving the miserable for Christ’s sake would not have been less forward to minister unto Christ himself.

The practice of all ages and all countries hath been to do honour to those who are invested with public authority.

They who are not induced to believe and live as they ought, by those discoveries which God hath made in Scripture, would stand out against any evidence whatever; even that of a messenger sent express from the other world.

By teaching them how to carry themselves in their relations of husbands and wives, parents and children, they have, without question, adorned the gospel, glorified God, and benefited man, much more than they could have done in the devoutest and strictest celibacy.

A good character, when established, should not be rested in as an end, but only employed as a means of doing still farther good.

The characters of men placed in lower stations of life are more useful, as being imitable by greater numbers.

What we employ in charitable uses during our lives is given away from ourselves: what we bequeath at our death is given from others only, as our nearest relations.

Let us remember those that want necessaries, as we ourselves should have desired to be remembered had it been our sad lot to subsist on other men’s charity.

Even the wisdom of God hath not suggested more pressing motives, more powerful incentives to charity, than these, that we shall be judged by it at the last dreadful day.

The smallest act of charity shall stand us in great stead.

How shall we then wish that it might be allowed us to live over our lives again, in order to fill every minute of them with charitable offices!

Charity is more extensive than either of the two other graces, which centre ultimately in ourselves: for we believe and we hope for our own sakes; but love, which is a more disinterested principle, carries us out of ourselves into desires and endeavours of promoting the interests of other beings.

Christian graces and virtues they cannot be unless fed, invigorated, and animated by universal charity.

We sometimes wish that it had been our lot to live and converse with Christ, to hear his divine discourses, and to observe his spotless behaviour; and we please ourselves with thinking how ready a reception we should have given to him and his doctrine.

The resurrection is so convincingly attested by such persons, with such circumstances, that they who consider and weigh the testimony, at what distance soever they are placed, cannot entertain any more doubt of the resurrection than the crucifixion of Jesus.

A discreet use of becoming ceremonies renders the service of the church solemn and affecting, inspirits the sluggish, and inflames even the devout worshipper.

By the secular cares and avocations which accompany marriage the clergy have been furnished with skill in common life.

The sacred function can never be hurt by their sayings, if not first reproached by our doings.

Too great confidence in success is the likeliest to prevent it; because it hinders us from making the best use of the advantages which we enjoy.

A time there will be when all these unequal distributions of good and evil shall be set right, and the wisdom of all his transactions made as clear as the noonday.

God will indeed judge the world in righteousness; but it is by an evangelical, not a legal, righteousness, and by the intervention of the man Christ Jesus, who is the Saviour as well as the Judge of the world.

How can we think of appearing at that tribunal without being able to give a ready answer to the questions which he shall then put to us about the poor and the afflicted, the hungry and the naked, the sick and the imprisoned?

What confusion of face shall we be under when that grand inquest begins; when an account of our opportunities of doing good, and a particular of our use or misuse of them, is given in!

The secret manner in which acts of mercy ought to be performed requires this public manifestation of them at the great day.

At the day of general account good men are then to be consigned over to another state, a state of everlasting love and charity.

Dread of death hangs over the mere natural man, and, like the handwriting on the wall, damps all his jollity.

Men, upon the near approach of death, have been roused up into such a lively sense of their guilt, such a passionate degree of concern and remorse, that if ten thousand ghosts had appeared to them they scarce could have had a fuller conviction of their danger.

Those that place their hope in another world have, in a great measure, conquered dread of death, and unreasonable love of life.

A discreet use of becoming ceremonies … inspirits the sluggish and inflames even the devout worshipper.

The rule of imitating God can never be successfully proposed but upon Christian principles, such as that this world is a place not of rest, but of discipline.

The happiest of mankind, overlooking those solid blessings which they already have, set their hearts upon somewhat which they want; some untried pleasure, which if they could but taste, they should then be completely blest.

Nothing can make him remiss in the practice of his duty, no prospect of interest can allure him, no danger dismay him.

The force of education is so great, that we may mould the minds and manners of the young into what shape we please, and give them the impressions of such habits as shall ever after remain.

Though no evidence affects the fancy so strongly as that of sense, yet there is other evidence which gives as full satisfaction and as clear a conviction to our reason.

The same adhesion to vice, and aversion from goodness, will be a reason for rejecting any proof whatsoever.

There can be no surer way to success than by disclaiming all confidence in ourselves, and referring the events of things to God with an implicit affiance.

It cannot but be highly requisite for us to enliven our faith by dwelling often on the same considerations.

Nor are the pleasures which the brutal part of the creation enjoy subject to be lessened by the uneasiness which arises from fancy.

It is no ways congruous that God should be frightening men into truth who were made to be wrought upon by calm evidence and gentle methods of persuasion.

A similitude of nature and manners in such a degree as we are capable of, must tie the holy knot, and rivet the friendship between us.

Imprint upon their minds, by proper arguments and reflections, a lively persuasion of the certainty of a future state.

It is equally necessary that there should be a future state to vindicate the justice of God, and solve the present irregularities of Providence, whether the best men be oftentimes only, or always, the most miserable.

The things of another world being distant, operate but faintly upon us: to remedy this inconvenience, we must frequently revolve their certainty and importance.

Form the judgment about the worth or emptiness of things here, according as they are or are not of use in relation to what is to come hereafter.

Nothing can be reckoned good or bad to us in this life, any farther than it indisposes us for the enjoyments of another.

They have no uneasy presages of a future reckoning, wherein the pleasures they now taste must be accounted for; and may perhaps be outweighed by the pains which shall then lay hold upon them.

We should apply ourselves to study the perfections of God, and to procure lively and vigorous impressions of his perpetual presence with us and inspection over us.

Would we be admitted into an acquaintance with God, let us study to resemble him. We must be partakers of a divine nature in order to partake of this high privilege and alliance.

If God be infinitely holy, just, and good, he must take delight in those creatures that resemble him most in these perfections.

We should contemplate reverently the works of nature and grace, the inscrutable ways of providence, and all the wonderful methods of God’s dealing with men.

Neglect no opportunity of doing good, nor check thy desire of doing it by a vain fear of what may happen.

He will exercise himself with pleasure, and without weariness, in that godlike employment of doing good.

Few consider how much we are indebted to government, because few can represent how wretched mankind would be without it.

The inward complacence we find in acting reasonably and virtuously.

It cannot consist with the divine attributes that the impious man’s joys should, upon the whole, exceed those of the upright.

Few, without the hope of another life, would think it worth their while to live above the allurements of sense.

It is impossible to have a lively hope in another life, and yet be deeply immersed in the enjoyments of this.

To one firmly persuaded of the reality of heavenly happiness, and earnestly desirous of obtaining it, all earthly satisfactions must needs look little and grow flat and unsavory.

If we really live under the hope of future happiness, we shall taste it by way of anticipation and forethought; an image of it will meet our minds often, and stay there, as all pleasing expectations do.

Hospitality to the better sort, and charity to the poor; two virtues that are never exercised so well as when they accompany each other.

Hospitality sometimes degenerates into profuseness, and ends in madness and folly.

There is none of us but would be thought, throughout the whole course of his life, to aspire after immortality.

The truth is, such a man understands by his will, and believes a thing true or false merely as it agrees or disagrees with a violent inclination; and therefore, whilst that inclination lasts in its strength, he discovers nothing of the different degrees of evidence.

Such who profess to disbelieve a future state are not always equally satisfied with their own reasonings.

The same want of sincerity, the same adhesion to vice, and aversion from goodness, will be equally a reason for their rejecting any proof whatsoever.

It is little the sign of a wise or good man to suffer temperance to be transgressed in order to purchase the repute of a generous entertainer.

Acquaintance with God is not a speculative knowledge, built on abstracted reasonings about his nature and essence, such as philosophical minds often busy themselves in, without reaping from thence any advantage towards regulating their passions, but practical knowledge.

A just and wise magistrate is a blessing as extensive as the community to which he belongs: a blessing which includes all other blessings whatsoever that relate to this life.

We live and act as if we were perfectly secure of the final event of things, however we may behave ourselves.

Men who live without religion live always in a tumultuary and restless state.

Nothing can be reckoned good or bad to us in this life any farther than it prepares or indisposes us for the enjoyments of another.

To live like those that have their hope in another life implies that we indulge ourselves in the gratifications of this life very sparingly.

Courtesy and condescension is an happy quality which never fails to make its way into the good opinion and into the very heart; and allays the envy which always attends a high station.

They who marry give hostages to the public that they will not attempt the ruin or disturb the peace of it.

A zeal in things pertaining to God, according to knowledge, and yet duly tempered with candour and prudence, is the true notion of that much talked of, most misunderstood, virtue, moderation.

The moral perfections of the Deity, the more attentively we consider, the more perfectly still shall we know them.

The works of nature will bear a thousand views and reviews: the more frequently and narrowly we look into them, the more occasion we shall have to admire their beauty.

He who performs his duty in a station of great power must needs incur the utter enmity of many, and the high displeasure of more.

Since men mark all our steps, and watch our haltings, let a sense of their insidious vigilance excite us so to behave ourselves that they may find a conviction of the mighty power of Christianity towards regulating the passions.

I suppose [good men] to live in a state of mortification and self-denial, to be under a perpetual conflict with their bodily appetites and inclinations, and struggling to get the mastery over them.

Even in such a state as this, the pleasures of virtue would be superior to those of vice, and justly preferable.

To live like those that have their hope in another life implies that we indulge ourselves in the gratifications of this life very sparingly.

They who pass through a foreign country to their native home do not usually give up themselves to the pleasures of the place.

We are called upon to commemorate a revolution [1689] as happy in its consequences, as full of the marks of a divine contrivance, as any age or country can show.

Let us consider whether our approaches to him are sweet and refreshing, and if we are uneasy under any long discontinuance of our conversation with him.

Mighty is the efficacy of such intercessions to avert judgments; how much more available then may they be to secure the continuance of blessings!

So the doctrine be but wholesome and edifying, though there should be a want of exactness in the manner of speaking or reasoning, it may be overlooked.

It was attested by the visible centring of all the old prophecies in the person of Christ, and by the completion of these prophecies since which he himself uttered.

They overlook truth in the judgment they pass on adversity and prosperity. The temptations that attend the former they can easily see, and dread at a distance; but they have no apprehensions of the dangerous consequences of the latter.

The temptations of prosperity insinuate themselves after a gentle, but very powerful, manner; so that we are but little aware of them, and less able to withstand them.

We shall never be able to give ourselves a satisfactory account of the divine conduct without forming such a scheme of things as shall at once take in time and eternity.

Learn not to dispute the methods of his providence; and humbly and implicitly to acquiesce in and adore them.

A good magistrate must be endued with a public spirit, that is, with such an excellent temper as sets him loose from all selfish views, and makes him endeavour towards promoting the public good.

Motives that address themselves to our reason are fittest to be employed upon reasonable creatures: it is no ways congruous that God should be always frightening men into an acknowledgment of the truth.

The common standing rules of the gospel are a more powerful means of conviction than any miracle.

As our advantages towards practising and promoting piety and virtue were greater than those of other men, so will our excuse be less if we neglect to make use of them. We cannot plead, in abatement of our guilt, that we were ignorant of our duty under the prepossession of ill habits and the bias of a wrong education.

A death-bed repentance ought not indeed to be neglected because it is the last thing that we can do.

He had such a gentle method of reproving their faults that they were not so much afraid as ashamed to repeat them.

To be desirous of a good name, and careful to do everything that we innocently may to obtain it, is so far from being a fault, even in private persons, that it is their great and indispensable duty.

A good man not only forbears those gratifications which are forbidden by reason and religion, but even restrains himself in unforbidden instances.

Where the body is affected with pain or sickness we are forward enough to look out for remedies, to listen to every one that suggests them, and immediately to apply them.

The corruption of man is in nothing more manifest than in his aversion to entertain any friendship or familiarity with God.

A sturdy hardened sinner shall advance to the utmost pitch of impiety with less reluctance than he took the first steps while his conscience was yet vigilant and tender.

St. Chrysostom, as great a lover and recommender of the solitary state as he was, declares it to be no proper school for those who are to be leaders of Christ’s flock.

Luther deters men from solitariness; but he does not mean from a sober solitude that rallies our scattered strengths and prepares us against any new encounters from without.

A very prosperous people, flushed with great victories and successes, are seldom so pious, so humble, so just, or so provident, as to perpetuate their happiness.

From mere success nothing can be concluded in favour of any nation upon whom it is bestowed.

The greatest saints are sometimes made the most remarkable instances of suffering.

Calm the disorders of thy mind by reflecting on the wisdom, equity, and absolute rectitude of all His proceedings.

He that talks deceitfully for truth must hurt it more by his example than he promotes it by his arguments.

Whatever ground we may have gotten upon our enemies, we have gotten none upon our vices, the worst enemies of the two; but are even subdued and led captive by the one while we triumph so gloriously over the other.

That virtue and vice tend to make those men happy or miserable who severally practise them, is a proposition of undoubted, and by me undisputed, truth.

We are prone to engage ourselves with the business, the pleasures, and the amusements of this world; we give ourselves up too greedily to the pursuit, and immerse ourselves too deeply in the enjoyments of them.

Though our passage through this world be rough and troublesome, yet the trouble will be but short, and the rest and contentment at the end will be an ample recompense.