Jeremy Taylor Quotes

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.

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.

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

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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