Jeremy Taylor Quotes

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.

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.

The Holy Ghost is certainly the best preacher in the world, and the words of Scripture the best sermons.

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

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.

Faith, hope, and charity are the best weapons in the world to fight against intemperance.

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.

O let Thy mercy descend upon the whole church; preserve her in truth and peace, in unity and safety, in all storms, and against all temptations and enemies; that she, offering to Thy glory the never-ceasing sacrifice of prayer and thanksgiving, may advance the honour of her Lord, and be filled with His Spirit, and partake of His glory. Amen.

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.

Upon the wings of fasting and alms holy prayer infallibly mounts up to heaven.

Her heart was a passion-flower, bearing within it the crown of thorns and the cross of Christ.

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.

He that is choice of his time will be choice of his company, and choice of his actions.

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.

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