“Now, if being few they were not conquered, how will you get the better of them, now that the world is filled with the service of God? _Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My word shall not pass_; and with good reason.”
“Now, if that disciple, who had spent three years with Him, who had partaken of his Lord’s table, witnessed great signs and wonders, and heard his Lord’s words, did not at first believe when he even beheld Him risen, until he felt the marks of the nails and of the wounds, tell me how would the whole world have believed it if it had seen Him risen?”
“One man loves because he is loved; another because he has been honoured; another shows a liking for a man who has been of use to him in some practical matter or other; another, again, for some such similar reason; but it is difficult, indeed, to find a man who loves his neighbour thoroughly and as he ought for Christ’s sake.”
“Or if they were many, they would be fewer than those in churches, and give their superior little anxiety, not through their small numbers alone, but because they are removed from worldly business, and have neither children, nor wife, nor anything else of the kind to trouble about.”
“Our adversaries are able to bear witness to the antiquity of our Scriptures—I mean Celsus and his party, and the man of Batavia after him—for they did not contradict what those who came after them put together; moreover, the whole world with one voice has received it.”
“Paul had all these things in his mind and was struck with astonishment when he said that _the folly of God is wiser than man, and the weakness of God is stronger than man_, applying this folly and this weakness to the Cross, not that it was really foolish and weak but that it seemed so: for he answers them according to _their_ estimate.”
“Picture Elias to yourselves, an immense crowd surrounding him, the sacrifice lying upon stones, all men holding their breath, and the prophet alone in prayer, then fire coming swiftly from heaven upon the offering.”
“Pondering on all this, according to my counsel, stand bravely and without flinching, with your hope on God and on His help, which is before everything, and be careful to let me have a detailed answer.”
“Remember what happened to Job, give thanks to the Lord, Who was able to stop it and did not stop it, and you will receive a reward as great as if you had poured forth all those things into the hands of the poor.”
“Seek not, therefore, to understand or to scrutinise the why and the how, when you hear that God’s power and good pleasure come into play. _And to each of the seeds its own body._ Why then another?”
