"The greatness of the Elizabethan age was that it contained so much of the new without bursting the noble form of the old order." -pg. 8
"Indeed all the violence of Elizabethan drama has nothing to do with a dissolution of moral standards: on the contrary, it can afford to indulge itself just because those standards were so powerful." -pg. 20
"The chain [of being] is also a ladder. The elements are alimental. There is a progression in the way the elements nourish plants, the fruits of plants beasts, and the flesh of beasts men. And this is all one with the tendency of man upwards towards God." -pg. 28
". . . the chain of being . . . made vivid the idea of a related universe where no part was superfluous; it enhanced the dignity of all creation, even the meanest part of it." -pg 31, emphasis mine.
"Far from being dignified and tending to an insolent anthropocentricity, the earth in the Ptolemaic system was the cesspool of the universe, the repository of its grossest dregs." -pg. 39
"Our own age need not begin congratulating itself on its freedom from superstition till it defeats a more dangerous temptation to despair." -pg. 54
On Fortune and the Fall:
"It was the Fall, then, that was primarily responsible for the tyranny of fortune, and, this being so, man could not shift the blame but must bear his punishment as he can." -pg. 55
"But however pessimistic orthodoxy could be about the heaviness of the punishment inflicted through fortune on man for his fall, it always fought the superstition that man was the slave as well as the victim of chance." -pg. 55
"Raleigh . . . begins with saying that it is an error to hold with the Chaldaeans Stoics and others that the stars bind man with an ineluctable necessity. It is the opposite error to suppose that they are mere ornament." -pg. 56
On Knowledge and Reason
". . . one of man's highest faculties is his gift for disinterested knowledge. It was through that gift that he might learn something of God." -pg. 72, emphasis mine.
"Far from being a sign of modesty, innocence, or intuitive virtue, not to know yourself was to resemble the beasts, if not in coarseness at least in deficiency of education. to know yourself was not egoism but the gateway to all virtue." -pg. 72, emphasis mine.
"Morally the correspondence between macrocosm and microcosm, if taken seriously, must be impressive. If the heavens are fulfilling punctually their vast and complicated wheelings, man must feel it shameful to allow the workings of his own little world to degenerate." -pg. 93
Showing posts with label chapbook. Show all posts
Showing posts with label chapbook. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Chapbook for Boethius' "The Consolation of Philosophy"
Book II
"But you are wrong if you think Fortune has changed towards you. Change is her normal behavior, her true nature." -section I
"I can say with confidence that if the things whose loss you are bemoaning were really yours, you could never have lost them." -section II
". . . you should not wear yourself out by setting your heart on living according to a law of your own in a world that is shared by everyone." -section II
"There is something in the case of each of us that escapes the notice of the man who has not experienced it, but causes horror to the man who has." -section IV
". . . he who hath much, wants much." -section V
"When you think of your future fame you think you are creating for yourself a kind of immortality. But if you think of the infinite recesses of eternity you have little cause to take pleasure in any continuation of your name." -section VI
"Good fortune deceives, but bad fortune enlightens." -section VIII
Book III
"Look up at the vault of heaven: see the strength of its foundation and the speed of its movement, and stop admiring things that are worthless." -section VIII
Book IV
"Some may perhaps think it strange that we say that wicked men, who form the majority of men, do not exist; but that is how it is. I am not trying to deny the wickedness of the wicked; what I do deny is that there existence is absolute and complete existence. Just as you might call a corpse a dead man, but couldn't simply call it a man, so I would agree that the wicked are wicked, but could not agree that they have unqualified existence. A thing exists when it keeps its proper place and preserves its own nature. Anything which departs from this ceases to exist, because its existence depends on the preservation of its nature." -section II
". . . only the wise can achieve their desire . . ." -section II
". . . the wicked cease to be what they once were. That they used to be human is shown by the human appearance of their body which still remains." -section III
"There is, indeed, great punishment then, sometimes exacted with penal severity, sometimes, I think, with purifying mercy; but it is not my intention to discuss it now." -section IV
"You are urging me to the greatest of all questions, a question that can never be exhausted. the subject is of such a kind that when one doubt has been removed, countless others spring up in its place, like the Hydra's heads. The only way to check them is with a really lively intellectual fire." - section VI
"It is because you men are in no position to contemplate this [divine] order that everything seems confused and upset." -section VI - puts us in our place! :)
"Some people are excessively afraid of suffering for which they actually have the endurance; others are full of scorn for suffering they cannot in fact bear. Both kinds [Providence] brings to self-discovery through hardship." -section VI
"All fortune is certainly good." - section VII
"Once earth has been surpassed
It gives the stars." -section VII
Book V
"Human souls are of necessity more free when they continue in the contemplation of the mind of God and less free when they descend to bodies, and less still when they are imprisoned in earthly flesh and blood. They reach an extremity of enslavement when they give themselves up to wickedness and lose possession of their proper reason." -section II
". . . the operation of human reasoning cannot approach the immediacy of divine foreknowledge." -section IV
". . . human reason refuses to believe that divine intelligence can see the future in any other way except that in which human reason has knowledge." -section V
"Whatever lives in time . . . is in the position of not yet possessing tomorrow when it has already lost yesterday. In this life of today you do not live more fully than in that fleeting and transitory moment." -section VI
"Why, then, do you insist that all that is scanned by the sight of God becomes necessary? Men see things but this certainly doesn't make them necessary? And your seeing them doesn't impose any necessity on the things you see present, does it? . . . the divine gaze looks down on all things without disturbing their nature; to Him they are present things, but under the condition of time they are future things." -section VI
Last Line of the Book:
"A great necessity is laid upon you, if you will be honest with yourself, a great necessity to be good, since you live in the sight of a judge who sees all things." -section VI
"But you are wrong if you think Fortune has changed towards you. Change is her normal behavior, her true nature." -section I
"I can say with confidence that if the things whose loss you are bemoaning were really yours, you could never have lost them." -section II
". . . you should not wear yourself out by setting your heart on living according to a law of your own in a world that is shared by everyone." -section II
"There is something in the case of each of us that escapes the notice of the man who has not experienced it, but causes horror to the man who has." -section IV
". . . he who hath much, wants much." -section V
"When you think of your future fame you think you are creating for yourself a kind of immortality. But if you think of the infinite recesses of eternity you have little cause to take pleasure in any continuation of your name." -section VI
"Good fortune deceives, but bad fortune enlightens." -section VIII
Book III
"Look up at the vault of heaven: see the strength of its foundation and the speed of its movement, and stop admiring things that are worthless." -section VIII
Book IV
"Some may perhaps think it strange that we say that wicked men, who form the majority of men, do not exist; but that is how it is. I am not trying to deny the wickedness of the wicked; what I do deny is that there existence is absolute and complete existence. Just as you might call a corpse a dead man, but couldn't simply call it a man, so I would agree that the wicked are wicked, but could not agree that they have unqualified existence. A thing exists when it keeps its proper place and preserves its own nature. Anything which departs from this ceases to exist, because its existence depends on the preservation of its nature." -section II
". . . only the wise can achieve their desire . . ." -section II
". . . the wicked cease to be what they once were. That they used to be human is shown by the human appearance of their body which still remains." -section III
"There is, indeed, great punishment then, sometimes exacted with penal severity, sometimes, I think, with purifying mercy; but it is not my intention to discuss it now." -section IV
"You are urging me to the greatest of all questions, a question that can never be exhausted. the subject is of such a kind that when one doubt has been removed, countless others spring up in its place, like the Hydra's heads. The only way to check them is with a really lively intellectual fire." - section VI
"It is because you men are in no position to contemplate this [divine] order that everything seems confused and upset." -section VI - puts us in our place! :)
"Some people are excessively afraid of suffering for which they actually have the endurance; others are full of scorn for suffering they cannot in fact bear. Both kinds [Providence] brings to self-discovery through hardship." -section VI
"All fortune is certainly good." - section VII
"Once earth has been surpassed
It gives the stars." -section VII
Book V
"Human souls are of necessity more free when they continue in the contemplation of the mind of God and less free when they descend to bodies, and less still when they are imprisoned in earthly flesh and blood. They reach an extremity of enslavement when they give themselves up to wickedness and lose possession of their proper reason." -section II
". . . the operation of human reasoning cannot approach the immediacy of divine foreknowledge." -section IV
". . . human reason refuses to believe that divine intelligence can see the future in any other way except that in which human reason has knowledge." -section V
"Whatever lives in time . . . is in the position of not yet possessing tomorrow when it has already lost yesterday. In this life of today you do not live more fully than in that fleeting and transitory moment." -section VI
"Why, then, do you insist that all that is scanned by the sight of God becomes necessary? Men see things but this certainly doesn't make them necessary? And your seeing them doesn't impose any necessity on the things you see present, does it? . . . the divine gaze looks down on all things without disturbing their nature; to Him they are present things, but under the condition of time they are future things." -section VI
Last Line of the Book:
"A great necessity is laid upon you, if you will be honest with yourself, a great necessity to be good, since you live in the sight of a judge who sees all things." -section VI
Monday, August 29, 2011
Chapbook Entry for "Hearing God", by Dallas Willard
"All of the words that we are going to receive from God, no matter what may accompany them externally or internally, will ultimately pass through the form of our own thoughts and perceptions. We must learn to find in them the voice of God in whom we live and move and have our being." - pg. 182
"It cannot be stressed too much that the permanent address at which the word of God may be found is the Bible." - pg. 183
"God acts toward me in a distinctively personal manner. This is the common testimony across wide ranges of Christian fellowship and history. I think it is this sense of being seized in the presence of Scripture, in a manner so widely shared, that gives the Bible its power to assure us in the face of our continuing fallibility. We stand within a community of the spoken to." (emphasis mine.) - pg. 184
"Without any real communication from God our view of the world is very impersonal, however glorious we may find God's creation. But there is all the difference in the world between having a fine general view that this is our Father's world - or even that an arrangement has been made for our eternal redemption - and having confidence, based in experience, that the Father's face, whether in the dark of the night or the brightness of the day, is turned toward us, shining upon us, and that the Father is speaking to us individually." - pg. 186
". . . God is not a mumbling trickster.
"On the contrary it is to be expected, given the revelation of God in Christ, that if he wants us to know something, he will be both able and willing to communicate with us plainly, just as long as we are open and prepared by our experience to hear and obey." - pg. 191
When seeking direction regarding a specific matter and direction doesn't come: "I do not cease my general attitude of listening. But I am neither disappointed nor alarmed, nor even concerned, as a rule . . . From my own experience, then, and from what I have been able to learn from the Scriptures and from others who live in a working relationship with God's voice, I am led to the following conclusion: Direction will always be made available to the mature disciple if without it serious harm would befall people concerned in the matter or the cause of Christ." - pg. 200
"Think of it this way: no decent parents would obscure their intentions for their children. A general principle for interpreting God's behavior towards us is provided in Jesus' words, 'If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!' (Lk 11:12). How much more will our heavenly Father give clear instructions to those who sincerely ask him - in those cases where he has any to give? Where he has none to give, we may be sure that it is because it is best that he does not. Then whatever lies within his moral will and whatever is undertaken in faith is his perfect will. It is no less perfect because it was not specifically dictated by him. Indeed it is perhaps more perfect precisely because he saw no need for precise dictation. He expects and trusts us to choose, and he goes with us in our choice.
"Several different courses of action may, then, each be God's perfect will in a given circumstance. We should assume that this is so in all cases where we are walking in his general will, are experienced in hearing his voice and, on seeking, find no specific direction given. In these cases there are usually various things that would equally please God, though he directs none of them in particular to be done. All are perfectly in his will because none is better than the others so far as he is concerned, and all are good. he would not have you do other than you are doing. (Of course, being in his perfect will does not mean you are quite flawless yet! You can be in his perfect will without being a perfect human being!)" - pgs. 206-207
The above rings so true with my own experience as a parent; I love watching my children choose between goods. They become more themselves when they say, "This and not that," and in such cases, what I'm hoping is not that they choose one good or the other, but that they choose what is best for them, and I rejoice that they have more than one good to choose between. It makes so much sense - as our parenting, at its best, is only a pale reflection of the fatherhood of God - that He would rejoice in seeing us choose between goods too. It must be like watching a toddler, finally able to take more than ten steps in a row, wobble confidently towards his stuffed bear instead of his stuffed rabbit, grinning all the time at his accomplishment. You're just delighting in him, and are happy for him to grab either toy.
A quotation from John Wood Oman: "We can only be absolutely dependent upon God as we are absolutely independent in our own souls, and only absolutely independent in our own souls as we are absolutely dependent on God. A saved soul, in other words, is a soul true to itself because, with its mind on God's will of love and not on itself, it stands in God's world unbribable and undismayed, having freedom as it has piety and piety as it is free." - quoted on pg. 204
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