Liniment

“ Be not bewildered or amazed, for, though these things are new to you, it may well chance that after the Council of the Heart has been celebrated in the Sanctuary on the night of the Rising of Waters, the god whom we worship, the Nameless god under whose guidance all these things have come about, will reveal his purpose by the mouth of his oracle, and show what part these strangers and each of us shall play in the fate that is to be. Oh! nobles, and my people, let not your sight be dimmed nor your heart hardened, and put not away the fortune and the future that lie before you. ”

“ This throne is placed for our refuge, and the pardon of our sins. Ask and you shall receive; if your sins are as black as jet, they shall be made white as snow.
When we approach the throne of God's mercy, love and grace, we must come deeply penetrated with the knowledge, “Without Me you can do nothing.”—John xv. 5. We have not the grace, nor the strength, nor the willingness, nor the intelligence to do good of ourselves without the help of Jesus. Let us then go with confidence to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace. ”

“ Now, such a testimony we seem to find in the Apostle, St. Paul; who, prophesying of the man of Sin, or Antichrist, to be revealed in the latter days, makes it a distinguishing part of his character, That he sitteth in the temple of God201. Consider the force of these words. A power, seated in the temple of God, can be nothing but a power suitable to that place, or a spiritual power: just as a power, seated in the throne of Cæsar, could only be interpreted of a civil power. ”

“ Surely if our hearts are human, if there is one fibre of pity or gratitude in our souls, the memory of Thy agony would never be obliterated. By Thy presence on the altar, Thou has made me acknowledge the enormity of my sins. Thou hast compelled me to own that my sins have, as far as they could, reacted every scene in Thy Passion. And yet do I linger under the shadow of Thy tabernacle? Do I weep over the wounds I have made in Thy body? Oh, no, dear Jesus! I have forgotten Thee, and like the Jews, with Thy blood on my hands, I have eaten and made merry. ”

“ The great tribulation must come of which the Lord spake and the Antichrist must be revealed, and God must accomplish the number of the elect.’
‘The night is drawing in, O brother, revered in the Lord,’ said Linus; ‘and it were well that we should speedily separate to our homes. But ere we part give to us one word of exhortation of how we are to save ourselves from this untoward generation.’
The Apostle raised his hands towards heaven, and his eye seemed to be lit with heavenly ecstasy as he answered in this brief exhortation: ‘My children, love one another. Love is the fulfilling of the law. ”

“ Let us prostrate ourselves before the majesty of the most Holy Trinity, and uniting our dispositions with those of our blessed Lady and the holy apostles in the upper room at Jerusalem, let us say one Our Father and one Hail Mary, to obtain, by the merits of Jesus ascended, the fruits of the Holy Ghost—long-suffering and mildness. ”

“ And the archistrategos said: “Rest yourself in paradise!” And the Holy One said: “I beg you, move the hosts of the seven heavens and all the host of the angels that we may pray for the sinners, and God may accept our prayer and have mercy upon them. I beg you, order the angelic host to carry me to the heavenly height and to take me before the invisible Father!”
The archistrategos so ordered, and there appeared the cherubim and seraphim and carried the Blessed One to the heavenly height, and put Her down at the throne of the invisible Father. ”

“ Verse 1 Then Solomon
The consecration of the temple illustrates all consecration. The temple, like the believer 1 Thessalonians 5:23 was threefold: the court, that which was outward, visible, answered to the body; the holy place, where everything appealed to the sacred emotions, answered to the soul; the holy of holies, the place of communion with God Exodus 25:22 answered to the spirit of man. The ark was the most all- inclusive type of Christ of any one of the vessels of the tabernacle. ”

“ We find in the Heart of Jesus the grace of holiness, for as Blessed Margaret Mary says, “Nothing is better calculated to raise the soul in a very short time to the loftiest degree of holiness than devotion to this dear Heart.” She also says that those who labor for the salvation of souls will find in this devotion the gift of touching the [pg 273] hardest heart. It is because this divine Heart is the throne whereon mercy is seated, that invocations made to it are never in vain. It is the strong tower against which all temptations are powerless. ”

“ These two groups of sects, antagonistic in the nature of their doctrines, the one appealing to the senses and the imagination, the other to reason and reflection, both claim to be striving after a purer, more elevated, and more spiritual religion.
The mystic sects all accept and depend upon prophecy; their adherents believe in constant communications with the Deity; they are instructed and led by inspiration, comforted and sustained by visions, and feel a deep conviction of supernatural guidance, which fills their souls with faith, the evidence of things not seen. ”

“ The Holy Ghost is the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity: this is one of the dogmas of the Christian religion; it is the foundation of our holy faith. In God there are three divine persons, [pg 333] the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Each person, among created intelligences, is a distinct and a separate unity, complete, entire in itself, but by its limitation making only one individual. But in God the three divine persons have one distinct mode of subsistence, for each possesses in common the whole divine essence. The substance of God belongs to each of the three divine persons. ”

“ And we understand by the Center in itself, with the aspiring Wrathfulness, with the wrathful Will to Nature, the dark World, and with the Egress out of itself to Manifestation, the outward World; and with the second Will out of the first, which enters again into the Liberty, we understand the Light World, or the Kingdom of Joy, or the true Deity. ”

“ Let us then pursue the contemplation of that city.
4. “The Lord loveth the gates of Sion more than all the dwellings of Jacob” (ver. 2) . I have made the foregoing remarks, that ye may not imagine the gates are one thing, the foundations another. Why are the Apostles and Prophets foundations? Because their authority is the support of our weakness. Why are they gates? because through them we enter the kingdom of God: for they proclaim it to us: and while we enter by their means, we enter also through Christ, Himself being the Gate. ”

“ For to-day the council chamber of the divine oracles is opened wide, and the signs prefiguring this glorious day, with its effects and issues, are by the sacred preachers read over to the assembled Church. Today the accomplishment of that ancient and true counsel is, in fact and deed, gloriously manifested to the world. ”

“ And, by the same gift of the Spirit which was given to them on that day, they appointed Ordinances and Laws—such as were in accordance with the Gospel of their preaching, and with the true and faithful doctrine of their teaching:—
1. The apostles therefore appointed: Pray ye towards the east: [12] because, “as the lightning which lighteneth from the east and is seen even to the west, so shall the coming of the Son of man be:” [13] that by this we might know and understand that He will appear from the east suddenly. ”

“ With the sign of the cross temples and altars are consecrated, ministers ordained, and the sacraments administered. We place it on our spires to point us heavenward, on our foreheads to guide us as a lamp through this dark world, and we mark with it the resting-place of our dead. ”

“ An oracle of God should be delivered either in its own words, or, at least, in words clearly, and according to the best rules of interpretation, explicatory of them. The contrary practice is evidently irreverent, rash, and even prophane. Had this circumspection in reasoning from revealed truths, and in commenting upon them, been strictly observed, all those heresies which have corrupted, and still corrupt the faith, had been prevented; and the Church of Christ had happily enjoyed the great blessing we daily pray for, The unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. ”

“ Abase not him whom Thou hast exalted through the power of Thine everlasting sovereignty, and remove not far from Thee him whom Thou hast caused to enter the tabernacle of Thine eternity. Wilt Thou cast away, O my God, him whom Thou hast overshadowed with Thy Lordship, and wilt Thou turn away from Thee, O my Desire, him to whom Thou hast been a refuge? ”

“ Of these three heavens the highest or third, together with the internal of the first or lowest heaven, forms the celestial kingdom; and the middle or second, together with the external of the first or lowest heaven, forms the spiritual kingdom. These three heavens and two kingdoms, arising out of the varieties of the human mind, are not arbitrary distinctions. The external, first, or natural heaven, is formed of those who, from a principle of obedience and duty, live in accordance with the Divine will. ”

“ So far as spiritual position and privileges go, the laity are on the very same level as the clergy, for laity and clergy alike have immediate access to God through faith, and both are obliged to do what lies in them to further the advance of the kingdom of God among their fellow-men. All believing laymen “are worthy to appear before God, to pray for others, to teach each other mutually the things that are of God ... ”

“ For as the divine Head took to Himself a body, bridging thereby the worlds of matter and of spirit, and as "in Him dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead corporally," so in His Church, in perfect analogy with the Archetype, the visible is the channel of the invisible, and the outward organization is instinct with inward life, and the hierarchy is the gift of the mystical Head, and the instrument of the one sanctifying Spirit. ”

“ Let those who are nearest Christ, priests, bishops, cardinals, popes, whose duty it is to follow the Lamb wherever he goes, embrace that most perfect part and, so far as may be, hand it on to the next in order. Let the second circle contain temporal princes, whose arms and whose laws are in the service of Christ.... In the third circle let us place the mass of the people as the dullest part of this world, but yet, dull as it is, a member of the body of Christ. For the eyes are not the only members of the body, but also the hands and the feet. ”

“ The chain of being in the upper and invisible world, through which the Divine Power diffuses itself in successive gradations, he calls the Celestial Hierarchy. The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy is a corresponding series in the visible world. The orders of Angelic natures and of priestly functionaries correspond to each other. The highest rank of the former receive illumination immediately from God. The lowest of the heavenly imparts divine light to the highest of the earthly hierarchy. ”

“ All the oracles that had ever been delivered to them were in men’s mouths, every temple and every house was full of signs and prodigies, so that vows, sacrifices, supplicatory processions and litanies pervaded the town. ”

“ The sum of these names and their relation with numbers constitute that which is highest in human thought; theology is less the science of God than that of our most sublime yearnings. The degrees of the spiritual hierarchy are afterwards established on the primitive scale of numbers, governed by the triad. The angelical orders are three, and each order contains three choirs. It is on this model that the hierarchy should be established on earth, and the Church is its most perfect type: therein are princes, bishops and lastly simple ministers. ”

“ Feeble to outward sense must seem the chances of the coming struggle. But the inner sense of the Great Missionary may this night be looking upon a different vision. Beyond the bleak ridge and circle of firelight—out beyond void of darkness, perchance those deep-sunk eyes are beholding glimpses of future glory to the Light he has come to spread ”

“ I was descanting on the folly of idolatry, and urging the necessity of worshipping the one true God, on the ground that he alone could protect his servants, while idols were things of naught, destined soon to perish out of the land; when, suddenly a man stood up in the midst of the congregation, and exclaimed:—'That is true, that is true! the idols must perish, and shall perish. ”

“ Here his power became so great, and such the reverence of rude peoples for power, that the temples and altars which he reared to gods whom he worshipped, became, in the eyes and hearts of the people, dedicate to him, whom they came to revere and worship as a god. ”

“ If the reader can imagine any thing of the awe and wonder which overwhelmed the apostle in his visions, when, in his station on the apocalyptic earth or in the heavenly sanctuary, he beheld the glorified Person of his Lord in the effulgence of his Deity, seated on a throne, from which, as at Sinai, proceeded lightnings and thunderings and voices, and around which were exhibited the representative and triumphant witnesses and trophies of his redemptive work ”

“ We are all worshipers and ministers of the one true Gud, having been born and baptised in the faith and duly ordained in its ministry. But of late certain heresies have arisen among us, and we are gathered here to ferret out the heretic and bring him to the bar of ecclesiastical justice. Sad to confess, I find that I alone have remained staunch in our faith, which is founded on the rock of unchanging truth. ”