Superior (religious)

“ It is true that their ideas of religious truth were crude and not of a very high order, but the element of worship of and responsibility to a superior being existed and found expression in various ways. ”

“ The chief advantage of a religious leader lies in his opportunity for knowing more fully the teachings of Christ; his superior knowledge, therefore, will be the ground of his more terrible punishment in case of unfaithfulness; the principle is abiding and applies in every sphere. ”

“ They were men of sterling character, of deep religious convictions, of willingness to make painful sacrifices for the sake of principle, of great reverence for the Bible and the institutions of religion, of purity of life in the home and in their social relations. They believed that religion was the supreme thing and that the commandments of God were of binding obligation upon all intelligent moral beings. ”

“ Christ, the overturner of the old order, took this occasion to repeat the master word to which all magnanimous souls respond. 185Only the useless, the petty, the parasites, wish to be served, even by their inferiors (if any one in the absolute meaning of the word can be inferior to them) , but any superior being is always at the service of lesser souls precisely because he is superior. ”

“ My letter to the Herald, if you please, was for those who profess to be godly and "in the kingdom." Religious people must be strictly humane or they are minus the God character and their profession is either a phantom or hypocrisy. ”

“ Only in the higher peoples, and quite recently in history, is moral perfection regarded as essential to religious preeminence, and so we find that, in general, a popular saint is venerated for his miracle working, and his moral worth, if any, is totally forgotten. ”

“ For where this is wholly denied, there nothing can be called heresy, or wickedness, but the want of loving God with our whole heart, and our neighbour as ourselves: nor any thing be called life or salvation, but the Spirit and power of Christ manifesting itself in us. But where the natural man is become great in religious learning, there the greater the scholar, the more firmly will he be fixed in their religion, whose God is their belly. ”

“ Conclude, then, with me, that the Christian virtues are chimerical, always useless, and sometimes pernicious to men, and attended with advantage to none but priests. Conclude that this religion, with all the boasted beauty of its morality, recommends to us a set of virtues, and enjoins a line of conduct, at variance with good sense. ”

“ No man consorted more habitually with his equals, or seldomer entertained the notion that there were such people in the world as his inferiors. He practised his religion to the last letter of church law, and worshipped Christ the Son of God ”

“ If God owes nothing to the latter, if he is not under an obligation to fulfil his engagements to them when they have fulfilled theirs to him, of what use is religion? What motives can men have to offer their homage and worship to the Divinity? Why should they feel much desire to love or serve a master who can absolve himself of all duty towards those who entered his service with an expectation of the recompense promised under such circumstances? ”

“ You never trifle with superiority. I do not mean conventional superiority or bombastic assumption, but what you really believe to be good and noble. As a child, you were very obedient, unless your sense of justice (which is very strong) was violated. In such a case, it was somewhat difficult for you to yield either ready or implicit obedience. You are religiously disposed. You are also characterized by a strong belief in Divine influences, providences, and special interpositions from on high. You are more than ordinarily spiritual in the tone of your mind. ”

“ Let every one, therefore, use his utmost endeavours, that no man may say of him, you are a good infirmarian or a good porter — you are a great scholar, a learned doctor, or a celebrated preacher; but you are not a good religious man. For in fact, we entered religion only to become true religious. It is this character we ought to prefer to all others — it is this we ought to seek after with the utmost diligence, and have perpetually before our eyes. ”

“ Have you considered that much of all that you call morals is indeed the effect of their religious teaching?”
“That is religion not the priest.”
“I speak for the instrument, I confess; but a clergyman is to religion what an army is to a war—and you might as well think of conducting a national contest without officer and soldier, as a moral, religious contest without a clergy. And I doubt whether you have any idea of religion, unless it be a sort of restraint upon certain actions and passions. ”

“ Christian piety he reveres as the highest excellence of human beings; and the amplest reward he can seek for his labour is the consciousness of having, in some degree, however inconsiderable, contributed to recommend the practice of religious duties. ”

“ See here what is the best and surest way to command the respect of inferiors, and to gain their reverence and observance, not by blustering and threatening, and carrying it with a high hand, but by holiness and love, and all possible indications of a constant regard to their welfare, and to God's will and honour. Those are feared in the best manner, and to the best purpose, who make it to appear that God is with them, and that they set him before them. Those that are sanctified are truly magnified, and are worthy of double honour. ”

“ Its ultimate emergence from the religious norm of the world to a position of isolated superiority was due to a mere handful of men who offered the greatest example that the world had hitherto seen of what could be accomplished by subordinating will and personality to the influence and guidance of the Divine Creator. ”

“ The more we examine religion the more reason shall we have to be convinced that it is beneficial to the priests alone. Every part of this religion conspires to render us submissive to the fantasies of our spiritual guides, to labor for their grandeur, to contribute to their riches. ”

“ UPON RELIGIOUS SUPERIORS. Speaking of Superiors, I may tell you that Blessed Francis divided them into four classes. "First," he said, "there are those who are very indulgent to others, and also to themselves. Secondly, there are those who are severe to others, and equally so to themselves. Thirdly, there are some who are indulgent to their subordinates and rigid to themselves. Fourthly, there are those who are indulgent to themselves and rigorous to others." ”

“ To external homage, to evidences of fear and respect by which one was supposed to recognize the superior power of the gods, as one bows down in recognition of the superior power of kings, succeeded a mental adoration, in which a god is recognized as all-powerful but also as all-beneficent. ”

“ When the other two arrived on the earth God changed their nature so that they felt a desire for food and drink and were inclined to lust, and God punished them on that account, and the angels were forced to recognize the superiority of mankind to themselves. [128] In short, the elect among the true believers are superior to the elect among the angels, and the ordinary believers are superior to the ordinary angels. ”

“ But why, it will be said, recommend the highest degree of virtue to weak persons who are as yet but novices in spiritual matters? If you propose to them things proportionate to their strength, and such as are easily reduced to practice, and within their reach, they will very probably embrace them; but this sublime perfection, you propose, ravishes men to the third heaven, and is proper only for a St. Paul, and for some other few saints whom God has particularly chosen in order to raise them to the highest degree of glory and perfection. ”

“ I have learned of a certainty that there is no virtue or utility whatever in that religion which we have been following. None of your thanes has slaved in the worship of our gods more zealously than I. Yet many have had greater rewards and dignities from you, and in every way have prospered more. ”

“ Even the very atheists, or those who deny the existence of a Supreme Deity—all-creating, all-sustaining—even these admit that there is no logical argument conclusively proving that there are not races of beings superior to our imperfect bodies. ”

“ Let such a man become an evangelical preacher; he will then find it possible to reconcile small ability with great ambition, superficial knowledge with the prestige of erudition, a middling morale with a high reputation for sanctity. ”

“ Though in dignity and in capacity of nature they are very much superior to us,—though they retain their primitive rectitude, which we have lost;—though they have constant employment in the upper world, the employment of praising God, and are entitled to a constant rest and bliss there,—yet in obedience to their Maker, and in love to those that bear his image, they condescend to minister to the saints, and stand up for them against the powers of darkness ”

“ And even if any one should know who were holier than others, or who were held greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven; what should that knowledge profit him, unless through this knowledge he should humble himself before Me, and should rise up to give greater praise unto My name? He who considereth how great are his own sins, how small his virtues, and how far he is removed from the perfection of the Saints, doeth far more acceptably in the sight of God, than he who disputeth about their greatness or littleness. ”

“ The religion of the physical senses and the superstitious fears of natural man, the Master refused to belittle, though he deplored the fact that so much of this primitive form of worship should persist in the religious forms of the more intelligent races of mankind. ”

“ Whatever temptation, therefore, there might be to a poor vain heathen to pride himself in his pittance of knowledge or virtue, a Christian should, by the very principles of his religion, be more modest, and ascribe his proficiency in either, not to himself, but to the indulgent favour and good pleasure of God. ”

“ Their religion, therefore, if it has no influence upon their morals, is at least disinterested; and their expressions of adoration and reverence, whether by words or actions, arise only from a humble sense of their own inferiority, and the ineffable excellence of divine perfection. ”

“ But was not he a respectable priest and respected by all, a minister of God, a leader of the holy flock, a pastor of men, and yet....
How then? where is virtue?
"Virtue," answered that voice which we have within ourselves, that voice odious to hypocrites and deceivers, which the Church calls the Devil's voice, and which is the voice of reason. Virtue? Of which do you speak, fool? Without counting the three theological, there are fifty thousand kinds of virtues. ”

“ Everything that comes from God has quality; everything that we receive from God has high worth, and everything that pertains to the spiritual life contains all the elements of real superiority; therefore, to follow God is to rise eternally in the scale of superior being. When we elect to go with God we leave behind us all that is common, ordinary or inferior; and we put on the royal garments of true quality and high worth. We become superior in body, mind and soul, and every element in our being becomes a living expression of that quality that reveals the royal presence of God. ”

“ Is it then come to this, that unless young divines chuse to serve mammon as well as God, their profession is a renouncing of grace and sense, and a reproach to religion? And must they that pretend to act in Christ’s name, as successors in his office, take care that they renounce not the politics of the kingdom of this world? For my part, I thought it as consistent with the honour of the gospel, to give this advice, to suppress all worldly views, as to resist the temptations of the devil. ”

“ I do not believe, with some divines, that all our good works are but as filthy rags; the example which our great Master has set before us, of purity, benevolence, obedience, submission and humility, are virtues which, if faithfully practiced, will find their reward; or why has he pronounced so many benedictions upon them in his sermon on the mount? ”

“ For while a lofty moral sense is recognized among men, and so long as humility and self-devotion to God, and disinterested, even though untaught, zeal, are reckoned Christian virtues,—so long, in spite of party misrepresentations, will the great body of our Christian forefathers, lay and clerical, in the middle ages bear honourable comparison with us their overweening children. ”

“ It is incredible, that the Deity should not have made this easy to us, by some particular marks and distinctions, which point out to our notice his real vicegerents; just as he has pointed out man, by his figure and superior powers, to be the governor of the lower creatures.—In particular; these persons must be possessed of wisdom and goodness superior to those of the rest of mankind [61] ”

“ Christianism emblemed the Law of Human Duty, the Moral Law of Man. One was for the sensuous nature: a rude helpless utterance of the first Thought of men,—the chief recognized virtue, Courage, Superiority to Fear. ”

“ But after all, what are these trifles compared with those that in their myriads have been perpetrated by the great Church of Christendom? What are they as compared to a long life of strenuous sincerity, great nobility and earnest effort in the cause of humanity? It is impossible to lose sight of the fact that in working for God, he was all the time raising his countrymen from a lower to a higher level. ”

“ It seems to me that devotion of this kind always appears either silly or superstitious in the eyes of a different religionist, and only tends to make him the more highly value the imagined superior enlightenment of his own. ”