A Pilgrims' Diary

When you give yourself to prayer, rise above every other joy — then you will find true prayer.

Happy is the spirit that attains to complete unconsciousness of all sensible experience at the time of prayer.

Happy is the spirit which, praying with distraction, goes on increasing its desire for God.

Happy is the spirit that attains to the perfect formlessness at the time of prayer.

Do you wish to pray? Renounce all things. You then will become heir to all.

Prayer is an ascent of the spirit to God.

A man in chains cannot run. Nor can the mind that is enslaved to passion see the place of spiritual prayer. It is dragged along and tossed by these passion-filled thoughts and cannot stand firm and tranquil.

Such are the circumstances under which a branch of Christ’s Church is domiciled among us, and claims over us, while acting according to His Spirit, the delegated authority of her Founder. She makes no pretensions to that immediate inspiration of the Spirit which, by positively securing her ministers from error, would clothe her decisions with absolute infallibility. She puts the Bible into the hand of every member of her communion, and calls upon him to believe nothing as necessary to salvation which shall not appear, upon mature examination, to be set down therein, or at least to be capable of being proved thereby; but showing, at the same time, her authority as its appointed interpreter, she cautions him not rashly, or without having fully weighed the subject, to dissent from her expositions, the results of the accumulated learning and labour of centuries. She warns him not, without cause, to run the risk of incurring the fearful sin of schism, or unnecessary separation from, and violation of the unity of Christ’s fold; a sin of which, surely, none can think lightly, who remembers the Saviour’s affecting and repeated prayer, (see John xvii.) that His followers might be one, even as He and His Almighty Father were one. She bids him in that Bible itself read her credentials; she there exhibits, in the recorded indications of her Lord and Master’s will, the rock on which she is built; the foundation which, whatever changes may convulse the globe around it, is to abide, unmoved and immoveable, till time shall be no more.

...justification is the office of GOD only, and is not a thing which we render unto him, but which we receive of him: not which we give to him, but which we take of him, by his free mercy, and by the only merits of his most dearly beloved Son, our only Redeemer, Savior, and Justifier Jesus Christ...

This reason is satisfied by the great wisdom of GOD in this mystery of our redemption, who hath so tempered his justice & mercy together, that he would neither by his justice condemn us unto the everlasting captivity of the devil, & his prison of Hell, remediless for ever without mercy, nor by his mercy deliver us clearly, without justice or payment of a just ransom: but with his endless mercy he joined his most upright and equal justice. His great mercy he showed unto us in delivering us from our former captivity, without requiring of any ransom to be paid, or amends to be made upon our parts, which thing by us had been impossible to be done. And where as it lay not in us that to do, he provided a ransom for us, that was, the most precious body and blood of his own most dear and best beloved Son Jesus Christ, who besides this ransom, fulfilled the law for us perfectly. And so the justice of GOD & his mercy did embrace together, & fulfilled the mystery of our redemption.

We are justified by CHRIST alone, in that He has purchased the gift; by Faith alone, in that Faith asks for it; by Baptism alone, for Baptism conveys it; and by newness of heart alone, for newness of heart is the life of it.

Before God we should plead guilty of all sins, even of those which we do not know, as we do in the Lord's Prayer. But before the confessor we should confess those sins alone which we know and feel in our hearts.

...truely there be imperfections in our best workes: wee doe not loue GOD so much as wee are bound to doe, with all our heart, minde, and power: we doe not feare GOD so much as wee ought to doe: we doe not pray to GOD, but with great and many imperfections: we giue, forgiue, beleeue, liue, and hope vnperfectly: we speake, thinke, and doe imperfectly: we fight against the deuill, the world, and the flesh imperfectly: Let vs therefore not be ashamed to confesse plainely our state of imperfection: yea, let vs not bee ashamed to confesse imperfection, euen in all our best workes.

Let vs all confesse with mouth and heart, that we be full of imperfections: Let vs know our owne workes, of what imperfection they be, and then wee shall not stand foolishly and arrogantly in our owne conceits...

Let none of vs be ashamed to say with holy Saint Peter, I am a sinfull man (Luke 5.8). Let vs say with the holy Prophet Dauid, We haue sinned with our fathers, we haue done amisse and dealt wickedly (Psalms 106.6), Let vs all make open confession with the prodigall sonne to our father, and say with him, We haue sinned against heauen, and before thee (O Father) wee are not worthy to be called thy sonnes (Luke 15.18). Let vs all say with holy Baruch, O Lord our GOD, to vs is worthily ascribed shame and confusion, and to thee righteousnesse: Wee haue sinned, wee haue done wickedly, wee haue behaued our selues vngodly in all thy righteousnes (Baruch 2.6, 12). Let vs all say with the holy Prophet Daniel, O Lord, righteousnesse belongeth to thee, vnto vs belongeth confusion. Wee haue sinned, wee haue beene naughtie, wee haue offended, wee haue fled from thee, wee haue gone backe from all thy precepts and iudgements (Daniel 9.7, 5). So we learne of all good men in holy Scriptures, to humble our selues, and to exalt, extoll, praise, magnifie, and glorifie GOD.

Our Sauiour Christ sayth, There is none good, but GOD (Mark 10.18, Luke 18.19): and that we can doe nothing that is good without him, nor no man can come to the father but by him (John 15.5, 14.6). Hee commandeth vs also to say, that wee be vnprofitable seruants, when wee haue done all that wee can doe (Luke 17.10). Hee preferreth the penitent Publicane, before the proude, holy, and glorious Pharisee (Luke 18.14). Hee calleth himselfe a Physition, but not to them that bee whole, but to them that bee sicke (Matthew 9.12), and haue neede of his salue for their sore. Hee teacheth vs in our prayers, to reknowledge our selues sinners, and to aske righteousnesse and deliuerance from all euils, at our heauenly Fathers hand. He declareth that the sinnes of our owne hearts, doe defile our owne selues. Hee teacheth that an euill word or thought deserueth condemnation, affirming that wee shall giue account for euery idle word (Matthew 12.36). He saith, He came not to saue, but the sheepe that were vtterly lost, and cast away (Matthew 15.24). Therefore few of the proude, iust, learned, wise, perfect, and holy Pharisees, were saued by him, because they iustified themselues by their counterfeite holynesse before men. Wherefore (good people) let vs beware of such hypocrisie, vaine glory, and iustifying of ourselues.