LANCELOT ANDREWES QUOTES
English bishop & scholar (1555-1626)
You will say, how can one reach heaven to lay anything there? I will ask you also another question. How can a man being in France reach into England to lay anything there? By exchange.... You know that to avoid the danger of pirates and the inconvenience of foreign coin not current at home, it is the use of merchants to pay it there, to receive it here. Such a thing is there in this "laying up." We are here as strangers; the place where we wish ourselves is our country, even paradise--if so be we send our carriage thither before; if not, I fear we intend some other place, it is not our country.
LANCELOT ANDREWES
Ninety-six Sermons
Have mercy on me, Lord, for I am weak;
remember, Lord, how short my time is;
remember that I am but flesh,
a wind that passeth away, and cometh not again.
My days are as grass, as a flower of the field;
for the wind goeth over me, and I am gone,
and my place shall know me no more.
LANCELOT ANDREWES
The Private Devotions of Lancelot Andrewes
Ever since our first fathers by infection took this morbum sathanicum, this devilish disease, pride, of the devil, such tinder is our nature, that every little spark sets us on fire; our nature hath grown so light, that every little thing puffeth us up, and sets us aloft in our altitudes presently.
LANCELOT ANDREWES
Ninety-six Sermons
What shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?
Keep the commandments.
LANCELOT ANDREWES
The Private Devotions of Lancelot Andrewes
For having wealth and wherewithal to "do good", if you do it not, talk not of faith, for you have no faith in you.
LANCELOT ANDREWES
Ninety-six Sermons
Well yet, this life such as it is, yet we love it, and loath we are to end it; and if it be in hazard by the law, what running, riding, posting, suing, bribing, and if all will not serve, what breaking prison is there for it!
LANCELOT ANDREWES
Ninety-six Sermons
Two things I recognize, O Lord, in myself:
Nature, which Thou hast made;
Sin, which I have added.
LANCELOT ANDREWES
The Private Devotions of Lancelot Andrewes
In the Passion, we first consider the degree: for "they have pierced", is a word of gradation; expressing unto us the piercing not with whips and scourges, nor of the nails and thorns, but of the spear-point. Not the whips and scourges wherewith his skin and flesh were pierced; nor the nails and thorns wherewith his feet, hands, and head were pierced; but the spear-point which pierced and went through his very heart itself: for of that wound, of the wound in his heart, is this spoken. Therefore the piercing is her a transcendent; through and through; through skin and flesh; through hands and feet; through side and heart and all: the deadliest and deepest wound, and of highest gradation.
LANCELOT ANDREWES
Passion Week: Three Sermons
For then will be the incorruptible Judge,
the terrible judgment-seat,
the answer without excuses,
the inevitable charges,
the stern punishment,
the endless Gehenna,
the pitiless Angels,
the yawning hell,
the roaring stream of fire,
the unquenchable flame,
the dark prison,
the rayless darkness,
the bed of live coals,
the sleepless worm,
the indissoluble chains,
the bottomless chaos,
the impassable wall,
the inconsolable cry,
none to stand by me,
none to plead for me,
none to snatch me out.
LANCELOT ANDREWES
The Private Devotions of Lancelot Andrewes
The nearer the Church the further from God.
LANCELOT ANDREWES
Sermon on the Nativity before James I
There is no part of the whole course of our Saviour Christ's life or death, but it is well worthy our looking on; and from each part in it there goeth virtue to do us good.
LANCELOT ANDREWES
Passion Week: Three Sermons
Pray we for the Clergy;
that they may rightly divide,
that they may rightly walk;
that while they teach others,
themselves may learn.
LANCELOT ANDREWES
The Private Devotions of Lancelot Andrewes
It is good reason, that man consisting of two parts, the soul and body, the body only should not take up all, but the soul should be remembered too. Enjoying is the body's part, and well-doing is the soul's; your souls are suitors to you to remember them, that is, to remember well-doing, which is the soul's portion.
LANCELOT ANDREWES
Ninety-six Sermons
God hath no need of you to feed the poor, no need of the widow to feed Elias; He could still have fed him by ravens, and as He fed Elias by one, so could He them by others or other means, and never send them to Sarepta among you. He could have created sufficient for all men, or so few men as all should have been sufficient for them. He would not. He ordered there should ever be "poor" in the "land." Why? To prove them, and to prove you by them; that He which feedeth you might feed them by you, that your superfluities might be their necessaries; that they of their patience in wanting, and you of your liberality in supporting, might both together of Him that made you both receive reward.
LANCELOT ANDREWES
Ninety-six Sermons
I am ever Thine.
If Thou cast me out, who shall take me in?
If Thou disregard me, who shall look on me?
More canst Thou remit, than I commit;
more canst Thou spare, than I offend.
Let not hurtful pleasures overcome me;
at the least let not any perverse habit overwhelm me;
From evil and unlawful desires;
From vain, hurtful, impure imaginations;
from the illusions of evil spirits;
from pollutions of soul and of body;
Good Lord, deliver me.
LANCELOT ANDREWES
The Private Devotions of Lancelot Andrewes
The seed, the husbandman casts it, the ground receives it. Whose is it? The ground's? No, the husbandman's. And though it be cast out of his hands and rot in the bowels of the earth and come to nothing, and there becomes of it no man can tell what, yet this count he maketh, it is his still, and that every grain will bring him an ear at time of the year, and so that he hath in casting it from him stored it up for himself. Whereas, in foolishly loving it--as many do their wealth--he might have stored it up for worms and mustiness, and by that means indeed have lost it for altogether. The seed is your alms, the ground is the poor, you are the sowers.
LANCELOT ANDREWES
Ninety-six Sermons
He who hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none.
LANCELOT ANDREWES
The Private Devotions of Lancelot Andrewes
Let us pray for the Catholic Church;
for the Churches throughout
the whole world;
that is, for their truth, unity, and stability;
that in all charity may flourish,
and truth may live.
For our own Church;
that what is lacking in it may be supplied;
what is unsound, corrected;
that all Heresies, Schisms, Scandals,
as well public as private,
may be removed.
Correct the wandering,
convert the unbelieving,
increase the faith of the Church,
destroy Heresies,
discover the crafty enemies,
crush the violent.
LANCELOT ANDREWES
The Private Devotions of Lancelot Andrewes
Men use to reason with themselves: It will not always be health, let us lay up for sickness; it will not always be youth, for age; and why not, saith St. Paul, it will not alway be this life, nor alway present life, lay up for yourselves against the life to come.
LANCELOT ANDREWES
Ninety-six Sermons
Wisdom ruleth in counsel -- so do riches.
LANCELOT ANDREWES
Ninety-six Sermons