Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Church
The nearer the church, the further from God.
Bishop Andrews—Sermon on the Nativity before James I. (1622). Proverb quoted by Fuller—Worthies. II. 5. (Ed. 1811).
To Kerke the narre, from God more farre.
As quoted by Spenser—Shepherd’s Calendar. (July, 1579). Douse MS. 52. 15. (1450). See Murray, N.E.D. Used by Swift—Legion Club. Note. Heywood—Proverbs. Given also in Ray as French. Known to Germans and Italians.
Where Christ erecteth his church, the divell in the same church-yarde will have his chappell.
Bancroft—Anti-Puritan Sermon. Feb. 9, 1588. Martin Luther—Von den Conciliis und Kirchen. Werke. 23. 378. (Ed. 1826). Melbancke—Philotimus. Sig. E. 1. Charles Aleyn—Historie of that Wise and Fortunate Prince Henrie. (1638). P. 136. Dr. John Dove—The Conversion of Salomon. Attributed to Erasmus by Franz Horn—Die Poesie und Beredsamkeit der Deutschen. Bk. I. P. 35. (1822). William Roe—Christian Liberty. (1662). P. 2.
Oh! St. Patrick was a gentleman
Who came of decent people;
He built a church in Dublin town,
And on it put a steeple.
Henry Bennett—St. Patrick Was a Gentleman.
Pour soutenir tes droits, que le ciel autorise,
Abîme tout plutôt; c’est l’esprit de l’Église.
To support those of your rights authorized by Heaven, destroy everything rather than yield; that is the spirit of the Church.
Boileau—Lutrin. Chant I. 185.
Where God hath a temple, the devil will have a chapel.
Burton—Anatomy of Melancholy. Pt. III. Sec. IV. Memb. 1. Subsec. I.
An instinctive taste teaches men to build their churches in flat countries with spire steeples, which, as they cannot be referred to any other object, point as with silent finger to the sky and stars.
Coleridge—The Friend.
“What is a church?” Let Truth and reason speak,
They would reply, “The faithful, pure and meek,
From Christian folds, the one selected race,
Of all professions, and in every place.”
Crabbe—The Borough. Letter II. L. 1.
What is a church?—Our honest sexton tells,
’Tis a tall building, with a tower and bells.
Crabbe—The Borough. Letter II. L. 11.
Whenever God erects a house of prayer
The devil always builds a chapel there;
And ’twill be found, upon examination,
The latter has the largest congregation.
Defoe—True Born Englishman. Pt. I. L. 1. Note in first Edition says it is an English proverb. Omitted in later editions.
God never had a church but there, men say,
The devil a chapel hath raised by some wiles,
I doubted of this saw, till on a day
I westward spied great Edinburgh’s Saint Giles.
Drummond—Posthumous Poems. A Proverb.
Die Kirch’ allein, meine lieben Frauen,
Kann ungerechtes Gut verdauen.
The church alone beyond all question
Has for ill-gotten goods the right digestion.
Goethe—Faust. I. 9. 35.
It is common for those that are farthest from God, to boast themselves most of their being near to the Church.
Matthew Henry—Commentaries. Jeremiah VII.
No sooner is a temple built to God but the devil builds a chapel hard by.
Herbert—Jacula Prudentum.
When once thy foot enters the church, be bare.
God is more there than thou: for thou art there
Only by his permission. Then beware,
And make thyself all reverence and fear.
Herbert—The Temple. The Church Porch.
Well has the name of Pontifex been given
Unto the Church’s head, as the chief builder
And architect of the invisible bridge
That leads from earth to heaven.
Longfellow—Golden Legend. V.
In that temple of silence and reconciliation where the enmities of twenty generations lie buried, in the Great Abbey, which has during many ages afforded a quiet resting-place to those whose minds and bodies have been shattered by the contentions of the Great Hall.
Macaulay—Warren Hastings.
A beggarly people,
A church and no steeple.
Attributed to Malone by Swift. See Prior’s Life. (1860). 381. Of St. Ann’s Church, Dublin.
It was founded upon a rock.
Matthew. VII. 25.
As like a church and an ale-house, God and the devell, they manie times dwell neere to ether.
Nashe—Works. III. Have with you to Saffron Walden. Same idea in his Christ’s Teares. Works. IV, 57. Dekker—Rauens Almanacke. Works. IV. 221.
There can be no church in which the demon will not have his chapel.
Cardinal Paleotti, according to . H. Digby—Compitum. Vol. II. P. 297.
Non est de pastu ovium quæstio, sed de lana.
It is not about the pasture of the sheep, but about their wool.
Pope Pius II.
No silver saints, by dying misers giv’n,
Here brib’d the rage of ill-requited heav’n;
But such plain roofs as Piety could raise,
And only vocal with the Maker’s praise.
Pope—Eloisa to Abelard. L. 137.
Who builds a church to God, and not to Fame,
Will never mark the marble with his Name.
Pope—Moral Essays. Ep. III. L. 285.
I never weary of great churches. It is my favourite kind of mountain scenery. Mankind was never so happily inspired as when it made a cathedral.
Stevenson—Inland Voyage.
Boni pastoris est tondere pecus non deglubere.
A good shepherd shears his flock, not flays them.
Suetonius. Attributed by him to Tiberius Cæsar—Life. 32.
The itch of disputation will break out
Into a scab of error.
Rowland Watkyns—The new Illiterate late Teachers.
See the Gospel Church secure,
And founded on a Rock!
All her promises are sure;
Her bulwarks who can shock?
Count her every precious shrine;
Tell, to after-ages tell,
Fortified by power divine,
The Church can never fail.
Charles Wesley—Scriptural. Psalm XLVIII. St. 9.
Disputandi pruritus ecclesiarum scabies.
The itch of disputing is the scab of the churches.
Sir Henry Wotton—A Panegyric to King Charles. (Inscribed on his tomb.)