The Saint Francis de Sales Collection [15 Books] Quotes

“Especially beware of bad books; and for nothing in the world let your soul be carried away by certain writings which weak brains admire, because of some vain subtleties which they find therein.”
― Francis de Sales, The Saint Francis de Sales Collection [15 Books]

“Paradise is not obtained by desires, but by deeds.”
― Francis de Sales, The Saint Francis de Sales Collection [15 Books]

“There is no mortification comparable to this: it is the deepest humiliation, the greatest impoverishment, the most terrible penance; and I do not at all doubt but that he who is grieved for having offended God, and who accepts death willingly in satisfaction for his sins, will immediately obtain pardon.”
― Francis de Sales, The Saint Francis de Sales Collection [15 Books]

“Oh, if it were lawful for men, in order to raise their opinions on horseback, to use the Scripture as stirrups, to lengthen and shorten them, each one to his own size, where, I beg you, should we be? Do you not perceive the stratagem? All authority is taken away from tradition, the Church, the Councils, the pastors: what further remains? The Scripture. The enemy is crafty. If he would tear it all away at once he would cause an alarm; he takes away a great part of it in the very beginning, then first one piece, then the other, at last he will have you stripped entirely, without Scripture and without Word of God.”
― Francis de Sales, The Saint Francis de Sales Collection [15 Books]

“All virtues separated from charity are very imperfect, since they are not able without it to arrive at their end, which is to make us happy. Bees in their birth are little grubs and worms, without feet, without wings, and without shape; but in course of time they change, and become little flies; afterwards waxing strong, and being come to their growth, they are said to be formed, finished and perfect bees, because they have all that is wanted for flying and for making honey. The virtues have their beginning, their progress, and their perfection; and I do not deny that without charity they may be born and even grow; but that they should come to their perfection, and bear the name of formed, fashioned, and accomplished virtues, that depends on charity, which gives them the strength to fly in God, and to collect from his mercy the honey of true merit, and of the sanctification of the heart in which they are found.”
― Francis de Sales, The Saint Francis de Sales Collection [15 Books]

“Charity is then the bond of perfection,736 since in it all the perfections of the soul are contained and assembled, and since without it, not only can one not have the whole array of virtues, but one cannot even have the perfection of any virtue. Without the cement and mortar which fasten the stones and walls, the whole edifice goes to rack; were it not for the nerves, muscles and sinews, the whole body would be undone; and without charity the virtues can never sustain one another.”
― Francis de Sales, The Saint Francis de Sales Collection [15 Books]

“Among such virtues as have no special adaptation to our own calling, choose the most excellent, not the most showy. A comet generally looks larger than the stars, and fills the eye more; but all the while comets are not nearly so important as the stars, and only seem so large to us because they are nearer to us than stars, and are of a grosser kind. So there are certain virtues which touch us very sensibly and are very material, so to say, and therefore ordinary people give them the preference. Thus the common run of men ordinarily value temporal almsgiving more than spiritual; and think more of fasting, exterior discipline and bodily mortification than of meekness, cheerfulness, modesty, and other interior mortifications, which nevertheless are far better. Do you then, my daughter, choose the best virtues, not those which are most highly esteemed; the most excellent, not the most visible; the truest, not the most conspicuous.”
― Francis de Sales, The Saint Francis de Sales Collection [15 Books]

“Since at every season of life, early or late, in youth or in old age, I can expect my salvation from the pure goodness and mercy of God alone, it is much better to cast myself from this moment into the arms of His clemency than to wait till another time. The greater part of the journey is over; let the Lord do with me according to His will; my fate is in His hands; let Him dispose of me according to His good pleasure.”
― Francis de Sales, The Saint Francis de Sales Collection [15 Books]

“Therefore, do not fix your longings on anything which you do not possess; do not let your heart rest in that which you have; do not grieve overmuch at the losses which may happen to you;—and then you may reasonably believe that although rich in fact, you are not so in affection, but that you are poor in spirit, and therefore blessed, for the Kingdom of Heaven is yours.”
― Francis de Sales, The Saint Francis de Sales Collection [15 Books]

“Contrition and confession are in themselves so lovely and sweet-savoured, that they efface the ugliness and disperse the ill savour of sin.”
― Francis de Sales, The Saint Francis de Sales Collection [15 Books]

“1. God did not bring you into the world because He had any need of you, useless as you are; but solely that He might show forth His Goodness in you, giving you His Grace and Glory. And to this end He gave you understanding that you might know Him, memory that you might think of Him, a will that you might love Him, imagination that you might realise His mercies, sight that you might behold the marvels of His works, speech that you might praise Him, and so on with all your other faculties. 2. Being created and placed in the world for this intent, all contrary actions should be shunned and rejected, as also you should avoid as idle and superfluous whatever does not promote it.”
― Francis de Sales, The Saint Francis de Sales Collection [15 Books]

“The children of the world are all separated one from another because their hearts are in different places; but the children of God, having their heart where their treasure is, and all having only one treasure which is the same God, are, consequently, always joined and united together.”
― Francis de Sales, The Saint Francis de Sales Collection [15 Books]

“The Council also commands933 that the public services of the Church shall not be celebrated in the vulgar tongue, but in a fixed language, each one according to the ancient formularies approved by the Church.”
― Francis de Sales, The Saint Francis de Sales Collection [15 Books]

“In short, it is more than reasonable that so holy a rule as is the holy Word of God should be kept in fixed languages, since it could not be maintained in this perfect integrity within bastard and unstable languages.”
― Francis de Sales, The Saint Francis de Sales Collection [15 Books]

“Do we not know that the Apostles spoke all tongues? How is it then that their gospels and their epistles are only in Hebrew, as S. Jerome witnesses928of the Gospel of S. Matthew; in Latin, as some think concerning that of S. Mark,929 and in Greek, as is held concerning the other Gospels which were the three languages chosen at Our Lord’s very cross for the preaching of the Crucified? Did they not carry the Gospel throughout the world? And in the world were there no other languages but these three? Truly there were, and yet they did not judge it expedient to vary their writings in so many languages. Who then shall despise the custom of our Church, which has for its warrant the imitation of the Apostles?930 Now for this, besides the great weight it should have to put down all our curious questionings, there is a reason which I hold to be most sound: it is that these other languages are not fixed, they change between town and town; in accents, in phrases and in words, they are altered, and vary from season to season and from age to age.”
― Francis de Sales, The Saint Francis de Sales Collection [15 Books]

“But if the case be thus with the Latin versions, how great are the contempt and profanation shown in the French, German, Polish and other languages! And yet here is one of the most successful artifices adopted by the enemy of Christianity and of unity in our age, to attract the people. He knew the curiosity of men, and how much one esteems one’s own judgment, and therefore he has induced his sectaries to translate the Holy Scriptures, every one into the tongue of the province where he finds himself placed, and to maintain this unheard-of opinion, that every one is capable of understanding the Scriptures, that all should read them, and that the public offices should be celebrated and sung in the vulgar tongue of each district. But who sees not the artifice? There is nothing in the world which, passing through many hands, does not change and lose it first luster: wine which has been often poured out and poured back loses its freshness and strength, wax when handled changes its color, coins lose their stamp. Be sure also that Holy Scripture, passing through so many translators, in so many versions and reversions, cannot but be altered. And if in the Latin versions there is such a variety of opinion among these turners of Scripture, how much more in their vernacular and mother-tongue editions, which not every one is able to check or to criticize? It gives a very great license to translators to know that they will only be tested by those of their own province. Every district has not such clear seeing eyes as France and Germany. “Are we sure,” says a learned profane writer,927 “that in the Basque provinces and in Brittany there are persons of sufficient judgment to give authority to this translation made into their tongue; the universal Church has no more arduous decision to give;” it is Satan’s plan for corrupting the integrity of this holy Testament. He well knows the result of disturbing and poisoning the source; it is at once to spoil all that comes after.”
― Francis de Sales, The Saint Francis de Sales Collection [15 Books]

“This heresy” [of the Gnostics], says he, “does not receive some of the Scriptures; and if it receives some it does not receive them whole . . . and what it receives in a certain sense whole, it still perverts, devising various interpretations.”
― Francis de Sales, The Saint Francis de Sales Collection [15 Books]

“For would it not have been a profanation of the Ark of the Covenant to maintain that everybody might seize it, carry it home, take it all to pieces and then give it what form he liked provided that it had some semblance of an ark?”
― Francis de Sales, The Saint Francis de Sales Collection [15 Books]

“Your fine church has not contented itself with cutting off from the Scripture entire books, chapters, sentences and words, but what it has not dared to cut off altogether it has corrupted and violated by its translations. In order that the sectaries of this age may altogether pervert this first and most holy rule of our faith, they have not been satisfied with shortening it or with getting rid of so many beautiful parts, but they have turned and turned it about, each one as he chose, and instead of adjusting their ideas by this rule they have adopted it to the square of their own greater or less sufficiency.”
― Francis de Sales, The Saint Francis de Sales Collection [15 Books]

“If your church continues in this liberty of conscience, making no scruple to take away what she pleases, soon the Scripture will fail you, and you will have to be satisfied with the Institutes of Calvin, which must indeed have I know not what excellence, since they censure the Scriptures themselves!”
― Francis de Sales, The Saint Francis de Sales Collection [15 Books]

“What can you oppose to them except that their doctrine is hard for you to accept? Open your heart to faith and you will easily receive that which your unbelief shuts out from you. Because you do not will to believe what they teach, you condemn them; rather, condemn your presumption and receive the Scripture.”
― Francis de Sales, The Saint Francis de Sales Collection [15 Books]

“The enemy is crafty; if he would take all away at one stroke he would cause alarm. He starts a certain and infallible method of getting rid of it bit by bit and very gradually, that is, this idea of interior inspiration, by which everybody can receive or reject what seems good to him.”
― Francis de Sales, The Saint Francis de Sales Collection [15 Books]

“But for God’s sake notice the trick. “We know,” say they, “these books to be canonical, not so much by the common consent and accord of the Church.” To hear them speak, would you not say that at least to some extent they let themselves be guided by the Church? Their speech is not sincere: it seems as if they did not altogether refuse credit to the common accord of Christians, but only did not receive it as on the same level with their interior persuasion. In reality, however, they hold it in no account at all; they are thus cautious in their language in order not to appear altogether arrogant and unreasonable. For, I ask you, if they deferred as little as you please to ecclesiastical authority, why would they receive the Apocalypse rather than Judith or the Machabees? S. Augustine and S. Jerome are faithful witnesses to us that these have been unanimously received by the whole Catholic Church, and the Councils of Carthage, in Trullo, Florence, assure us thereof. Why then do they say that they do receive these sacred books not so much by the common accord of the Church or by interior persuasion, since the common accord of the Church has neither value nor place in the matter? It is their custom when they would bring forward some strange opinion not to speak clearly and frankly, in order to give the reader a better impression.”
― Francis de Sales, The Saint Francis de Sales Collection [15 Books]

“The crafty merchant keeps out the worst articles of his stock to offer first to buyers, to try if he can get rid of them and sell them to some simpleton. The reasons which these reformers have advanced in the preceding chapter are but tricks, as we have seen, which are used only as it were for amusement, to try whether some simple and weak brain will be content with them, and in reality, when one comes to the grapple, they confess that not the authority of the Church, nor of S. Jerome, nor of the gloss, nor of the Hebrew, is cause sufficient to receive or reject any Scripture. The following is their protestation of faith presented to the King of France by the French pretended reformers. After having placed on the list, in the third article, the books they are willing to receive, they write thus in the fourth article: “We know these books to be canonical and a most safe rule of our faith, not so much by the common accord and consent of the Church, as by the testimony and interior persuasion of the Holy Spirit, which gives us to discern them from the other ecclesiastical books.” Quitting then the field of the reasons preceding, and making for cover, they throw themselves into the interior, secret and invisible persuasion which they consider to be produced in them by the Holy Spirit.”
― Francis de Sales, The Saint Francis de Sales Collection [15 Books]

“Here now, I think, are all your reasons scattered to the winds, and you can bring no more. But we may well say: if it be thus lawful indifferently to reject or make doubtful the authority of those Scriptures, about which there was formerly a doubt, though the Church has now decided, it will be necessary to reject or to doubt of a great part of the Old and the New Testament. It is then no little gain to the enemy of Christianity, to have at one stroke scratched out of the Holy Scripture so many noble parts. Let us proceed.”
― Francis de Sales, The Saint Francis de Sales Collection [15 Books]

“For God’s sake take care that your judgment does not deceive you. Why, I pray you, do you call false, things which the whole of antiquity has held as articles of faith? Why do you not rather censure your fancies which will not embrace the doctrine of these books, than censure these books which have been received for so long a time because they do not jump with your humor? Because you will not believe what the books teach, you condemn it; why do you not rather condemn your presumption which is incredulous to their teaching?”
― Francis de Sales, The Saint Francis de Sales Collection [15 Books]

“but since you only advance a simple assertion I will return your pass by a simple negation.”
― Francis de Sales, The Saint Francis de Sales Collection [15 Books]

“there is a great difference between doubting whether a thing is to be accepted and rejecting it. Doubt does not hinder a subsequent resolution, indeed it is its preliminary stage. To reject presupposes a decision. Inconstancy does not consist in changing a doubt into resolution, but in changing from resolution to doubt. It is not instability to become settled after wavering but to waver after being settled.”
― Francis de Sales, The Saint Francis de Sales Collection [15 Books]

“The Arians, as S. Augustine tells us,901 corrupted this sentence of S. John i. 1: In principio erat verbum, et verbum erat apud Deum, et Deus erat verbum. Hoc erat in principio apud Deum, by simply changing a point. For they read it thus: Et verbum erat apud Deum et Deus erat. Verbum hoc, &c., instead of Deus erat verbum. Hoc erat in principio apud Deum. They placed the full stop after the erat, instead of after the verbum. They so acted for fear of having to grant that the Word was God; so little is required to change the sense of God’s Word. When one is handling glass beads, if two or three are lost, it is a small matter, but if they were oriental pearls the loss would be great. The better the wine the more it suffers from the mixture of a foreign flavor and the exquisite symmetry of a great picture will not bear the admixture of new colors. Such is the conscientiousness with which we ought to regard and handle the sacred deposit of the Scriptures.”
― Francis de Sales, The Saint Francis de Sales Collection [15 Books]

“The Holy Scripture is called the Book of the Old and of the New Testament. When a notary has drawn a contract or other deed, when a testament is confirmed by the death of the testator, there must not be added, withdrawn, or altered, one single word under penalty of falsification. Are not the Holy Scriptures the true testament of the eternal God, drawn by the notaries deputed for this purpose, duly sealed and signed with his blood, confirmed by death? Being such, how can we alter even the smallest point without impiety? “A testament,” says the great Ulpian, “is a just expression of our will as to what we would have done after our death.”898 Our Lord by the Holy Scriptures shows us what we must believe, hope for, love and do, and this by a true expression of his will; if we add, take away or change, it will no longer be the true expression of God’s will. For Our Lord having duly expressed in Scripture his will, if we add anything of our own we shall make the statement go beyond the will of the testator, if we take anything away we shall make it fall short, if we make changes in it we shall set it awry, and it will no longer correspond to the will of the author, nor be a correct statement. When two things exactly correspond, he who changes the one destroys the equality and the correspondence between them. If it be a true statement, whatever right have we to alter it? Our Lord puts a value on the iotas, yea, the mere little points and accents of his holy words. How jealous then is he of their integrity, and what punishment shall they not deserve who violate this integrity! Brethren, says S. Paul,899 (I speak after the manner of man), yet a man’s testament, if it be confirmed, no man despiseth, nor addeth to it. And to show how important it is to learn the Scripture in its exactness he gives an example. To Abraham were the promisesmade, and to his seed. He says not and to his seeds as of many, but as of one; and to thy seed, who is Christ. See, I beg you, how the change from singular to plural would have spoilt the mysterious meaning of this word. The Ephrathites [Ephraimites] said Sibolleth, not forgetting a single letter, but because they did not pronounce it thickly enough, the Galaadites slew them at the fords of Jordan.900 The simple difference of pronunciation in speaking, and in writing the mere transposition of one single point on the letter scin caused the ambiguity, and changing the janin into semol, instead of an ear of wheat expressed a weight or a burden. Whosoever alters or adds the slightest accent in the Scripture is a sacrilegious man and deserves the death of him who dares to mingle the profane with the sacred.”
― Francis de Sales, The Saint Francis de Sales Collection [15 Books]