Francis P. Church Quotes — 5 Famous Quotes & Sayings | Lex

“Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies!””

“If it’s 11:00 p.m. and your ten-year-old asks for a latte because he’s tired, you need to tell him to go to sleep. Sleep is the right solution for his fatigue. Too often we have given people what they ask for rather than what they need. There are times when the most loving thing we can do is teach people that joy will come only when they stop screaming for attention and save their voices for the throne.””

Letters to the Church

“For some [Papists] (gymnē tē kephalē, without wish of concealment) altogether deny the authenticity (authentian) of Scripture in itself without the testimony of the church and think it worthy of no more belief (I shudder to relate) than the Koran, Titus Livy or the fables of Aesop. In a former age those who undertook to dispute with our men concerning the authority of Scripture belched forth these blasphemies. Such are the impious words of Hosius against Brentius ('Confutatio Prolegomenon Brentii,' in Opera [1583], 1:530). He asserts that it can be said in a pious sense that 'the Scriptures have only as much force as the fables of Aesop, if destitute of the authority of the church.' Eck says that 'the Scriptures are not authentic, except by authority of the church' (Enchirdion of Commonplaces 1 [trans. F.L. Battles, 1979], p. 13, 'On the Church and her Authority'). Baile says that 'without the authority of the church we should no more believe Matthew than Titus Livy' (cf. Andre Rivet, Sommaire de toutes les controverses touchant la religion [1615], p. 217). Andradius says, 'There is nothing of divinity in the books in which the sacred mysteries are written and that there cannot be found in them anything to bind us to religion and to believe what they contain; but that the power and dignity of the church are so great as that no one without the greatest impiety can resist it' (Defensio tridentinae fidei catholicae 3+ [1580]). Stapleton says, 'The church must be considered in such a light, as that we ought not to believe the testimony in any other way than the apostles believed the testimony of Christ, and that God is not to be believed except on account of the church' (adversus Whittak., lib. i, c. 7+ [1620]).””

Institutes of Elenctic Theology

“Was it necessary for the word of God to be committed to writing? We affirm... Three things particularly prove the necessity of the Scripture: (1) the preservation of the word; (2) its vindication; (3) its propagation. It wasnecessary for a written word to be given to the church that the canon of true religious faith might be constant and unmoved; that it might easily be preserved pure and entire against the weakness of memory, the depravity of men and the shortness of life; that it might be more certainly defended from the frauds and corruptions of Satan; that it might more conveniently not only be sent to the absent and widely separated, but also be transmitted to posterity. For by 'letters,' as Vives well observes, 'all the arts are preserved as in a treasury, so that they can never perish, while on the contrary, tradition by the hand is unhappy' (De disciplinis … de Corruptis Artibus 1 [1636], p. 5). This is a divine and wonderful advantage of letters, as Quintilian says, 'that they guard words and deliver them to readers as a sacred trust' (Institutio Oratoria 1.7.31 [Loeb, 1:144–45]). Nor for any other reason are the public laws, statutes and edicts of kings and the decrees of the commonality inscribed upon brass or committed to public tablets, except that this is the most sure method of preserving them uncorrupted and of propagating through many ages the remembrance of those things which it is important for the people to know.””

Institutes of Elenctic Theology

“Even the government is under the attack of the church, and God has already told us to pray for those in positions of leadership. Proverbs 11:11 says, “By the BLESSING of the upright, the city is exalted, but it is overthrown by the mouth of the wicked.””

Hung by the Tongue

Quotes by Francis P. Church