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Famous Henry Scougal Quotes

“Love is that powerful and prevalent passion by which all the faculties and inclinations of the soul are determined, and on which both its perfection and happiness depend. The worth and excellency of a soul is to be measured by the object of its love: he who loveth mean and sordid things doth thereby become base and vile; but a noble and well-placed affection doth advance and improve the spirit unto a conformity with the perfections which it loves.”

“[Humility means] a deep sense of our own meanness, with a hearty [sincere (Johnson)] and affectionate [strongly moved; warm; zealous (Johnson)] acknowledgment of our owing all that we are to the divine bounty [generosity; liberality; munificence (Johnson)]; which is always accompanied with a profound submission to the will of God, and great deadness to the glory of the world, and the applause of men.”

“[Love, basically, is love of God]: a delightful and affectionate sense of the divine perfections, which makes the soul resign and sacrifice itself wholly unto him, desiring above all things to please him, and delighting in nothing so much as in fellowship and communion with him, and being ready to do or suffer anything for his sake, or at his pleasure ... A soul thus possessed with divine love must needs be enlarged towards all mankind ... this is ... charity ... under which all parts of justice, all the duties we owe to our neighbour, are eminently comprehended; for he who doth truly love all the world ... so far from wrongdoing or injuring any person ... will resent any evil that befalls others, as if it happened to himself.”

“[Purity is] a due abstractedness from the body and mastery over the inferior appetites ... such a temper and disposition of mind as makes a man despise and abstain from all pleasures and delights of sense or fancy which are sinful in themselves, or tend to ... lessen our relish of more divine and intellectual [he means, God-centred and rational] pleasures, which doth also infer a resoluteness to undergo all those hardships he may meet with in the performance of his duty: so that not only chastity and temperance, but also Christian courage and magnanimity may come under this head.”