I am persuaded that without knowledge of literature pure theology cannot at all endure. . . . When letters have declined and lain prostrate, theology, too, has wretchedly fallen and lain prostrate. . . . It is my desire that there shall be as many poets and rhetoricians as possible, because I see that by these studies as by no other means, people are wonderfully fitted for the grasping of sacred truth and for handling it skillfully and happily.

The Son of God did not want to be seen and found in heaven. Therefore he descended from heaven into this humility and came to us in our flesh, laid himself into the womb of his mother and into the manger and went on to the cross. This was the ladder that he placed on earth so that we might ascend to God on it. This is the way you must take.

If any man doth ascribe of salvation, even the very least, to the free will of man, he knoweth nothing of grace, and he hath not learnt Jesus Christ aright.

Faith is the 'yes' of the heart, a conviction on which one stakes one's life.

The Bible is the book that makes fools of the wise of this world; it is only understood by the plain and simple hearted.

Angels are our true and trusty servants, performing offices and works that one poor miserable mendicant would be ashamed to do for another.

Therefore we Christians, in turn, are obliged not to tolerate their wanton and conscious blasphemy.