"City of God" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... things of this world, it is liable to old age and death. It will die then, one day. Far from being cast down, let us strengthen ourselves against this disaster by the realization of the eternal. Let us strengthen our hold upon that which passes not. Above the earthly city, rises the City of God, which is the communion of holy souls, the only one which gives complete and never-failing joy. Let us try to be the citizens of that city, and to live the only life worth calling life. For the life here below is but ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... While rushing past the Vindhia Mountains he had encountered several of his old Indian acquaintances. The mere hint of a secret governmental employ of gravity satisfied the languid curiosity of the qui hais. For a week he lingered in the "City of God," and daily haunted the post and ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... days of the Church this had aroused serious thought, and above all in the great mind of St. Augustine. In his City of God he had stated the difficulty as follows: "But there is a question about all these kinds of beasts, which are neither tamed by man, nor spring from the earth like frogs, such as wolves and others of that sort,.... as to how they could find their way to ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... a new heaven and a new earth it was taught that upon the latter would descend a beautiful city, with pearly gates and golden streets, called the City of God, the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of Heaven or New Jerusalem, in which the host of the redeemed would, with their Lord and Saviour, enjoy the Millennium, or thousand years of happiness unalloyed with evil; and such was the Kingdom for the speedy coming of ...
— Astral Worship • J. H. Hill
... soldier's death. Only it points to a brighter glory, and a death in a still nobler cause, the death of the martyr who dies for the faith, and becomes valiant in battle for what is more to him than any earthly city, the Church, the City of God. Nor must the martyr of charity, who dies in succouring his neighbour, go without the praise of fortitude: nor, in short, any one who braves death, or other heavy affliction, in the discharge of duty, or ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... the lawful authorities in extinguishing the flames which the passions of men had enkindled in the city of God, these faithless citizens fly from the citadel which they had vowed to defend; then joining the enemy, they hasten back to fan the conflagration, and to increase the commotion. And they overturn the very altars before which they previously ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... astonishment at the indifference among too many of our public men to the truths and ordinances of our holy religion? Is it to affect our hearts that he has been permitted to fall in the midst of us, to arouse us from this insensibility, and cause us to press towards the gates of the eternal city of God? Let us bless God for another great example to shine upon us, that another star (we humbly trust) is planted amid the heavenly constellations ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... be forgotten, it should be remembered that it was given only once and its contrary reiterated: so here goes for one of the most perilous of all possible adventures—a translation of Chateaubriand's own boldest undertaking, the description of the City of God, in which he was following not only the greatest of the Hebrew prophets, but ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... Progress." As in that work he had described the course of a man setting out on his course heavenwards, struggling onwards through temptation, trials, and difficulties, and entering at last through the golden gates into the city of God, so in this later work his purpose was to depict the career of a man whose face from the first was turned in the opposite direction, going on from bad to worse, ever becoming more and more irretrievably evil, fitter and fitter for the bottomless pit; his life ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... said, "Say on." And Jeremiah said, "Wilt Thou indeed deliver Thy chosen city into the hand of the Chaldeans, that their king may boast himself against it and say, 'I have prevailed against the Holy City of God'? Not so, Lord; but if it be Thy will to destroy it, overthrow it rather with Thine own hand." And He said, "Neither the king nor his power shall prevail to destroy it, unless I first open the gates thereof to him. Come therefore ...
— Old Testament Legends - being stories out of some of the less-known apochryphal - books of the old testament • M. R. James
... we may legitimately infer that it is the purpose of God that the kingdom of Messiah shall be universal; that the Church shall increase in steady and cumulative progression, and realize in herself all the "glorious things" which by the holy prophets were "spoken of the city of God." And in this matter God has not left himself without a witness. The present existence of the Church, after it has encountered and outlived all varieties of opposition, is in itself a proof which ...
— The Wesleyan Methodist Pulpit in Malvern • Knowles King
... people. Confess ye therefore sinners, and do ye justice tofore our Lord by believing that he shall do to you his mercy, aye soothly, and my soul shall be glad in him. All ye chosen of God, bless ye him and make ye days of gladness and knowledge ye to him. Jerusalem city of God, our Lord hath chastised thee in the works of his hands, confess thou to our Lord in his good things and bless thou the God of worlds that he may re-edify in thee his tabernacle, and that he may call again to thee all prisoners and them that be in captivity and ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... 1347. He speaks of the opinion of those who believe that the dead eat in their tombs; a sentiment of which he endeavors to prove the antiquity by the authority of Tertullian, at the beginning of his book on the Resurrection, and by that of St. Augustine, b. viii. c. 27, on the City of God, and in ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... acquaintance; it may, in the mind, and in thought, at least, make us feel a relation to the universe, and to the whole creation of God. "Shall any one," says Antoninus, "love the city of Cecrops, and you not love the city of God?" ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... may fail to determine a fool from a man. All are alike, all agree with what is officially announced by the Sacred Entity, and the nation is as loyal and homogeneous, as contented, as stable and industrious, as a reef of actinozoal plasm. Thus the Perfect State has been built like a rock. The City of God has at last arisen; and in each of the uniform homes of its neuters, or workers, there is to be found the Patriotic Symbol—a portrait of a Sheep, enjoined by law to hang in a principal place, and bearing the legend "God Bless this ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam
... of heaven, became in popular opinion the highest ideal of humanity, displacing the old ideal of the patriot and hero who, forgetful of self, lives and is ready to die for the good of his country. The earthly city seemed poor and contemptible to men whose eyes beheld the City of God coming in the clouds of heaven. Thus the centre of gravity, so to say, was shifted from the present to a future life, and however much the other world may have gained, there can be little doubt that this one lost heavily by the change. A general disintegration of the body ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... better description were standing and a number of horses were tied; here he lifted Susannah from the horse. Three of the Mormon leaders came up; they evidently knew her and her story. The eldest took her hand and spoke in broken tones of the crown which Halsey had won in the unseen city of God. ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... times, about noble epochs, noble movements, noble deeds, and noble folk; about times in which the human race—it may be through many mistakes, alas! and sin, and sorrow, and blood-shed—struggled up one step higher on those great stairs which, as we hope, lead upward towards the far-off city of God; the perfect polity, the perfect civilisation, the perfect religion, which is ...
— Historical Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... the idea of his order, was expressed in that clause of John's description of the City of God, Rev. 22:3, "and His servants shall serve Him." Above all other heavenly joys that was his favorite thought. We can well understand that the pious quietude wrought in his mind and manners by his habit of life made him ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... of the flood thereof shall make glad the city of God: the holy place of the tabernacle of ...
— The Book of Common Prayer - and The Scottish Liturgy • Church of England
... obstinacy of the wicked,—the seduction of the innocent,—the labors and sufferings of the just; the conflicts which took place between light and darkness,—between truth and error; the triumph, at one time of the city of God, at another, the temporary exaltation of the empire of Satan. In this work, we see the great and powerful leaders of God's people, the pastors and doctors of the Church, displaying lights gives them from heaven, and exercising ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... humanity summed up in the live spirits who had the power of projection into the future. Faith is the quality of mind which sees things before they are visible, which acts on ideals before they are realities, and which feels the distant city of God to be more dear, substantial, and attractive than the edible and profitable present. Read Hebrews 11. So he calls on Christians to take up the same manner of life, and compares them with men running a race in an amphitheatre packed with all the generations of the past who ...
— The Social Principles of Jesus • Walter Rauschenbusch
... this edifying procession; and a multitude of fugitives, without distinction of age, or rank, or even of sect, had the good fortune to escape to the secure and hospitable sanctuary of the Vatican. The learned work "Concerning the City of God" was professedly composed by St. Augustine to justify the ways of Providence in the destruction of the Roman greatness. He celebrates with peculiar satisfaction this memorable triumph of Christ, and insults his adversaries by challenging them to ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... along in one channel, yet without confusion one with another, as it is reported of some great rivers that run together between the same banks, and yet retain distinct colours and natures all the way, till they part. But these streams that glad the city of God never part one from another. The cleansing blood and the purifying light, these are the entire and perfect sum of the gospel. Purification from sin, the guilt of sin, and the purity of walking in the light flowing from ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... the greatest mind so far vouchsafed to our race—this, then, was Shakspeare's ideal of a true man. Says Emerson: "O rich and various man! thou palace of sight and sound, carrying in thy senses the morning and the night, and the unfathomable galaxy; in thy brain the geometry of the city of God; in thy heart the power of love and the realms of right and wrong." "Man was sent into the world to be a growing and exhaustless force," says Chapin; "the world was spread out around him to be seized and conquered. Realms of infinite truth burst open above him, inviting him to to tread ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... act of faith, which separates us from all men, unites us for the first time in real brotherhood, and they who, one by one, come to Jesus and meet Him alone, next find that they 'are come to the city of God, to an innumerable company, to the festal choirs of angels, to the Church of the First-born, to the spirits ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... brooks refresh the city of God, So the Most High makes holy his abiding-place; God is in her midst, she cannot be moved, God will help her at the turn of ...
— The Children's Bible • Henry A. Sherman
... honour, and power upon the Christians, more especially upon the clergy.' 'If, as my Lady says, all outward establishments are Babel, so is this establishment. Let it stand for me. I neither set it up nor pull it down.... Let us build the city of God.'] ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... look upon the calm dead face, that no more on earth will meet them with its wonted smile, and the pale hands that have done all their rough earthwork. His welcome we did not hear. Ah, it is well that the sound of harps and the silvery peals from the chiming bells of the city of God reach us not, or perchance we should "stand all the day idle." For are we not all entered Apprentices in this strange world of ours? Are we not all "serving our time?" How are we learning our trades? Are we likely ...
— Victor Roy, A Masonic Poem • Harriet Annie Wilkins
... which had been so freely heaped upon the head of himself and his countrymen, determined to arouse a storm which should send its lightnings to gleam along the streets, and roll its deep thunder to shake the hills which in speechless majesty stand around the city of God. ...
— Daughters of the Cross: or Woman's Mission • Daniel C. Eddy
... and light streams forth you know not whence, you would not feel that your eye were looking into the very eye of the Infinite?" And Emerson reminds us: "If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with ...
— How to Teach Religion - Principles and Methods • George Herbert Betts
... nevertheless, in their structure and drift, are polemical. Such is Origen's great work against Celsus; and Tertullian's Apology; such some of the controversial treatises of Eusebius and Theodoret; or St. Augustine's City of God; or the tract of Vincentius Lirinensis. And I confess that I should not even object to portions of Bellarmine's Controversies, or to the work of Suarez on laws, or to Melchior Canus's treatises on the Loci Theologici. On these questions in detail, however,—which are, I readily ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... turn, and I must leave the wayside to serve in the sheepfolds during the winter months. It is scarcely a farewell, for my road is ubiquitous, eternal; there are green ways in Paradise and golden streets in the beautiful City of God. Nevertheless, my heart is heavy; for, viewed by the light of the waning year, roadmending seems a great and wonderful work which I have poorly conceived of and meanly performed: yet I have learnt to understand ...
— The Roadmender • Michael Fairless
... salvation's walls shall surround the people of God. In the time of this prophet it was stone walls that surrounded their city, but he looked forward to a time when the walls of salvation would surround the city of God. Salvation means deliverance. In that day the people of God should find a deliverance or cleansing from sin. It is the gospel day when Christ should offer a sacrifice for the whole world. The people cried unto God because of their oppressors, and he sent ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr |
