Henry Edward Manning > Quotes

“All human conflict is ultimately theological”
― Henry Edward Manning

“All human conflict is ultimately theological.”
― Henry Edward Manning

“there are others who are not less truly labouring in vain, though they know it not: I mean, those that are making happiness their aim in life. There are many who ply this unprofitable, disappointing trade. I am not speaking of sensualists, or empty-hearted followers of this vain glorious world; but of grave and thoughtful people, whose theory of life is the pursuit of individual happiness. They look forward, as a matter of course, to certain great acts and stages of life, as to things predetermined by a customary law. Oftentimes, indeed, their aims and desires are very reasonable; sometimes sadly commonplace. They choose out, for instance, some of life’s purer fountains, running through a broken cistern, at which to slake their thirst to be happy. There is some thing lacking—something without which their being is not full. They take, it may be, many ways of meeting this craving of their hearts; but diverse as are their schemes, their aim is all one—they have a predominant desire to be happy, and to choose their own happiness; and therefore they are full of disappointments, perpetually wounded on some side, which they have laid bare to the arrows of life. The treacherous reed is ever running up into the hand that leans on it. They are ever giving hostages, as it were, to this changeful world, and ever losing their dearest pledges; and so they toil on, trying to rear up a happiness around them, which is ever dropping piecemeal, and, at last, is swept away by some chastening stroke; and then, no wiser than before, they set themselves, with a bruised and chafing heart, to weave the same entanglements again.”
― Henry Cardinal Manning, Sermons

“And so it must be in every man while his moral habits are not purified; and, though there may be many shades, some of a more and some a less pronounced and settled character, yet there are, after all, only two main classes. A man must either deny or indulge himself. There is no middle or indifferent state—for the not denying is indulgence; it is throwing the reins on the neck of his lusts, though he may lack boldness to set the spur;”
― Henry Cardinal Manning, Sermons

“Truth, a forgiving disposition, benevolence, general good-will, a kind temper, a moderate and occasional indulgence in worldly amusements, a decent attendance on religious worship, and regularity in house hold morals and habits, make up the Christianity of most people. And so far as it goes, nothing may be said against it. But tried by the life and mind of Christ, by the realities of holiness and of fellowship with God, by the humiliation and mystery of the cross, which are “the marks of the Lord Jesus,” how defective, dim-sighted, unenergetic, and relaxed it must appear! The fact is, that the great multitude of those who live in the world have little perception of the intense and searching spirituality of the life of Christ, which their regeneration binds them to imitate. And therefore the life of most is as vague, pointless, and unmeaning as the reasoning of men who do not know what it is they are going to prove.”
― Henry Cardinal Manning, Sermons

“But the appeal to antiquity is both a treason and a heresy...The only Divine evidence to us of what was primitive is the witness and voice of the Church at this hour.”
― Henry Edward Manning, The Temporal Mission of the Holy Ghost: or, Reason and Revelation