It is then right that it should submit, when it judges that it ought to submit.
Piety is different from superstition.
To carry piety as far as superstition is to destroy it.
Heretics reproach us with this superstitious submission. This is to do that with which they reproach us.
There is nothing so conformable to reason as the disavowal of reason.
Two excesses: to exclude reason, and to admit reason only.
Superstition and lust. Scruples, evil desires, evil fear.
Fear, not such as arises from a belief in God, but that which springs from doubt whether he is or is not. True fear comes from faith, false fear from doubt. True fear is allied to hope, because it is born of faith, and because men hope in the God in whom they behave; false fear is allied to despair, because they fear the God in whom they do not believe. The one class fears to lose him, the other fears to find him.
A person said to me one day that when he came from confession he felt great joy and confidence. Another said to me that he was still fearful, whereupon I thought that these two together would make one good man, and that each was so far wanting in that he had not the feelings of the other. The same is often true in other matters.