Jesus is He "who alone . . . walks on the sea as on dry ground" (Job 9:8 LXX NETS; cf. Ps 107:29-30), passing us by (9:11; Mk 6:48), and yet, when necessary, getting "into the boat with [us]", and calming the storm (6:51).

"The Lord seeth them that are toiling in the sea, albeit He be Himself on the land. Although He seem for a moment to tarry in succouring the distressed, nevertheless the look of His love is strengthening them, all the while, lest they should faint and sometimes [(aliquando)] He setteth them free, even by an open deliverance [(manifesto adjutorio)], conquering all their adversaries for them, as when He walked upon the swelling of the waves, and stilled them."

     St. Bede, Homily on Mark 6:45 ff., as translated in the Tridentine Breviary at Matins on the Saturday after Ash Wednesday.  Latin from PL 93, col. 196C-D (I haven't checked the critical edition somewhere in CCSL 118-123 (1953 ff.)).  The two sentences immediately preceding:

Verily, He forgetteth not the prayer of the poor, neither turneth He His face away from any that putteth his trust in Him; yea, rather, to him whosoever is striving with the enemy, He giveth help to conquer, and, whosoever conquereth, to him He giveth an everlasting crown. For the which reason also it is here said plainly He saw them toiling in rowing.

Sad enough

     "This book has been written out of a deep sorrow at witnessing the emergence of false prophets within the City of God.  It is sad enough when people lose their faith and leave the Church.  But it is much worse when those who in reality have lost their faith remain within the Church and try—like termites—to undermine Christian faith with their claim that they are giving to Christian revelation the interpretation that suits 'modern man.'"

     Dietrich von Hildebrand, Trojan horse in the city of God (Chicago:  Franciscan Herald Press, 1967), Epilogue, p. 223.  Cf. C. S. Lewis.  From p. 265 of the editorially modified Sophia Institute Press edition of 1993:

This book has been written out of a deep sorrow at witnessing the emergence of false prophets within the City of God.  It is sad enough when people lose their faith and leave the Church; but it is much worse when those who in reality have lost their faith remain within the Church and try—like termites—to undermine Christian faith with their claim that they are giving to Christian revelation the interpretation that suits 'modern man.'

     I was put onto this passage by Kendall Harmon.

Catholic progressivism

"Enamoured of our present epoch, blind to all its characteristic dangers, intoxicated with everything modern, there are many Catholics who no longer ask whether something is true, or whether it is good and beautiful, or whether it has an intrinsic value:  they ask only whether it is up-to-date, suitable to 'modern man' and the technological age, whether it is challenging, dynamic, audacious, progressive."

     Dietrich von Hildebrand, Trojan horse in the city of God (Chicago:  Franciscan Herald Press, 1967), pt. 3, chap. 20 ("The sapping of truth"), p. 147.  

     "Enamored of our present epoch, blind to all its characteristic dangers, intoxicated with everything modern, many Catholics no longer ask whether something is true, whether it is good and beautiful, or whether it has intrinsic value.  They ask only whether it is up-to-date, suitable to modern man and the technological age, challenging, dynamic, audacious, or progressive."

     Dietrich von Hildebrand, Trojan horse in the city of God:  the Catholic crisis explained (Manchester, NH:  Sophia Institute Press, 1993), pt. 3, chap. 20 ("The sapping of truth"), p. 177.  That paragraph, the one that opens chap. 20, is merely transitional, however:

     Yet there is a tendency that is more refined than subordination of truth to the fashions of our time.  This is the attempt to interpret the notion of truth in a way that saps its very content.  This error is presented in an orthodox and religious guise and so is more dangerous to faith.  We are referring to the distinction, gaining popularity, between 'Greek' and 'biblical' notions of truth.

Etc.  My thanks to Kendall Harmon for putting me onto this passage.

"No university in the world has ever risen to greatness without a correspondingly great library."

     "No university in the world has ever risen to greatness without a correspondingly great library.  Oxford, Harvard, Columbia, California are great citadels of truth and freedom, where books and people and ideas are nobly joined.  When this is no longer true, then will our civilization have come to an end."

     Lawrence Clark Powell, "The heart of a university:  its library:  'A sacred place where the world's ideas are concentrated,'" University bulletin:  a weekly bulletin for the staff of the University of California 5, no. 26 (February 11, 1947), 127 (126-127).

"God does not allow his servants to embrace his prohibition against murder while rejecting his teaching about adultery or fornication."

"Jesus’ point in [Matthew] 5:19 is the same as that of other Bible teachers in his day:  one cannot pick and choose among the commandments but must obey them all.  As some teachers put it, one should be as 'careful with regard to a light commandment as . . . with a heavy one. . . .' . . . God does not allow his servants to embrace his prohibition against murder while rejecting his teaching about adultery or fornication."

     Craig S. Keener, A commentary on the Gospel of Matthew (Grand Rapids, MI:  Eerdmans, 1999), 179.  Or anything lighter, for example "the 'least' commandment about the bird's nest (Dt 22:6-7)"?

Nicely put

"we do indeed understand ourselves as a Christian community. Our statement of Core Values refers to Regent College as at its heart 'a community of Christian scholars,' aiming 'not simply to be informed by study but also to be transformed by the Holy Spirit through study, to the end that we might become more Christ-like and therefore more fully human.' Into this continuing community we welcome our students, who are sojourners within it. They are invited to join us for a time in the hope that our curriculum 'will establish them in the evangelical tradition' and 'deepen their faith and theological understanding.'"

     Regent College, Vancouver, "Moral vision" 2, under "Theological position" (underscoring and italics mine), accessed 13 February 2020.

"Nations do not die from invasion, they die from internal rottenness."

wisconsinhistory.org

     Jenkin Lloyd Jones, "Why love Russia," in Love for the battle-torn peoples:  sermon-studies . . . for the reinforcement of faith (Chicago:  Unity Publishing Company, 1916), 115.

     Though Abraham Lincoln gave voice to similar convictions, the very sentence in question was composed by the Unitarian minister Jenkin Lloyd Jones, not Lincoln. This is clear from the typesetting in context.  It is also clear from the fact that the noun "rottenness" does not occur anywhere in the standard 1953 Collected works of Abraham Lincoln online (which, however, does not appear to include the first (1974) and second (1990) supplements).  (The noun "invasion" occurs, but in no comparable context.)

     Also, the words of Lincoln with which Jones ends that same paragraph run not "If our republic ever dies, it will die from suicide, from degeneracy" but "As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide."  Indeed, the noun "degeneracy" occurs only in the letter to Joshua F. Speed dated 24 August 1855:

I am not a Know-Nothing.  That is certain.  How could I be?  How can any one who abhors the oppression of negroes, be in favor of degrading classes of white people?  Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid.  As a nation, we began by declaring that 'all men are created equal.'  We now practically read it 'all men are created equal, except negroes.'  When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read 'all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and catholics.'

     But from those words alone it should be obvious that, as I've already said, Lincoln gave voice to similar convictions.  Indeed, the entire thrust of the speech under discussion here, the "Address to the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois" delivered on 27 January 1838, is perfectly consistent with the summary provided by Jones, the instrument of the death by suicide that Lincoln warns against—"if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us.  It cannot come from abroad.  If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher"—being, in that case, the "mobocratic spirit", i.e.

the increasing disregard for law which pervades the country; the growing disposition to substitute the wild and furious passions, in lieu of the sober judgement of Courts; and the worse than savage mobs, for the executive ministers of justice.

     Abraham Lincoln:  speeches and writings, 1832-1858:  speeches, letters, and miscellaneous writings, the Lincoln-Douglas debates, [edited and] annotated by Don E. Fehrenbacher (New York:  The Library of America, 1989), 31, 29;  Letter to Joshua F. Speed:  363 (360-363)).  (The Library of America edition is based on the 1953 edition edited by Basler (above), but corrects it where necessary.)

     Some low-hanging scholarship (articles) on the speech (most to least recent, in progress).  Note—on, at least potentially, the broader theme of internal degeneration—especially Wilson and Howe (which I haven't yet read):

• Ray, Angela G. "Learning Leadership: Lincoln at the Lyceum, 1838." Rhetoric & Public affairs 13, no. 3 (Fall 2010): 349–87.
• Fornieri, Joseph R. "Washington’s Farewell Address and Lincoln’s Lyceum Address." White House Studies 5, no. 3 (April 2005): 365–82.
• Wilson, Major L. "Lincoln on the Perpetuation of Republican Institutions: Whig and Republican Strategies." Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association 16, no. 1 (January 1995): 15–25.
• Howe, Daniel Walker. "Why Abraham Lincoln Was a Whig." Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association 16, no. 1 (January 1995): 27–38.
• Schwartz, Thomas F. "The Springfield Lyceums and Lincoln’s 1838 Speech." Illinois Historical Journal 83, no. 1 (January 1990): 45–49.
• Schmitz, Neil. "Murdered Mcintosh, Murdered Lovejoy: Abraham Lincoln and the Problem of Jacksonian Address." Arizona Quarterly 44, no. 3 (Spring 1988): 15–39.