1. When there is a want of brotherly love and Christian confidence among professors of religion, then a revival is read more

1. When there is a want of brotherly love and Christian confidence among professors of religion, then a revival is needed. Then there is a loud call for God to revive his work. When Christians have sunk down into a low and backslidden state, they neither have, nor ought to have, nor is there reason to have, the same love and confidence toward each other, as when they are all alive, and active, and living holy lives... 2. When there are dissensions, and jealousies, and evil speakings among professors of religion, then there is great need of a revival. These things show that Christians have got far from God, and it is time to think earnestly of a revival. Religion cannot prosper with such things in the church, and nothing can put an end to them like a revival. 3. When there is a worldly spirit in the church: it is manifest that the church is sunk down into a low and backslidden state, when you see Christians conform to the world in dress, equipage, parties, seeking worldly amusements, reading novels and other books such as the world reads. It shows that they are far from God, and that there is a great need of a Revival of Religion. [Continued tomorrow].

Commemoration of Denys, Bishop of Paris, & his Companions, Martyrs, 258 Commemoration of Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, Philosopher, Scientist, read more

Commemoration of Denys, Bishop of Paris, & his Companions, Martyrs, 258 Commemoration of Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, Philosopher, Scientist, 1253 This Gospel accords perfectly with the account which St. Paul gives of his preaching in the last address to the Ephesian elders, and it contains all the elements which are to be found in all the sermons and in all the notices of St. Paul's preaching in the Acts, except only the answers to the objections against the Gospel, and the proofs of its truth, which would be manifestly out of place in writing to Christians.

Feast of James the Apostle We have all been inoculated with Christianity, and are never likely to take read more

Feast of James the Apostle We have all been inoculated with Christianity, and are never likely to take it seriously now! You put some of the virus of some dreadful illness into a man's arm, and there is a little itchiness, some scratchiness, a slight discomfort--disagreeable, no doubt, but not the fever of the real disease, the turning and the tossing, and the ebbing strength. And we have all been inoculated with Christianity, more or less. We are on Christ's side, we wish him well, we hope that He will win, and we are even prepared to do something for Him, provided, of course, that He is reasonable, and does not make too much of an upset among our cozy comforts and our customary ways. But there is not the passion of zeal, and the burning enthusiasm, and the eagerness of self-sacrifice, of the real faith that changes character and wins the world.

We feel that other churches must accept, as the pre-conditions of fellowship, such changes as will bring them into conformity read more

We feel that other churches must accept, as the pre-conditions of fellowship, such changes as will bring them into conformity with ourselves in matters which we regard as essential, and that a failure to insist on this will involve compromise in regard to what is essential to the Church's being. But for precisely the same reason, we cannot admit a demand from others for any changes in ourselves which would seem to imply a denial that we already possess the esse of the Church.

Easter Because upon the first glad Easter day The stone that sealed His tomb was rolled away, So, through the read more

Easter Because upon the first glad Easter day The stone that sealed His tomb was rolled away, So, through the deepening shadows of death's night, Men see an open door ... beyond it, light.

Once in seven years I burn all my sermons; for it is a shame, if I cannot write better sermons read more

Once in seven years I burn all my sermons; for it is a shame, if I cannot write better sermons now than I did seven years ago.

I read in Shakespeare of the majesty of the moral law, in Victor Hugo of the sacredness of childhood, in read more

I read in Shakespeare of the majesty of the moral law, in Victor Hugo of the sacredness of childhood, in Tennyson the ugliness of hypocrisy, in George Eliot the supremacy of duty, in Dickens the divinity of kindness, and in Ruskin the dignity of service. Irving teaches me the lesson of cheerfulness, Hawthorne shows me the hatefulness of sin, Longfellow gives me the soft, tranquil music of hope. Lowell makes us feel that we must give ourselves to our fellow men. Whittier sings to me of divine Fatherhood and human brotherhood. These are Christian lessons: who inspired them? Who put it into the heart of Martin Luther to nail those theses on the church door of Wittenberg? Who stirred and fired the soul of Savonarola? Who thrilled and electrified the soul of John Wesley? Jesus Christ is back of these all.

Feast of Hilary, Bishop of Poitiers, Teacher, 367 Commemoration of Kentigern (Mungo), Missionary Bishop in Strathclyde & Cumbria, 603 Continuing read more

Feast of Hilary, Bishop of Poitiers, Teacher, 367 Commemoration of Kentigern (Mungo), Missionary Bishop in Strathclyde & Cumbria, 603 Continuing a short series on Romans 8: [Of v. 18] The glory to come far outweighs the affliction of the present. The affliction is light and temporary when compared with the all-surpassing and everlasting glory. So Paul, writing against a background of recent and (even for him) unparalleled tribulation, had assured his friends in Corinth a year or two before this that 'this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison' (2 Cor 4:17). It is not merely that the glory is a compensation for the suffering; it actually grows out of the suffering. There is an organic relation between the two for the believer as surely as there was for the Lord.

For (Martin) Luther, the sola of "Sola Scriptura" was inseparably related to the Scriptures' unique inerrancy. It was because popes read more

For (Martin) Luther, the sola of "Sola Scriptura" was inseparably related to the Scriptures' unique inerrancy. It was because popes could and did err and because councils could and did err that Luther came to realize the supremacy of Scripture. Luther did not despise church authority, nor did he repudiate church councils as having no value. His praise of the Council of Nicaea is noteworthy. Luther and the Reformers did not mean by "Sola Scriptura" that the Bible is the only authority in the church; rather, they meant that the Bible is the only infallible authority in the church.