Commemoration of John & Henry Venn, Priests, Evangelical Divines, 1813, 1873 This is the age of the conference and read more

Commemoration of John & Henry Venn, Priests, Evangelical Divines, 1813, 1873 This is the age of the conference and study group -- people talking about what they know they should be doing. In a subtle way, talking about something becomes an excuse for not doing it. This new bolt-hole of the conference and study group is not confined to the local congregation. It is a painful fact of life in the central structures of the churches. We have a welter of reports, commissions, surveys, liaison bodies, and so on. They have the appearance of progressive thinking and readiness to face change, combined with the function of being delaying devices. They are the sacraments of current Christianity, and its dilemma. Outreach is a move from power structures to meekness structures, and, in spite of the fact that Christians believe that it is the meek who shall inherit the earth, they show (as in the ecumenical movement) a distinct reluctance to relinquish power-structure thinking.

Feast of Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, Martyr, 258 Commemoration of Ninian, Bishop of Galloway, Apostle to the Picts, c. 430 read more

Feast of Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, Martyr, 258 Commemoration of Ninian, Bishop of Galloway, Apostle to the Picts, c. 430 Commemoration of Edward Bouverie Pusey, Priest, tractarian, 1882 As St. Cyprian well said, we may judge how ready He is to give us those good things which He Himself solicits us to ask of Him. Let us pray then with faith, and not lose the fruits of our prayers by a wavering uncertainty which, as St. James testifies, hinders the success of them. The same apostle advises us to pray when we are in trouble because thereby we should find consolation; yet we are so wretched that this heavenly employment is often a burden instead of a comfort to us. The lukewarmness of our prayers is the source of all our other infidelities.

Feast of Antony of Egypt, Abbot, 356 Commemoration of Charles Gore, Bishop, Teacher, Founder of the Community of the Resurrection, read more

Feast of Antony of Egypt, Abbot, 356 Commemoration of Charles Gore, Bishop, Teacher, Founder of the Community of the Resurrection, 1932 Continuing a short series on Romans 8: [Of vv. 11,17,23-25] The counterpart of this withdrawal of Christ [the ascension] from the reach of the senses was the gift to the apostles of the Holy Spirit by whom Christ was made present to them in a new way. They now knew him no more by sight and after the flesh; they had His Spirit. And this "having" is both a real possession and a foretaste, an earnest of what is in store... The Spirit assures us that we are heirs of a kingdom yet to be revealed (Rom. 8:17). The Spirit wars in us against the flesh (Gal. 5:17) and gives us assurance that even our mortal bodies shall be quickened (Rom. 8:11). Meanwhile the very mark of the Spirit's presence is that we groan waiting for our adoption (Rom. 8:23) and hoping for that which we do not yet see (Rom. 8:24,25).

Feast of All Souls Do you think the work God gives us to do is never easy? Jesus says read more

Feast of All Souls Do you think the work God gives us to do is never easy? Jesus says His yoke is easy, His burden is light. People sometimes refuse to do God's work just because it is easy. This is sometimes because they cannot believe that easy work is His work; but there may be a very bad pride in it... Some, again, accept it with half a heart and do it with half a hand. But however easy any work may be, it can not be well done without taking thought about it. And such people, instead of taking thought about their work, generally take thought about the morrow, in which no work can be done any more than in yesterday.

Christ is the Word of God. It is not in certain texts written in the New Testament, valuable as they read more

Christ is the Word of God. It is not in certain texts written in the New Testament, valuable as they are; it is not in certain words which Jesus spoke, vast as is their preciousness; it is in the Word, which Jesus is, that the great manifestation of God is made.

Feast of All Saints O Lord! how happy should we be, If we could leave our cares to Thee, read more

Feast of All Saints O Lord! how happy should we be, If we could leave our cares to Thee, If we from self could rest; And feel at heart that One above, In perfect wisdom, perfect love, Is working for the best. For when we kneel and cast our care Upon our God in humble prayer, With strengthened souls we rise, Sure that our Father Who is nigh, To hear the ravens when they cry, Will hear His children's cries. O may these anxious hearts of ours The lesson learn from birds and flowers, And learn from self to cease, Leave all things to our Father's will, And in His mercy trusting still, Find in each trial peace!

Feast of Luke the Evangelist Beginning a short series about the early church: Now if all these things read more

Feast of Luke the Evangelist Beginning a short series about the early church: Now if all these things should come to pass, the determined expectation of which caused the Jews to reject Christ -- if he should actually appear, with miraculous splendor, as the restorer of the Jewish nation, and city, and Temple, reigning over the whole world as a great earthly sovereign, and reserving peculiar privileges for his own nation -- if, I say, all these expectations should be fulfilled, to which the Jews have so long and so obstinately clung, surely this would not be so much a conversion of the Jews to Christianity as a conversion of Christians to Judaism; it would not be bringing the Jews to the gospel by overcoming their national prejudices, but rather carrying back the gospel to meet the Jewish prejudices; it would be destroying the spiritual character of our religion, and establishing those erroneous views which have hitherto caused the Jews to reject it. We may conclude, then, that all the promises and predictions in Scripture relative to the future glories of the Jews and of Jerusalem, are to be understood of the Christian church, of which the Jewish church was a figure; and all that is said of feasting, and splendor, and wealth, and worldly greatness and enjoyment, is to be interpreted spiritually of the inward comfort and peace of mind, and "joy of the Holy Ghost", which is promised to sincere Christians in this life, and of the unspeakable happiness prepared for them after death.

Men perish with whispering sins--nay, with silent sins, sins that never tell the conscience that they are sins, as often read more

Men perish with whispering sins--nay, with silent sins, sins that never tell the conscience that they are sins, as often with crying sins; and in hell there shall meet as many men that never thought what was sin, as that spent all their thoughts in the compassing of sin.

The chief pang of most trials is not so much the actual suffering itself as our own spirit of resistance read more

The chief pang of most trials is not so much the actual suffering itself as our own spirit of resistance to it.