Evangelism is not an option for the Christian life.

Evangelism is not an option for the Christian life.

Certain new theologians dispute original sin, which is the only part of Christian theology which can really be proved. Some read more

Certain new theologians dispute original sin, which is the only part of Christian theology which can really be proved. Some followers of the Rev. R. J. Campbell, in their almost too fastidious spirituality, admit divine sinlessness, which they cannnot see even in their dreams. But they essentially deny human sin, which they can see in the street. The strongest saints and the strongest sceptics alike took positive evil as the starting-point of their argument. If it be true (as it certainly is) that a man can feel exquisite happiness in skinning a cat, then the religious philosopher can only draw one of two deductions. He must either deny the existence of God, as all atheists do; or he must deny the present union between God and Man, as all Christians do. The new theologians seem to think it a highly rationalistic solution to deny the cat.

Pentecost Feast of Barnabas the Apostle Let songs of praises fill the sky! Christ, our ascended Lord, Sends down read more

Pentecost Feast of Barnabas the Apostle Let songs of praises fill the sky! Christ, our ascended Lord, Sends down his Spirit from on high, According to his word. The Spirit by his heavenly breath, New life creates within: He quickens sinners from the death Of trespasses and sin. The things of Christ the Spirit takes, And shows them unto men; The fallen soul his temple makes, God's image stamps again Come, Holy Spirit, from above, With thy celestial fire: Come, and with flames of zeal and love Our hearts and tongues inspire.

We have observed that in at least two cases the sayings of our Lord imply an appeal behind the Law read more

We have observed that in at least two cases the sayings of our Lord imply an appeal behind the Law of Moses to the order of creation. While, therefore, the Law of Moses is from one aspect the first stage of revelation, leading up to the Law of Christ, in another aspect it is a temporary expedient on the way from the Law of Nature to the Law of Christ, serving certain limited purposes, which fulfilled, it may be set aside, leaving mankind in Christ confronted by the original law of his creation.

Commemoration of Wulfstan, Bishop of Worcester, 1095 It was his steadfast and unalterable conviction that for a man who read more

Commemoration of Wulfstan, Bishop of Worcester, 1095 It was his steadfast and unalterable conviction that for a man who has wrapped his will in God's will, put his life consciously into the stream of the divine Life, freed his soul from all personal ambitions, taken his life on trust as a divine gift -- that for such a man there is an over-ruling Providence which guards and guides him in every incident of his life, from the greatest to the least. He held that all annoyances, frustrations, disappointments, mishaps, discomforts, hardships, sorrows, pains, and even final disaster iteself, are simply God's way of teaching us lessons that we could never else learn. That circumstances do not matter, are nothing, but that the response of the spirit that meets them is everything; that there is no situation in human life, however apparently adverse, nor any human relationship, however apparently uncongenial, that cannot be made, if God be in the heart, into a thing of perfect joy; that, in order to attain this ultimate perfection, one must accept every experience and learn to love all persons... that the worth of life is is not to be measured by its results in achievement or success, but solely by the motives of the heart and the efforts of one's will.

It takes one person to forgive, it takes two people to be reunited.

It takes one person to forgive, it takes two people to be reunited.

To believe Christ's cross to be a friend, as he himself is a friend, is also a special act of read more

To believe Christ's cross to be a friend, as he himself is a friend, is also a special act of faith.

But what is worship? What ought to result from it? What is the point and peak and heart and centre read more

But what is worship? What ought to result from it? What is the point and peak and heart and centre of it? Is it the offering we bring to God of praise and adoration, of thanksgiving and sacrifice, our praise, our sacrifice to Him? That has its place, not legitimate only, but imperative. And yet to put that in the foreground is to make the service fundamentally man-centered and subjective, which, face to face with God, is surely almost unthinkably unseemly. Or is the ideal we should hold before us that other extreme, so ardently pressed on us these days, that, face to face with the Lord God Almighty, High and Holy, it is for us to forget ourselves and -- leaving behind our petty little human joys and needs and sins and risings above thanksgiving and petition and confession -- to lose ourselves in an awed adoration of God's naked and essential being, blessing and praising Him, not even for what he has done for us, and been for us, but for what, in Himself, He is. To me, that seems not an advance, but a pathetic throw-back to the primitive of Brahmanism. We shall not learn to know God better, nor how to worship Him more worthily, by careful rubbing out from memory every wonder of Christ's revelation of Him. [Excerpt continued tomorrow.].

Commemoration of Richard Meux Benson, Founder of the Society of St John the Evangelist, 1915 It will perhaps be read more

Commemoration of Richard Meux Benson, Founder of the Society of St John the Evangelist, 1915 It will perhaps be said that in our present state of schism this assertion of [spiritual] principle [of oneness] can give us no definite guidance for action, can provide us with no clear programme, and must remain unfruitful. Surely that is not wholly true. It certainly must help us if we recognize that it is the presence of the Holy Spirit which creates a unity which we can never create.If men believe in the existence of this unity, they may begin to desire it, and desiring it to seek for it, and seeking it to find it. If, when they find it, they refuse to deny it, in due time, by ways now unsearchable, they will surely return to external communion.