Commemoration of Samuel Seabury, First Anglican Bishop in North America, 1796 Here you have the true reason why read more

Commemoration of Samuel Seabury, First Anglican Bishop in North America, 1796 Here you have the true reason why revenge or vengeance is not allowed to man: it is because vengeance can only work in the evil or disordered properties of fallen nature. But man, being himself a part of fallen nature and subject to its disordered properties, is not allowed to work with them, because it would be stirring up evil in himself, and that is his sin of wrath or revenge. God therefore reserves all vengeance to Himself, not because wrathful revenge is a temper or quality that can have any place in the holy Deity, but because the holy supernatural Deity, being free from all the properties of nature, whence partial love and hatred spring, and being in Himself nothing but an infinity of love, wisdom, and goodness, He alone knows how to overrule the disorders of nature, and so to repay evil with evil, that the highest good may be promoted by it.

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.

When an unskillful servant gathers many herbs, flowers, and seeds in a garden, you gather them out that are useful, read more

When an unskillful servant gathers many herbs, flowers, and seeds in a garden, you gather them out that are useful, and cast the rest out of sight; so Christ deals with our performances. All the ingredients of self that are in them He takes away, and adds incense to what remains, and presents it to God. This is the cause that the saints at the last day, when they meet their own duties and performances, know them not, they are so changed from what they were when they went out of their hand. "Lord, when saw we Thee naked or hungry?" So God accepts a little, and Christ makes our little a great deal.

Feast of Commemoration of Helena, Protector of the Faith, 330 The cross is laid on every Christian. It begins read more

Feast of Commemoration of Helena, Protector of the Faith, 330 The cross is laid on every Christian. It begins with the call to abandon the attachments of this world. It is that dying of the old man which is the result of his encounter with Christ. As we embark upon discipleship we surrender ourselves to Christ in union with His death -- we give over our lives to death. Since this happens at the beginning of the Christian life, the cross can never be merely a tragic ending to an otherwise happy religious life. When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die. It may be a death like that of the first disciples who had to leave home and work to follow Him, or it may be a death like Luther's, who had to leave the monastery and go out into the world. But it is the same death every time -- death in Jesus Christ, the death of the old man at His call. That is why the rich young man was so loath to follow Jesus, for the cost of his following was the death of his will. In fact, every command of Jesus is a call to die, with all our affections and lusts. But we do not want to die, and therefore Jesus Christ and His call are necessarily our death and our life.

Feast of Aelred of Hexham, Abbot of Rievaulx, 1167 Commemoration of Benedict Biscop, Abbot of Wearmouth, Scholar, 689 read more

Feast of Aelred of Hexham, Abbot of Rievaulx, 1167 Commemoration of Benedict Biscop, Abbot of Wearmouth, Scholar, 689 Pain is a kindly, hopeful thing, a certain proof of life, a clear assurance that all is not yet over, that there is still a chance. But if your heart has no pain -- well, that may betoken health, as you suppose: but are you certain that it does not mean that your soul is dead?

Commemoration of Katherine of Alexandria, Martyr, 4th century What is meant by calling the writings of Moses and read more

Commemoration of Katherine of Alexandria, Martyr, 4th century What is meant by calling the writings of Moses and the Prophets [the] "Old Testament"? Do they not set forth the covenant of grace? The doctrine of justification by faith -- does not Paul in his Epistle to the Romans prove it from Genesis and from the Psalms? Where is the doctrine of substitution and the vicarious sufferings of the messiah set forth more clearly than in Leviticus and in the 53rd of Isaiah? The term "Old Testament" leads people to fancy it is an antiquated book; whereas, in many respects, it is newer than the New Testament, referring more fully to the age of glory and blessedness on the earth which is still before us.

Christians seeking social justice have a special responsibility. Much more is required than the bringing of aid to people who read more

Christians seeking social justice have a special responsibility. Much more is required than the bringing of aid to people who are homeless and in need, and contributing to their support. There are real dangers to be faced. It must never be allowed to appear that charity is dispensed to the unfortunate by superior beings... Much greater care must be taken to identify the giver with those whom he comes to serve.

Those who talk of reading the Bible "as literature" sometimes mean, I think, reading it without attending to the main read more

Those who talk of reading the Bible "as literature" sometimes mean, I think, reading it without attending to the main thing it is about; like reading Burke with no interest in politics, or reading the Aeneid with no interest in Rome... But there is a saner sense in which the Bible -- since it is, after all, literature -- cannot properly be read except as literature, and the different parts of it as the different sorts of literature they are. Most emphatically, the Psalms must be read as poems -- as lyrics, with all the licenses and all the formalities, the hyperboles, the emotional rather than logical connections, which are proper to lyric poetry... Otherwise we shall miss what is in them and think we see what is not.

Feast of Charles Simeon, Pastor, Teacher, 1836 The Church seems to have lost heart somewhat, has allowed the read more

Feast of Charles Simeon, Pastor, Teacher, 1836 The Church seems to have lost heart somewhat, has allowed the old assurance and enthusiasm to cool below the temperature at which big things get done, is always whimpering and complaining about something, has developed a foolish trick of gathering into corners in discouraged groups and bleating disconsolately that God seems to be strangely little in our day, the very mood that so maddened the Hebrew prophets that they itched to lay violent hands upon their countrymen, and literally shake it out of them. We Church people have become so prone to loud and abusive self-depreciation that the thing amounts to a disease... and though these doleful spirits are not altogether serious, the world is listening, and takes us, not unnaturally, at our own dismal and unflattering valuation.