Persons of mean understandings, not so inquisitive, nor so well
instructed, are made good Christians, and by reverence and read more

Persons of mean understandings, not so inquisitive, nor so well
instructed, are made good Christians, and by reverence and
obedience, implicity believe, and abide by their belief.

Feast of Patrick, Bishop of Armagh, Missionary, Patron of Ireland, c.460 Thanksgiving is the language of heaven, and we read more

Feast of Patrick, Bishop of Armagh, Missionary, Patron of Ireland, c.460 Thanksgiving is the language of heaven, and we had better start to learn it if we are not to be mere dumb aliens there.

Far too often, young people become Christians and then search among the Church's ranks for real people, and have a read more

Far too often, young people become Christians and then search among the Church's ranks for real people, and have a hard task finding them. All too often, evangelicals are paper people. If we do not preach these things, talk about them to each other, and teach them carefully from the pulpit and in the Christian classroom, we cannot expect Christians so to act. This has always been important, but it is especially so today because we are surrounded by a world in which personality is increasingly eroded. If we, who have become God's children, do not show Him to be personal in our lives, then in practice we are denying His existence, and He cannot be anything but grieved.

Feast of Saints & Martyrs of England The one supreme, unchangeable rule of love, which is a law to read more

Feast of Saints & Martyrs of England The one supreme, unchangeable rule of love, which is a law to all intelligent beings of all worlds and will be a law to all eternity, is this, viz., that God alone is to be loved for Himself, and all other beings only in Him and for Him. Whatever intelligent creature lives not under this rule of love is so far fallen from the order of his creation, and is, till he returns to this eternal law of love, an apostate from God and incapable of the kingdom of Heaven. Now, if God is alone to be loved for Himself, then no creature is to be loved for itself; and so all self-love in every creature is absolutely condemned. And if all created beings are only to be loved in and for God, then my neighbour is to be loved as I love myself, and I am only to love myself as I love my neighbour or any other created being that is, only in and for God.

Doubt, rather than faith, is high among the causes of the religious boom. And the church's response to this current read more

Doubt, rather than faith, is high among the causes of the religious boom. And the church's response to this current situation will reveal, better than anything else, our faith in God -- or our faithlessness. If we churchmen interpret such pervasive doubt as a threat, then we will do as the church has done so often in the past: we will substitute the church for God, and make our church-centered activities into an ersatz kingdom of God. Our faithlessness will be evident in the easy paraphrase of the hard truth of the gospel, and in the lapse from the critical loyalty that God requires of us, into the vague and corrupting sentimentalism that has so marred American Protestantism. Or the church can interpret the present religious situation as a promise, as God's recall of His people to a new reformation. Our faithfulness to God-in-Christ will be manifest in the willingness to be honest with ourselves and with the gospel. Then we may view the church, not as an end in itself, but as the point of departure into the world for which the Son of God died. Which will it be?

The intelligence which has learned to be a law to itself, criticising, rejecting, appropriating, assimilating, cannot deny its nature and read more

The intelligence which has learned to be a law to itself, criticising, rejecting, appropriating, assimilating, cannot deny its nature and suspend its functions when it opens the New Testament. It cannot make itself the slave of men, not even though the men are Peter and Paul and John; no, not even though it were the Son of Man Himself. It resents dictation, not willfully nor wantonly, but because it must; and it resents it all the more when it claims to be inspired. If, therefore, the Atonement can only be received by those who are prepared from the threshold to acknowledge the inspiration and the consequent authority of Scripture, it can never be received by modern men at all.

This outer world is but the pictured scroll Of worlds within the soul; A colored chart, a blazoned missal-book read more

This outer world is but the pictured scroll Of worlds within the soul; A colored chart, a blazoned missal-book Wherein who rightly look May spell the splendors with their mortal eyes, And steer to Paradise.

In arriving at a decision in a question of doubt, the apostles in the Acts were guided solely by their read more

In arriving at a decision in a question of doubt, the apostles in the Acts were guided solely by their sense of the Spirit behind the action, not by any speculations as to consequences which might ensue. And so they found the truth. Gradually the results of the action manifested themselves, and, seeing them, they perceived what they had really done, and learnt the meaning of the truth revealed in the action. But if, from fear of the consequences, they had checked or forbidden the action, they would have lost this revelation. They would have missed the way to truth.

God is not a power or principle or law, but he is a living, creating, communicating person -- a mind read more

God is not a power or principle or law, but he is a living, creating, communicating person -- a mind who thinks, a heart who feels, a will who acts, whose best name is Father.