From the crude cry which we have so often heard during the war years: "If there is a God, why read more

From the crude cry which we have so often heard during the war years: "If there is a God, why doesn't He stop Hitler?", to the unspoken questioning in many a Christian heart when a devoted servant of Christ dies from accident or disease at what seems to us a most inopportune moment, there is this universal longing for God to intervene, to show His hand, to vindicate His purpose. I do not pretend to understand the ways of God any more than the next man; but it is surely more fitting as well as more sensible for us to study what God does do and what He does not do as He works in and through the complex fabric of this disintegrated world, than to postulate what we think God ought to do and then feel demoralized and bitterly disappointed because He fails to fulfil what we expect of Him.

The trouble with some of us is that we have been inoculated with small doses of Christianity which keep us read more

The trouble with some of us is that we have been inoculated with small doses of Christianity which keep us from catching the real thing.

Commemoration of William Augustus Muhlenberg of New York, Priest, 1877 It is the recognition of this divine necessity -- read more

Commemoration of William Augustus Muhlenberg of New York, Priest, 1877 It is the recognition of this divine necessity -- not to forgive, but to forgive in a way which shows that God is irreconcilable to evil, and can never treat it as other or less than it is -- it is the recognition of this divine necessity, or the failure to recognise it, which ultimately divides interpreters of Christianity into evangelical and non-evangelical, those who are true to the New Testament and those who cannot digest it.

The scientist who lives laborious days in the disinterested pursuit of truth, the artist who will starve in a garret read more

The scientist who lives laborious days in the disinterested pursuit of truth, the artist who will starve in a garret if only he may express the beauty he has seen, the martyr who will obey God in the scorn of consequence, are all religious men or, at least, are men who illustrate that principle which lies behind religion. Truth, Beauty, Goodness -- these are sacred, the object of man's true love and reverence. He to whom nothing is sacred, all questions are open, and the distinction between right and wrong is blurred, is an enslaved, not an emancipated, spirit.

Commemoration of John & Henry Venn, Priests, Evangelical Divines, 1813, 1873 If we allow the consideration of heathen morality read more

Commemoration of John & Henry Venn, Priests, Evangelical Divines, 1813, 1873 If we allow the consideration of heathen morality and heathen religion to absolve us from the duty of preaching the gospel we are really deposing Christ from His throne in our own souls. If we admit that men can do very well without Christ, we accept the Saviour only as a luxury for ourselves. If they can do very well without Christ, then so could we. This is to turn our backs upon the Christ of the gospels and the Christ of Acts and to turn our faces towards law, morality, philosophy, natural religion. We look at the moral teaching of some of the heathen nations and we find it higher than we had expected... Or we look at morality in Christian lands, and we begin to wonder whether our practice is really much higher than theirs, and we say, "They are very well as they are. Leave them alone." When we so speak and think we are treating the question of the salvation of men exactly as we should have treated it had Christ never appeared in the world at all. It is an essentially pre-Christian attitude, and implies that the Son of God has not been delivered for our salvation. It suggests that the one and only way of salvation known to me is to keep the commandments. That was indeed true before the coming of the Son of God, before the Passion, before the Resurrection, before Pentecost; but after Pentecost that is no longer true. After Pentecost, the answer to any man who inquires the way of salvation is no longer "Keep the law," but "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.".

Commemoration of William Augustus Muhlenberg of New York, Priest, 1877 If, when God sends judgments upon others, we do read more

Commemoration of William Augustus Muhlenberg of New York, Priest, 1877 If, when God sends judgments upon others, we do not take warning and example by them; if instead of reflecting upon ourselves and questioning our ways we fall to censuring others; if we will pervert the meaning of God's providences and will not understand the design and intention of them; then we leave God no other way to awaken us to a consideration of our evil ways but by pouring down his wrath upon our heads, so that he may convince us that we are sinners by the same argument from whence we have concluded others to be so.

Feast of Chad, Abbot of Lastingham, Bishop of Lichfield, Missionary, 672 Do those who say, "Lo here, or lo read more

Feast of Chad, Abbot of Lastingham, Bishop of Lichfield, Missionary, 672 Do those who say, "Lo here, or lo there, are the signs of His coming", think to be too keen for Him, and spy His approach? When He tells them to watch lest He find them neglecting their work, they stare this way and that, and watch lest He should succeed in coming like a thief!

Feast of All Saints From every pulpit in the land it needs to be thundered forth that God still read more

Feast of All Saints From every pulpit in the land it needs to be thundered forth that God still lives, that God still observes, ... still reigns. Faith is now in the crucible, it is being tested by fire, and there is no fixed... resting place for the heart and mind but in the Throne of God. What is needed now, as never before, is a full, positive, constructive setting forth of the Godhood of God.

I am persuaded that some have scarce any better or more forcible argument to satisfy their own minds that they read more

I am persuaded that some have scarce any better or more forcible argument to satisfy their own minds that they are in the right in religion than the inclination they find in themselves to hate and persecute them whom they suppose to be in the wrong.