A vocation to marriage is a vocation to glorify God in a particular state with its necessary rights and duties. read more

A vocation to marriage is a vocation to glorify God in a particular state with its necessary rights and duties. It can only be combined with the vocation of a pioneer missionary of the classic type if matrimony is felt to be spiritually neutral, irrelevant to God's calling. Marriage can be irrelevant only if we believe that the body -- matter -- is neutral, irrelevant, or evil. Man can not believe that and believe the Christian faith. God made matter, and was incarnate in it: the comparison of the relation of husband and wife to that between Christ and the Church naturally follows. But this conclusion is not always drawn, for orthodox Christians are often prone to speak and behave as if the Lord... became not flesh but spirit.

With Thee, 'tis one to behold and to pity. Accordingly, Thy mercy followeth every man so long as he liveth, read more

With Thee, 'tis one to behold and to pity. Accordingly, Thy mercy followeth every man so long as he liveth, whithersoever he goeth, even as Thy glance never quitteth any.

Forgiveness is the economy of the heart... forgiveness saves the expense of anger, the cost of hatred, the waste of read more

Forgiveness is the economy of the heart... forgiveness saves the expense of anger, the cost of hatred, the waste of spirits.

Commemoration of Felix, Bishop, Apostle to the East Angles, 647 [May] the Lord lead further and further those who read more

Commemoration of Felix, Bishop, Apostle to the East Angles, 647 [May] the Lord lead further and further those who do in earnest want to live the Joshua [i.e., transformed] life. It means a daily dying to self and what self wants; a daily turning to our Master with a "Yes, Lord" to everything, even to what is most against the grain. May He quicken those who have not yet begun to live this life to see what they are missing, before it is too late.

Feast of Perpetua, Felicity & their Companions, Martyrs at Carthage, 203 God in His providence has not allowed the read more

Feast of Perpetua, Felicity & their Companions, Martyrs at Carthage, 203 God in His providence has not allowed the survival of actual physical objects. But we have infinitely more than this, for instead of dead relics, however "authentic" and well preserved, we have a living life-line, stretching unbroken to Christ Himself. We have all the comfort and security that comes from historic tradition, but instead of being given the sad nostalgia of looking at an object and saying, "Look, how wonderful! This is what He touched then," we are given an evergreen memorial [in communion] which says, "This is what He touches now.".

Commemoration of Felix, Bishop, Apostle to the East Angles, 647 Continuing a short series on the Bible: God read more

Commemoration of Felix, Bishop, Apostle to the East Angles, 647 Continuing a short series on the Bible: God the Father is the giver of Holy Scripture; God the Son is the theme of Holy Scripture; and God the Spirit is the author, authenticator, and interpreter of Holy Scripture.

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.

Pentecost The Spirit is Love expressed towards man as redeeming love, and the Spirit is truth, and the Spirit read more

Pentecost The Spirit is Love expressed towards man as redeeming love, and the Spirit is truth, and the Spirit is the Holy Spirit. Redemption is inconceivable without truth and holiness. But the mere fact that the Holy Spirit's first recorded action in the gospels is an expression of redeeming love should cause us to suspect a teaching which represents His work as primarily, if not solely, the sanctification of our own souls to the practical exclusion of His activity in us towards others. It is important to teach of Him as the Spirit of holiness; it is also important to teach of Him as the Spirit which in us labours for the salvation of men everywhere.

Either sin is with you, lying on your shoulders, or it is lying on Christ, the Lamb of God. Now read more

Either sin is with you, lying on your shoulders, or it is lying on Christ, the Lamb of God. Now if it is lying on your back, you are lost; but if it is resting on Christ, you are free, and you will be saved. Now choose what you want.