Few realize how much injury the dogma that baptism is necessary for salvation, badly expounded, has entailed. As a consequence, they are less cautious. For, where the opinion has prevailed that all are lost who have not happened to be baptized with water, our condition is worse than that of God's ancient people -- as if the grace of God were now more restricted than under the Law!
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The knowledge of God is very far from the love of Him.
The knowledge of God is very far from the love of Him.
When you forgive, you in no way change the past - but you sure do change the future.
When you forgive, you in no way change the past - but you sure do change the future.
Commemoration of Thomas Merton, Monk, Spiritual Writer, 1968 While extremely sensitive as to the slightest approach to slander, read more
Commemoration of Thomas Merton, Monk, Spiritual Writer, 1968 While extremely sensitive as to the slightest approach to slander, you must also guard against an extreme into which some people fall who, in their desire to speak evil of no one, actually uphold and speak well of vice. If you have to do with one who is unquestionably a slanderer, do not excuse him by calling him frank and free-spoken; do not call one who is notoriously vain, liberal and elegant; do not call dangerous levities mere simplicity; do not screen disobedience under the name of zeal; or arrogance, of frankness; or evil intimacy, of friendship. No, my friends, we must never, in our wish to shun slander, foster or flatter vice in others: but we must call evil evil, and sin sin, and so doing we shall serve God's glory.
Forgiveness is the answer to the child's dream of a miracle by which what is broken is made whole again, read more
Forgiveness is the answer to the child's dream of a miracle by which what is broken is made whole again, what is soiled is made clean again.
Commemoration of Giles of Provence, Hermit, c.710 I think that most Christians would be better pleased if the Lord read more
Commemoration of Giles of Provence, Hermit, c.710 I think that most Christians would be better pleased if the Lord did not inquire into their personal affairs too closely. They want Him to save them, to keep them happy, and to take them off to heaven at last, but not to be too inquisitive about their conduct or services.
By the quality of our inner lives I do not mean something characterized by ferocious intensity and strain. I mean read more
By the quality of our inner lives I do not mean something characterized by ferocious intensity and strain. I mean rather such a humble and genial devotedness as we find in the most loving of the saints. I mean the quality which makes contagious Christians, makes people catch the love of God from you.
It is Truth which we must look for in Holy Writ, not cunning of words. All Scripture ought to be read more
It is Truth which we must look for in Holy Writ, not cunning of words. All Scripture ought to be read in the spirit in which it was written. We must rather seek for what is profitable in Scripture, than for what ministereth to subtlety in discourse.
The Christian religion not only was at first attended with miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed by read more
The Christian religion not only was at first attended with miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed by any reasonable person without one.
Feast of Boniface (Wynfrith) of Crediton, Archbishop of Mainz, Apostle of Germany, Martyr, 754 The separate creaturely life, as read more
Feast of Boniface (Wynfrith) of Crediton, Archbishop of Mainz, Apostle of Germany, Martyr, 754 The separate creaturely life, as opposed to life in union with God, is only a life of various appetites, hungers, and wants, and cannot possibly be anything else. God Himself cannot make a creature to be in itself, or in its own nature, anything else but a state of emptiness. The highest life that is natural and creaturely can go no higher than this: it can only be a bare capacity for goodness and cannot possibly be a good and happy life but by the life of God dwelling in it and in union with it. And this is the two-fold life that, of all necessity, must be united in every good and happy and perfect creature.
