God has not cared that we should anywhere have assurance of His very words; and that not merely, perhaps, because read more

God has not cared that we should anywhere have assurance of His very words; and that not merely, perhaps, because of the tendency in His children to word-worship, false logic, and corruption of the truth, but because He would not have them oppressed by words, seeing that words, being human, and therefore but partially capable, could not absolutely contain or express what the Lord meant, and that even He must depend for being understood upon the spirit of His disciple. Seeing that it could not give life, the letter should not be throned with power to kill.

If [it] yields to the drift of the age and surrenders its hold of the awful but glorious individualism of read more

If [it] yields to the drift of the age and surrenders its hold of the awful but glorious individualism of the Christian salvation,... the Church itself will not be much enriched by an accession of panic-stricken fugitives from a Personal God. And many unhappy young people are discovering now that Church membership is not the equivalent of being reconciled to God, and a kind of Confirmation is not a substitute for Conversion.

Feast of Benedict of Nursia, Father of Western Monasticism, c.550 Continuing a short series on topics of Christian apologetics: read more

Feast of Benedict of Nursia, Father of Western Monasticism, c.550 Continuing a short series on topics of Christian apologetics: Naturally, the first emotion of man towards the being he calls God, but of whom he knows so little, is fear. Where it is possible that fear should exist it is well that it should exist, cause continual uneasiness, and be cast out by nothing less than love.... Until love, which is the truth towards God, is able to cast out fear, it is well that fear should hold; it is a bond, however poor, between that which is and that which creates -- a bond that must be broken, but a bond that can be broken only by the tightening of an infinitely closer bond. Verily God must be terrible to those that are far from Him: for they fear He will do -- yea, is doing -- with them what they do not, cannot desire, and can ill endure... While they are such as they are, there is much in Him that cannot but affright them: they ought, they do well, to fear Him... To remove that fear from their hearts, save by letting them know His love with its purifying fire, a love which for ages, it may be, they cannot know, would be to give them up utterly to the power of evil. Persuade men that fear is a vile thing, that it is an insult to God, that He will have none of it -- while they are yet in love with their own will, and slaves to every movement of passionate impulse -- and what will the consequence be? That they will insult God as a discarded idol, a superstition, a falsehood, as a thing under whose evil influence they have too long groaned, a thing to be cast out and spit upon. After that, how much will they learn of Him?

We love orthodoxy. It is good. It is the best. It is the clean, clear cut teaching of God's Word, read more

We love orthodoxy. It is good. It is the best. It is the clean, clear cut teaching of God's Word, the trophies won by truth in its conflict with error, the levees which faith has raised against the desolating floods of honest or reckless misbelief or unbelief; but orthodoxy, clear and hard as crystal, suspicious and militant, may be but the letter well shaped, well named, and well learned, the letter which kills. Nothing is so dead as a dead orthodoxy -- too dead to speculate, too dead to think, to study, or to pray.

Bless God, America.

Bless God, America.

Commemoration of Petroc, Abbot of Padstow, 6th century Wherever the missionary character of the doctrine of election is forgotten; read more

Commemoration of Petroc, Abbot of Padstow, 6th century Wherever the missionary character of the doctrine of election is forgotten; wherever it is forgotten that we are chosen in order to be sent; wherever the minds of believers are concerned more to probe backwards from their election into the reasons for it in the secret counsel of God, than to press forward from their election to the purpose of it, ... that they should be Christ's ambassadors and witnesses to the ends of the earth, wherever men think that the purpose of election is their own salvation rather than the salvation of the world: then God's people have betrayed their trust.

The seven works of bodily mercy be these: feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked and read more

The seven works of bodily mercy be these: feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked and the needy, harbour the houseless, comfort the sick, visit prisoners, bury the dead. The seven works of spiritual mercy be these: teach men the truth, counsel men to hold with Christ's law, chastise sinners by moderate reproving in charity, comfort sorrowful men by Christ's passion, forgive wrongs, suffer meekly reproofs for the right of God's law, pray heartily for friend and for foe. ... Middle English Sermons September 6, 2001 Commemoration of Allen Gardiner, founder of the South American Missionary Society, 1851 Commemoration of Albert Schweitzer, Teacher, Physician, Missionary, 1965 Of the access for us, at any rate, to the spirit of life -- us who were born in Christendom, and are in touch, conscious or unconscious, with Christianity -- this is the true account. Questions over which the churches spend so much labour and time -- questions about the Trinity, about the godhead of Christ, about the procession of the Holy Ghost -- are not vital; what is vital is the doctrine of access to the spirit of life through Christ.

Feast of Antony of Egypt, Abbot, 356 Commemoration of Charles Gore, Bishop, Teacher, Founder of the Community of the Resurrection, read more

Feast of Antony of Egypt, Abbot, 356 Commemoration of Charles Gore, Bishop, Teacher, Founder of the Community of the Resurrection, 1932 Souls are not made sweet by taking [ill tempers] out, but by putting something in -- a great Love, a new Spirit, the Spirit of Christ. Christ, the Spirit of Christ, interpenetrating ours, sweetens, purifies, transforms all. This can only eradicate what is wrong, renovate and regenerate, and rehabilitate the inner man. Will-power does not change men. Time does not change men. Christ does. Therefore "Let that mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.".

Feast of Cuthbert, Bishop of Lindisfarne, Missionary, 687 The Church is her true self only when she exists for read more

Feast of Cuthbert, Bishop of Lindisfarne, Missionary, 687 The Church is her true self only when she exists for humanity. As a fresh start, she should give away all her endowments to the poor and needy. The clergy should live solely on the free-will offerings of their congregations, or possibly engage in some secular calling.