Feast of George Herbert, Priest, Poet, 1633 The shepherds sing; and shall I silent be? My God, no hymn read more

Feast of George Herbert, Priest, Poet, 1633 The shepherds sing; and shall I silent be? My God, no hymn for Thee? My soul's a shepherd too: a flock it feeds Of thoughts, and words, and deeds. The pasture is Thy Word, the streams, Thy Grace Enriching all the place. Shepherd and flock shall sing, and all my powers Out-sing the daylight hours.

If the civil magistrates be Christians or members of the church, able to prophesy in the church of Christ, ... read more

If the civil magistrates be Christians or members of the church, able to prophesy in the church of Christ, ... they are bound by the command of Christ to suffer opposition to their doctrine with meekness and gentleness, and to be so far from striving to subdue their opposites with the civil sword, that they are bound with patience and meekness to wait if God peradventure will please to grant repentance unto their opposites... The sword may make a whole nation of hypocrites. But to recover a soul from Satan by repentance, and to bring them from anti-Christian doctrine or worship to the Christian doctrine and worship, in the least true internal or external submission, is only worked by the all-powerful God through the sword of the Spirit in the hand of His spiritual officers.

Commemoration of Brooke Foss Westcott, Bishop of Durham, Teacher, 1901 It may well be that the unknowable name stands read more

Commemoration of Brooke Foss Westcott, Bishop of Durham, Teacher, 1901 It may well be that the unknowable name stands for the ultimate mystery of Jesus Christ. His love we can experience; His salvation we can appropriate; His help we can claim; but their remains in Him the divine mystery of the Incarnation, which is beyond our understanding, and before which we can only worship and adore.

Feast of Josephine Butler, Social Reformer, 1906 Commemoration of Joan of Arc, Visionary, 1431 Commemoration of Apolo Kivebulaya, Priest, Evangelist, read more

Feast of Josephine Butler, Social Reformer, 1906 Commemoration of Joan of Arc, Visionary, 1431 Commemoration of Apolo Kivebulaya, Priest, Evangelist, 1933 I would have the whole of my experience one continued sense -- first, of my nothingness, and dependence on God; second, of my guiltiness and desert before Him; third, of my obligations to redeeming love, as utterly overwhelming me with its incomprehensible extent and grandeur.

Commemoration of Jack Winslow, Missionary, Evangelist, 1974 What will move you? Will pity? Here is distress never the like. read more

Commemoration of Jack Winslow, Missionary, Evangelist, 1974 What will move you? Will pity? Here is distress never the like. Will duty? Here is a person never the like. Will fear? Here is wrath never the like. Will remorse? Here are sins never the like. Will kindness? Here is love never the like. Will bounty? Here are benefits never the like. Will all these? Here they be all, all in the highest degree.

If man is not made for God, why is he not happy except in God? If man is made for read more

If man is not made for God, why is he not happy except in God? If man is made for God, why is he so opposed to God?

Commemoration of Jack Winslow, Missionary, Evangelist, 1974 Let us remember how very soon the missionary character of the Church read more

Commemoration of Jack Winslow, Missionary, Evangelist, 1974 Let us remember how very soon the missionary character of the Church was forgotten, and the Church, instead of obeying the commandment of Jesus to go and make disciples of all nations (in fact, that it was chiefly a missionary association), neglected this great and important calling... It is astonishing how a commandment so simple and distinct, and how a duty which you would have imagined would be eagerly greeted by the impulse of gratitude, of affection, and of compassion, was forgotten for so long a time, in the churches of the Reformation especially. Now we are accustomed to hear of mission work among the heathen nations, and to find that a great multitude of people are interested in it, and regard it with respect; but it was only at the commencement of the last century, and with great difficulty, [that] the attention of the Church was roused to this important duty; and even in the... Church of Scotland there were a number of ministers who thought that the state of heathenism was so utterly corrupt, and that there was so much to be done in our own country, that it was altogether a Utopian project to think of converting the idolaters, and that it was not our imperative duty to trouble ourselves with their wretched condition.

But what is worship? What ought to result from it? What is the point and peak and heart and centre read more

But what is worship? What ought to result from it? What is the point and peak and heart and centre of it? Is it the offering we bring to God of praise and adoration, of thanksgiving and sacrifice, our praise, our sacrifice to Him? That has its place, not legitimate only, but imperative. And yet to put that in the foreground is to make the service fundamentally man-centered and subjective, which, face to face with God, is surely almost unthinkably unseemly. Or is the ideal we should hold before us that other extreme, so ardently pressed on us these days, that, face to face with the Lord God Almighty, High and Holy, it is for us to forget ourselves and -- leaving behind our petty little human joys and needs and sins and risings above thanksgiving and petition and confession -- to lose ourselves in an awed adoration of God's naked and essential being, blessing and praising Him, not even for what he has done for us, and been for us, but for what, in Himself, He is. To me, that seems not an advance, but a pathetic throw-back to the primitive of Brahmanism. We shall not learn to know God better, nor how to worship Him more worthily, by careful rubbing out from memory every wonder of Christ's revelation of Him. [Excerpt continued tomorrow.].

Expressions of sharp and even violent criticism of religion and the church have been welcomed, for they usually imply sincerity read more

Expressions of sharp and even violent criticism of religion and the church have been welcomed, for they usually imply sincerity of thought. If caustic criticism of religious institutions and practices is irreligious, then Amos, Isaiah, and Jesus were very irreligious men. In fact, that is exactly what many of their contemporaries took them to be.