Feast of John and Charles Wesley, Priests, Poets, Teachers, 1791 & 1788 He was but a heathen that said, read more

Feast of John and Charles Wesley, Priests, Poets, Teachers, 1791 & 1788 He was but a heathen that said, If God love a man, He takes him young out of this world; and they were but heathens, that observed that custom. to put on mourning when their sons were born, and to feast and triumph when they died. But thus much may we learn from these heathens, that if the dead, and we, be not upon one floor, nor under one story, yet we are under one roof. We think not a friend lost, because he has gone into another room, nor because he has gone into another land: and into another world, no man has gone; for that Heaven, which God created, and this world, is all one world... I spend none of my faith, I exercise none of my hope, in this, that I shall have my dead raised to life again. This is the faith that sustains me, when I lose by the death of others, or when I suffer by living in misery myself: that the dead and we are now all in one Church, and at the resurrection, shall be all in one Choir.

We can stand affliction better than we can prosperity, for in prosperity we forget God.

We can stand affliction better than we can prosperity, for in prosperity we forget God.

Commemoration of John & Henry Venn, Priests, Evangelical Divines, 1813, 1873 Here [in the Gospels] is something that read more

Commemoration of John & Henry Venn, Priests, Evangelical Divines, 1813, 1873 Here [in the Gospels] is something that the layman can hold on to, quite apart from the vagaries of critical scholarship, for it is a portrait unaffected by the authenticity of any particular saying or story. Such an encounter with the historical Jesus is, of course, not the same as Christian faith in him. Even Caiaphas, Herod, and Pontius Pilate encountered him in this way. Christian faith is still a matter of decision -- either this Man is God's redemptive act, or he is not. Nor is the historical Jesus the object of our faith. That object is the Risen Christ preached by the Church. But the Risen Christ is in continuity with the historical Jesus, and it is the historical Jesus which makes the Risen Christ not just an abstraction, but clothes him with flesh and blood.

Feast of Thomas the Apostle In the era of faith there is room for repentance, since each person can read more

Feast of Thomas the Apostle In the era of faith there is room for repentance, since each person can decide freely for Christ; in the era of sight, when the reign of Christ is manifest, only judgment is left for the undecided.

If we look carefully within ourselves, we shall find that there are certain limits beyond which we refuse to go read more

If we look carefully within ourselves, we shall find that there are certain limits beyond which we refuse to go in offering ourselves to God. We hover around these reservations, making believe not to see them, for fear of self-reproach. The more we shrink from giving up any such reserved point, the more certain it is that it needs to be given up. If we were not fast bound by it, we should not make so many efforts to persuade ourselves that we are free.

Commemoration of Francis Xavier, Apostle of the Indies, Missionary, 1552 What is the Christian? Everywhere the man who, read more

Commemoration of Francis Xavier, Apostle of the Indies, Missionary, 1552 What is the Christian? Everywhere the man who, so far as he comprehends Jesus Christ, so far as he can get any knowledge of Him, is His servant -- the man who makes Christ a teacher of his intelligence and the guide of his soul -- the man who obeys Christ as far as he has been able to understand him... I would know any man as a Christian, would rejoice to know any man as a Christian, whom Jesus would recognize as a Christian; and Jesus Christ, I am sure, in these old days recognized His followers even if they came after Him with the blindest sight, with the most imperfect recognition and acknowledgment of what He was and of what He could do.

Continuing a short series about the early church: The sure way to success for any commercial venture is read more

Continuing a short series about the early church: The sure way to success for any commercial venture is to suggest that those people who buy things from it, or gamble on its terms, are members of a "club", a "circle". Study the advertisements in any popular magazine: people are "invited to apply for membership"; "members will receive a catalogue"; they are even offered "rules", which they gladly accept because the need for authority lies heavily upon them; they then receive a card admitting them to the circle, with the "President's signature" printed on it. In the need for belonging, the acknowledgement of dependence, may lie the greatest opportunity of the Christian evangelist. It is not unlike the conditions under which the early Church worked. In the later Roman Empire, crumbling under its own size, its communications and resources stretched to the utmost, the mystery-religions came into their own. Rites of initiation, the sharing of secret knowledge, offered to people of all classes an escape from the perplexities of life, a retreat into a closed circle of the elect where they might feel that their transformed personalities had some significance. Who can know how many weary souls there were who strayed into the Church through rumours of a secret rite of purification, of a shared meal that conferred wisdom, and who remained to comprehend the fullness of the Godhead, a belonging greater than they had ever imagined.

Feast of Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, Martyr, c.155 Grace tried is better than grace, and it is more read more

Feast of Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, Martyr, c.155 Grace tried is better than grace, and it is more than grace, it is glory in its infancy. I now see godliness is more than the outside and this world's passments and their buskings [i.e., ornaments and fine dress]. Who knoweth the truth of grace without a trial? O how little getteth Christ of us, but that which he winneth (to speak so) with much toil and pains! And how soon would faith freeze without a cross?

I read in Shakespeare of the majesty of the moral law, in Victor Hugo of the sacredness of childhood, in read more

I read in Shakespeare of the majesty of the moral law, in Victor Hugo of the sacredness of childhood, in Tennyson the ugliness of hypocrisy, in George Eliot the supremacy of duty, in Dickens the divinity of kindness, and in Ruskin the dignity of service. Irving teaches me the lesson of cheerfulness, Hawthorne shows me the hatefulness of sin, Longfellow gives me the soft, tranquil music of hope. Lowell makes us feel that we must give ourselves to our fellow men. Whittier sings to me of divine Fatherhood and human brotherhood. These are Christian lessons: who inspired them? Who put it into the heart of Martin Luther to nail those theses on the church door of Wittenberg? Who stirred and fired the soul of Savonarola? Who thrilled and electrified the soul of John Wesley? Jesus Christ is back of these all.