Continuing a short series on forgiveness: With this sweet hope of ultimate acceptance with God, I have always read more

Continuing a short series on forgiveness: With this sweet hope of ultimate acceptance with God, I have always enjoyed much cheerfulness before men; but I have at the same time laboured incessantly to cultivate the deepest humiliation before God. I have never thought that the circumstance of God's having forgiven me was any reason why I should forgive myself; on the contrary, I have always judged it better to loathe myself the more, in proportion as I was assured that God was pacified towards me (Ezekiel 16:63).

"Did not I, through faith, conquer kingdoms, apply justice, obtain promises, stop the mouths of lions, put out raging fires, read more

"Did not I, through faith, conquer kingdoms, apply justice, obtain promises, stop the mouths of lions, put out raging fires, escape the edge of the sword, win strength out of weakness, become valiant in war, and put foreign armies to flight? Was I not a man of faith and a man of action in one skin? Why are the faithful so afraid of deeds for fear they should fall into 'Justification by works'? And why is Thy Church so uncomfortable with its men of action? And why do men of spirit so often have to work apart from, and even against it? Are there no longer kingdoms to be conquered, injustice to be destroyed, promises to be obtained? The Son of David is a warrior still. Must He tread the winepress alone?".

Commemoration of Frederick Denison Maurice, Priest, teacher, 1872 We can do nothing, we say sometimes, we can only pray. read more

Commemoration of Frederick Denison Maurice, Priest, teacher, 1872 We can do nothing, we say sometimes, we can only pray. That, we feel, is a terribly precarious second-best. So long as we can fuss and work and rush about, so long as we can lend a hand, we have some hope; but if we have to fall back upon God -- ah, then things must be critical indeed!

The underlying questions are always: What is the Church? What is the Church for? If that is not kept in read more

The underlying questions are always: What is the Church? What is the Church for? If that is not kept in mind, the lay ministry, about which so much is being said at present, remains on the level of a many-sided activity in which the self-assertion of the laity threatens to be more evident than a new manifestation of the Church in modern society. The responsible participation of the laity in the discharge of the Church's divine calling is not primarily a matter of idealism and enthusiasm or organizational efficiency, but a new grasp and commitment to the meaning of God's redemptive purpose with mankind and with the world in the past, the present, and the future: a purpose which has its foundation and inexhaustible content in Christ.

I have heard professing Christians of our own day speak as though the historicity of the Gospels does not matter read more

I have heard professing Christians of our own day speak as though the historicity of the Gospels does not matter -- all that matters is the contemporary Spirit of Christ. I contend that the historicity does matter, and I do not see why we, who live nearly two thousand years later, should call into question an Event for which there were many eye-witnesses still living at the time when most of the New Testament was written. It was no "cunningly devised fable" but an historic irruption of God into human history which gave birth to a young church so sturdy that the pagan world could not stifle or destroy it.

Ash Wednesday Feast of Janani Luwum, Archbishop of Uganda, Martyr, 1977 Men must not content themselves with the lawfulness read more

Ash Wednesday Feast of Janani Luwum, Archbishop of Uganda, Martyr, 1977 Men must not content themselves with the lawfulness of their employments, but must consider whether they use them, as they are to use everything, as strangers and pilgrims that are baptised into the resurrection of Jesus Christ, that we are to follow Him in a wise and heavenly course of life, in the mortification of the worldly desires, and in purifying and preparing their souls for the blessed enjoyment of God. For to be vain, or proud, or covetous, or ambitious, in the common course of our business, is as contrary to these holy tempers of Christianity as cheating and dishonesty. If a glutton were to say, in excuse of his gluttony, that he only eats such things as it is lawful to eat, he would make as good an excuse for himself as the greedy, covetous, ambitious tradesman that would say that he only deals in lawful business. For, as a Christian is not only required to be honest, but to be of a Christian spirit, and make his life an exercise of humility, repentance, and heavenly affection, so all tempers that are contrary to these are as contrary to Christianity as cheating is contrary to honesty.

Continuing a series on the person of Jesus: Jesus Christ suffered and died to sanctify death and suffering; he read more

Continuing a series on the person of Jesus: Jesus Christ suffered and died to sanctify death and suffering; he has been all that was great, and all that was abject, in order to sanctify in himself all things except sin, and to be the model of every condition.

Commemoration of Mary Slessor, Missionary in West Africa, 1915 It is vain for bishops and pious bigwigs to discuss read more

Commemoration of Mary Slessor, Missionary in West Africa, 1915 It is vain for bishops and pious bigwigs to discuss what dreadful things will happen if wild skepticism runs its course. It has run its course. It is vain for eloquent atheists to talk of the great truths that will be revealed if once we see free thought begin. We have seen it end. It has no more questions to ask; it has questioned itself. You cannot call up any wilder vision than a city in which men ask themselves if they have any selves. You cannot fancy a more skeptical world than that in which men doubt whether there is a world. It might certainly have reached its bankruptcy more quickly and cleanly if it had not been feebly hampered by the application of indefensible laws of blasphemy or by the absurd pretense that modern England is Christian. But it would have reached the bankruptcy anyhow.

Commemoration of Rose of Lima, Contemplative, 1617 Fallacies about Christianity must always be faced as deterrents to right read more

Commemoration of Rose of Lima, Contemplative, 1617 Fallacies about Christianity must always be faced as deterrents to right living, and not merely as mistakes in the mind, for it is the effect they have on our actions which matters most. So soon as we abstract them from our lives and think of them only as faults in our mental machinery, we tend to embrace the greatest fallacy of all -- which is to think of Christianity as a way of looking at life instead of a way of changing it.