Take up the cross if thou the crown would'st gain.
[Lat., Tolle crucem, qui vis auferre coronam.]

Take up the cross if thou the crown would'st gain.
[Lat., Tolle crucem, qui vis auferre coronam.]

The Christian Mission is thus anchored in dogma, is a result of what ordinary Christians believe. It is God's plan, read more

The Christian Mission is thus anchored in dogma, is a result of what ordinary Christians believe. It is God's plan, God's activity; but because God became man and took up manhood into Himself, it is God's will embodied in active obedience on the part of the Christian individual, the Christian group within the Church, and the Christian Church as a whole -- we are all involved in it, all of us, in our various callings.

The new age cannot live on naturalism or on secularism. Life becomes sterile and futile without the depth and power read more

The new age cannot live on naturalism or on secularism. Life becomes sterile and futile without the depth and power which come from participation in eternal realities. But this new age cannot any more successfully live on religious faiths that are out of harmony with known truth, or that hang loose in the air, cut apart from the fundamental intellectual culture of the age. The hour has struck for the serious business of rediscovering the foundations, and of interpenetrating all life and thought with the truths and realities of a victorious religious faith.

Commemoration of Mellitus, First Bishop of London, 624 The [Christian] "doctrines" are translations into our concepts and ideas of read more

Commemoration of Mellitus, First Bishop of London, 624 The [Christian] "doctrines" are translations into our concepts and ideas of that which God has already expressed in language more adequate, namely the actual incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection.

After a trip to Mexico [in 1984]... I fell ill... The illness was protracted... I suffered a mild depression... When read more

After a trip to Mexico [in 1984]... I fell ill... The illness was protracted... I suffered a mild depression... When [an episcopal priest] prayed for my recovery, I choked up and wept. The only prayer I knew word for word was the Pater Noster. On that day and in the days after it, I found myself repeating the Lord's Prayer, again and again, and meaning every word of it. Quite suddenly, when I was awake one night, a light dawned on me, and I realized what had happened... After many years of affirming God's existence and trying to give adequate reasons for that affirmation, I found myself believing in God.

Continuing a short series of testimonies on the Scriptures: In holy Scripture is fully contained what we ought read more

Continuing a short series of testimonies on the Scriptures: In holy Scripture is fully contained what we ought to do, and what to eschew; what to believe, what to love, and what to look for at God's hands at length. In these Books we shall find the father from whom, the son by whom, and the holy Ghost in whom all things have their being and keeping up, and these three persons to be but one God, and one substance. Read [Holy Scripture] humbly with a meek and lowly heart, to the intent you may glorify God, and not your self, with the knowledge of it: and read it not without daily praying to God, that he would direct your reading to good effect: and take upon you to expound it no further than you can plainly understand it. For (as Saint Augustine says) the knowledge of holy Scripture is a great, large, and a high place, but the door is very low, so that the high & arrogant man cannot run in: but he must stoop low, and humble himself, that shall enter into it... The humble man may search any truth boldly in the Scripture, without any danger of error. (Continued tomorrow) ... "A Fruitful exhortation to the reading of holy Scripture", from the Anglican Homilies [1562] March 4, 2001 Commemoration of Felix, Bishop, Apostle to the East Angles, 647 Continuing a short series of testimonies on the Scriptures: Scripture in some places is easy, and in some places hard to be understood. This have I said, as touching the fear to read, through ignorance of the person. And concerning the hardness of Scripture, he that is so weak that he is not able to [eat] strong meat, yet he may suck the sweet and tender milk, and defer the rest, until he wax stronger, and come to more knowledge. For God receives the learned and unlearned, and casts away none, but [does not discriminate]. And the Scripture is full as well of low valleys, plain ways, and easy for every man to use, and to walk in: as also of high hills & mountains, which few men can climb unto. ... "A Fruitful exhortation to the reading of holy Scripture", from the Anglican Homilies [1562] March 5, 2001 Continuing a short series of testimonies on the Scriptures: We are to believe and follow Christ in all things, including his words about Scripture. And this means that Scripture is to be for us what it was to him: the unique, authoritative, and inerrant Word of God, and not merely a human testimony to Christ, however carefully guided and preserved by God. If the Bible is less than this to us, we are not fully Christ's disciples.

Contentment is not satisfaction. It is the grateful, faithful, fruitful use of what we have, little or much. It is read more

Contentment is not satisfaction. It is the grateful, faithful, fruitful use of what we have, little or much. It is to take the cup of Providence, and call upon the name of the Lord. What the cup contains is its contents. To get all that is in the cup is the act and art of contentment. Not to drink because one has but half a cup, or because one does not like its flavor, or because somebody else has silver to one's own glass, is to lose the contents; and that is the penalty, if not the meaning, of discontent. No one is discontented who employs and enjoys to the utmost what he has. It is high philosophy to say, we can have just what we like if we like what we have; but this much at least can be done, and this is contentment: to have the most and best in life by making the most and best of what we have.

The sovereign God wants to be loved for Himself and honored for Himself, but that is only part of what read more

The sovereign God wants to be loved for Himself and honored for Himself, but that is only part of what He wants. The other part is that He wants us to know that when we have Him we have everything -- we have all the rest.

Feast of John and Charles Wesley, Priests, Poets, Teachers, 1791 & 1788 I know Thee, Saviour, Who Thou art: Jesus, read more

Feast of John and Charles Wesley, Priests, Poets, Teachers, 1791 & 1788 I know Thee, Saviour, Who Thou art: Jesus, the feeble sinner's friend! Nor wilt Thou with the night depart, But stay and love me to the end. Thy mercies never shall remove; Thy nature and Thy name is Love.