Lord, behold our family here assembled. We thank Thee for this place in which we dwell; for the love that read more

Lord, behold our family here assembled. We thank Thee for this place in which we dwell; for the love that unites us; for the peace accorded us this day; for the hope with which we expect the morrow; for the health, the work, the food, and the bright skies that make our lives delightful; for our friends in all parts of the earth, and our friendly helpers in this foreign isle [Samoa]... Give us courage, gaiety, and the quiet mind. Spare to us our friends, soften to us our enemies. Bless us, if it may be, in all our innocent endeavors. If it may not be, give us the strength to encounter that which is to come, that we be brave in peril, constant in tribulation, temperate in wrath, and in all changes of fortune and down to the gates of death, loyal and loving to one another.

This is the real Church of the Lord Jesus Christ -- not merely organisation, but a group of people, individually read more

This is the real Church of the Lord Jesus Christ -- not merely organisation, but a group of people, individually the children of God, drawn together by the Holy Spirit for a particular task, either in a local situation or over a wider area. The Church of the Lord Jesus should be a group of those who are redeemed and bound together on the basis of true doctrine. But subsequently they should show together a substantial "sociological healing" of the breaches between men, which have come about because of... man's sin. The Christian sociological position is that the sociological problems which we find... are a result of the separation that has come between men because of sin. (Continued tomorrow).

Feast of Alfred the Great, King of the West Saxons, Scholar, 899 Commemoration of Cedd, Founding Abbot of Lastingham, Bishop read more

Feast of Alfred the Great, King of the West Saxons, Scholar, 899 Commemoration of Cedd, Founding Abbot of Lastingham, Bishop of the East Saxons, 664 Continuing a short series on prayer: All outward power that we exercise in the things about us is but a shadow in comparison of that inward power that resides in our will, imagination, and desires; these communicate with eternity and kindle a life which always reaches either Heaven or hell... Here lies the ground of the great efficacy of prayer, which when it is the prayer of the heart, the prayer of faith, has a kindling and creating power, and forms and transforms the soul into everything that the desire reaches after: it has the key to the Kingdom of Heaven and unlocks all its treasures; it opens, extends and moves that in us which has its being and motion in and with the divine nature. and so it brings us into real union and Communion with God.

Each of these foregoing states has its time, its variety of workings, its trials, temptations, and purifications, which can only read more

Each of these foregoing states has its time, its variety of workings, its trials, temptations, and purifications, which can only be known by experience in the passage through them. The one only and infallible way to go safely through all the difficulties, trials, temptations, dryness, or opposition of our own evil tempers is this: It is to expect nothing from ourselves, to trust to nothing in ourselves, but in everything to expect and depend upon God for relief. Keep fast hold of this thread, and then let your way be what it will -- darkness, temptation, or the rebellion of nature -- you will be led through it all, to an union with God: for nothing hurts us in any state but an expectation of some thing in it and from it, which we should only expect from God. (Continued tomorrow).

Feast of Paulinus, Bishop of York, Missionary, 644 To judge aright we must judge as Christ judged. He judged read more

Feast of Paulinus, Bishop of York, Missionary, 644 To judge aright we must judge as Christ judged. He judged no man; yet if He judged, His judgments were just. He proclaimed none worthless, none hopeless. Yet men were continually being judged by their relations to Him. The result was infallible, because men judged themselves. Those who loved the light came to Him, those who rejected Him showed that they desired to walk in darkness.

Not pleading with the Father, but expressing the Father's good pleasure is the key-note of true intercession. Forgiveness is God's read more

Not pleading with the Father, but expressing the Father's good pleasure is the key-note of true intercession. Forgiveness is God's idea, God's desire; and it is He who appoints both the Judge and the Counsel for the Defense. It was He who inaugurated the priestly work, that men might receive His cleansing and turn to the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world. God has provided for himself a Lamb. It is He who sends His Son to be our Elder Brother, and to incorporate us as adopted sons into the circle of His Fatherly love. So then it is the voice of His beloved Son which is most clearly heard by the Father in heaven. In that voice of intercession, all the voices of intercession are contained and heard. The Son is talking to the Father about us, and what He says is not Please but Yes.

What is the relation of a secular, this-worldly unification of mankind to the biblical promise of the summing up of read more

What is the relation of a secular, this-worldly unification of mankind to the biblical promise of the summing up of all things in Christ? Is it a total contradiction of it? Is it some sort of a reflection of it? or perhaps a devil's parody of it? Or has it nothing to do with it at all? Perhaps there will be many Christians to whom it would not occur to pose the question whether the process of secularization has anything to do with the biblical understanding of the goal of history. The Bible, for them, belongs to a religious world which is not admitted to belong to the world of secular events -- the world in which we are when we read the daily newspaper. But this is to read the Bible wrongly. Whatever else it may be, the Bible is a secular book dealing with the sort of events which a news editor accepts for publication in a daily newspaper; it is concerned with secular events, wars, revolutions, enslavements and liberations, migrants and refugees, famines and epidemics and all the rest. It deals with events which happened and tells a story which can be checked. We miss this because we do not sufficiently treat the Bible as a whole. When we do this, we see at once that the Bible -- whatever be the variety of material which it contains: poetry, prayers, legislation, genealogy, and all the rest -- is in its main design a universal history. It is an interpretation of human history as a whole, beginning with the saga of creation and ending with a vision of the gathering together of all the nations and the consummation of God's purpose for mankind. The Bible is an outline of world history.

There is a state of perfect peace with God which can be attained under imperfect obedience.

There is a state of perfect peace with God which can be attained under imperfect obedience.

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.