A man may blaspheme against the Son of Man and be forgiven; but the sin against the Spirit of Truth read more

A man may blaspheme against the Son of Man and be forgiven; but the sin against the Spirit of Truth -- what can God Himself do with or for the man who will not acknowledge the truth he knows, or follow the light he sees?

Feast of William Tyndale, Translator of the Scriptures, Martyr, 1536 To hold your truth, to believe it with read more

Feast of William Tyndale, Translator of the Scriptures, Martyr, 1536 To hold your truth, to believe it with all your heart, to work with all your might, first to make it real to yourself and then to show its preciousness to other men, and then -- not till then, but then -- to leave the questions of when and how and by whom it shall prevail to God: that is the true life of the believer. There is no feeble unconcern and indiscriminateness there, and neither is there any excited hatred of the creed, the doctrine, or the Church, which you feel wholly wrong. You have not fled out of the furnace of bigotry to freeze on the open and desolate plains of indifference. You believe and yet you have no wish to persecute.

Commemoration of Peter Chanel, Religious, Missionary in the South Pacific, Martyr, 1841 The [Roman] imperial coinage (which was read more

Commemoration of Peter Chanel, Religious, Missionary in the South Pacific, Martyr, 1841 The [Roman] imperial coinage (which was regularly used as a propaganda medium... is full of the characteristic motifs of Advent and Epiphany, celebrating the blessings which the manifestation of each successive divine emperor was to bring to a waiting world. Among the adulatory formulas with which the emperor was acclaimed, Prof. Ethelbert Stauffer mentions, as going back to the first century, "Hail, Victory, Lord of the earth, Invincible, Power, Glory, Honour, Peace, Security, Holy, Blessed, Unequalled, Great, Thou alone worthy art, Worthy is he to inherit the Kingdom, Come, come, do not delay, Come again" (p. 155) [in Christ and the Caesars]. Indeed, one has only to read Psalm lxxii, in Latin, in the official language of the empire, to see that it is largely the same formal language which is used alike in the Forum for the advent of the emperor, and in the catacombs for the celebration of the "Epiphany of Christ" (p. 251). Who was worthy to ascend the throne of the universe and direct the course of history? Caesar, or Jesus?

Feast of English Saints & Martyrs of the Reformation We must not encourage in ourselves or others any tendency read more

Feast of English Saints & Martyrs of the Reformation We must not encourage in ourselves or others any tendency to work up a subjective state which, if we succeeded, we should describe as "faith", with the idea that this will somehow ensure the granting of our prayer. We have probably all done this as children. But the state of mind which desperate desire working on a strong imagination can manufacture is not faith in the Christian sense. It is a feat of psychological gymnastics.

[St. Paul] always contrived to bring his hearers to a point. There was none of the indeterminate, inconclusive talking which read more

[St. Paul] always contrived to bring his hearers to a point. There was none of the indeterminate, inconclusive talking which we are apt to describe as "sowing the seed". Our idea of sowing the seed seems to be rather like scattering wheat out of a balloon... Occasionally, of course, grains of wheat scattered out of a balloon will fall upon ploughed and fertile land and will spring up and bear fruit; but it is a casual method of sowing. Paul did not scatter seeds, he planted. He so dealt with his hearers that he brought them speedily and directly to a point of decision, and then he demanded of them that they should make a choice and act on their choice. In this way he kept the moral issue clearly before them, and made them realize that his preaching was not merely a novel and interesting doctrine, but a life. (Continued tomorrow).

Feast of Bartholomew the Apostle It is impossible for a man to be a Christian without having Christ; and read more

Feast of Bartholomew the Apostle It is impossible for a man to be a Christian without having Christ; and if he has Christ he has at the same time all that is in Christ.

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.

EPIPHANY What should I think of my child, if I found that he limited his faith in me read more

EPIPHANY What should I think of my child, if I found that he limited his faith in me and hope from me to the few promises he had heard me utter! The faith that limits itself to the promises of God seems to me to partake of the paltry character of such a faith in my child -- good enough for a Pagan, but for a Christian a miserable and wretched faith. Those who rest in such a faith would feel yet more comfortable if they had God's bond instead of His word, which they regard not as the outcome of His character but as a pledge of His honour. They try to believe in the truth of His word, but the truth of His Being they understand not. In His oath they persuade themselves that they put confidence: in himself they do not believe, for they know Him not.

Commemoration of Nicholas Ferrar, Deacon, Founder of the Little Gidding Community, 1637 To me there is a much more read more

Commemoration of Nicholas Ferrar, Deacon, Founder of the Little Gidding Community, 1637 To me there is a much more frightening ignorance in our modern world than the "ignorance of the heathen". I am referring to the almost total ignorance of the content and implication of the Christian Faith shown by many "clever" people today. Frankly, I find it horrifying to discover that men who are experts in their own line -- in astronomy, genetics, or nuclear physics, for example -- have no adult knowledge of what the Church of Christ stands for, and a complete blank ignorance of what the Church is achieving today. It is the more horrifying because people who rightly respect the expert for his knowledge in his own field have no idea that he has not carefully examined and reluctantly discarded Christianity; but in all probability he has never studied it at all!