The world, indeed, seems to be weary of the just, righteous, holy ways of God, and of that exactness in read more

The world, indeed, seems to be weary of the just, righteous, holy ways of God, and of that exactness in walking according to His institutions and commands which it will be one day known that He doth require. But the way to put a stop to this declension is not by accommodating the commands of God to the corrupt courses and ways of men. The truths of God and the holiness of His precepts must be pleaded and defended, though the world dislike them here and perish hereafter. His law must not be made to lackey after the wills of men, nor be dissolved by vain interpretations, because they complain they cannot -- indeed, because they will not -- comply with it. Our Lord Jesus Christ came not to destroy the law and the prophets, but to fulfill them, and to supply men with spiritual strength to fulfill them also. It is evil to break the least commandment; but there is a great aggravation of that evil in them that shall teach men so to do.

We sometimes fear to bring our troubles to God, because they must seem small to Him who sitteth on the read more

We sometimes fear to bring our troubles to God, because they must seem small to Him who sitteth on the circle of the earth. But if they are large enough to vex and endanger our welfare, they are large enough to touch His heart of love. For love does not measure by a merchant's scales, not with a surveyor's chain. It hath a delicacy... unknown in any handling of material substance.

All theological language is necessarily analogical, but it was singularly unfortunate that the Church, in speaking of punishment for sin, read more

All theological language is necessarily analogical, but it was singularly unfortunate that the Church, in speaking of punishment for sin, should have chosen the analogy of criminal law, for the analogy is incompatible with the Christian belief in God as the creator of Man. Criminal laws are laws, imposed on men, who are already in existence, with or without their consent, and, with the possible exception of capital punishment for murder, there is no logical relation between the nature of a crime and the penalty inflicted for committing it. If God created man, then the laws of man's spiritual nature must, like the laws of his physical nature, be laws -- laws, that is to say, which he is free to defy but no more free to break than he can break the law of gravity by jumping out of the window, or the laws of biochemistry by getting drunk -- and the consequences of defying them must be as inevitable and as intrinsically related to their nature as a broken leg or a hangover. To state spiritual laws in the imperative -- Thou shalt love God with all thy being, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself -- is simply a pedagogical technique, as when a mother says to her small son, "Stay away from the window!" because the child does not yet know what will happen if he falls out of it.

The Church, rightly conceived, is the whole covenant people called to serve in the world. The clergy are also part read more

The Church, rightly conceived, is the whole covenant people called to serve in the world. The clergy are also part of the laity, and their true function is to help equip the laity to be the Servant People. If they turn aside to rule and to secure their own status, they have betrayed the calling of the special ministry.

Feast of Michael & All Angels We would fain be humble; but not despised. To be despised read more

Feast of Michael & All Angels We would fain be humble; but not despised. To be despised and rejected is the heritage of virtue. We would be poor, too; but without privation. And doubtless we are patient; except with hardships and with disagreeables. And so with all the virtues.

Feast of Michael & All Angels Pray hardest when it is hardest to pray.

Feast of Michael & All Angels Pray hardest when it is hardest to pray.

Commemoration of Richard Baxter, Priest, Hymnographer, Teacher, 1691 Each of us individually has risen into moral life from a read more

Commemoration of Richard Baxter, Priest, Hymnographer, Teacher, 1691 Each of us individually has risen into moral life from a mode of being which was purely natural; in other words, each of us also has fallen -- fallen, presumably in ways determined by his natural constitution, yet certainly, as conscience assures us, in ways for which we are morally answerable, and to which, in the moral constitution of the world, consequences attach which we must recognise as our due. They are not only results of our action, but results which that action has merited; and there is no moral hope for us unless we accept them as such.

The intelligence which has learned to be a law to itself, criticising, rejecting, appropriating, assimilating, cannot deny its nature and read more

The intelligence which has learned to be a law to itself, criticising, rejecting, appropriating, assimilating, cannot deny its nature and suspend its functions when it opens the New Testament. It cannot make itself the slave of men, not even though the men are Peter and Paul and John; no, not even though it were the Son of Man Himself. It resents dictation, not willfully nor wantonly, but because it must; and it resents it all the more when it claims to be inspired. If, therefore, the Atonement can only be received by those who are prepared from the threshold to acknowledge the inspiration and the consequent authority of Scripture, it can never be received by modern men at all.

"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?".