Feast of Perpetua, Felicity & their Companions, Martyrs at Carthage, 203 The term "baptism in (or of) the read more

Feast of Perpetua, Felicity & their Companions, Martyrs at Carthage, 203 The term "baptism in (or of) the Spirit" conjures up the idea of a separate initiatory experience which every Christian ought to enjoy, whereas evangelicalism is noted for its stress upon a "conversion" experience which marks the beginning of the believer's relationship to his Lord. Too often, alas, conversion has been the end as well as the beginning, with the result that some Christians have looked back, with mingled delight and wistfulness to a past event that now seems to have diminished relevance to daily living. We can fully understand, then, the appeal of a movement which promises a new dimension of Christian living, there in the New Testament, and now available in everyday experience.

Commemoration of John Calvin, renewer of the Church, 1564 It behooves us to accomplish what God requires of read more

Commemoration of John Calvin, renewer of the Church, 1564 It behooves us to accomplish what God requires of us, even when we are in the greatest despair respecting the results.

Feast of William Tyndale, Translator of the Scriptures, Martyr, 1536 God is our true Friend, who always gives us read more

Feast of William Tyndale, Translator of the Scriptures, Martyr, 1536 God is our true Friend, who always gives us the counsel and comfort we need. Our danger lies in resisting Him; so it is essential that we acquire the habit of hearkening to His voice, or keeping silence within, and listening so as to lose nothing of what He says to us. We know well enough how to keep outward silence, and to hush our spoken words, but we know little of interior silence. It consists in hushing our idle, restless, wandering imagination, in quieting the promptings of our worldly minds, and in suppressing the crowd of unprofitable thoughts which excite and disturb the soul.

The primitive Christians were accustomed to speak, in a language which was older than Christianity, of being "in the Spirit" read more

The primitive Christians were accustomed to speak, in a language which was older than Christianity, of being "in the Spirit" -- as though Spirit were an ethereal atmosphere surrounding the soul, and breathed in as the body breathes in the air. Paul, too, used this expression, but he placed alongside it a parallel form of words, "in Christ" or "in Christ Jesus". Where we find these words used we are being reminded of the intimate union with Christ which makes the Christian life an eternal life lived in the midst of time. The deeper shade of meaning would often be conveyed to our minds if we translated the phrase "in communion with Christ". But, Paul's Christ mysticism is saved from the introverted individualism of many forms of mysticism by his insistence that communion with Christ is also communion with all who are Christ's.

What power has love but forgiveness?

What power has love but forgiveness?

Feast of François de Sales, Bishop of Geneva, Teacher, 1622 What is worst of all is to advocate read more

Feast of François de Sales, Bishop of Geneva, Teacher, 1622 What is worst of all is to advocate Christianity, not because it is true, but because it might prove useful... To justify Christianity because it provides a foundation of morality, instead of showing the necessity of Christian morality from the truth of Christianity, is a very dangerous inversion; and we may reflect that a good deal of the attention of totalitarian states has been devoted with a steadfastness of purpose not always found in democracies, to providing their national life with a foundation of morality -- the wrong kind, perhaps, but a good deal more of it. It is not enthusiasm, but dogma, that differentiates a Christian from a pagan society.

Commemoration of Gilbert of Sempringham, Founder of the Gilbertine Order, 1189 I am quite prepared to promise the read more

Commemoration of Gilbert of Sempringham, Founder of the Gilbertine Order, 1189 I am quite prepared to promise the secularists secular education if they on their side will promise not to have moral instruction. Secular education seems to me intellectually clean and comprehensible. Moral instruction seems to me unclean, intolerable; I would destroy it with fire. Teaching the Old Testament by itself means teaching ancient Hebrew ethics, which are simple, barbaric rudimentary, and, to a Christian, unsatisfying. Teaching moral instruction means teaching modern London, Birmingham and Boston ethics, which are not barbaric and rudimentary, but are corrupt, hysterical and crawling with worms, and which are to a Christian, not unsatisfying but detestable. The old Jew who says that you must fight only for your tribe is inadequate; but the modern prig who says you must never fight for anything is substantially and specifically immoral. I know quite well, of course, that the unreligious ethics suggested for modern schools do not verbally assert these things; they only talk about peaceful reform, true Christianity, and the importance of Count Tolstoy. It is all a matter of tone and implication--but then, so is all teaching. Education is implication. It is not the things you say which children respect; when you say things, they very commonly laugh and do the opposite. It is the things you assume that really sink into them. It is the things you forget even to teach that they learn.

As to deliberate mortifications -- I take it you do feel satisfied that you accept fully those God sends. That read more

As to deliberate mortifications -- I take it you do feel satisfied that you accept fully those God sends. That being so, you might perhaps do one or two little things, as acts of love, and also as discipline. I suggest by preference the mortification of the tongue -- as being very tiresome and quite harmless to the health. Careful guard on all amusing criticisms of others, on all complaints however casual or trivial.

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.