We cannot find in the Old Testament the fondly drawn distinction of our latter days between the natural and the read more

We cannot find in the Old Testament the fondly drawn distinction of our latter days between the natural and the supernatural, for the whole of the natural order is so directly linked with God that its conservation must be regarded as a kind of continuous creation, quite as dependent on God's creative Word as when first the heavens and the earth were made.

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.

Instead of allowing yourself to be unhappy, just let your love grow as God wants it to grow. Seek goodness read more

Instead of allowing yourself to be unhappy, just let your love grow as God wants it to grow. Seek goodness in others. Love more persons more -- love them more impersonally, more unselfishly, without thought of return. The return, never fear, will take care of itself.

Every time you make a choice, you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, read more

Every time you make a choice, you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before. And, taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing either into a Heaven creature or into a hellish creature -- either into a creature that is in harmony with God, and with other creatures, and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God, and with its fellow creatures and with itself. To be the one kind of creature is Heaven: that is, it is joy, and peace, and knowledge, and power. To be the other means madness, horror, idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness. Each of us at each moment is progressing to the one state or the other.

Commemoration of Clement, Bishop of Rome, Martyr, c.100 When we say that the Scriptures are plain to all capacities read more

Commemoration of Clement, Bishop of Rome, Martyr, c.100 When we say that the Scriptures are plain to all capacities in all things necessary, we mean that any man of ordinary capacity, by his own diligence and care, in conjunction with the helps and advantages which God hath appointed, and in the due use of them, may attain to the knowledge of everything necessary to his salvation; and that there is no book in the world more plain and better fitted to teach a man any art or science than the Bible is to direct and instruct men in the way to heaven.

This coherence of the Bible itself, and of the Bible and the Church, is a coherence and a unity set read more

This coherence of the Bible itself, and of the Bible and the Church, is a coherence and a unity set in opposition to the world existing beyond its borders and outside its influence, so that there comes into being a tension between the world as it actually is and the Church, in so far as the Church rests upon the Biblical revelation of God. But this tension is not something that concerns the Church and the world as though they are things which exist outside us and apart from us, which we can consider and observe and discuss and have theories about. The tension between the Church and the world exists within us and is the very fiber of our being, and neither the one nor the other is superficial or trivial. For we are, all of us, of the earth, earthy; and we are also baptized members of Christ and His Church. It is precisely because we belong to two worlds that our lives consist in insecurity -- that we are, in fact, a drama, the final act of which, the judgement of reward or punishment, heaven or hell, is hidden from us.

[Mr. Gifford] made it much his business to deliver the people of God from all those false and unsound rests read more

[Mr. Gifford] made it much his business to deliver the people of God from all those false and unsound rests that by nature we are prone to take and make to our souls. He pressed us to take special heed that we took not up any truth upon trust -- as from this or that, or any other man or men -- but to cry mightily to God that He would convince us of the reality thereof, and set us down therein by his own Spirit in the holy word.

Looking into my heart, which is perhaps the best way of looking into other men's, I know that the Savior read more

Looking into my heart, which is perhaps the best way of looking into other men's, I know that the Savior I want is one of whom I can say with Thomas of old, "My Lord and my God". It would not suffice for my need that He should be only an heroic brother, man divinely inspired. I owe Him my soul, He fills my whole spiritual horizon, I seek to lose myself in Him that I may find myself eternally in life and love divine.

Can we believe that God ever really modifies His action in response to the suggestions of men? For infinite wisdom read more

Can we believe that God ever really modifies His action in response to the suggestions of men? For infinite wisdom does not need telling what is best, and infinite goodness needs no urging to do it. But neither does God need any of those things that are done by finite agents, whether living or inanimate. He could, if He chose, repair our bodies miraculously without food; or give us food without the aid of farmers, bakers, and butchers, or knowledge without the aid of learned men; or convert the heathen without missionaries. Instead, He allows soils and weather and animals and the muscles, minds, and wills of men to cooperate in the execution of His will... It is not really stranger, nor less strange, that my prayers should affect the course of events than that my other actions should do so. They have not advised or changed God' s mind -- that is, His overall purpose. But that purpose will be realized in different ways according to the actions, including the prayers, of His creatures.