It is a great mistake, and of very pernicious consequence to the souls of men, to imagine that the gospel read more

It is a great mistake, and of very pernicious consequence to the souls of men, to imagine that the gospel is all promises on God's part, and that our part is only to believe them and to rely upon God for the performance of them, and to be very confident that He will make them good, though we do nothing else but only believe that He will do so. That the Christian religion is only a declaration of God's goodwill to us, without any expectation of duty from us -- this is an error which one could hardly think could ever enter into any who have the liberty to read the Bible and attend to what they read and find there. The three great promises of the gospel are all very expressly contained in our Saviour's first sermon upon the mount. There we find the promise of blessedness often repeated but never absolutely made, but upon certain conditions, plainly required on our part, as repentance, righteousness, humility, mercy, peaceableness, meekness, patience. Forgiveness of sins is likewise promised, but only to those who make a penitent acknowledgement of them and ask forgiveness for them., and are ready to grant that forgiveness to others which they beg of God for themselves. The gift of God's Holy Spirit is likewise promised, but it is upon condition of our earnest and importunate prayer to God. The gospel is everywhere full of precepts enjoining duty and obedience upon our part, as well as of promises on God's part, assuring blessings to us -- nay, full of terrible threatenings also if we disobey the precepts of the gospel.

Feast of Timothy and Titus, Companions of Paul Commemoration of Dorothy Kerin, Founder of the Burrswood Healing Community, 1963 read more

Feast of Timothy and Titus, Companions of Paul Commemoration of Dorothy Kerin, Founder of the Burrswood Healing Community, 1963 I do not think I am fanciful in discerning among some of those who most earnestly plead against the Christian social movement a feeling that there is something fundamentally intractable, inscrutable, mysterious about the world, and that no more can be hoped for than an heroic protest in the name of Christ, made in obedience but with no sort of hope that anything can come of it. I hope I am not wrong in saying that there is nothing Christian in such an attitude. It savours of the Paganism that saw behind the world a kind of ironical malice; that made Polycrates throw his ring into the sea, and called the Furies the Kindly Ones, if haply they might be so appeased. But we stand outside this world of darkness, for we have learnt that all things were created by the eternal Word, who is Christ Jesus. We know, in the Pauline phrase, that it is in Him that the whole universal order of things consists or holds together. Those who have come to know that, know in consequence that they are in their Father's house. It is a big house, and they have begun to explore only a little of it. It has great reaches, and some of them are still shadowy. But it is His house, all of it.

Methinks sometimes I have no more wit than a Christian or an
ordinary man has.

Methinks sometimes I have no more wit than a Christian or an
ordinary man has.

Commemoration of Felix, Bishop, Apostle to the East Angles, 647 Continuing a short series on the Bible: God read more

Commemoration of Felix, Bishop, Apostle to the East Angles, 647 Continuing a short series on the Bible: God the Father is the giver of Holy Scripture; God the Son is the theme of Holy Scripture; and God the Spirit is the author, authenticator, and interpreter of Holy Scripture.

Commemoration of Peter Chanel, Religious, Missionary in the South Pacific, Martyr, 1841 The missionary goes out to men of read more

Commemoration of Peter Chanel, Religious, Missionary in the South Pacific, Martyr, 1841 The missionary goes out to men of other faiths and of no faith, not to argue, not to make comparisons, never to claim a superior knowledge or revelation, but to tell of a glorious deed, of the New Creation that has occurred and of the New Being that has appeared and into which men may enter. This is testimony, the apostolic testimony, and this, with the energy of love, is the missionary motive. The insistent task of missionary education and responsibility is to engender this motive throughout the Church, a task that can only be accomplished as men are confronted anew with the message of the Bible and with its supreme and central story, the story of the cross.

Commemoration of William Wilberforce, Social Reformer, 1833 It is indeed a most lamentable consequence of the practice of regarding read more

Commemoration of William Wilberforce, Social Reformer, 1833 It is indeed a most lamentable consequence of the practice of regarding religion as a compilation of statutes, and not as an internal principle, that it soon comes to be considered as being conversant about external actions rather than about habits of mind. This sentiment sometimes has even the hardiness to insinuate and maintain itself under the guise of extraordinary concern for practical religion; but it soon discovers the falsehood of this pretension, and betrays its real nature. The expedient, indeed, of attaining to superiority in practice by not wasting any of the attention on the internal principles from which alone practice can flow, is about as reasonable, and will answer about as well, as the economy of an architect who should account it mere prodigality to expend any of his materials in laying foundation, from an idea that they might be more usefully applied to the raising of the superstructure. We know what would be the fate of such an edifice.

Feast of Willibrord of York, Archbishop of Utrecht, Apostle of Frisia, 739 We ought indeed to expect to find read more

Feast of Willibrord of York, Archbishop of Utrecht, Apostle of Frisia, 739 We ought indeed to expect to find the works of God in such things as the advance of knowledge. Knowledge of the physical universe is not to be thought of as irrelevant to Christian faith [simply] because it does not lead to saving knowledge of God. In so far as it is concerned with God's creation, physical science is a fitting study for God's children. Moreover, the advance of scientific knowledge does negatively correct and enlarge theological notions--at the least, the geologists and astrophysicists have helped us to rid ourselves of parochial notions of God, and filled in some of the meaning of such phrases as "almighty".

Feast of Thomas Aquinas, Priest, Teacher of the Faith, 1274 The very Nazis look at you with wonderment and read more

Feast of Thomas Aquinas, Priest, Teacher of the Faith, 1274 The very Nazis look at you with wonderment and an open contempt! For even they are sure that to live for nothing higher than oneself is to lose life; that life, to be called life, can be found only in serving something bigger than one's personal interests; something that crowds these out of mind and heart, till one forgets about them and lives wholly, and without exception, for that other, worthier thing... It is long since Aristotle told us that only barbarians have as their ideal the wish to live as they please, and to do what they like. And the New Testament gravely sets us down before the Cross, and bids us gaze, and still gaze, and keep gazing, till the fact has soaked itself into our minds that that, not less than that, is now the standard set us, and that whatever in our lives clashes with that is sin.

Commemoration of Frederick Denison Maurice, Priest, teacher, 1872 God has brought us into this time; He, and not ourselves read more

Commemoration of Frederick Denison Maurice, Priest, teacher, 1872 God has brought us into this time; He, and not ourselves or some dark demon. If we are not fit to cope with that which He has prepared for us, we would have been utterly unfit for any condition that we imagine for ourselves. We are to live and wrestle in this time, and in no other. Let us humbly, tremblingly, manfully look at it, and we shall not wish that the sun could go back its ten degrees, or that we could go back with it. If easy times are departed, it is that the difficult times may make us more in earnest; that they may teach us not to depend on ourselves. If easy belief is impossible, it is that we may learn what belief is, and in whom it is to be placed.