We have forgotten the gracious hand which has preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and have vainly imagined in the deceitfulness of our hearts that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving Grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.
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Feast of Saints & Martyrs of England Old truths must be constantly re-stated if they are not to read more
Feast of Saints & Martyrs of England Old truths must be constantly re-stated if they are not to be forgotten. To Homer, the dawn was "rosy-fingered"; to Shakespeare, it was "in russet mantle clad"; to Housman, "the ship of sunrise burning". The scientist can explain exactly why the sky looks as it does in the early morning, the physiologist why we perceive as we do. Yet no one suggests that there is no dawn at all, or that its appearance has changed over the centuries, or that any one of these percipients was mad or deceitful. Why should our knowledge of the Creator be less capable of variety and development than our knowledge of any aspect of Creation?
Feast of Richard Hooker, Priest, Anglican Apologist, Teacher, 1600 Commemoration of Martin of Porres, Dominican Friar, 1639 There read more
Feast of Richard Hooker, Priest, Anglican Apologist, Teacher, 1600 Commemoration of Martin of Porres, Dominican Friar, 1639 There is no defect in Scripture, so anyone may "have the light of his natural understanding so completed... that there can be no want of needful instruction" for any good work God would have that person do.
Feast of Martin, Monk, Bishop of Tours, 397 No one can deny that the New Testament has variety read more
Feast of Martin, Monk, Bishop of Tours, 397 No one can deny that the New Testament has variety as well as unity. It is the variety which gives interest to the unity. What is it in which these people, differing as widely as they do, are vitally and fundamentally at one, so that through all their differences they form a brotherhood and are conscious of an indissolubale spiritual bond? There can be no doubt that that which unites them is a common relation to Christ -- a common faith in Him, involving religious convictions about Him.
Christianity is a battle, not a dream.
Christianity is a battle, not a dream.
If a man cannot be a Christian in the place where he is, he cannot be a Christian anywhere.
If a man cannot be a Christian in the place where he is, he cannot be a Christian anywhere.
Feast of Thomas More, Scholar & Martyr, & John Fisher, Bishop & Martyr, 1535 We sometimes come to read more
Feast of Thomas More, Scholar & Martyr, & John Fisher, Bishop & Martyr, 1535 We sometimes come to God, not because we love Him best, but because we love our possessions best; we ask Christ to "save Western civilization", without asking ourselves whether it is entirely a civilization that Christ could want to save. We pray, too often, not to do God's will, but to enlist God's assistance in maintaining our "continually increasing consumption". And yet, though Christ promised that God would feed us, he never promised that God would stuff us to bursting.
The true way to be humble is not to stoop till thou art smaller than thyself, but to stand at read more
The true way to be humble is not to stoop till thou art smaller than thyself, but to stand at thy real height against some higher nature that will show thee what the real smallness of thy greatness is.
God is not a deceiver, that he should offer to support us, and then, when we lean upon Him, should read more
God is not a deceiver, that he should offer to support us, and then, when we lean upon Him, should slip away from us.
Why should any man have power over any other man's faith, seeing Christ Himself is the author of it?
Why should any man have power over any other man's faith, seeing Christ Himself is the author of it?
